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diff --git a/old/12218-0.txt b/old/12218-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e35f2a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12218-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20110 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, by Walter W. Greg + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration + Stage in England + + +Author: Walter W. Greg + +Release Date: April 30, 2004 [EBook #12218] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end.] + +[Note on characters: There are several MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATORs +(º - U+00BA) used in this book. These should not be confused with the +DEGREE SIGN (° - U+00B0).] + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + + + _Far, far from here ... + The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, + And by the sea, and in the brakes + The grass is cool, the sea-side air + Buoyant and fresh._ + + Matthew Arnold. + + + + +Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama + +A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in +England. + +By Walter W. Greg, M.A. + +MCMVI. + +Oxford: Horace Hart +Printer to the University + + + + +MAGISTRIS MEIS +AMICISQVE + + + + +Preface + + + +Some ten years ago, it may be, Mr. St. Loe Strachey suggested that I +should write an article on 'English Pastoral Drama' for a magazine of +which he was then editor. The article was in the course of time written, +and in the further course of time appeared. I learnt two things from +writing it: first, that to understand the English pastoral drama it was +necessary to have some more or less extensive knowledge of the history of +European pastoralism in general; secondly, that there was no critical work +from which such knowledge could be obtained. I set about the revision and +expansion of my crude and superficial essay, proposing to prefix to it +such an account of pastoral literature generally as should make the +special form it assumed on the English stage appear in its true light as +the reasonable and rational outcome of artistic and historical conditions. +Unfortunately perhaps, but at least inevitably, this preliminary inquiry +grew to ever greater and more alarming proportions as I proceeded, till at +last it swelled to something over half of the whole work. Part of this +bulk was claimed by foreign pastoral poetry, the origins of the kind; part +by English pastoral poetry, and the introduction of the fashion into this +country; part by the pastoral drama of Italy, the immediate parent of that +of England. The original title proved too narrow to cover the subject with +which I dealt. Hence the rather vague and perhaps ambitions title of the +present volume. I make no pretence of offering the reader a general +history of pastoral literature, nor even of pastoral drama. The real +subject of my work remains the pastoral drama in Elizabethan +literature--understanding that term in the wide sense in which, quite +reasonably, we have learnt to use it--and even though I may have been +sometimes carried away by the interest of the immediate subject of +investigation, I have done my best to keep the main object of my inquiry +at all times in view. The downward limit of my work is a little vague. The +old stage traditions, upon which all the dramatic production of the time +was at least in some measure, and in different cases more or less +consciously, based, were killed by the act of 1642: the new traditions, +created or imported by a company of gentlemen who had come under the +influence of the French genius during the eleven years of their exile, +first announced themselves authoritatively in 1660. During the intervening +eighteen years a number of works were produced, some of which continued +the earlier traditions, while some anticipated the later. My treatment has +been eclectic. Where a work appeared to me to belong to or to illustrate +the older school I have included it, where not, I have refrained from +doing so. Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ (1647) will be found mentioned in the +following pages, T. R.'s _Berger extravagant_ (1654) will not. + +Some explanation may be advisable with regard to my method of quotation. +Where a satisfactory modern edition of the work under discussion was +available I have taken my quotations from it, whether the spelling of the +text was modernized or not. Where none such existed I have had recourse to +the original. This explains the perhaps alarming mixture of old and modern +orthographies which appear in my pages. Such inconsistency seemed to me a +lesser evil than making nonce texts to suit my immediate purpose. I have, +however, exercised the right of following my own fancy in the matter of +punctuation throughout, and also in that of capitalization, though I have +been chary of alterations in the case of old-spelling texts. This applies +to English works. I have found it necessary myself to modernize to some +extent the spelling of the quotations from early Italian in order to +render it less bewildering to readers who may possibly, like myself, have +no very profound knowledge of the antiquities of that tongue. I have been +as sparing as possible, however, and trust I may have committed no +enormities to shock Romance scholars. Lastly, the italics and contractions +which are of more or less frequent occurrence in the original editions +have been disregarded, and certain typographical details made to conform +to modern practice. + +My indebtedness is not small to a number of friends who, during the +progress of my work, have helped me more or less directly in a variety of +ways. A few have received specific mention in the notes. Alike to those +who have, and to the far greater number, I fear me, who have not, I desire +hereby to confess my debt, and humbly to beg them to claim their share in +the dedication of this volume. More specifically I should mention Mr. R. +B. McKerrow, who was the first to read the following pages in manuscript, +and to make many useful suggestions, and Mr. Frank Sidgwick, to whose +careful revision alike of manuscript and proof and to whose kind and +candid criticism I am indebted perhaps more than an author's vanity may +readily allow me to acknowledge. Lastly, it would argue worse than +ingratitude to pass over my obligation to the admirable readers of the +Clarendon Press, whose marvellous accuracy in the most diverse fields and +whose almost infallible vigilance form a real asset of English +scholarship. + +W. W. G. +Park Lodge, Wimbledon. +_December_, 1905. + + + + +Contents + + + +Chapter I. Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + Introduction + I. The origin and nature of pastoral + II. Greek pastoral poetry + III. The bucolic eclogue in classical Latin + IV. Medieval and humanistic eclogues + V. Italian pastoral poetry + VI. The Italian pastoral romance + VII. Pastoral in Spain +VIII. Pastoral in France + + +Chapter II. Pastoral Poetry in England + + I. Early pastoral verse + II. Spenser + III. Spenser's immediate followers + IV. The regular eclogists + V. Lyrical and occasional verse + VI. Milton's _Lycidas_ and Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_ + VII. The pastoral romances + + +Chapter III. Italian Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays containing pastoral elements + II. Evolution of the pastoral drama (see Appendix I) + III. Tasso and his _Aminta_ + IV. Guarini and the _Pastor fido_ + V. Minor pastoral drama + + +Chapter IV. Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays + II. Translations from the Italian + III. Daniel's imitations of Tasso and Guarini + + +Chapter V. The Three Masterpieces + + I. Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ + II. Randolph's _Amyntas_ + III. Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ + + +Chapter VI. The English Pastoral Drama + + I. Plays founded on the pastoral romances + II. The English stage pastoral + + +Chapter VII. Masques and General Influence + + I. Pastoral in the masques and slighter dramatic compositions + II. Milton's masques: _Arcades_ and _Comus_ + III. General influence. Pastoral theory. Conclusion. + + +Appendix I. On the origin and development of the Italian pastoral drama +Appendix II. Bibliography + +Index + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + +Chapter I. + +Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + + +In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon +some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread +through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to +distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to +survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that +present themselves to us. It is the disadvantage of such an artificial +form of literature as that which bears the name of pastoral that no such +_a priori_ guidance is available. To lay down at starting that the +essential quality of pastoral is the realistic or at least recognizably +'natural' presentation of actual shepherd life would be to rule out of +court nine tenths of the work that comes traditionally under that head. +Yet the great majority of critics, though they would not, of course, +subscribe to the above definition, have yet constantly betrayed an +inclination to censure individual works for not conforming to some such +arbitrary canon. It is characteristic of the artificiality of pastoral as +a literary form that the impulse which gave the first creative touch at +seeding loses itself later and finds no place among the forces at work at +blossom time; the methods adopted by the greatest masters of the form are +inconsistent with the motives that impelled them to its use, and where +these motives were followed to their logical conclusion, the resuit, both +in literature and in life, became a byword for absurd unreality. To live +at all the ideal appeared to require an atmosphere of paradox and +incongruity: in its essence the most 'natural' of all poetic forms, +pastoralism came to its fairest flower amid the artificiality of a +decadent court or as the plaything of the leisure hours of a college of +learning, and its insipid convention having become 'a literary plague in +every European capital,' it finally disappeared from view amid the +fopperies of the Roman Arcadia and the puerile conceits of the Petit +Trianon. + +Wherein then, it may be wondered, does the pastoral's title to +consideration lie. It does not lie primarily, or chiefly, in the fact that +it is associated with names of the first rank in literature, with +Theocritus and Vergil, with Petrarch, Politian, and Tasso, with Cervantes +and Lope de Vega, with Ronsard and Marot, with Spenser, Ben Jonson, and +Milton; nor yet that works such as the _Idyls_, the _Aminta_, the +_Faithful Shepherdess_, and _Lycidas_ contain some of the most graceful +and perfect verse to be found in any language. Rather is its importance to +be sought in the fact that the form is the expression of instincts and +impulses deep-rooted in the nature of humanity, which, while affecting the +whole course of literature, at times evince themselves most clearly and +articulately here; that it plays a distinct and distinctive part in the +history of human thought and the history of artistic expression. Moreover, +it may be argued that, from this point of view, the very contradictions +and inconsistencies to which I have alluded make it all the more important +to discover wherein lay the strange vitality of the form and its power of +influencing the current of European letters. + +From what has already been said it will be apparent that little would be +gained by attempting beforehand to give any strict account of what is +meant by 'pastoral' in literature. Any definition sufficiently elastic to +include the protean forms assumed by what we call the 'pastoral ideal' +could hardly have sufficient intension to be of any real value. If after +considering a number of literary phenomena which appear to be related +among themselves in form, spirit, and aim we come at the end of our +inquiry to any clearer appreciation of the term I shall so far have +attained my object. I notice that I have used the expression 'pastoral +ideal,' and the phrase, which comes naturally to the mind in connexion +with this form of literature, may supply us with a useful hint. It +reminds us, namely, that the quality of pastoralism is not determined by +the fortuitous occurrence of certain characters, but by the fact of the +pieces in question being based more or less evidently upon a philosophical +conception, which no doubt underwent modification through the ages, but +yet bears evidence of organic continuity. Thus the shepherds of pastoral +are primarily and distinctively shepherds; they are not mere rustics +engaged in sheepcraft as one out of many of the employments of mankind. As +soon as the natural shepherd-life had found an objective setting in +conscious artistic literature, it was felt that there was after all a +difference between hoeing turnips and pasturing sheep; that the one was +capable of a particular literary treatment which the other was not. The +Maid of Orleans might equally well have dug potatoes as tended a flock, +and her place is not in pastoral song. Thus pastoral literature must not +be confounded with that which has for its subject the lives, the ideas, +and the emotions of simple and unsophisticated mankind, far from the +centres of our complex civilization. The two may be in their origin +related, and they occasionally, as it were, stretch out feelers towards +one another, but the pastoral of tradition lies in its essence as far from +the human document of humble life as from a scientific treatise on +agriculture or a volume of pastoral theology. Thus the tract which lies +before us to explore is equally remote from the idyllic imagination of +George Sand, the gross actuality of Zola, and the combination of simple +charm with minute and essential realism of Mr. Hardy's sketches in Wessex. +Nor does the adoption of the pastoral label suffice to bring within the +fold the fanciful animalism of Mr. Hewlett. By far the most remarkable +work of recent years to assume the title is Signor d'Annunzio's play _La +Figlia di Iorio_, a work in which the author's powerful and delicate +imagination and wealth of pure and expressive language appear in matchless +perfection. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that there is nothing +in common between the 'pastoral ideal' and the rugged strength and +suppressed fire of the great modern Italian's portrait of his native land +of the Abruzzi. + + + +I + + +Some confusion of thought appears to have prevailed among writers as to +the origin of pastoral. We are, for instance, often told that it is the +earliest of all forms of poetry, that it characterizes primitive peoples +and permeates ancient literatures. Song is, indeed, as old as human +language, and in a sense no doubt the poetry of the pastoral age may be +said to have been pastoral. It does not, however, follow that it bears any +essential resemblance to that which subsequent ages have designated by the +name. All that we know concerning the songs of pastoral nations leads us +to suppose that they bear a close resemblance to the type of popular verse +current wherever poetry exists, folk-songs of broad humanity in which +little stress is laid on the peculiar circumstances of shepherd life. An +insistence upon the objective pastoral setting is of prime importance in +understanding the real nature of pastoral poetry; it not only serves to +distinguish the pastoral proper from the more vaguely idyllic forms of +lyric verse, but helps us further to understand how it was that the +outward features of the kind came to be preserved, even after the various +necessities of sophisticated society had metamorphosed the content almost +beyond recognition. No common feature of a kind to form the basis of a +scientific classification can be traced in the spontaneous shepherd-songs +and their literary counterpart. What does appear to be a constant element +in the pastoral as known to literature is the recognition of a contrast, +implicit or expressed, between pastoral life and some more complex type of +civilization. At no stage in its development does literature, or at any +rate poetry, concern itself with the obvious, with the bare scaffolding of +life: whenever we find an author interested in the circle of prime +necessity we may be sure that he himself stands outside it. Thus the +shepherd when he sang did not insist upon the conditions amid which his +uneventful life was passed. It was left to a later, perhaps a wiser and a +sadder, generation to gaze with fruitless and often only half sincere +longing at the shepherd-boy asleep under the shadow of the thorn, lulled +by the low monotonous rustle of the grazing flock. Only when the +shepherd-songs ceased to be the outcome of unalloyed pastoral conditions +did they become distinctively pastoral. It is therefore significant that +the earliest pastoral poetry with which we are acquainted, whatever half +articulate experiments may have preceded it, was itself directly born of +the contrast between the recollections of a childhood spent among the +Sicilian uplands and the crowded social and intellectual city-life of +Alexandria[1]. + +As the result of this contrast there arises an idea which comes perhaps as +near being universal in pastoral as any--the idea, namely, of the 'golden +age.' This embraces, indeed, a field not wholly coincident with that of +pastoral, but the two are connected alike by a common spring in human +emotion and constant literary association. The fiction of an age of +simplicity and innocence found birth among the Augustan writers in the +midst of the complex and luxurious civilization of Rome, as an +illustration of the principle enunciated by Professer Raleigh, that +'literature has constantly the double tendency to negative the life +around it, as well as to reproduce it.' Having inspired Ovid and Vergil, +and been recognized by Lucretius, it passed as a literary legacy to +Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meung; it was incorporated by Frezzi in his +strange allegorical composition the _Quadriregio_, and was thrice handled +by Chaucer; it was dealt with humorously by Cervantes in _Don Quixote_, +and became the prey of the satirist in the hands of Juvenal, Bertini, and +Hall. The association of this ideal world with the simplicity of pastoral +life was effected by Vergil, and in this form it was treated with loving +minuteness by Tasso in his _Aminta_ and by Browne in his _Britannia's +Pastorals_[2]. The fiction no doubt answered to some need in human nature, +but in literature it soon came to be no more than a polite convention. + +The conception of a golden age of rustic simplicity does not, indeed, +involve the whole of pastoral literature. It does not account either for +the allegorical pastoral, in which actual personages are introduced, in +the guise of shepherds, to discuss contemporary affairs, or for the +so-called realistic pastoral, in which the town looks on with amused envy +at the rustic freedom of the country. What it does comprehend is that +outburst of pastoral song which sprang from the yearning of the tired soul +to escape, if it were but in imagination and for a moment, to a life of +simplicity and innocence from the bitter luxury of the court and the +menial bread of princes[3]. + +And this, the reaction against the world that is too much with us, is, +after all, the keynote of what is most intimately associated with the name +of pastoral in literature--the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness +in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, +lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini. For everywhere +in these soft melodies of luscious beauty, even in the studied sketches of +primitive innocence itself, there is an undercurrent of tender melancholy +and pathos: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +I have said that a sense of the contrast between town and country was +essential to the development of a distinctively pastoral literature. It +would be an interesting task to trace how far this contrast is the source +of the various subsidiary types--of the ideal where it breeds desire for a +return to simplicity, of the realistic where the humour of it touches the +imagination, and of the allegorical where it suggests satire on the +corruption of an artificial civilization. + +When the kind first makes its appearance in a world already old, it arises +purely as a solace and relief from the fervid life of actuality, and comes +as a fresh and cooling draught to lips burning with the fever of the city. +In passing from Alexandria to Rome it lost much of its limpid purity; the +clear crystal of the drink was mixed with flavours and perfumes to fit the +palate of a patron or an emperor. The example of adulteration being once +set, the implied contrast of civilization and rusticity was replaced by +direct satire on the former, and later by the discussion under the +pastoral mask of questions of religious and political controversy. Proving +itself but a left-handed weapon in such debate, it became a court +plaything, in which princes and great ladies, poets and wits, loved to see +themselves figured and complimented, and the practice of assuming pastoral +names becoming almost universal in polite circles, the convention, which +had passed from the eclogue on to the stage, passed from the stage into +actual existence, and court life became one continual pageant of pastoral +conceit. From the court it passed into circles of learning, and grave +jurists and administrators, poets and scholars, set about the refining of +language and literature decked out in all the fopperies of the fashionable +craze. One is tempted to wonder whether anything more serious than light +loves and fantastic amours can have flourished amid eighteenth-century +pastoralism. When the ladies of the court began to talk dairy-farming with +the scholars and statesmen of the day, the pretence of pastoral simplicity +could hardly be long kept up. Nor was there any attempt to do so. In the +introduction to his famous romance d'Urfé wrote in answer to objectors: +'Responds leur, ma Bergere, que pour peu qu'ils ayent connoissance de toy, +ils sçauront que tu n'es pas, ny celles aussi qui te suivent, de ces +Bergeres necessiteuses, qui pour gaigner leur vie conduisent les troupeaux +aux pasturages; mais que vous n'avez toutes pris cette condition que pour +vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte.' No wonder that to Fontenelle +Theocritus' shepherds 'sentent trop la campagne[4].' But the hour of +pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were +playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges +and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the +flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the +old order of social life. + + + +II + + +The Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not the nurse of a great literature, +though the age was undoubtedly one of considerable literary activity. +Scholastic learning and poetic imitation were rife; the rehandling of +Greek masterpieces was a fashionable pastime. For serious and original +composition, however, the conditions were not favourable. That the age +produced no great epic was less due to the disparagement of the form +indulged in by Callimachus, chief librarian and literary dictator, than to +the inherent temper of society. The prevailing taste was for an arrogant +display of rare and costly pageantry. At the coronation of Ptolemy +Philadelphus the brilliant city surfeited on a long-drawn golden pomp, +decked out in all the physical beauty the inheritance of Greek thought and +memories of Greek mythology could suggest, together with a wealth of +gorgeous mysticism and rapture of sensuous intoxication, which was the +fruit of its intercourse with the oriental world. The writers of +Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an +_Aeneid_, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a _Faery Queen_. What they +possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while +perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate +between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works of +Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. + +It is interesting to note that the literary _milieu_ in which Theocritus +moved at Alexandria must have abounded in all those temptations which +proved the bane of pastoral poetry at Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. There +were princes and patrons to be flattered, there were panegyrics to be sung +and ancestral feats of arms to be recorded; nor does Theocritus appear to +have stood aloof from the throng of court poetasters. In spite of the +doubtful authenticity of some of the pieces connected with his name, there +appears no sufficient reason to deprive him of the rather conventional +hymns and other poems composed with a view to court-favour. These have +little interest for us to-day: his fame rests on works which probably +gained him little advantage at the time. It was for his own solace, +forgetful for a moment of the intrigues of court life and the uncertain +sunshine of princes, that he wrote his Sicilian idyls. For him, as at a +magic touch, the walls of the heated city melted like a mirage into the +sands of the salt lagoon, and he wandered once more amid the green woods +and pastures of Trinacria, the noonday sun tempered by the shade of the +chestnuts and the babbling of the brook, and by the cool airs that glide +down from the white cliffs of Aetna. There once more he saw the shepherds +tend their flocks, singing or wrangling with one another, dreamily piping +on their wax-stopped reeds or plotting to annex their neighbours' gear; or +else there sounded in his ears the love-song or the dirge, or the +incantation of the forsaken girl rose amid the silence to the silver moon. +Once again he stood upon the shore and watched the fishers cast their +nets, while around him the goats browsed on the close herbage of the +cliff, and the crystal stream leapt down, and the waves broke upon the +rocks below, till he saw the breasts of the nymphs shine in the whiteness +of the foam and their hair spread wide in the weed, and the fair Galatea, +the enticing and the fickle, mocked the clumsy suit of the Cyclops, as she +tossed upward the bitter spray from off her shining limbs. All these +memories he recorded with a loving faithfulness of detail that it is even +now possible to verify from the folk-songs of the south. To this day in +the Isles of Greece ruined girls seek to lure back their lovers with +charms differing but little from that sung by the Syracusan to Lady +Selene, and the popular poetry alike of Italy and Greece is full of those +delicate touches of refined sentiment that in Theocritus appear so +incongruous with the rough coats and rougher banter of the shepherds. For +though the poet raised the pastoral life of Sicily into the realms of +ideal poetry, he was careful not to dissociate his version from reality, +and he allowed no imaginary conceptions to overmaster his art. He depicted +no age of innocence; his poetry reflects no philosophical illusion of +primitive simplicity; he elaborated no imaginary cult of mystical worship. +His art, however little it may tempt us to the use of the term realism, is +nevertheless based on an almost passionate sympathy with actual human +nature. This is the fount of his inspiration, the central theme of his +song. The literary genius of Greece showed little aptitude for landscape, +and seldom treated inanimate nature except as a background for human +action and emotion, or it may be in the guise of mythological allegory. +Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that Theocritus, so tenderly concerned +with the homely aspects of human life, was not likewise sensitive to the +beauties of nature. At least it is impossible to doubt his attachment to +the land of his childhood, and it is at worst a welcome dream when we +imagine him, as the evening of life drew on, leaving the formal gardens +and painted landscapes of Alexandria and returning to Syracuse and his +beloved Sicily once more.[5] + +The verse of Theocritus was echoed by his younger contemporaries, Bion +and Moschus.[6] The former is best known through the oriental passion of +his 'Woe, woe for Adonis,' probably written to be sung at the annual +festival of Syrian origin commemorated by Theocritus in his fifteenth +idyl.[7] The most important extant work of Moschus is the 'Lament for +Bion,' characterized by a certain delicate sentimentality alien to the +spirit of either of his predecessors. It is perhaps significant that +Theocritus appears to have been of Syracusan, Bion of Smyrnian, and +Moschus of Ausonian origin.[8] With the exception of this poem, which is +modelled on Theocritus' 'Lament for Daphnis,' there is little in the work +of either of the younger poets of a pastoral nature. Certain fragments, +however, if genuine, suggest that poems of the kind may have perished. +Among the remains of Moschus occurs the following: + + Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, + For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, + Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep;[9] + +lines in which we already take leave of the genuine love of the pastoral +life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and +see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the +imaginary swain. + +Once again, five centuries later,[10] the spirit of Greece shone for one +brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the +changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of _Daphnis and +Chloe_ is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the +idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the +purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and +expression, and yet in such manner as by its very _naïveté_ and innocence +to serve as a goad to satiated appetite. It has been suggested that the +work should properly be styled the _Lesbiaca_, a name which recalls the +_Aethiopica_ and _Babylonica_, and reminds us that the author, though a +student of Alexandrian literature, belonged to the school of the erotic +romanciers and traditional bishops, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Of his +life we know nothing, and even his name--Longus--has been called in +question. The story, unlike those of most later pastoral romances, is of +the simplest. The author, however, was no longer satisfied with the +natural refinement of popular love poetry; the central characters are +represented as foundlings nurtured by the shepherds of Lesbos, and are +ultimately identified, on much the same conventional evidence as Ion and +others had been before, as the children of certain rich and aristocratie +families.[11] The interest of the story lies in the growth of their +unconscious love, which constitutes the central theme of the work, though +relieved here and there by wholly colourless adventure. + +A Latin translation made the book popular after the introduction of +printing, and the renaissance saw the French version by Amyot, a work of +European reputation. This was translated into English under Elizabeth; an +Italian translation followed in the seventeenth century,[12] and a Spanish +is also extant. There is no doubt that it was widely read throughout the +sixteenth and following centuries, but it exercised little influence on +the development of pastoral literature. By the time it became generally +known the main features of renaissance pastoral were already fixed, and in +motive and treatment alike it was alien to the spirit that animated the +fashionable masterpieces. The modern pastoral romance had already evolved +itself from a blending of the eclogue with the mythological tale. The +drama was developing on independent lines. Thus although, like the other +romances of the late Greek school, it supplied many incidents and +descriptions to be found in later works, it played no vital part in the +history of pastoral, and left no mark either on the general form or on the +spirit that animated the kind. Longus' romance finds its true descendant, +as well as its closest imitation, in a work that achieved celebrity on the +eve of the French revolution, that masterpiece of unreal and sentimental +simplicity, Saint-Pierre's _Paul et Virginie_. + + + +III + + +A faithful reproduction of the main conditions of actual life was the +characteristic of Theocritus' poetry. It was subject to this ever-present +limitation that his graceful fancy exercised its power of idealization. He +took the singing match, the dirge, and the love-song or complaint as he +found them among the shepherd-folk of Sicily, and gave them that objective +setting which is as necessary to pastoral as to every other merely +accidental form of poetry; for the true subjective lyric is independent of +circumstances. The first of his great successors made the bucolic eclogue +what, with trifling variation, it was to remain for eighteen centuries, a +form based upon artificiality and convention. I have already pointed out +that the literary conditions at Alexandria did not differ materially from +those of Rome; it follows that the change must have been due to the +character of Vergil himself. That intense love of beauty for its own sake +which characterized the Greek mind had little hold over the Roman. Nor did +the latter understand the charm of untaught simplicity. It is true that to +the Roman poets of the Augustan period we owe the conception of the golden +age, but it remained with them rather a philosophical mythus than the +dream of an idyllic poet. To writers of the stamp of Ovid, Lucretius, and +Vergil the Idyls of the Syracusan poet can have possessed but little +meaning, and in his own Bucolics the last named seems never to have +regarded the pastoral form as anything but a cloak for matters of more +pith and moment. Although he followed Theocritus in his use of the several +types of song and stamped them to all future ages in pastoral convention, +though he may have begun with fairly close imitation of his model and only +gradually diverged into a more independant style, he at no time showed +himself content with the earlier poet's simplicity of motive.[13] The +eclogue in which he followed Theocritus most closely, the eighth, is +equally, perhaps, the most pleasing of the series. It combines the motives +of the love-lament and incantation, and the closeness with which it +follows while playing variations on its models is striking. One instance +will suffice. Take the passage in the second Idyl thus rendered by +Symonds:[14] + + Hail, Hecatë, dread dame! to the end be thou my assistant, + Making my medicines work no less than the philtre of Circë, + Or Medea's charms, or yellow-haired Perimedë's. + Wheel of the magic spells, draw thou that man to my dwelling. + +Corresponding to this we find the following passage in the Latin poem: + + Song hath power to draw from heaven the wandering huntress, + Song was the witch's spell transformed the mates of Ulysses.... + Home from the city to me, my song, lead home to me Daphnis. + +Vergil was the first to begin the dissociation of pastoral from the +conditions of actual life, and just as his shepherds cease to present the +features and characters of the homely keepers of the flock, so his +landscape becomes imaginary and undefined. This peculiarity has been +noticed by Professor Herford in some very suggestive remarks prefixed to +his edition of the _Shepherd's Calender_. 'The profiles of the Sicilian +uplands,' he writes, 'waver uncertainly amid traits drawn from the Mantuan +plain. In this confusion lay, perhaps, the germ of those debates between +highland and lowland shepherds which reverberate through the later +pastoral, and are still loud in Spenser.' The gulf that separated Vergil +from his predecessor, in so far as their treatment of shepherd-life is +concerned, may be measured by the manner in which they respectively deal +with the supernatural. In the Greek Idyls we find the simple faith or +superstition as it lived among the shepherd-folk; no Pan appears to sow +dismay in the breasts of the maidens, nor do we find aught of the mystical +worship that later gathered round him in the imaginary Arcadia. He is +mentioned only as the rugged patron of herds and song, the wild indweller +of the savage woods as he appeared to the minds of the simple swains, who +hushed their midday piping fearful lest they should disturb the sleep of +the god. It is true that Theocritus introduces mythological characters in +the tale of Galatea, but it should be noticed that this merely forms the +theme of a song or the subject of a poetical epistle to a friend. +Moreover, it is open to more than one rationalistic interpretation. +Symonds treats it as an allegory in harmony with the mythopoeic genius of +Greek poetry. It is equally possible to regard the Cyclops as emblematic +merely of the rough neatherd flouted by the more delicate +shepherd-maiden--the contrast is of constant occurrence in later +works--for, alike in one of his own fragments and in Moschus' lament, Bion +is represented as courting this same Galatea after she has rid herself of +the suit of Polyphemus. Vergil was content with no such simple mythology +as this. He must needs shake Silenus from a drunken sleep and bid him tell +of Chaos and old Time, of the infancy of the world and the birth of the +gods. This mixture of obsolescent theology and Epicurean philosophy +probably possessed little reality for Vergil himself, and would have +conveyed no meaning whatever to the Sicilian shepherds. Its introduction +stamps his eclogues with that unreality which has been the reproach of the +pastoral from his day to ours. The didactic homily was one fresh +convention introduced. Far more important was the tendency to make every +form subserve some ulterior purpose of allegory and panegyric.[15] For the +Roman its own beauty was no sufficient end of art. That the _Aeneid_ was +written for the glorification of Rome cannot be made a reproach to the +poet; the greatness of the end lent dignity to the means. That the +pastoral was forced to serve the menial part of a vehicle of sycophantic +praise is less easily pardoned. In Vergil's hands a conversation between +shepherds becomes an expression of gratitude to the emperor for the +restitution of his villa, a lament for Daphnis is interwoven with an +apotheosis of Julius Caesar, and in the complaint of the forsaken +shepherd, whom Apollo and Pan seek in vain to comfort, we may trace the +wounded vanity of his patron deserted by his mistress for the love of a +soldier. The fourth eclogue was written after the peace of Brundisium, and +describes the golden age to which Vergil looked forward as consequent upon +the birth of a marvellous infant, perhaps some offspring of the marriages +of Antonius and Octavianus, celebrated in solemnization of the treaty. The +poem achieved considerable fame, which lasted as late as the time of +Dryden, owing to the belief that it contained a prophecy of the birth of +Christ drawn from the Sibylline books, and won for Vergil throughout the +middle ages the title of prophet and magician. Whether this belief was +well founded or not may be left to those whom it may interest to inquire; +it is sufficient for our purpose to note that in the poem in question +Vergil first introduced the convention of the golden age into pastoral +verse. + +The first of the long line of imitators of whom we have any notice was a +certain Calpurnius. His diction is correct and his verse smooth, but the +suggestion that he belonged to the age of Augustus has not met with much +favour among those competent to judge. He followed Vergil closely, chiefly +developing the panegyric. His poems, however, include all the usual +conventions, singing matches, invocations, cosmologies, and the rest, in +the treatment of which originality never appears to have been his aim. +Some of his pieces deal with husbandry, and belong more strictly to the +school of the _Georgics_ and didactic poetry. The most interesting of his +eclogues is one in which he contrasts the life of the town with that of +the country, the direct comparison of which he appears to have been the +first to treat. The poem likewise possesses some antiquarian interest, +owing to a description of a wild-beast show in an amphitheatre in which +the animals were brought up in lifts through the floor of the arena. +Calpurnius is sometimes supposed, on account of a dedication to Nemesianus +found in some manuscripts, to have lived at the end of the third century, +but even supposing the dedication to be genuine, which is more than +doubtful, it does not follow that the person referred to is that +Nemesianus who contested the poetic crown with Prince Numerianus about the +year 283[16]. This Nemesianus was probably the author of some eclogues +which have been frequently ascribed to Calpurnius (numbers 8 to 11 in most +editions), but which must be discarded from the list of his authentic +works on a technical question of the employment of elision[17]. The +_editio princeps_ of these eclogues is not dated, but probably appeared in +1471, so that they were at any rate accessible to writers of the +_cinquecento_. It is not easy to trace any direct influence, unless, as +perhaps we should, we credit to Calpurnius the suggestion of those poems +in which a 'wise' shepherd describes to his less-travelled hearers the +manners of the town. + +A few pieces from the _Idyllia_ of Ausonius appear in some of the bucolic +collections, but they cannot strictly be regarded as coming within the +range of pastoral poetry. + + + +IV + + +Events conspired to make Vergil the model for later writers of eclogues. +The fame of the poet was a potent cause among many. Another reason why +Theocritus found no direct imitators may be sought in the respective +methods of the two poets. Work of the nature of the _Idyls_ has to depend +for its value and interest upon the artistic qualities of the poetry +alone. Such work may spring up spontaneously under almost any conditions; +it is seldom produced through imitation. On the other hand, any scholar +with a gift for easy versification could achieve a certain distinction as +a follower of Vergil. His verse depended for its interest not on its +poetic qualities but upon the importance of the themes it treated. +Accidental conditions, too, told in favour of the Roman poet. During the +middle ages Latin was a universal language among the lettered classes, +while the knowledge of Greek, though at no time so completely lost as is +sometimes supposed, was a far rarer accomplishment, and was restricted for +the most part to a few linguistic scholars. Thus before the revival of +learning had made Greek a possible source of literary inspiration, the +Vergilian tradition, through the instrumentality of Petrarch and +Boccaccio, had already made itself supreme in pastoral[18]. + +During the middle ages the stream of pastoral production, though it +nowhere actually disappears, is reduced to the merest trickle. Notices of +such isolated poems as survive have been carefully collected by +Macrì-Leone in the introduction to his elaborate but as yet unfinished +work on the Latin eclogue in the Italian literature of the fourteenth +century. As early as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth +century we find a poem by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, variously entitled +'Carmen bucolicum de virtute signi crucis domini' or 'de mortibus boum.' +It is a hymn to the saint cross, and in it for the first time the pastoral +suffered violence from the tyranny of the religious idea. The 'Ecloga +Theoduli' alluded to by Chaucer in the _House of Fame_[19] appears to be +the work of an Athenian writer, and is ascribed to various dates ranging +from the fifth to the eighth centuries. While preserving as its main +characteristic a close subservience to its Vergilian model, the eclogue +participated in the general rise of allegory which marked the later middle +ages. Pastoral colouring of no very definite order had shown itself in the +elegies of Alcuin in the eighth century, as also in the 'Conflictus veris +et hiemis,' traditionally ascribed to the Venerable Bede, but more +probably the work of one Dodus, a disciple of Alcuin. Of the tenth century +we possess an allegorical religious lament entitled 'Ecloga duarum +sanctimonialium.' About 1160 a Benedictine monk named Metellus composed +twelve poems under the title of _Bucolica Quirinalium_, in honour of St. +Quirinus and in obvious imitation of Vergil. Reminiscences and paraphrases +of the Roman poet are scattered throughout the monk's own barbarous +hexameters, as in the opening verses: + + Tityre tu magni recubans in margine stagni + Silvestri tenuique fide pete iura peculi! + +It would hardly be worth recording these medieval clerks, the +undistinguished writers, 'de quibus,' Boccaccio said, 'nil curandum est,' +were it not that they show how the memory at least of the classical +pastoral survived amid the ruins of ancient learning, and so serve to lead +up to one last spasmodic manifestation of the kind in certain poems which +else appear to stand in a curiously isolated position. + +It was in 1319, during the bitter years of his exile at Ravenna, that +Dante received from one John of Bologna, known, on account of his fame as +a writer of Latin verse, as Giovanni del Virgilio, a poetical epistle +inviting him to visit the author in his native city. His correspondent, +while doing homage to his poetic genius, incidentally censured him for +composing his great work in the base tongue of the vulgar[20]. Dante +replied in a Vergilian eclogue, courteously declining Giovanni's +invitation to Bologna, on the ground that it was a place scarcely safe for +his person. As regarded the strictures of his correspondent, his +triumphant answer in the shape of the _Paradiso_ lay yet unfinished, so +the author of the _De Vulgari Eloquio_ trifled with the charge and +purported to compose the present poem in earnest of reform. There is a +tone of not unkindly irony about the whole. Was it an elaborate jest at +the expense of Giovanni, the writer of Vergilian verse? The Bolognese +replied, this time also in bucolic form, repeating his invitation and +holding out the special attraction of a meeting with Mussato, the most +regarded poet of his day in Europe. Dante's second eclogue, if indeed it +is correctly ascribed to his pen, introduces several historical +characters. It is said not to have reached Bologna till after his death. +These poems were not included in any of the early bucolic collections, and +first appeared in print in the eighteenth century. They seem, from their +purely occasional nature, their inconspicuous bulk, and lack of any +striking characteristics, to have attracted little notice in their own +day, and to have been ignored by later writers on pastoral as forming no +link in the chain of historical development. Given, indeed, the Bucolics +of Vergil, they are imitations such as might at any moment have appeared, +irrespective of date and surroundings, and independent of any living +literary tradition[21]. It is therefore impossible to regard them as in +any way belonging to, or foreshadowing, the great body of renaissance +pastoral, a division of literature endowed with remarkable vitality and +evolutionary force, which must in its growth and decay alike be studied in +close connexion with the ideas and temperament of the age, and in +relation to the general development of the history of letters[22]. + +The grandeur of the Roman Empire, the background against which in +historical retrospect we see the bucolic eclogues of Vergil and his +immediate followers, had vanished when Italian literature once more rose +out of chaos. The political organism had resolved itself into its +constituent elements, and fresh combinations had arisen. Nevertheless, +though the Empire was hardly now the shadow of its pristine greatness, men +still looked to Rome as the centre of the civilized world. As the seat of +the Church, it stood for the one force capable of supplying a permanent +element among the warring interests of European politics. Nothing was more +natural than that the poetic form that had reflected the glories of +imperial Rome should bow to the fascination of Rome, the visible emblem on +earth of the spiritual empire of Christ. To the medieval mind, so far from +there being any antagonism between the two ideas, the one seemed almost to +involve and necessitate the other. It saw in the splendeur of the Empire +the herald of a glory not of this world, a preparation as it were, a +decking of the chamber against the advent of the bride; and thus the +pastoral which sang of the greatness of pagan Rome appeared at the same +time a hymn prophetic of the glory of the Church[23]. + +Moreover, during the centuries that had elapsed since the days of Vergil +the term 'pastoral' had gained a new meaning and new associations. In the +days of Augustus Pan was a boorish anachronism; it was left to medieval +Christianity to create a god who was in fact a shepherd of men[24] and so +to render possible a pastoral allegory that should embody the dearest +hopes and aspirations of the human heart. That Christian pastoralists +availed themselves successfully of the possibilities of the theme it would +be difficult to maintain. It is a singular fact that, at a time when +allegory was the characteristic literary form, it was yet so impossible +even for the finer spirits to follow a train of thought clearly and +consistently, that it was only when a mind passed beyond the limitations +of its own age, and assumed a position _sub specie aeternitatis_, that it +was able to free itself from the prevalent confusion of the imaginary and +the real, the word and the idea, and to perceive that success in allegory +depends, not on the chaotic intermingling of the attributes of the type +and the thing typified, but on so representing the one as to suggest and +illuminate the other. + +In the early days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral +tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. It is +not without significance that the first modern eclogues were from the same +pen as the sonnet 'Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,' expressive of the +shame with which earnest sons of the Church contemplated the captivity of +the holy father at Avignon; for thus on the very threshold of Arcadia we +are met with those bitter denunciations of ecclesiastical corruption which +strike so characteristic a note in the works of the satirical Mantuan, and +seem so out of place in the songs of Spenser and Milton. In one eclogue +the poet mourns over the ruin and desolation of Rome, as a mother deserted +of her children; another is a dialogue between two shepherds, in which St. +Peter, under the pastoral disguise of Pamphilus, upbraids the licentious +Clement VI with the ignoble servitude in which he is content to abide; a +third shows us Clement wantoning with the shameless mistress of a line of +pontifical shepherds, a figure allegorical of the corruption of the +Church[25]; in yet a fourth Petrarch laments his estrangement from his +patron Giovanni Colonna, a cardinal in favour at the papal court, whom it +would appear his outspoken censures had offended. Petrarch's was not the +only voice that was raised urging the Pope to return from the 'Babylonian +captivity,' but the protest had peculiar significance from the mouth of +one who stood forth as the embodiment of the new age still struggling in +the throes of birth. When 'the first Italian' accepted the laurel crown at +the Capitol, he dreamed of Rome as once more the heart of the world, the +city which should embody that early Italian idea of nationality, the ideal +of the humanistic commonwealth. The course urged alike by Petrarch and by +St. Catherine was in the end followed, but the years of exile were yet to +bear their bitterest fruit of mortification and disgrace. In 1377 Gregory +XI transferred the seat of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, with the +resuit that the world was treated to the edifying spectacle of three +prelates each claiming to be the vicar of Christ and sole father of the +Church. + +These ecclesiastical eclogues form the most important contribution made by +Italy's greatest lyric poet to pastoral. Others, one in honour of Robert +of Sicily, another recording the defeat of Pan by Articus on the field of +Poitiers, follow already existing pastoral convention. Some few, again, of +less importance in literary history, are of greater personal or poetic +interest. In one we see Francesco and his brother Gherardo wandering in +the realm of shepherds, and there exchanging their views concerning +religious verse. A group of three, standing apart from the rest, connect +themselves with the subject of the _Canzoniere_. The first describes the +ravages of the plague at Avignon; the second mourns over the death of +poetry in the person of Laura, who fell a victim on April 6, 1348; the +third is a dirge sung by the shepherdesses over her grave. One, lastly, a +neo-classic companion to Theocritus' tale of Galatea, recounts the poet's +unrequited homage to Daphne of the Laurels, thus again suggesting the +idealized source of Petrarch's inspiration. This poem is not only the gem +of the series, but embodies the mythopoeic spirit of classical imagination +in a manner unknown in the later days of the renaissance. + +The, eclogues, twelve in number, appear to have been mostly composed +about the middle of the fourteenth century. In the days of Petrarch the +art of Latin verse was yet far from the perfection it attained in those of +Poliziano and Vida; it was a clumsy vehicle in comparison with the vulgar +tongue, which he affected to despise while setting therein the standard +for future ages. Nevertheless, Petrarch's Latin poems bear witness to the +natural genius for composition and expression to which we owe the +_Canzoniere_. The _editio princeps_ of the pastorals appeared in the form +of a beautifully printed folio at Cologne in 1473, ninety-nine years after +the poet's death. They were entitled _Eglogae_[26] (i.e. _aeglogae_), by +which, as Dr. Johnson remarked, Petrarch, finding no appropriate meaning +in the form _eclogae_, 'meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it +will only mean the talk of goats.' + +No two men ever won for themselves more diverse literary reputations than +Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio. The Latin eclogue is one of their few +points of literary contact. The bucolic collections contain no less than +sixteen such poems from the pen of the younger writer[27], which, though +not devoid of merit as poetical exercises, show that as a metrist +Boccaccio fell almost as far short of his friend in the learned as in the +vulgar tongue. They were composed at various dates, mostly, it would +appear, after 1360, though some are certainly earlier; and it would be +difficult to say whether to him or to Petrarch belonged the honour of +reviving the form, were it not that, both in the poems themselves and in +his correspondance, he explicitly mentions Petrarch as his master in the +kind[28]. In any case the dates of composition must cover a wide period, +for the poems reflect varions phases of his life. 'Le Egloghe del +Boccaccio,' says an Italian critic, 'rappresentano tutta la vita +psicologica del poeta, dalle febbri d'amore alle febbri ascetiche.' The +amorous eclogues, to which in later life Boccaccio attached little +importance, are early; several are historical in subject and are probably +of later date, though one may be as early as 1348; there are others of a +religions nature which belong to the author's later years. The allusions +in these poems are so obscure that it would in most cases be hopeless to +seek to unravel the meaning had not the author left us a key in a letter +to Martino da Signa, prior of the Augustinians. Many of the subjects are +purely conventional, such as those of the early poems on the loves of the +shepherds, the historical panegyrics and laments, and the satire on rich +misers. The same may be said of a dispute on the respective merits of +poetry and commerce, and of a poem in praise of poetry; although the +former has an obvious relation to the author's own circumstances, and the +latter appears to be inspired by genuine enthusiasm and love of art. The +forces of confusion that have dogged the pastoral in all ages show +themselves where the poet tells a Christian fable in pagan guise; the +antithesis of human and divine love, while suggesting Petrarch's influence +over his life, is a theme that runs throughout medieval philosophy and was +later embodied by Spenser in his _Hymns_. One poem stands out from the +rest somewhat after the manner of Petrarch's _Daphne_. In it Boccaccio +tells us, under the thinnest veil of pastoral, how his daughter Violante, +dead in childhood many years before, appeared to him bearing tidings of +the land beyond the grave. The theme is the same as that of the almost +contemporary _Pearl_; and in treating it Boccaccio achieves something of +the sweetness and pathos of the English poem. One eclogue, finally, the +_Valle tenebrosa (Vallis Opaca)_, which appears to owe something to +Dante's description of hell, is probably historical in its intention, but +the gloss explains _obscurum per obscurius_, and we can only suppose that +the author intended that the inner sense should remain a mystery. + +When Boccaccio wrote, the eclogue had not yet degenerated into the +literary convention it became in the following century; and, though he was +no doubt tempted to the use of the form by Vergilian tradition and the +example of Petrarch, he must also have followed therein a natural +inclination and no mere dictate of fashion. Even in these poems the +humanity of the writer's personality makes itself felt. While Laura tends +to fade into a personification of poetry, and Petrarch's strongest +convictions find expression through the mouth of St. Peter, we feel that +behind Boccaccio's humanistic exercise lies his own amorous passion, his +own religious enthusiasm, his own fatherly tenderness and love. His +eclogues, however, never attained the same reputation as Petrarch's, and +remained in manuscript till the appearance of Giunta's bucolic collection +of 1504. + + * * * * * + +As humanism advanced and the golden age of the renaissance approached, +Latin bucolic writers sprang up and multiplied. The fullest +collection--that printed by Oporinus at Basel in March, 1546--contains the +poems of thirty-eight authors, and even this makes no pretence of giving +those of the middle ages. The collection, however, ranges from Calpurnius +to Castalio (i.e. the French theologian Sébastien Châteillon), and +includes the work of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Spagnuoli, Urceo, Pontano, +Sannazzaro, Erasmus, Vida, and others. There is a strong family likeness +in the pastoral verse of these authors, and the majority are devoid of +individual interest. A few, however, merit separate notice. + +It was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that the renaissance +eclogue, abandoning its last claims to poetic inspiration, assumed its +definitive form in the works of Battista Spagnuoli, more commonly known +from the place of his birth by the name of Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in +number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral +composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any +inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author +proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. +Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth +century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it +in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note, +'What the author meant of all, the translater intends only of ill +women[29].' There follows the old complaint of the niggardliness of rich +patrons towards poor poets, and a satire on the luxury of city life. The +remaining poems are ecclesiastical. One is in praise of the religious +life, another describes the simple faith of the country folk and the joys +of conversion; finally, we have a satire on the abuses of Rome, and a +discussion on points of theological controversy. None of these subjects +possess the least novelty; the author's merit, if merit it can be called, +lies in having stamped them with their definitive form for the use of +subsequent ages. Combined with this lack of originality, however, it is +easy to trace a strong personal element in the bitterness of the satire +that pervades many of the themes, the orthodox eclogue on conversion +standing in curious contrast with that on ecclesiastical abuses. + +It is not easy to account for Spagnuoli's popularity, but the curiously +representative quality of his work was no doubt in part the cause. His +poems were what, through the changing fashions of centuries, men had come +to expect of bucolic verse. They crystallized into a standard mould +whatever in pastoral, whether classical or renaissance, was most obviously +and easily reducible to a type, and so attained the position of models +beyond which it was needless to go. They were first printed in 1498, and +went through a number of editions during the author's lifetime. As a young +man--and it is to his earlier years that the bulk of the eclogues must be +attributed--Spagnuoli was noted for the elegance of his Latin verse; but +his facility led him into over-production, and Tiraboschi reports his +later writings as absolutely unreadable. He was of Spanish extraction, as +his name implies, became a Carmelite, and rose to be general of the order, +but retired in 1515, the year before his death. + +Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished +humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a +Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling. His poems were first +published by Aldus in 1505, two years after his death. In one +characteristic composition he laments the loss of his wife, to whom he was +deeply attached; another introduces under a pastoral name his greater +disciple Sannazzaro[30]. + +Jacopo Sannazzaro, known to humanism as Actius Sincerus, disciple of the +'Accademia Pontana,' and editor of his master's works, the greatest +explorer, if not the greatest exponent, of the mysteries of Arcadia, was +born of parents of Spanish origin at Naples in 1458. His boyhood was spent +at San Cipriano, but he soon returned to Naples, where he fell in love +with Carmosina Bonifacia. His passion does not appear to have been +reciprocated, but the lady has her place in literature as the Phillis of +the eclogues. He attached himself to the court of Frederick of Aragon, +whom he followed into exile in France. Returning to Naples after his +patron's death in 1503, he again fell in love, this time with a certain +Cassandra Marchesa, to whom he continued to pay court, _more Platonico_, +till his death in 1530. He is said to have died at her house. + +To his Italian work I shall have to return later; here it is his five +Latin piscatory eclogues that demand notice. There is nothing in the +subject-matter to arrest attention--they consist of a lament for +Carmosina, a lover's complaint, a singing match, a panegyric, and a poem +in honour of Cassandra--but the form is interesting. Of course the claim +sometimes put forward for Sannazzaro, as the inventor of the piscatory +eclogue, ignores various passages in Theocritus, notably the twenty-first +Idyl, whence he presumably borrowed the idea. But it is certainly +refreshing, after wandering in an unreal Sicily and an imaginary Arcadia, +and listening to shepherds discourse of the abuses of the Roman Curia, to +dive into the waters of the bay of Naples, or wanton in fancy along its +sunlit shore from the low rocks of Baiae to the sheer cliffs of Sorrento, +and to feel that, even though Jacopo was no Neapolitan fisher-boy, and +Carmosina no nymph of Posilipo, yet the poet had at least before him the +blue water and the dark rocks, and in his heart the love that formed the +theme of his song[31]. + +Sannazzaro also wrote a mythological poem entitled _Salices_, in which +certain nymphs pursued by satyrs are changed by Diana into willows. The +tale was evidently suggested by Ovid, and cannot strictly be classed as +pastoral, though it may have helped to fix in pastoral convention the +character of the satyr; who, however, at no time enjoyed a very savoury +reputation. The Latin works were first published at Naples in 1536, and +though far from rivalling the popularity of the _Arcadia_, went through +several editions. + +The Latin eclogues of the renaissance are distinguished from all other +forms of allegory by the obscure and recondite allusions that they +affected. There were few among their authors for whom the narration of +simple loves and sorrows or the graces of untutored nature possessed any +attraction; we find them either making their shepherds openly discuss +contemporary affairs, or more often clothing their references to actual +events in a sort of pastoral allegory, fatuous as regards its form and +obscure as regards its content. Tityrus and Mopsus are alternately lovers, +courtiers and spiritual pastors; Pan, when he does not conceal under his +shaggy outside the costly robes of a prince, is a strange abortive +monster, drawing his attributes in part from pagan superstition, in part +from Christian piety; a libel upon both. The seed sown by Petrarch and +Boccaccio bore fruit only too freely. The writers of eclogues, either +debarred from or incapable of originality, sought distinction by ever more +and more elaborate and involved allusions; and their works, in their own +day held the more sublime the more incomprehensible they were, are now the +despair of those who would wring from them any semblance of meaning. + +The absurdities of the conventional pastoral did not, indeed, pass +altogether unnoticed in their own day, for early in the sixteenth century +Teofilo Folengo composed his _Zanitonella_ in macaronic verse. It consists +of eclogues and poems in hexameter and elegiac metre ridiculing polite +pastoralism through contrast with the crudities of actual rusticity. In +the same manner Berni travestied the courtly pastoral of vernacular +writers in his realistic pictures of village love. But though the satirist +might find ample scope for his wit in anatomizing the foible of the day, +fashionable society continued none the less to encourage the exquisite +inanity, and to be flattered by the elegant obscurity, of the allegorical +pastoral. + + + +V + + +In 1481 appeared an Italian translation of the Bucolics of Vergil from the +pen of Bernardo Pulci. The same volume also contained a collection of +eclogues in the vernacular by various authors, none of which have any +particular interest beyond what attaches to them as practically heading +the list of Italian pastorals[32]. It will be noticed that these poems +correspond in date with the later school of Latin bucolic writers, +represented by Mantuan; and the vernacular compositions developed +approximately parallel to, though usually in imitation of, those in the +learned tongue. But the fourteenth-century school of Petrarch had not been +entirely without its representative in Italian. At least one poem included +by Boccaccio in his _Ameto_ is a strict eclogue, composed throughout in +_terza rima_, which was destined to become the standard verse-form for +'pastoral,' as _ottava rima_ for 'rustic,' composition. The poem is a +contention between an upland and a lowland shepherd, and begins in genuine +pastoral fashion: + + Come Titan del seno dell' aurora + Esce, così con le mie pecorelle + I monti cerco sema far dimora. + +It is chiefly differentiated from many similar compositions in Latin--and +the distinction is of some importance--in that the interest is purely +pastoral; no political or religious allusions being discernible under the +arguments of the somewhat quarrelsome swains[33]. This peculiarity is on +the whole characteristic of the later vernacular pastoral likewise, which, +after the appearance of the collection of 1481, soon became extremely +common, Siena and Urbino, Ferrara, Bologna and Padua, Florence and Naples, +all alike bearing practical witness to the popularity of the kind[34]. + +In 1506 Castiglione[35] and Cesare Gonzaga, in the disguise of shepherds, +recited an eclogue interspersed with songs before the court of Duke +Guidubaldo at Urbino. The Duchess Elizabeth was among the spectators. The +_Tirsi,_ as it is called, begins with the simple themes of pastoral +complaint, whence by swift transition it passes to a panegyric of the +court and the circle of the _Cortegiano_. It was not the first attempt at +bringing the pastoral upon the boards, since Poliziano's _Orfeo_ with its +purely bucolic opening had been performed as early as 1471; but +Castiglione's _ecloga rappresentativa_ was the first of any note to depend +purely on the pastoral form and to introduce on the stage the convention +of the allegorical pastoral. Some years later a further step was taken in +the dramatization of the eclogue by Luigi Tansillo in his _Due pelegrini_, +performed at Messina in 1538, though composed and probably originally +acted some ten years before. It is through these and similar poems that we +shall have to trace the gradual evolution of the pastoral drama in a later +section of this work. Tansillo was likewise the author, both of a poem +called _Il Vendemmiatore_, one of those obscene debauches of fancy which +throw a lurid light on the luxurious imagination of the age, and of a +didactic work, _Il Podere_, in which, as his editor somewhat naïvely +remarks, 'ci rende amabile la campagna e l'agricoltura[36].' + +The practice of eclogue-writing soon became no less general in the +vernacular than in Latin, and the band of pastoral poets included men so +different in temperament as Machiavelli, who left a 'Capitolo pastorale' +among his miscellaneous works, and Ariosto, whose eclogue on the +conspiracy contrived in 1506 against Alfonso d'Este was published from +manuscript in 1835. The fashion of the piscatory eclogue, set by +Sannazzaro in Latin, was followed in Italian by his fellow-citizen +Bernardino Rota, and later by Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, Abbot of +Guastalla, in whose poems we are able at times to detect a ring of simple +and refreshing sincerity. + +Though, as will be understood even from the brief summary given above, the +allusive element is not wholly absent from these poems, it is nevertheless +true, as already said, that it appears less persistently than in the Latin +works, the weighty matters of religion and politics being as a rule +avoided. The reason is perhaps not far to seek, since, being in the vulgar +tongue, they appealed to a wider and less learned audience, before whom it +might have been injudicious to utter too strong an opinion on questions of +church and state. + +So far the pastoral poetry of Italy had been composed exclusively in the +literary Tuscan of the day. To Florence and to Lorenzo de' Medici in +particular is due the honour of having first introduced the rustic speech +of the people. His two poems written in the language of the peasants about +Florence, _La Nencia da Barberino_ and a canzonet _In morte della Nencia_, +possess a grace to which the quaintness of the diction adds point and +flavour. A short extract must suffice to illustrate the style. + + Ben si potrà tener avventurato + Chi sia marito di sì bella moglie; + Ben si potrà tener in buon dì nato + Chi arà quel fioraliso senza foglie; + Ben si potrà tenersi consolato + Che si contenti tutte le sue voglie + D' aver la Nencia, e tenersela in braccio + Morbida e bianca, che pare un sugnaccio. + + * * * * * + + Nenciozza mia, vuo' tu un poco fare + Meco a la neve per quel salicale?-- + Sì, volentier, ma non me la sodare + Troppo, chè tu non mi facessi male.-- + Nenciozza mia, deh non ti dubitare, + Chè l' amor ch' io ti porto sì è tale, + Che quando avessi mal, Nenciozza mia, + Con la mia lingua te lo leveria. + +This form of composition at once became fashionable. Luigi Pulci[37] +composed his _Beca di Dicomano_, which attained almost equal success and +passed for the work of Lorenzo. It is, however, a far inferior production, +in which the quaintness of the model is replaced by coarse caricature and +its delicate rusticity by a cruder realism. Other imitations followed, but +none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and +expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish +themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an +anonymous _Pescatoria amorosa_ printed about 1550. It is a Venetian +serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain grace +of language: + + Cortese donne, belle innamorae, + Donzelle, vedovette, e maridae, + Ascholte ste parole, che le no se cortelae, + Che intendere la causa del vegnir in ste contrae[39]. + +Symonds and D'Ancona alike remark, with perfect truth, that Lorenzo's +rustic style, in spite of its sympathetic grace, is not altogether +dissociated from burlesque. While free from the artificiality of court +pastoral, it is equally distinct from the natural simplicity of the +Theocritean idyl. Its flavour depends upon the half cynical, half kindly, +amusement afforded by the contrast between the _naïveté_ of the country +and the familiar and conventional polish of town life. This theme had +already caught the fancy of the song-writers of the fourteenth century, +who produced some of the most delightful examples of native and +unconventional pastoral anywhere to be found[40]. Franco Sacchetti the +novelist, for example, gives us a series of charming vignettes of country +life and scenery, but always from the point of view of the town observer. +One poem of his in particular gained wide popularity, and a modernized and +somewhat altered version was iater printed among the works of Poliziano. +It was originally a _ballata_, but I prefer to quote some stanzas from the +traditional version: + + Vaghe le montanine e pastorelle, + Donde venite sì leggiadre e belle?-- + + Vegnam dall' alpe, presso ad un boschetto; + Picciola capannella è il nostro sito; + Col padre e colla madre in picciol tetto, + Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito, + Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito + Ch' abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle.-- + + Ben si posson doler vostre bellezze, + Poichè tra valli e monti le mostrate, + Chè non è terra di sì grandi altezze + Che voi non foste degne ed onorate. + Ora mi dite, se vi contentate + Di star nell' alpe così poverelle?-- + + Più si contenta ciascuna di noi + Gire alla mandria, dietro alla pastura, + Più che non fate ciascuna di voi + Gire a danzare dentro a vostre mura; + Ricchezza non cerchiam, nè più ventura, + Se non be' fiori, e facciam ghirlandelle[41]. + +Other writers besides Sacchetti produced songs of the sort, but in all +alike the strictly pastoral element was accidental, and merged insensibly +into the more delicately romantic of the _novelle_ themes. The following +lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in +English ballad poetry. They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of +Sacchetti's. A nun sings: + + La dura corda e 'l vel bruno e la tonica + Gittar voglio e lo scapolo + Che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica; + Poi teco a guisa d'assetato giovane, + Non già che si sobbarcoli, + Venir me n' voglio ove fortuna piovane: + + E son contenta star per serva e cuoca, + Chè men mi cocerò ch' ora mi cuoca[42]. + +But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally +influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that +we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the +transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the _voluttà idillica_ of +the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido._ This vein is strong in Lorenzo's +charming carnival songs, which at once recall Villon's burden, 'Où sont +les neiges d'antan?' and anticipate Tasso's warning: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova. + +The 'triumph' of _Bacchus and Ariadne_, introduced with amorous nymphs and +satyrs, has the refrain: + + Quant' è bella giovinezza, + Che si fugge tuttavia! + Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: + Di doman non c' è certezza. + +The flower of lyric melancholy is already full blown. So, too, in another +carnival song of his: + + Or che val nostra bellezza? + Se si perde, poco vale. + Viva amore e gentilezza! + +_Gentilezza, morbidezza_--the yielding fancy in the disguise of pity, the +nerveless languor that passes for beauty--such is the dominant note of the +song upon men's lips in the troublous times of the renaissance[43]. + +Another of the outlying realms of pastoral is the mythological tale, more +or less directly imitated from Ovid. The first to introduce it in +vernacular literature was Boccaccio, who in his _Ninfale fiesolano_ uses +a pagan allegory to convey a favourite _novella_ theme. The shepherd +Affrico loves a nymph of Diana, and the tale ends by the goddess changing +her faithless votary into a fountain. It is written in somewhat cumbrous +_ottava rima_, and seldom shows any conspicuous power of narrative. +Belonging to the same class of composition, though of a very different +order of poetic merit, is Lorenzo's wonderfully graceful tale of _Ambra_. +The grace lies in the telling, for the plot was probably already stale +when Phoebus and Daphne were protagonists. The poem recounts how the +wood-nymph Ambra, beloved of Lauro, is pursued by the river-god Ombrone, +one of Arno's tributary divinities, and praying to Diana in her hour of +need, is by her transformed into a rock[44]. Lorenzo's _Selva d'amore_ and +_Caccia col falcone_ might also be mentioned in the same connexion. + +Less pastoral in motive and less connected in narrative, but of even +greater importance in the formation of pastoral taste, is the famous +_Giostra_ written in honour of the young Giuliano de' Medici. I have +already more than once had occasion to mention its author, Angelo +Ambrogini, better known from the place of his birth as Poliziano or +Politian[45], the contemporary, dependent, and fellow-littérateur of +Lorenzo il Magnifico, and the greatest scholar and learned writer of the +Italian renaissance. As the author of the _Orfeo_ he will occupy our +attention when we come to trace the evolution of the pastoral drama. +Though he left no poems belonging to the recognized forms of pastoral +composition, his work constantly borders upon the kind, and evinces a +genuine sympathy with rustic life which makes the ascription to him of the +already quoted modernization of Sacchetti not inappropriate. He left +several other pieces of a similar nature, some of which at least are known +to be adaptations of popular songs[46]. Such, for instance, is the +irregular _canzone_ beginning: + + La pastorella si leva per tempo + Menando le caprette a pascer fuora, + Di fuora, fuora: la traditora + Co' suoi begli occhi la m' innamora, + E fa di mezza notte apparir giorno. + +The _Giostra_ is composed, like its predecessors, in the octave stanza, +and presents a series of pictures drawn from classical mythology or from +the poet's own imagination, adorned with all the physical beauty the study +of antiquity could supply and a rich and refined taste crystallize into +chastest jewellery of verse[47]. This blending of luxuriance and delicacy +is the characteristic quality of Poliziano's and Lorenzo's poetry. It is +admirably expressed in the phrase of a recent critic, 'the decorum of +things exquisite.' After the lapse of another half-century, during which +the renaissance advanced from its graceful youth to the full bloom of its +maturity, appeared the _Ninfa tiberina_ of Francesco Maria Molza. 'The +_voluttà idillica_[48],' writes Symonds, 'which opened like a rosebud in +the _Giostra_, expands full petals in the _Ninfa tiberina_; we dare not +shake them, lest they fall.' Like the earlier poem it possesses little +narrative unity--the taie of Eurydice introduced by way of illustration +occupies more than a third of the whole--but every point is made the +occasion of minute decoration of the richest beauty. It was written for +Faustina Mancina, a celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of +her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made +a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected +as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. +Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of +idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. +The _Driadeo d'amore_ earlier--a mythological medley variously ascribed in +different editions to Luca and to Luigi Pulci--and Marino's _Adone_ later, +were likewise among the works that went to form the courtly taste to which +the pastoral drama appealed. The detailed criticism, however, of such +compositions lies beyond the scope of this work. + + + +VI + + +We must now return to an earlier period in order to follow the development +of the pastoral romance. When dealing with _Daphnis and Chloe_ I pointed +out that the Greek work could claim no part in the formation of the later +prose pastoral. Between it and the work of Boccaccio and Sannazzaro there +exists no such continuity of tradition as between the bucolics of the +classical Mantuan and those of his renaissance follower. The Italian +pastoral romance, in spite of its almost pedantic endeavour after +classical and mythological colouring, was as essentially a product of its +age as the pastoral drama itself. So far as any influence on the evolution +of the subsequent Arcadia was concerned, Longus might as well never have +written of the pastures of Lesbos. Indeed, were we here concerned in +assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual +works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would +be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of +_Daphnis and Chloe _ in the _Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_ than in the _Ameto_ +or the _Arcadia_. + +In his pastoral romance, 'Ameto, ovvero Commedia delie ninfe fiorentine,' +Boccaccio set a fashion in literature, namely the intermingling for +purposes of narration of prose and verse[49], in which he was followed a +century and a half later by Pietro Bembo, the Socrates of Castiglione's +renaissance Symposium, in his dialogue on love entitled _Gli Asolani_, and +by Jacopo Sannazzaro in his still more famous _Arcadia_. The _Ameto_ is +one of Boccaccio's early compositions, written about 1341, after his +return from Naples, but before he had gained his later mastery of +language. It is not unfairly characterized by Symonds as 'a tissue of +pastoral tales, descriptions, and versified interludes, prolix in style +and affected with pedantic erudition.' It is, however, possible to +underrate its merits, and it would be easy to overlook its historical +importance. Ameto is a rude hunter of the neighbourhood of Florence. One +day, while in the woods, he discovers a company of nymphs resting by a +stream, and overhears the song of the beautiful Lia. His rough nature is +touched by the sweetness of the music and he falls in love with the +singer. Their meetings are interrupted by the advent of winter, but he +finds her again at the feast of Venus, when shepherds, fauns, and nymphs +forgather at the temple of the goddess. In this company Lia proposes that +each of the nymphs present, seven in number, shall narrate the story of +her love. This they in turn do, each ending with a song of praise to the +gods; and Ameto feels his love burn for each in turn as he listens to +their tales. When the last has ended a sudden brightness shines around and +'there descended with wondrous noise a column of pure flame, even such as +by night went before the Israelitish people in the desert places,' Out of +the brightness cornes the voice of Venus: + + Io son luce del cielo unica e trina, + Principio e fine di ciascuna cosa, + Del quai men fù, nè fia nulla vicina. + +Ameto, though half blinded by the heavenly effulgence, sees a new joy and +beauty shine upon the faces of the nymphs, and understands that the +flame-shrouded presence is that, not of the wanton _mater cupidinum_, but +of the goddess of divine fire who comes to reveal to him the mysteries of +love. Cleansed of his grosser nature by a baptismal rite, in which each of +the nymphs performs some symbolic ceremonial, he feels heavenly love +replacing human in his heart, and is able to bear undazzled the radiance +of the divine purity. He salutes the goddess with a song: + + O diva luce, quale in tre persone + Ed una essenza il ciel governi e 'l mondo + Con giusto amore ed eterna ragione, + Dando legge alle stelle, ed al ritondo + Moto del sole, principe di quelle, + Siccome discerniamo in questo fondo[50]. + +Various interpretations have been suggested for this work, with its +preposterous mixture of pagan and Christian motives. This peculiarity, +which we have already met with in Boccaccio's eclogues, and in his +_Ninfale fiesolano_, was indeed one of the most persistent as it was one +of the least admirable characteristics of pastoral composition. Francesco +Sansovino, who edited the _Ameto_ in 1545, discovered real personages +underlying the characters of the romance. Fiammetta is introduced by name, +and her lover Caleone can hardly be other than Boccaccio. More recent +commentators are probably right in detecting an allegorical intention. The +seven nymphs, according to them, represent the four cardinal and three +theological virtues, and their stories are to be interpreted symbolically. +This view derives support from the baptismal ceremony, in which after the +public lustration one of the nymphs removes the scales from Ameto's eyes, +while another, 'breathing between his lips, kindled within him a flame +such as he had never felt before.' In these ministrants it is not +difficult to recognize the virtues respectively of faith and love. Ameto +may be taken as typical of humanity, tamed of its savage nature by love, +and through the service of the virtues led to the knowledge of the divine +essence. The conception of love as a civilizing and humanizing power +already underlay the sensuous stanzas of the _Ninfale fiesolano_, while +the later part of the romance was not uninfluenced by recollections of the +_Divine Comedy_[51]. It is true that a modern mind will with difficulty be +able to reconcile the amorous confessions of the nymphs with the +characteristics of the virtues, but in Boccaccio's day the tradition of +the _Gesta Romanorum_ was still strong, and the age that mysticized +Vergil, and moralized Ovid, was capable of much in the way of allegorical +interpretation[52]. + +The point to which this allegorical interpretation can legitimately be +carried need not trouble us here. Having set himself to characterize the +virtues, it is moreover likely enough that Boccaccio sought at the same +time to connect his figures more or less definitely with actual persons. +It is sufficient for our present purpose if we recognize in the _Ameto_ +something of the same triple intention which, not to put too fine a +metaphysical point upon the parallel, we meet with in Dante and in the +_Faery Queen_. Having fashioned in accordance with these motives the +framework of his book, Boccaccio further concerned himself but little with +this philosophical intention, and the allegorical setting having served +its artistic purpose of linking them together into one connected whole, it +was upon the detail of the narratives themselves that the author's +attention was concentrated. It is, however, just in this artistic purpose +of the setting that one of the chief interests of the _Ameto_ lies; for if +in the mingling of verse and prose it is the forerunner of the _Arcadia_, +in the linking together of a series of isolated stories it anticipates +Boccaccio's own _Decameron_. + +While there is little that is distinctly bucolic about the _Ameto_, the +atmosphere is eminently pastoral in the wider sense. Nymphs and shepherds, +foresters and fauns meet at the temple of Venus; the limpid fountains and +shady laurels belong essentially to the conventional landscape, whether of +Sicily, of Arcadia, or of the hills overlooking the valley of the Arno. +The Italian imagination was not careful to differentiate between field and +forest: _favola boschereccia_ was used synonymously with _commedia +pastorale_; _drammi dei boschi_ is a term which covers the whole of the +pastoral drama. But what really gives the _Ameto_ its importance in the +history of pastoral literature is the manner in which, undisturbed by its +religions and allegorical machinery, it introduces us to a purely sensual +and pagan paradise, in which love with all its pains and raptures reigns +supreme. + +The narratives of the nymphs, and indeed the whole of the prose portions +of the work, are composed in a style of surcharged and voluptuous beauty, +congested with lengthy periods, and accumulated superlatives and relative +clauses, which, in its endeavour to maintain itself and its subject at the +highest possible pitch, only succeeds in being intensely and almost +uniformly monotonous and dull. It is perfectly true that the work +possesses some at least of the qualities of its defects. There are +passages which argue a feeling for beauty, none the less real for being of +a somewhat conventional order, while we not seldom detect a certain rich +luxuriance about the descriptions; but it must be admitted that on the +whole the style exhibits most of Boccaccio's faults and few of his merits. +The verse interspersed throughout is in _terza rima_, and offers small +attraction to the ordinary reader: 'meschinissima cosa' is a verdict +which, if somewhat severe, will probably find few to contradict it. + +In a certain passage, speaking of Poliziano's _Orfeo_, Symonds remarks +that 'while Arcady became the local dreamland of the new ideal, Orpheus +took the place of its hero.' Without inquiring too closely how far the +writers of the renaissance actually connected the hero of music, as a +power of civilization, with their newly discovered country, it is +interesting to note that the earliest work in the Italian language +containing in however amoebean a state the pastoral ideal opens with an +allusion to Orpheus. + + Quella vertù, che già l'ardito Orfeo + Mosse a cercar le case di Plutone, + Allor che forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione, + E dal suon vinto dell' arguto legno, + E dalla nota della sua canzone, + Per forza tira il mio debile ingegno + A cantar le tue Iode, o Citerea, + Insieme con le forze del tuo regno[53]. + +Orpheus, however, does not stand alone. Venus, Phoebus, Mars, Cupid, and +finally Jove, are each in turn invoked, to say nothing of the incidental +mention of Aeneas, Mirra, and Europa. This love of mythology in and out of +season is one of the most prominent features of the work. One of the +nymphs describes her youth in the following words: + + il padre mio .... visse eccellentissimo ne' beni pubblici tra' reggenti, + e de' beni degli iddii copioso: me a lui donata da loro, nominò Mopsa, e + vedentemi nella giovanetta età mostrante già bella forma, ai servigi + dispose di Pallade, la quale me benivola ricevente nelle sante grotte + del cavallo Gorgoneo, tra le sapientissime Muse commise, là dov' io + gustai l'acque Castalie, e l'altezza di Cirra tentante, le stelle cercai + con ferma mano; e i pallidi visi, quelli luoghi colenti, sempre con + riverenza seguii; e molte volte sonando Apollo la cetera sua, lui nel + mezzo delle nove Muse ascoltai[54]. + +She continues for pages in the same strain with illustrative allusions to +Caius Julius, Claudius, and Britannicus. + +At the risk of devoting to the _Ameto_ an altogether disproportionate +amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to +give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all +the more so as it is little known except to students. With this object I +have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[55]. + + I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due + devotion, I began thus to pray: 'O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess + whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto + my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet + ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a + chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy + followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that + in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my + wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of + thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.' I know not + whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and + sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether, + indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is + that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming + chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below + I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers + thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind + the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I + beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by + the sound of Amphion's lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant + Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the + spotless birds. Whereon having alighted I went straying, alike uncertain + of the way and of the fortune that might await me, when, as to Aeneas + upon the Afric shore, so to me there amid the myrtles there appeared the + goddess I had invoked, and I was filled with wonder such as I had never + known before. She was disrobed except for the thinnest purple veil, + which hid but little of her form, falling in double curve with many + artful foldings over her left side; her face shone even as the sun, and + her head was adorned with great length of golden hair rippling down over + white shoulders; her eyes flashed with light never seen till then. Why + should I labour to tell the loveliness of her mouth and of her snowy + neck, of her marble breast and of her every part, since to do so lies so + far beyond my powers, and even where I able, hardly should my words gain + credence? But whereas she was now at hand I bowed my knees before her + godhead, and with such voice as I could command, repeated my petition in + her presence. She listened thereto, and approaching bade me rise, + saying, 'Follow me; thy prayer is heard, thy desire granted,' and + thereupon withdrew me to a somewhat loftier spot. There hidden amidst + the dense foliage she discovered to me her only son, upon whom gazing in + admiration, I found his beauty such that in all things did he appear + fashioned like unto her, except in so far as being he a god and she a + goddess. O how oft, remembering Psyche, I counted her happy and unhappy; + happy in the possession of such a husband, unhappy in his loss, most + happy in receiving him again from Jove. But even as I gazed, he, beating + the air with his sacred wings that gleamed with clearest gold, departed + with his load of newly fashioned arrows from those parts, and at the + bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper + his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters, + gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a + growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by + the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's + distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my + own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of + mud[56]. The goddess, for that the hour was already hot, had doffed her + transparent veil and plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded + me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet + disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and + gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and + shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred + water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should + behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to hide my + unwonted blushes. And in like manner at the sight of me he too changed + colour and was troubled; he stayed his steps and advanced no further. + Then at the pleasure of the goddess leaving the water we resumed our + apparel, and crowned with myrtle sought a neighbouring glade, full of + finest grass and diapered with many flowers, where in the freshness we + stretched our limbs to rest. Thereupon the goddess, having called the + youth to us, began to speak in these words: 'Agape, most dear to me, + this youth, Apyros by name, whom thou seest thus shy amid our glades, + shall satisfy thy longing; but see that with care thou preserve + inviolate our fires, which in thy heart thou shalt bear with thee + hence.' I was about to make answer when my tender breast was of a sudden + pierced by the flying arrow loosed by the strong hand of the son of her + who added these unto her former words: 'We give him thee as thy first + and only servant; he lacks nought but our fires, which, kindled even now + by thee in him, be it thy care to nourish, that the frost that bound him + like to Aglauros being driven from his heart, he may burn with the + divine fire no less than father Jove himself.' She ceased; and I, + trembling yet with fear, no sooner opened my lips to assent to her + command, than I found myself once more in prayer before her altars; + whereat marvelling not a little, and casting my eyes around in search of + Apyros, I became aware of the golden arrow in my breast, and near me the + pale youth, his intent gaze fixed upon me, and like me wounded by the + god; and so seeing him inflamed with a passion no other than that which + burned in me, I laughed, and filled with contentment and desire, made + sign to him to be of hopeful cheer. + +The advance in style that marks the transition from the _Ameto_ to the +_Arcadia_ must be largely accredited to Boccaccio himself. The language of +the _Decameron_ became the model of _cinquecento_ prose. Sannazzaro, +however, wrote in evident imitation not of the structural method only, but +of the actual style of the _Ameto_. Something, it is true, he added beyond +the greater mastery of literary form due to training. Even in his most +luxuriant descriptions and most sensuous images we find that grace and +clearness of vision which characterize the early poetry of the +Renaissance proper, and combine in literature the luminous purity of +Botticelli and the gem-like detail of Pinturicchio. The mythological +affectation of the elder work appears in the younger modified, refined, +subordinated; there is the same delight in detailed description, but +relieved by greater variety of imagination; while, even in the most +laboured passages, there is a poetical feeling as well as a more +subjective manner, which, combined with a remarkable power of +visualization, saves them from the danger of the catalogue. Again, there +is everywhere visible the same artificiality of style which characterizes +the _Ameto_, but purged of its more extravagant elements and less affected +and conceited than it became in the works of Lyly and Sidney. Like the +_Ameto_, lastly, but unlike its Spanish and English successors, the +_Arcadia_ is purely pastoral, free from any chivalric admixture. + +The narrative interest in the _Arcadia_ is of the slightest. It opens with +a description of the 'dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso,' +lying at the summit of Parthenium, 'non umile monte della pastorale +Arcadia,' which was henceforth to be the abode sacred to the +shepherd-folk. There, as in Vergil's Italy and in Browne's Devon, in +Chaucer's dreamland, and in the realm of the Faery Queen, 'son forse +dodici o quindici alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che +chiunque li vedesse, giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con +sommo diletto studiata in formarli.'[57] The shepherds, who are assembled +with their flocks, are about to seek their homes at the approach of night, +when they meet Montano playing upon his pipe, and a musical contest ensues +between him and Uranio. Next day is celebrated the feast of Pales, an +account of which is given at length, and is followed by a song in which +Galicio sings the praises of his mistress Amaranta, of whom the narrator +proceeds to give a minute description. After another singing-match between +Logisto and Elpino the company betake themselves to the tomb of Androgeo, +whose praises are set forth in prose and rime. There follows a song by the +old shepherd Opico, on the superiority of the 'former age'; after which +Carino asks the narrator, Sincero--the pseudonym under which Sannazzaro +travelled in the realm of shepherds--to recount his history, which he +does at length, ending with a lament in _sestina_ form. By way of +consoling him in his exile Carino, in return, tells the tale of his own +amorous adventures. Next the reverend Opico is induced to discourse of the +powers of magic as the shepherds proceed to the sacred grove of Pan, who +shares with Pales the honours of Arcadian worship, and to the games held +at the tomb of sibyllic Massilia--a name under which Sannazzaro is said to +have commemorated his own mother. At this point the narrator is troubled +by a dream portending death to the lady of his love. As, tormented by this +thought, he wanders lonely in the chill dawn he meets a nymph, who leads +him through a marvellous cavern into the depths of the earth, where he +beholds the springs of many famous rivers, and finally, following the +course of the Sabeto, arrives at his native city of Naples, where he +learns the truth of his sorrowful forebodings. + +The form has been systematized since Boccaccio wrote, the whole being +divided into twelve _Prose_, alternating with as many _Ecloghe_, preceded +by a _Proemio_ and followed by an address _Alla sampogna_, both in prose. +The verse is mediocre, and several of the eclogues are composed in the +unattractive _sestina_ form, while others affect the wearisome _rime +sdrucciole_.[58] The most pleasing is Ergasto's lament at Androgeo's tomb, +beginning: + + Alma beata e bella, + Che da' legami sciolta + Nuda salisti ne' superni chiostri, + Ove con la tua stella + Ti godi insieme accolta; + E lieta ivi schernendo i pensier' nostri, + Quasi un bel sol ti mostri + Tra li più chiari spirti; + E coi vestigi santi + Calchi le stelle erranti; + E tra pure fontane e sacri mirti + Pasci celesti greggi; + E i tuoi cari pastori indi correggi. (_Ecloga_ V.) + +One would hardly turn to the artificiality of the _Arcadia_ for +representations of nature, and yet there is in the romance a genuine love +of the woods and the fields, and of the rustic sports of the season. +'Sogliono il più delle volte gli alti e spaziosi alberi negli orridi monti +dalla natura prodotti, più che le coltivate piante, da dotte mani +espurgate negli adorni giardini, a' riguardanti aggradare,' remarks +Sannazzaro at the outset. Elsewhere he furnishes us with an entertaining +description of the various ways in which birds may be trapped, introduced +possibly in pursuance of a hint from Longus.[59] Yet, in spite of his +professed love of savage scenery and his knowledge of pastoral sports, it +is after all in a very artificial and straitened form that nature filters +to us through Sannazzaro's pages. Rather do we turn to them for the sake +of the paintings on the temple walls, of Amaranta's lips, 'fresh as the +morning rose,' of her wild lapful of flowers, and of a hundred other +incidental pictures, one of the most charming of which, interesting on +another score also, I make no apology for here transcribing. + + Subito ordinò i premi a coloro, che lottare volessero, offrendo di dare + al vincitore un bel vaso di legno di acero, ove per mano del Padoano + Mantegna, artefice sovra tutti gli altri accorto ed ingegnosissimo, eran + dipinte molte cose: ma tra l' altre una ninfa ignuda, con tutti i membri + bellissimi, dai piedi in fuori, che erano come quelli delle capre; la + quale, sovra un gonfiato otre sedendo, lattava un picciolo satirello, e + con tanta tenerezza il mirava, che parea che di amore e di carità tutta + si struggesse: e 'l fanciullo nell' una mammella poppava, nell' altra + tenea distesa la tenera mano, e con l' occhio la si guardava, quasi + temendo che tolta non gli fosse. Poco discosto da costoro si vedean due + fanciulli pur nudi, i quali avendosi posti due volti orribili di + maschere cacciavano per le bocche di quelli le picciole mani, per porre + spavento a duo altri, che davanti loro stavano; de' quali l' uno + fuggendo si volgea in dietro, e per paura gridava; l' altro caduto già + in terra piangeva, e non possendosi altrimenti aitare, stendeva la mano + per graffiarlo. (_Prosa_ XI.) + +I shall make no attempt at translation. Some versions, really wonderful +in the success with which they reproduce the style of the original, will +be found in Symonds' _Italian Literature_[60]. It is probably unnecessary +to put in a warning that the _Arcadia_ is a work of which extracts are apt +to give a somewhat too favourable impression. In its long complaints, +speeches, and descriptions it is at whiles intolerably prolix and dull, +but it caught the taste of the age and went through a large number of +editions, many with learned annotations, between the appearance of the +first authorized edition and the end of the sixteenth century[61], There +were several imitations later, such as the _Accademia tusculana_ of +Benedetto Menzini; Firenzuola imitated the third _Prosa_ in his +_Sacrifizio pastorale_; while collections of tales and _facetiae_ such as +the _Arcadia in Brenta_ of Giovanni Sagredo equally sought the prestige of +the name. A French translation published in 1544 went through three +editions, and another appeared in 1737, while it was translated into +Spanish in 1547, and again in 1578. It may have been due to the existence +of Sidney's more ambitious work of the same name that no translation ever +appeared in English. + + * * * * * + +Our survey of Italian pastoralism, in spite of the fact that its most +important manifestation has been reserved for separate treatment later, +has of necessity been lengthy. It was at Italian breasts that the infant +ideal, reborn into a tumultuous world, was nursed. The other countries of +continental Europe borrowed that ideal from Italy, though each in turn +contributed characteristics of its own. It was to Italy that England too +was directly indebted, while at the same time it absorbed elements +peculiar to France and Spain. It will therefore be necessary briefly to +review the forms that flourished in those countries respectively, though +they need detain us but a brief space in comparison with the Italian +fountain-head. + +Before proceeding, however, it may be worth while to pause for a moment in +order to take a general survey of the nature of the ideal, we might almost +say the religion, of pastoralism, which reached its maturity in the work +of Sannazzaro. Its location in the uplands of Arcadia may be traced to +Vergil, who had the worship of Pan in mind, but the selection of the +barren mountain district of central Peloponnesus as the seat of pastoral +luxuriance and primitive culture is not without significance in respect of +the severance of the pastoral ideal from actuality.[62] In it the +world-weary age of the later renaissance sought escape from the +materialism that bound it. Italy had turned its back upon mysticism in +religion, and upon chivalry in love; its literature was the negation of +what the northern peoples understand by romance. Yet it needed some relief +from the very saneness of its rationalism, and it found the antidote to +its vicious court life in the crystal springs of Castaly. What the pietism +of Perugino's saints is to the feuds of the Baglioni, such is the Arcadian +dream to the intellectual cynicism of Italian politics. + +When children weave fancies of wonderland they use the resources of the +imagination with economy; uninterrupted sunshine soon cloys. So too with +these other children of the renaissance. Their wonderland is a place +whither they may escape from the pressure of the world that is too much +with them; they seek in it at least the virtue that its evils shall be the +opposite of those from which they fly. They could not, it is true, believe +in an Arcadia in which all the cares of this world should end--the golden +age is always a time to be sung and remembered, or else to be dreamed of, +in the years to come, it is never the present--but if they cannot escape +from the changes and chances of this mortal life, if death and unfaith +are still realities in their dreamland as on earth, they will at least +utter their grief melodiously, and water fair pastures with their tears. +Like the garden of the Rose which satisfied the middle age before it, the +Arcadian ideal of the renaissance degenerated, as every ideal must. The +decay of pastoral, however, was in this unique, that it tended less to +exaggerate than to negative the spirit that gave it birth. Theocritus +turned from polite society and sought solace in his no doubt idealized +recollections of actual shepherd life. On the other hand, to the +allegorical pastoralists from Vergil to Spagnuoli, the shepherd-realm +either reflects, or is made directly to contrast with, the interests and +vices of the actual world; in their work the note of longing for escape to +an ideal life is heard but faintly or not at all. In the songs of the late +fifteenth century and in Sannazzaro there is a genuine pastoral revival; +the desire of freedom from reality is strong upon men in that age of +strenuous living. It has been happily said that Mantuan's shepherds meet +to discuss society, Sannazzaro's to forget it. And yet, after all, these +men are too strongly bound by the affections of this world to be able +wholly to sacrifice themselves to the joys of the ideal. Fiammetta must +have her place in Boccaccio's strange apotheosis of love; the foreboding +of Carmosina's death has power to draw her lover from his newly discovered +kingdom along the untrodden paths of the waters of the earth. And so when +Arcadia ceased to be a necessity of sentiment and became one of fashion, +where poets were no longer content to wander with their mistresses in the +land of fancy, alone, 'at rest from their labour with the world gone by,' +there appeared a tendency to return to the allegorical style, and to make +Arcadia what Sicily had already become--the mirror of the polite society +of the Italian courts. Thus it is that in the crowning jewels of Italian +pastoralism, in the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_, we trace a yearning +towards a simpler, freer, and more genuine life, side by side with such +incompatible and antagonistic elements as the reproduction in pastoral +guise of the personages and surroundings of the circle of Ferrara. Not +content with the pure ideal, the poets endeavoured, like Faust at the +sight of Helena, to find in it a place for the earthly affections that +bound them, and at the touch of reality the vision dissolved in mist. + + + +VII + + +When we turn to the literature of the western peninsula during the early +years of the sixteenth century, we find it characterized by a temporary +but very complete subjection to Italian models. This phenomenon, which is +particularly marked in pastoral, is readily explained by the fact that the +similarity of the dialects made the transference of poetic forms from +Italian to Spanish an easy matter. Thus when among the nations of Europe +Italy awoke to her great task of recovering an old and discovering a new +world of arts and letters, it was upon Spanish verse that she was able to +exercise the most immediate and overpowering influence. Under these +circumstances it was impossible but that she should drag the literature of +that country, for a while at least, in her train, away from its own proper +genius and natural course of development. Other countries were saved from +servitude by the very failure of their attempts to imitate the new Italian +style; and Spain herself, it must be remembered, was not long in +recovering her individuality and in endowing Europe with one of the +richest national literatures of the world. + +It is important, however, to distinguish from the pastoral work produced +under this dominating Italian influence certain other work in the kind, +which, while to some extent dependent for its form upon foreign models, +bears at the same time strong marks of native inspiration. In this earlier +and more popular tradition the tendencies of the national literature, the +pastoral possibilites of which appear at times in the ballads, mingle more +or less with elements of convention and allegory drawn from Vergil or his +humanistic followers. Little influence of this popular tradition can as a +rule be traced in the later pastoral work, but it acquires a certain +incidental interest in connexion with another branch of literature. It is, +namely, the remarkable part it played in the evolution of the national +drama that makes it worth while mentioning a few of its more important +examples in this place.[63] + +An isolated composition, in which lay not so much the germ of the future +drama as the index of its possibility, is the _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, +the composition of an unknown author. It is an eclogue in which two +shepherds, representing respectively the upper and lower orders of Spanish +society, discourse together on the causes of national discontent and +political corruption prevalent about 1472, at the latter end of the weak +reign of Enrique IV. In this poem we find the king's infatuation for his +Portuguese mistress treated much as Petrarch had treated the relations of +Clement VI with the allegorical Epi, except for the striking difference +that the Latin of the Italian poet is replaced by straightforward and +vigorous vernacular. Of far greater importance in the history of +literature are certain poems--_Éclogas_ they are for the most part +styled--of Juan del Encina, which belong roughly to the closing years of +the fifteenth and opening years of the sixteenth century. Numbering about +a dozen, and composed with one exception in the short measures of popular +poetry, these dramatic eclogues, or amoebean plays, supply the connecting +link between the early popular and religious shows and the regular drama. +About half are religious in character; of the rest, three treat some +romantic episode, one is a study of unrequited passion ending in suicide, +and one is a market-day farce, the personae being in each case rude +herdsmen. Contemporary with, though a disciple of, Encina, is the +Portuguese Gil Vicente, who wrote in both dialects, and whose _Auto +pastoril castelhano_ may be cited as carrying on the tradition between his +master and Lope de Vega. + +With Lope's dramatic production as a whole we are not, of course, +concerned. He lies indeed somewhat off our track; the pastoral influence +in his work is capricious. It will be sufficient to note that the +influence, where it exists, is external; it is nowhere the outcome of +Christian allegory, nor does it arise out of the nature of the subject as +such titles as the _Pastores de Belén_ might suggest. It is found equally +in the religious or quasi-religious plays--such as the _Vuelta de Egypto_ +with its shepherds and gypsies, and the _Pastor lobo_, an allegorical +satire on the church Lope afterwards entered--and in such purely secular, +amorous, and on the whole less dramatic pieces as the _Arcadia_--not to be +confused with his romance of the same name--and the _Selva sin amor_, a +regular Italian pastoral in miniature, both of which were acted, besides +many others intended primarly for reading, though they may possibly have +been recited after the manner of Castiglione's _Tirsi_. + +While on the subject of the drama I may mention translations of the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_. Tasso's piece was rendered into Castilian by +Juan de Jauregui, and first printed at Rome in 1607, a revised edition +appearing among the author's poems in 1618. The _Pastor fido_ was +translated by Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, the best version being that +printed at Valentia in 1609, from which Ticknor quotes a passage as +typical as it is successful. It was to these two versions of the +masterpieces of Italian pastoral that Cervantes accorded the highest meed +of praise, declaring that 'they haply leave it doubtful which is the +translation or original.'[64] There likewise exists a poor adaptation of +Guarini's play, said to be the work of Solis, Coello, and Calderon[65]. +The pastoral appears, however, never to have gained a very firm footing +upon the mature Spanish stage, no doubt for the same reason that led to a +similar result in England, namely, that the vigorous national drama about +it overpowered and choked its delicate and exotic growth[66]. + +Apart from the dramatic or semi-dramatic work we have been reviewing, the +pastoral verse which possesses the most natural and national character, +though it may not be the earliest in date, is to be found in the poems of +Francisco de Sâ de Miranda[67]. He appears to have begun writing +independently of the Italian school, and, even after he came under the +influence of Garcilaso, to have preserved much of his natural simplicity +and genuineness of feeling. He probably had some direct knowledge of the +Italians, for he writes: + + Liamos.... + .... os pastores italianos + Do bom velho Sanazarro. + +He may also have been influenced by Encina, most of whose work had already +appeared. + +The first and foremost of those who deliberately based their style on the +Italian was Garcilaso de la Vega, whose pastoral work dates from about +1526. To him, in conjunction with Boscán and Mendoza, the vogue was due. +At his best, when he really assimilates the foreign elements borrowed from +his models and makes their style his own, he writes with the true genius +of his nation. The first of his three eclogues, which was probably +composed at Naples and is regarded as his best work, introduces the +shepherds Salico and Nemoroso, of whom the first stands for the author, +while in the other it is not hard to recognize his friend Boscán. This +poem, a portion of which is translated by Ticknor, should of itself +suffice to place Garcilaso in the front rank of pastoral writers. Yet he +does not appear to occupy any isolated eminence among his fellows, and +Ticknor may be right in thinking that, throughout, the regular pastoral +showed fewer of its defects in Spain than elsewhere. It is also true that +it appears to have been endowed with less vital power of development. + +Garcilaso's followers were numerous. Among them mention may be made of +Francisco de Figueroa, the Tirsi of Cervantes' _Galatea_; Pedro de +Encinas, who attempted religious eclogues; Lope de Vega; Alonso de Ulloa, +the Venetian printer, who is credited with having foisted the Rodrigo +episode into Montemayor's _Diana_; Gaspar Gil Polo, one of the +continuators of that work; and Bernardo de Balbuenas, one of its many +imitators, who incorporated in his _Siglo de Oro_ a number of eclogues +which in their simple and rustic nature appear to be studied from +Theocritus rather than Vergil. + +In spite of the fashion of writing in Castilian which prevailed among +Portuguese poets, we are not without specimens of pastoral verse composed +in the less important dialect. Sâ de Miranda has been mentioned above. +Ribeiro too, better known for his romance, left a series of five +autobiographical eclogues[68] dating from about 1516-24, and consequently +earlier than Garcilaso's. They are composed, like some of Sâ de Miranda's, +in the short measures more natural to the language than the _terza rima_ +and intricate stanzas of the Italianizing poets. Later on Camoens wrote +fifteen eclogues, four of which are piscatorial, and in one, a dialogue +between a shepherd and a fisherman, refers in the following terms to +Sannazzaro: + + O pescador Sincero, que amansado + Tém o pégo de Prochyta co' o canto + Por as sonoras ondas compassado. + D'este seguindo o som, que póde tanto, + E misturando o antigo Mantuano, + Façamos novo estylo, novo espanto. + +Whereas in the case of the verse pastoral the Italian fashion passed from +Spain into Portugal, exactly the reverse process took place with regard to +the prose romance more or less directly founded upon Sannazzaro. The first +to imitate the _Arcadia_ was the Portuguese Bernardim Ribeiro, who during +a two-years' residence in Italy composed the 'beautiful fragment,' as +Ticknor styles it, entitled from the first words of the text _Menina e +moça_. This unfinished romance first appeared, in the form of an octavo +charmingly printed in gothic type, at Ferrara in 1554, though it must +have been written at least thirty years earlier. It differs considerably +from its model, the verse being purely incidental, and the intricacy of +the story anticipating later examples, as does likewise the admixture of +chivalric adventure. It is, indeed, to a large extent what might have +arisen spontaneously through the elaboration of the pastoral element +occasionally to be met with in the old chivalric romances themselves. On +the other hand it resembles the Italian pastoral in the introduction of +real characters, which, though their identity was concealed under anagrams +and all manner of obscurity, appear to have been traceable by the keen eye +of authority, for the book was placed on the Index. Such knowledge of +Sannazzaro's writings as Ribeiro possessed was of course direct, but +before his fragment saw the light there appeared, in 1547, a Spanish +translation of the _Arcadia_. It must be remembered that Sannazzaro was +himself of Spanish extraction, and that he may have had relations with the +land of his fathers of a nature to facilitate the diffusion of his works. + +The next and by far the most important contribution made by the peninsula +to pastoral literature was the work of an hispaniolized Portuguese, who +composed in Castilian dialect the famous _Diana_. 'Los siete libres de la +Diana de Jorge de Montemayor'--the Spanish form of Montemôr's name and +that by which he became familiar to subsequent ages--appeared at Valencia, +without date, but about 1560.[69] As in the case of its Italian and +Portuguese predecessors, some at least of the characters of the romance +represent real persons. Sireno the hero, who stands for the author, is in +love with the nymph Diana, of whose identity Lope de Vega claimed to be +cognizant, though he withheld her name. The scene is laid in Spain, and +actual and ideal geography are intermixed in a bewildering fashion. Sireno +is obliged, for reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and +on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival +Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, +and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance +of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is +interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, +pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second +part, which however never came to be written, the author, as it appears, +being either murdered or killed in duel at Turin in 1561. + +Thanks probably to the combination in its pages of the popular chivalric +tradition with the fashionable Italian pastoral, and also to certain +graces of style which it possesses, the _Diana_ held the field until the +picaresque romance developed into a recognized _genre_, and exercised a +very considerable influence on pastoral writers even beyond the frontiers +of Spain. Googe imitated passages from it in his eclogues; Sidney +translated some of its songs, and took it as the model of his own romance; +Shakespeare borrowed from it the plot of the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. In +the land of its birth its popularity was shown by the number of +continuations and imitations to which it gave rise. Irresponsible +publishers swelled the bulk of their editions with matter purloined from +less popular authors. The year 1564 saw the appearance of two second +parts. One in eight books, by the physician Alonzo Pérez, only got so far +as disposing of Delio, and appears to exaggerate all the faults of the +original in compensation for the lack of its merits. The other, from the +pen of Gaspar Gil Polo, is in five books, and narrates, in a style +scarcely inferior to its model, the faithlessness and death of Delio, and +Sireno's marriage with Diana. Both alike promise continuations which never +appeared. A third part was, however, published so late as 1627, as the +work of Jerónimo de Texeda, but it is nothing more than a _rifacimento_ +of Gil Polo's continuation, altered apparently with a view to its forming +a sequel to Pérez' work. Furthermore, in 1599 there appeared a religions +parody by Fra Bartolomé Ponce, and there are said to be no less than six +French, two English, and two German translations, not to mention a Latin +one of Gil Polo's portion at least. + +Besides continuations, there are extant nearly a score of imitations of +varying interest and merit. In 1584 appeared the _Galatea_ of Cervantes, +imitated from Ribeiro and Montemayor; which in its turn is supposed to +have suggested the _Arcadia_, written a few years later at the instigation +of the Duke of Alva by Lope de Vega, and published in 1598. Each is more +or less autobiographic or else historical in outline: 'many of its +shepherds and shepherdesses are such in dress alone,' Cervantes confesses +of his romance, while Lope announces that 'the _Arcadia_ is a true +history.' Lastly may be mentioned the Portuguese _Primavera_ of Francisco +Rodrígues de Lobo, which appeared in three long parts between 1601 and +1614, and is pronounced by Ticknor to be 'among the best full-length +pastoral romances extant.' + +All these works resemble one another in their general features. The +characteristics of the _genre_ as found in Spain, in spite of a real +feeling for rural life traceable in the national character, are the +elements it borrows from the older chivalric tradition, combined with an +adherence to the circumstances of actual existence even closer than was +the case in Italy. Sannazzaro was content to transfer certain personages +from real life into his imaginary Arcadia, while in the Spanish romances +the whole _mise en scène_ consists of the actual surroundings of the +author disguised but little under the veil of pastoralism. Thus the ideal +element, the desire to escape from the world, is no less absent from these +works than from the Latin eclogues of the renaissance, and the chivalric +pastoral in Spain advances far along the road towards the fashionable +pastoral of France. Not only are knightly adventures freely introduced, +and the devices of disguise and recognition employed, but the hint of +magic in Sannazzaro is developed and made to play a prominent part in the +tales, while the nymphs and shepherds display throughout an alarming +knowledge of literature, metaphysics, and theology. The absurdities of the +style were patent, and did not escape uncomplimentary notice from the +writers of the day, for both Cervantes and Lope de Vega, in spite of their +own excursions into this kind, pilloried the fashion in their more serious +and enduring works. + + + +VIII + + +In France the interest of pastoralism, from our present point of view, is +summed up in the work of one man--Clément Marot. It is he who forms the +central figure on the stage of French poetry between the final collapse of +the medieval tradition and the ceasing of Villon's song earlier, and later +the full burst of the renaissance in the work of the Pléiade. While +belonging ostensibly to the literary circle of Margaret of Navarre, Marot +appears to have combined in his own person a strange number of conflicting +tendencies. His patroness followed the pastoral tradition in her imitation +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_ and her lament on the death of her brother +François I, and rehandled an already favourite theme in her _comédie_ of +human and divine love. Marot, on the other hand, while equally interested +in pastoral, betrayed in his verse little direct influence of the +Italians, and invariably impressed his own individuality upon his subject. +In his early work he continued the tradition of the _Romance of the Rose_; +later he voiced, somewhat crudely may be, the ideals of the renaissance. +By nature an easy-going _bon vivant_, his only real affection appears to +have been for the faithless mistress of his early years, whom a not very +probable tradition identifies with Diane de Poitiers. He had no higher +ambition than to retain unmolested a comfortable post at the court of +Francis. Yet he was destined by a strange irony of fate to pass his days +as a wanderer on the face of the earth, the homeless pilgrim of a cause he +no wise had at heart. He was accused by the Sorbonne, and ultimately +driven into the profession, of the heresy of Calvinism. Expelled from the +bosom of the church, he sought an uncongenial refuge among the apostles of +the new faith, only to be thrust forth from the city, for no more heinous +offence apparently than that playing back-gammon with the Prisoner of +Chillon. He died at Turin in 1544. + +But, however fascinating Marot may be as an historical figure, he was in +no sense a great poet. His chief merit in literature, apart from his often +delicate epigrams, his _élégant badinage_ and his graceful if at times +facile verse, lies in the power he possesses, in common with Garcilaso and +Spenser, of treating the allegorical pastoral without entirely losing the +charm of naïve simplicity and genuine feeling. In his _Éclogue au Roi_ he +addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the _Pastoureau +chrestien_ he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there +is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse +from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy. His chief claim to +notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death +of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than +any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby +acquired the importance he possesses for our present inquiry. + +Marot, however, whose inspiration, in so far as it was not born of his own +genius, appears to be chiefly derived from Vergil, whose first eclogue he +translated in his youth, was far from being the only poet who wrote +bucolic verse or bore other witness to pastoral influence. France was not +behind other nations in embracing the Italian models. Margaret, as I have +said, imitated Sannazzaro in her _Histoire des satyres et nymphes de +Diane_. The _Arcadia_ was translated in 1544. Du Bellay was familiar with +the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even +a respectful mention of it in his famous _Défense_. Elsewhere he asks: + + Qui fera taire la musette + Du pasteur néapolitain? + +The first part of Belleau's _Bergerie_ appeared in 1565, the complete +work, including a piscatory poem, in 1572. On the stage Nicolas Filleul +anticipated the regular Italian drama in a dramatized eclogue entitled +_Les Ombres_ in 1566. Later Nicolas de Montreux, better known under the +name of Ollenix du Mont-Sacré, a writer of a religious cast, and author +of a romantic comedy on the story of Potiphar's wife, composed three +pastoral plays, _Athlette_, _Diane_, and _Arimène_, which appeared in +1585, 1592, and 1597 respectively. They are conventional pastorals on the +Italian model, futile in plot and commonplace in style. He was also the +author of the _Bergerie de Juliette_, a romance published in 1592, which +Robert Tofte is credited with having translated in his _Honour's +Academy_,' or the Famous Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta,' which +appeared at London in 1610. Tofte's work, however, while purporting to be +'done into English,' makes no mention of the original author, and though +indebted for its form and title to Nicholas' romance does not appear to +bear much further resemblance to it. A far more important work in itself, +but one which does not much concern us here, is Honoré d'Urfé's _Astrée_, +an autobiographic compilation in which the fashionable pastoral romance +found its most consummate example. The work was translated into English as +early as 1620, but the history of its influence in this country belongs +almost exclusively to the French vogue, which began about the middle of +the century, and formed such an important element in the literature of the +restoration. + +The comparatively small influence exerted by the French pastoral of the +renaissance on that of England must excuse the scanty summary given in the +preceding paragraphs. It remains to be said that there had existed at an +earlier period in France another and very different tradition, which +supplied one of the regular forms of composition in vogue among +_trouvères_ and _troubadours_ alike. The _pastourelle_ has sometimes been +described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine +wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is +easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is +scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. +Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention +on the part of the individual poet, the general type is rigidly fixed. The +narrator, who is a minstrel and usually a knight, while riding along meets +a shepherd-girl, to whom he pays his court with varying success. This is +the simple framework on which the majority are composed. A few, on the +other hand, depart from the type and depict purely rustic scenes. +Others--and the fact is at least significant--serve to convey allusions, +political, personal or didactic: a variety found as early as the twelfth +century in Provençal, and about the fourteenth in northern French. +Wandering scholars adopted the form from the knightly singers and produced +a plentiful crop of Latin _pastoralia_, usually of a somewhat burlesque +nature. An idea of the general style of these may be gathered from such +lines as the following, which contain the reply of a country girl +hesitating before the advances of a merry student: + + Si senserit meus pater + uel Martinus maior frater, + erit mihi dies ater; + uel si sciret mea mater, + cum sit angue peior quater: + uirgis sum tributa.[70] + +Appropriated, lastly, and refashioned by the hand of an original genius, +the _pastourelle_ gave to German poetry the crowning jewel of its +_Minnesang_ in Walther's 'Under der linden,' with its irrepressibly +roguish refrain: + + Kuster mich? wol tûsentstunt: + tandaradei, + seht wie rôt mir ist der munt! + +Connected with the _pastourelles_ of the _langue d'oïl_ is an isolated +dramatic effort, of a primitive and naïve sort, but of singular grace and +charm. _Li jus Robins et Marion_, the work of Adan le Bochu or de le Hale, +is in fact a dramatized _pastourelle_ of some eight hundred lines +beginning with the rejection by a shepherdess of the advances of a knight +and ending with the rustic sports of the shepherds on the green. +Unsophisticated nature and playful cunning unite in no ordinary degree to +lend delicacy and savour to the work, while the literary quality of Adan's +verse is evident in such incidental songs as Marion's often quoted: + + Robins m'aime, Robins m'a, + Robins m'a demandee, si m'ara. + +In spite, however, of the genuine _naïveté_ and natural realism of the +piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of +gentle raillery that sparkles in the graceful octaves of Lorenzo's +_Nencia_. + +A real and lively love of the country, rather than any idealization of the +actual shepherd class, is reflected in a poem written about 1460 by René +of Anjou, ex-king of Naples, describing in pastoral guise the rustic +retreat which he enjoyed in company with his wife, Jeanne de Laval, on the +banks of the Durance. The conventional pastoralism that veils the identity +of the shepherd and shepherdess is scarcely more than a pretence, for at +the end of the manuscript we find blazoned the arms of the royal pair, +with the inscription: + + Icy sont les armes, dessoubz ceste couronne, + Du bergier dessus dit et de la bergeronne. + +We have now completed the first section of our introductory survey of +pastoral literature. We have passed in review, in a necessarily rapid and +superficial, but, it is to be hoped, not altogether inadequate, manner, +the varions manifestations of the kind in the non-dramatic literature of +continental Europe. The Italian pastoral drama has been reserved for +separate and more detailed consideration in close connexion with that of +this country. It must, however, be borne in mind that in such a survey as +the present many of the byways and more or less obscure and devious +channels by which pastoral permeated the wide fields of literature have of +necessity been left unexplored. Nothing, for instance, has been said about +the pastoral interludes which occupy a not inconspicuous place in the +martial cantos both of the _Orlando_ and the _Gerusalemme_. Before passing +on, however, I should like to say a few words concerning one particular +department of renaissance literature, and that chiefly by way of +illustrating the limitations of the tradition of literary pastoral. I +refer to the _novelle_ or _nouvelles_, in which, although pastoral +subjects are occasionally introduced, the treatment is entirely +independent of conventional tradition. Without making any pretence at +covering the whole field of the _novellieri_, I may instance a tale of +Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, +of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are +represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own +business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their +literary fellows. More exclusively rustic in setting is an anecdote +concerning the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, told with broad +humour in the _Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ and elaborated with +characteristic gusto and extraordinarily graphic art by Pietro Fortini. +The crude obscenity of the subject alone serves to show how free the +writer was from any influence of the pastoral of polite literature.[71] +Numerous other stories concerning shepherds or _villani_ might be cited, +from Boccaccio to Bandello, the point of which, whether openly licentious +or ostensibly moral, is brought home with a brutal and physical directness +utterly foreign to the spirit of the regular pastoral. This is, on the +whole, what one would expect. The coarse realism that gave life and +vitality to the novel, that characteristic product of middle-class +cynicism and humour, finds no place in the pastoral of literary tradition. +The conventional grace of the pastoral could offer no material to the +novel. It is true that when we speak of the _bourgeois_ spirit of the +_novella_ on the one hand, and the 'ideal' pastoral on the other, it is +well to remember that the author of the _Decameron_ also wrote the first +modern pastoral romance; that the century and country which saw the +publication of the _Arcadia_, the _Aminta_, and the _Pastor fido_, also +welcomed the work of Fortini, Giraldi, and Bandello; and that to Margaret +of Navarre, the imitator of Sannazzaro and patroness of Marot, we are +likewise indebted for the _Heptameron_. Nevertheless the tendencies, +though sometimes united in the person of a single author, yet keep +distinct. Both alike had become a fashion, both alike followed a more or +less conventional type. The novel remained coarse and realistic; the +pastoral, whatever may be said of its morality, remained refined and at a +conscious remove from real life. To examine thoroughly the cause of this +disseverance from actuality which haunted the pastoral throughout its many +transformations would lead us beyond all possible bounds of this inquiry. +One important point may, however, here be noted. The pastoral, whatever +its form, always needed and assumed some external circumstance to give +point to its actual content. The interest seldom arises directly from the +narrative itself. In Theocritus and Sannazzaro this objective point is +supplied by the delight of escape from the over-civilization of the city; +in Petrarch and Mantuan, by their allegorical intention; in Sacchetti and +Lorenzo, by the contrast of town and country, with all its delicate +humour; in Boccaccio and Poliziano, by the opening it gave for golden +dreams of exquisite beauty or sensuous delight; in Tasso, by the desire of +that freedom in love and life which sentimental philosophers have always +associated with a return to nature. In all these cases the content _per +se_ may be said to be matter of indifference; it only receives meaning in +relation to some ulterior intention of the author. Realism under these +circumstances was impossible. Nor could satire call it forth, for no one +would be at pains to satirize actual rusticity. The only loophole left by +which a realistic treatment could find its way into pastoral was when, as +in Folengo's macaronics, it was not the actual rustic life but the +conventional representation of it that was the object of satire. But this +case was naturally a rare one. + + + + +Chapter II. + +Pastoral Poetry in England + + + +I + + +We have seen how there arose in the Italian songs of the fourteenth +century a spontaneous form of pastoral independent of the regular +tradition, and somewhat similar examples are furnished by the dramatic +eclogues of Spain. In the former case, however, pastoral was never more +than a passing note; while in the latter, the impulse, though possessing +some vitality, was early overwhelmed by the rising tide of Italian +influence. In England it was otherwise. On the one hand the spontaneous +and popular impulse towards a form of pastoralism appears to have been +stronger and more consistent than elsewhere; on the other the foreign and +literary influence never acquired the same supreme importance. As a resuit +the earlier native fashion affected in a noticeable degree later pastoral +work, colouring and blending with instead of being overpowered by the +regular tradition. Thus it is possible to trace two distinct though +mutually reacting tendencies far down the stream of English literature, +and to this double origin must be referred many of the peculiar phenomena +of English pastoral work. There was furthermore a constant struggle for +supremacy between the two traditions, in which now one now the other +appeared likely to go under. The greatest poets of their day, Spenser and +Milton, threw the weight of their authority on to the side of pastoral +orthodoxy. Spenser, however, was himself too much influenced by the +popular impulse for his example to be decisive in favour of the regular +tradition, while, by the time Milton wrote, a hybrid form had established +itself on a more or less secure basis and a _modus vivendi_ had already +been achieved. Meanwhile the bulk of pastofal poets affected a less +weighty and more spontaneous song, whether they wrote in the light +fanciful mood of Drayton or the more passionate and romantic spirit of +Browne. + +To this double origin may be ascribed a certain noticeable vitality that +characterizes English pastoral composition. Since this quality has been +habitually overlooked by literary historians, I may be excused for +dwelling on it somewhat in this place. The stigma which, not altogether +undeservedly, attaches to pastoral as a whole has tempted critics to +confine their attention to the more notable examples of the kind, and to +treat these as more or less sporadic manifestations. Thus they have +failed, on the whole, to appreciate the relation in which these works +stand to the general pastoral tradition, which was mainly carried on in +works of little individual interest. It is no blame to them if they +considered that these undistinguished productions were of small importance +in the general history of literature: any one who goes through them with +care will probably arrive at a not very dissimilar conclusion. +Nevertheless the fact remains that the neglect of them has obscured both +the relative positions of the greater and more enduring works, and also +the general nature of the pastoral tradition in this country. That +tradition I believe to have been of a far more noteworthy character than +has hitherto been realized. I am not, of course, prepared to maintain that +pastoral composition in England ever attained, as a whole, to the rank of +great literature, or that it formed such a remarkable body of work as we +find, for example, in the Arcadian drama of Italy. But when we come to +regard the pastoral production of this country in the light of a more or +less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the +originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as +a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it +evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other +countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of +the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in +this chapter. When I come to deal with the main subject of this inquiry it +will be necessary to determine how far similar considerations apply in the +case of the pastoral drama. + +In the first place we have to consider what was produced on the one hand +by the purely native impulse, and on the other under the sole inspiration +of foreign tradition, at a period when these two influences had not yet +begun to interact. As an argument in favour of the spontaneous and genuine +nature of the earlier fashion may be noticed its appearance in that +miscellaneous body of anonymous literature which, whatever may be its +origin--and it is impossible to enter on so controversial a subject in +this place--is at least 'popular' in the sense of having been long handed +down from generation to generation in the mouths of the people. The +acceptance of pastoral ballads into this great mass of traditional +literature is at least as good evidence of their popular character as that +of authorship could be. In such a body of literature it would indeed be +surprising had the _pastourelle_ motive not found entrance; but it is +noteworthy that whereas the French and Latin poems are habitually written +from the point of view of the lover, the English ballads adopt that of the +peasant maiden to whom the high-born suitor pays his court. At once the +simplest and most poetical of the ballads on this model is that printed by +Scott as _The Broom of Cowdenknows_, a title to which in all probability +it has little claim. It is a delightful example of the minor ballad +literature, and I am by no means inclined to regard it as a mere +amplification of the much shorter and rather abrupt _Bonny May_ of Herd's +collection, though the latter, so far as it goes, probably offers a less +sophisticated text. In either case a gentleman riding along meets a girl +milking, obtains her love, and ultimately returns and marries her. A +similar incident, in which, however, the seducer marries the girl under +compulsion and then discovers her to be of noble parentage, is told in a +ballad, of which a number of versions have been collected in Scotland +under the title of _Earl Richard_ or _Earl Lithgow_, and of which an +English version was current in the seventeenth century and was quoted more +than once by Beaumont and Fletcher.[72] This was printed by Percy in the +_Reliques_, and two broadsides of it dating from the restoration are +preserved in the Roxburghe collection. It is inferior to the northern +versions, but both are probably late, and contain stanzas belonging to or +copied from other ballads, notably the _Bonny Hynd_ of the Herd manuscript +and _Burd Helen_ (the Scotch version of _Child Waters_). The title of the +broadsides is interesting as betraying the influence of the regular +pastoral tradition: 'The beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia. A new +pastarell Song of a courteous young Knight, and a supposed Shepheards +Daughter.'[73] Again, apparently from the Aberdeen district, comes a +ballad on the marriage of a shepherd's daughter to the Laird of Drum. On +the other hand we find three somewhat similar ballads, _Lizie Lindsay_ or +_Donald of the Isles, Lizie Baillie_, and _Glasgow Peggie_, recording the +elopement of a town girl with a highland gentleman in the disguise of a +shepherd. These are obviously late, though a certain resemblance in style +with _Johnie Faa_ makes it possible that they are as old as the middle of +the seventeenth century. None of the pastoral ballads, indeed, can show +any credentials which would suggest an earlier date than the second half +of the sixteenth century, nor can any of them lay claim to first-rate +poetic merit.[74] + +Another example of native pastoral, earlier and far more genuine in +character, is to be found in the religious drama. The romantic +possibilities of peasant life were to some extent reflected in the +ballads; it is the burlesque aspect that is preserved to us in the +'shepherd' plays of the mystery cycles. We possess the plays on the +adoration of the shepherds belonging to the four extant series, a +duplicate in the Towneley plays, and one odd specimen, making six in all. +The rustic element varies in each case, but it assumed the form of +burlesque comedy in all except the purely didactic 'Coventry' cycle of the +Cotton manuscript. Here, indeed, the treatment of the situation is +decorously dull, but in the others we can trace a gradual advance in +humorous treatment leading up to the genuine comedy of the alternative +Towneley plays. Thus, like Noah and his wife, the shepherds of the +adoration early became recognized comic characters, and there can be +little doubt of the influence exercised by these scenes upon the later +interludes. With the general evolution of the drama we are of course in no +wise here concerned: what it imports us to notice is that just as it was +the picture of the young gallant riding along on the mirk evening by the +fail dyke of the 'bought i' the lirk o' the hill' that caught the +imagination of the north-country milkmaids, so it was the rough +representation of rustic manners, with which they must have been familiar +in actual life, that appealed to the villagers flocking to York, +Leicester, Beverley, or Wakefield to witness the annual representation of +the guild cycle.[75] + +It will be worth while to give some account of the form taken by this +genuine pastoral comedy, as we find it in its highest development in the +two Towneley plays. These belong to the latest additions to the cycle, and +were probably first incorporated when the repertory underwent revision in +the early years of the fifteenth century.[76] Each play falls into three +portions: first, a rustic farce; secondly, the apparition and announcement +of the angels; and thirdly, the adoration. The two latter do not +particularly concern us. Though in the Chester cycle the shepherds show +themselves amusingly ignorant of the meaning of the _Gloria_, in the +Towneley plays they are apt to fall out of character, and certainly +display a singular knowledge of the prophets,[77] for + + Abacuc and ely prophesyde so, + Elezabeth and zachare and many other mo, + And david as veraly is witnes thereto, + Iohn Bapyste sewrly and daniel also. + +More remarkable still is one shepherd's familiarity with the classics: + + Virgill in his poetre sayde in his verse, + Even thus by gramere as I shall reherse; + 'Iam nova progenies celo demittitur alto, + Iam rediet virgo, redeunt saturnia regna.'[78] + +It is perhaps no matter for surprise that one of his less learned fellows +should break out with more force than delicacy: + + Weme! tord! what speke ye here in myn eeres? + Tell us no clerge I hold you of the freres. + +It is one of the little ironies of literature that in the earliest picture +of pastoral life in England the greatest pastoral writer of Rome should be +quoted, not as a pastoralist, but as a magician. + +Before the appearance of the angels, however, there is nothing to lead one +to expect this strange display of learning. A rougher, simpler set of +countrymen it would have been hard to find in the England of Chaucer and +Langland. In the shepherd-play known as _prima pastorum_ the comic element +consists mostly in quarrels and feasting among the shepherds, but in the +_secunda pastorum_ it constitutes a regular little three-scene farce, +which at its date was absolutely unique in literature. It is thence only a +step, and a very short one, to John Heywood's interludes--though it is a +step that took more than a century to accomplish. + +The first shepherd comes in complaining of the hard weather; his fingers +are chapped, the storms blow from every quarter in turn. 'Sely shepardes,' +moreover, are put upon by any rich upstart and have no redress. A second +shepherd appears with another grumble: 'We sely wedmen dre mekyll wo.' +Some men, indeed, have been known to desire two wives or even three, but +most would sooner have none at all. Whereupon enters Daw, a third +shepherd, complaining of portents 'With mervels mo and mo.' 'Was never syn +noe floode sich floodys seyn'; even 'I se shrewys pepe'--apparently a +portentous omen. At this point Mak comes on the scene. He is a notorious +bad character of the neighbourhood, who boasts himself 'a yoman, I tell +you, of the king,' and complains that his wife eats him out of house and +home. The shepherds suspect him of designs upon their flocks, so when they +lie down to rest they place him the middle man of three. As soon, however, +as the shepherds are asleep--'that may ye all here'--Mak borrows a sheep +and makes off. Arrived at home he would like to eat the sheep at once, but +he is afraid of being followed, so the animal is put in the cradle and +wrapped up to resemble a baby, and Mak goes back to take his place among +the shepherds. Before long these awake and rouse Mak, who, pretending he +has dreamt that Gill his wife has been brought to bed of another child, +goes off home. The shepherds miss one of their sheep and, following him, +find Gill on the bed while Mak sings a lullaby at the cradle. They proceed +to search the house, Gill the while praying she may eat the child in the +cradle if ever she deceived them. They find nothing, and are about to +depart when Daw insists on kissing the new baby. Gill vows she saw the +child changed by an elf as the clock struck midnight, but Mak pleads +guilty and gets off with a blanketing. + +So far, intentionally in the case of the drama, and if not intentionally +at least practically in that of the ballads, the appeal of the native +pastoral impulse--tradition it could hardly yet be called--was to an +audience little if at all removed from the actual condition of life +depicted. This ensured at least essential reality, for though in the one +case there may be idealization in a romantic and in the other in a +burlesque direction, either implies that familiarity with the actual world +which appears to underlie all vital art.[79] It was not long, however, +before the pastoral began to address itself to a more cultivated society, +and in so doing sacrificed that wholesome corrective of a genuinely +critical audience which is needed in the long run to keep any literary +form from degeneration. The impulse is still, however, found in all its +freshness and genuineness in such a poem as the following +fifteenth-century nativity carol, which, in its blending of piety and +humorous rusticity, is strongly reminiscent of the dramatic productions we +have just been reviewing: + + The shepherd upon a hill he sat, + He had on him his tabard and his hat, + His tar-box, his pipe, and his flagat, + His name was called Jolly, Jolly Wat! + For he was a good herds-boy, + Ut hoy! + For in his pipe he made so much joy. + Can I not sing but hoy. + + * * * * * + + The shepherd on a hill he stood, + Round about him his sheep they yode, + He put his hand under his hood, + He saw a star as red as blood. + Ut hoy! &c. + + * * * * * + + Now must I go there Christ was born, + Farewell! I come again to-morn, + Dog, keep well my sheep fro the corn! + And warn well Warroke when I blow my horn! + Ut hoy! &c.[80] + +So, again, in the delightful poem that has won for Robert Henryson the +title of the first English pastoralist the warm blood of natural feeling +yet runs full. _Robene and Makyne_ stands on the threshold of the +sixteenth century, a modest and pastoral counterpart of the _Nut-Brown +Maid_, as evidence that there were poets of purely native inspiration +capable of writing verses every whit as perfect in form as anything +produced by the Italianizers of the next generation, and commonly far more +genuine in feeling. Even in the work of Surrey and Wyatt themselves we +find poems which, were it not for the general tradition to which they +belong, one would have no difficulty in regarding as a natural development +and conventionalization of the native tendency. Such is the _Harpelus' +Complaint_ of 'Tottel's Miscellany.' This was originally printed among +the poems of uncertain authors, but when it re-appeared in _England's +Helicon_, in 1600, it was subscribed with Surrey's name. The ascription +does not carry with it much authority, but is in no way inherently +improbable.[81] The opening stanzas may be quoted as conveying a fair idea +of the whole, which sustains its character of sprightly elegance for over +a hundred lines, ending with the luckless Harpelus' epitaph: + + Phylida was a fayer mayde, + And fresh as any flowre: + Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed + To be his paramour. + + Harpalus and eke Corin + Were herdmen both yfere: + And Phillida could twist and spin + And therto sing full clere. + + But Phillida was all to coy + For Harpelus to winne. + For Corin was her onely joye, + Who forst her not a pynne.[82] + +The relation of the early Italianizers to pastoral is rather strange. +Pastoral names, imagery and conventions are freely scattered throughout +their works, yet with the exception of the above there is scarcely a poem +to which the term pastoral can be properly applied. They borrowed from +their models a kind of pastoral diction merely, not their partiality for +the form: 'shepherd' is with them merely another word for lover or poet, +while almost any act of such may be described as 'folding his sheep' or +the like. Allegory has reduced itself to a few stock phrases. In this +fashion Surrey complains to his fair Geraldine, and a whole company of +unknown lovers celebrate the cruelty and beauty of their ladies. It is +rarely that we catch a note of fresher reminiscence or more spontaneous +song as in Wyatt's: + + Ah, Robin! + Joly Robin! + Tell me how thy leman doth! + +Happily the seed of Phillida's coyness bore fruit, and the amorous +pastoral ballad or picture, a true _idyllion_, became a recognized type in +English verse. It certainly owed something to foreign pastoral models, +and, like the bulk of Elizabethan lyrics, a good deal to Italian poetry in +general; but in its freshness and variety, as in its tendency to narrative +form, it asserts its independence of any rigid tradition, and justifies us +in regarding it as an outcome of that native impulse which we have already +noticed. Such a poem is Nicholas Breton's ever charming _Phyllida and +Corydon_, printed above his signature in _England's Helicon_.[83] Although +we are thereby anticipating, it may be quoted as a representative specimen +of its kind: + + In the merry month of May, + In a morn by break of day, + Forth I walk'd by a wood-side, + When as May was in his pride: + There I spièd all alone, + Phyllida and Corydone. + Much ado there was, God wot! + He would love and she would not. + She said, never man was true; + He said, none was false to you. + He said, he had loved her long; + She said, Love should have no wrong. + Corydon would kiss her then; + She said, maids must kiss no men, + Till they did for good and all; + Then she made the shepherd call + All the heavens to witness truth + Never loved a truer youth. + Thus with many a pretty oath, + Yea and nay, and faith and troth, + Such as silly shepherds use + When they will not Love abuse, + Love which had been long deluded + Was with kisses sweet concluded; + And Phyllida, with garlands gay, + Was made the lady of the May. + +We must now turn to the beginnings of regular pastoral tradition in this +country, springing up under direct foreign influence and in conscious and +avowed imitation of specific foreign models. Passing over the Latin +eclogues of Buchanan and John Barclay, as belonging properly to the sphere +of humanistic rather than of English letters, we come to the pretty +thoroughly Latinized pastorals of Alexander Barclay and Barnabe Googe. +Their preoccupation with the humanistic poets is, in Barclay's case at any +rate, no less dominant a factor than in that of the regular translators, +from whom it is neither very easy nor clearly desirable to distinguish +them. Of the professed translators themselves it may be well to say a few +words in this place and allow them at once to resume their veil of +well-deserved oblivion. Their influence may be taken as non-existent, and +their only interest lies in the indication they afford of the trend of +literary fashion. The earliest was George Turberville, who in 1567 +translated the first nine of Mantuan's eclogues into English fourteeners. +The verse is fairly creditable, but the exaggeration of style, +endeavouring by sheer brutality of phrase to force the moral judgement it +lacks the art of more subtly stimulating, produces neither a very pleasing +nor a very edifying effect. This translation went through three editions +before the end of the century. The whole ten eclogues did not find a +translator till 1656, when Thomas Harvey published a version in +decasyllabic couplets. The next poet to appear in English dress was +Theocritus, of whose works 'Six Idillia, that is, Six Small, or Petty, +Poems, or Aeglogues,' were translated by an anonymous hand and dedicated +to E. D.--probably or possibly Sir Edward Dyer--in 1588. As before, the +verse, mostly fourteeners, is far from bad, but the selection is not very +much to our purpose. Three of the pieces, a singing match, a love +complaint, and one of the Galatea poems, are more or less pastoral; but +the rest--among which is the dainty conceit of Venus and the boar well +rendered in a three-footed measure--do not belong to bucolic verse at all. +Incidental mention may be also made of a 'dialogue betwixt two sea nymphs, +Doris and Galatea, concerning Polyphemus, briefly translated out of +Lucian,' by Giles Fletcher the elder, in his _Licia_ of 1593; and a +version of 'The First Eidillion of Moschus describing Love,' in Barnabe +Barnes' _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_, which probably appeared the same +year. Lastly we have the Bucolics and Georgics of Vergil, translated in +1589 by Abraham Fleming into rimeless fourteeners.[84] Besides these there +are a few odd translations from Vergil among the experiments of the +classical versifiers. Webbe, in his _Discourse of English Poetry_ (1586), +gives hexametrical translations of the first and second eclogues, while +another version of the second in the same metre appears first in Fraunce's +_Lawyer's Logic_ (1588), and again with corrections in his _Ivychurch_ +(1591).[85] Several further translations followed in the seventeenth +century. + +But one step, and that a short one, removed from these writers is +Alexander Barclay, translater of Brandt's _Stultifera Navis_, priest and +monk successively of Ottery St. Mary, Ely, and Canterbury. It seems to +have been about 1514, when at the second of these houses, that he composed +at least the earlier and larger portion of his eclogues. They appeared at +various dates, the first complete edition being appended, long after the +writer's death, to the _Ship of Fools_ of 1570.[86] They are there headed +'Certayne Egloges of Alexander Barclay Priest, Whereof the first three +conteyne the misereyes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in +generall, Gathered out of a booke named in Latin, Miseriae Curialium, +compiled by Eneas Silvius[87] Poet and Oratour.' This sufficiently +indicates what we are to expect of Barclay as of the Latin eclogists of +the previous century. The interlocutors in these three poems are Coridon, +a young shepherd anxious to seek his fortune at court, and the old Cornix, +for whom the great world has long lost its glamour. The fourth eclogue, +'treating of the behavour of Rich men against Poets,' is similarly 'taken +out of' Mantuan. In it Barclay is supposed to have directed a not very +individual but pretty lusty satire against Skelton.[88] He also +introduces, as recited by one of the characters, 'The description of the +Towre of vertue and honour, into which the noble Howarde contended to +enter by worthy actes of chivalry,' a stanzaic composition in honour of +Sir Edward Howard, who died in 1513. The fifth eclogue, 'of the +disputation of Citizens and men of the Countrey,' or the _Cytezen and +Uplondyshman_, as it was originally styled, again presents us with a +familiar theme treated in the conventional manner, and closes the series. +These poems are written in what would be decasyllabic couplets were they +reducible to metre--in other words, in the barbarous caesural jangle in +which many poets of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries +imagined that they reproduced the music of Chaucer, and which, refashioned +however almost beyond recognition by a born metrist, we shall meet again +in the _Shepherd's Calender_. The following lines from the fifth eclogue +may serve to illustrate Barclay's style: + + I shall not deny our payne and servitude, + I knowe that plowmen for the most part be rude, + Nowe shall I tell thee high matters true and olde, + Which curteous Candidus unto me once tolde, + Nought shall I forge nor of no leasing bable, + This is true history and no surmised fable. + +It is in justice due to Barclay to say that the fact of his composing this +eclogue in the vernacular should possibly be counted to him as an original +step. The step had, indeed, been taken in Italy before he was born, but of +this he may, in spite of his travels, have been ignorant. Such credit as +attaches to the innovation should be allowed him. + +A somewhat more independent writer is Barnabe Googe--writer, indeed, as +original, may be, as the lesser Latin pastoralists of the renaissance. The +fact of his altering the conventional forms to fit the mood of a sturdy +protestantism, of a protestantism still bitter from the Marian +persecutions, is scarcely to be regarded so much as evidence of his +invention as of the stability of literary tradition under the varying +forms imposed by external circumstances. The collection of his poems, +'imprinted at London' in 1563,[89] includes eight eclogues written in +fourteeners, the majority of which may fairly be said to represent Mantuan +adjusted to the conditions of contemporary life in reformation England. +Others show the influence of the author's visit to Spain in 1561-3. The +best that can be said for the verse and style is that they pursue their +'middle flight' on the whole modestly, and that the diction is at times +not without a touch of simple dignity. There are, moreover, moments of +genuine feeling when the author recalls the fires of Smithfield, and of +generous if naïve appreciation when he speaks of his predecessors in +English song. A brief summary of contents will give some idea of the +nature of these poems. The first recounts the pains of love; in the second +Dametas rails on the blind boy and ends his song by dying. The third +treats of the vices of the city, not the least of them being religious +persecution. In the next Melibeus relates how Dametas, having as we now +learn killed himself for love, appeared to him amid hell-fire. Eclogue V +contains the pitiful tale of Faustus who courted Claudia through the +agency of Valerius. Claudia unfortunately fell in love with the messenger, +and finding him faithful to his master slew herself. This is imitated, in +part closely, from the tale of the shepherdess Felismena in the second +book of Montemayor's _Diana_, the identical story upon which Shakespeare +is supposed ultimately to have founded his _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, +though it is difficult at first sight to trace much resemblance between +the play and Googe's poem. In the sixth eclogue Faustus--the Don Felix of +the Spanish and the Proteus of Shakespeare--himself appears, for no better +reason it would seem than to give his interlocutor an opportunity of +enlarging on the delights of country life and introducing the remarks on +fowling borrowed from Sannazzaro by way of Garcilaso's second eclogue. The +next is a discussion somewhat after the manner of the _Nut-Brown Maid_, +again paraphrased from the _Diana_ (Book I); while the eighth, lastly, is +a homily on the superiority of Christianity over Roman polytheism, in +which under obsolete forms the author no doubt intended an allusion to +contemporary controversies. Thus it will be seen that Googe follows Latin +and Spanish traditions almost exclusively: the only point in which it is +possible to see any native inspiration is in his partiality for some sort +of narrative ballad motive as the subject of his poems. + +So far the literary quality to be registered has not been high among those +owing allegiance to the regular pastoral tradition. The next step to be +taken is a long one. The pastoral writings of Spenser not only themselves +belong to a very different order of work, but likewise brings us face to +face with literary problems of a most complex and interesting kind. + + + +II + + +In the _Shepherd's Calender_ we have the one pastoral composition in +English literature which can boast first-rate historical importance. There +are not a few later productions in the kind which may be reasonably held +to surpass it in poetic merit, but all alike sink into insignificance by +the side of Spenser's eclogues when the influence they exercised on the +history of English verse is taken into account. The present is not of +course the place to discuss this wider influence of Spenser's work: it is +with its relation to pastoral tradition and its influence upon subsequent +pastoral work that we are immediately concerned. This is an aspect of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ to which literary historians have naturally devoted +less attention. These two reasons--namely, the intrinsic importance of the +work and the neglect of its pastoral bearing--must excuse a somewhat +lengthy treatment of a theme that may possibly be regarded as already +sufficiently familiar. + +The _Shepherd's Calender_[90], which first appeared in 1579, was published +without author's name, but with an envoy signed 'Immerito.' It was +dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and contained a commentary by one E. K., +who also signed an epistle to Master Gabriel Harvey, fellow of Pembroke +College, Cambridge. 'Immerito' was a name used by Spenser in his familiar +correspondence with Harvey, and can in any case have presented no mystery +to his Cambridge friends. Among these must clearly be reckoned the +commentator E. K., who may be identified with one Edward Kirke with all +but absolute certainty.[91] Within certain well defined limits we may also +accept E. K. as a competent exponent of his friend's work, and his +identity, together with that of Rosalind and Menalcas, being matters of +but indirect literary interest, may be left to Spenser's editors and +biographers to fight over. It will be sufficient to add in this place that +however 'literary' may have been Spenser's attachment to Rosalind there is +no reason to suppose that she was not a real person, while however little +response his advances may have met with there _is_ reason to suppose that +his sorrow at their rejection was not wholly conventional. + +Spenser's design in turning his attention to the pastoral form would not +seem hard to apprehend. Less readily may we suppose that any deep +philosophical impulse directed his mind towards certain modes of +expression, than that in an age of catholic experiment he turned from the +penning of impossible iambic trimeters, 'minding,' as E. K. directly +informs us, 'to furnish our tongue with this kind, wherein it faulteth.' +He was qualified for the task by a wide knowledge of previous pastoral +writers from Theocritus and Bion down to Marot, and deliberately ranged +himself in line with the previous poets of the regular pastoral +tradition. Yet we find side by side in his work two distinct and +apparently antagonistic though equally conscious tendencies; the one +towards authority, leading him to borrow motives freely and even to resort +to direct paraphrase; the other towards individuality, nationality, +freedom, informing his general scheme and regulating the language of his +imaginary swains. It is this double nature of his pastoral work that +justifies us as regarding him, in spite of his alleged orthodoxy, as in +reality the first of a series of English writers who combined the +traditions of regular pastoral with the wayward graces of native +inspiration. It is true that in Spenser the natural pastoral impulse has +lost the spontaneity of the earlier examples, and has passed into the +realm of conscious and deliberate art; but it is none the less there, +modifying the conventional form. The individual debts owed by Spenser to +earlier writers have been collected with admirable learning and industry +by scholars such as Kluge and Reissert[92], but the investigation of his +originality presents at once a more interesting and more important field +of inquiry. So, indeed, Spenser himself appears to have thought, for the +only direct acknowledgement he makes in the work is to Chaucer, although, +as a writer to whom the humours of criticism are ever present has +remarked, 'it might almost seem that Spenser borrowed from Chaucer nothing +but his sly way of acknowledging indebtedness chiefly where it was not +due.' + +The chief point of originality in the _Calender_ is the attempt at linking +the separate eclogues into a connected series. We have already seen how +with Googe the same characters recur in a sort of shadowy story; but what +was in his case vague and almost unintentional becomes with Spenser a +central artistic motive of the piece. The eclogues are arranged with no +small skill and care on somewhat of an architectural design, or perhaps we +should rather say with somewhat of the symmetry of a geometrical pattern. +This will best be seen in a brief analysis of the several eclogues, +'proportionable,' as the title is careful to inform us, 'to the twelve +monethes.' + +In the 'January,' a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin +Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his +advances with scorn. He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is +introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol. The 'February' is a +disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and Thenot. It +introduces the fable of the oak and the briar, in which, since he ascribes +it to Tityrus, a name he transferred from Vergil to Chaucer, Spenser +presumably imagined he was imitating that poet, though it is really no +more in the style of Chaucer than is the roughly accentual measure in +which the eclogue is composed. For the 'March' Spenser recasts in English +surroundings Bion's fantasy of the fight with Cupid, without however +achieving any conspicuous success. In the April eclogue Hobbinol recites +to the admiring Thenot Colin's lay + + Of fayre Eliza, Queene of shepheardes all, + Which once he made as by a spring he laye, + And tuned it unto the Waters fall. + +This lay is in an intricate lyrical stanza which Spenser shows +considerable skill in handling. The following lines, for instance, already +show the musical modulation characteristic of much of his best work: + + See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, + (O seemely sight!) + Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene, + And ermines white: + Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, + With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: + Bay leaves betweene, + And primroses greene, + Embellish the sweete Violet. + +In the 'May' we return to the four-beat accentual measure, this time +applied to a discussion by the herdsmen Palinode and Piers of the +lawfulness of Sunday sports and the corruption of the clergy. Here we have +a common theme treated from an individual point of view. The eclogue is +interesting as showing that the author, whose opinions are placed in the +mouth of the precise Piers; belonged to what Ben Jonson later styled 'the +sourer sort of shepherds.' A fable is again introduced which is of a +pronounced Aesopic cast. In the 'June' we return to the love-motive of +Rosalind, which, though alluded to in the April eclogue, has played no +prominent part since January. It is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, +in which the former recounts his final defeat and the winning of Rosalind +by Menalcas. This eclogue contains Spenser's chief tribute to Chaucer: + + The God of shepheards, Tityrus, is dead, + Who taught me homely, as I can, to make; + He, whilst he lived, was the soveraigne head + Of shepheards all that bene with love ytake: + Well couth he wayle his Woes, and lightly slake + The flames which love within his heart had bredd, + And tell us mery tales to keepe us wake + The while our sheepe about us safely fedde. + +The July eclogue again leads us into the realm of ecclesiastical politics. +It is a disputation between upland and lowland shepherds, the descendant +therefore of Mantuan and Barclay, though the use of 'high places' as +typifying prelatical pride appears to be original. The confusion of things +Christian and things pagan, of classical mythology with homely English +scenery, nowhere reaches a more extravagant pitch than here. Morrell, the +advocate of the old religion, defends the hills with the ingeniously +wrong-headed argument: + + And wonned not the great God Pan + Upon mount Olivet, + Feeding the blessed flocke of Dan, + Which dyd himselfe beget? + +or else, gazing over the Kentish downs, he announces that + + Here han the holy Faunes recourse, + And Sylvanes haunten rathe; + Here has the salt Medway his source, + Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe. + +In the 'August' Spenser again handles a familiar theme with more or less +attempt at novelty. Willie and Peregot meeting on the green lay wagers in +orthodox fashion, and, appointing Cuddie judge, begin their singing +match. The 'roundel' that follows, a song inserted in the midst of +decasyllabic stanzas, is composed of alternate lines sung by the two +competitors. The verse is of the homeliest; indeed it is only a rollicking +indifference to its own inanity that saves it from sheer puerility and +gives it a careless and as it were impromptu charm of its own. Even in an +age of experiment it must have needed some self-confidence to write the +dialect of the _Calender_; it must have required nothing less than +assurance to put forth such verses as the following: + + It fell upon a holy eve, + Hey, ho, hollidaye! + When holy fathers wont to shrieve; + Now gynneth this roundelay. + Sitting upon a hill so hye, + Hey, ho, the high hyll! + The while my flocke did feede thereby; + The while the shepheard selfe did spill. + I saw the bouncing Bellibone, + Hey, ho, Bonibell! + Tripping over the dale alone, + She can trippe it very well. + +Many a reader of the anonymous quarto of 1579 must have joined in Cuddie's +exclamation: + + Sicker, sike a roundel never heard I none! + +Sidney, we know, was not altogether pleased with the homeliness of the +verses dedicated to him; and there must have been not a few among +Spenser's academic friends to feel a certain incongruity between the +polished tradition of the Theocritean singing match and the present poem. +Moreover, as if to force the incongruity upon the notice of the least +sensitive of his readers, Spenser followed up the ballad with a poem which +is not only practically free from obsolete or dialectal phrasing, but +which is composed in the wearisomely pedantic _sestina_ form. This song is +attributed to Colin, whose love for Rosalind is again mentioned. + +Passing to the 'September' we find an eclogue of the 'wise shepherd' type. +It is composed in the rough accentual metre, and opens with a couplet +which roused the ire of Dr. Johnson: + + Diggon Davie! I bidde her god day; + Or Diggon her is, or I missaye. + +Diggon is a shepherd, who, in hope of gain, drove his flock into a far +country, and coming home the poorer, relates to Hobbinol the evil ways of +foreign shepherds among whom, + + playnely to speake of shepheards most what, + Badde is the best. + +The 'October' eclogue belongs to the stanzaic group, and consists of a +dialogue on the subject of poetry between the shepherds Piers and Cuddie. +It is one of the most imaginative of the series, and in it Spenser has +refashioned time-honoured themes with more conspicuous taste than +elsewhere. The old complaint for the neglect of poetry acquires new life +through the dramatic contrast of the two characters in which opposite +sides of the poetic temperament are revealed. In Cuddie we have a poet for +whom the prize is more than the praise[93], whose inspiration is cramped +because of the indifference of a worldly court and society. Things were +not always so-- + + But ah! Mecaenas is yclad in claye, + And great Augustus long ygoe is dead, + And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, + That matter made for Poets on to play. + +And in the same strain he laments over what might have been his song: + + Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage, + O! if my temples were distaind with wine, + And girt with girlonds of wild Yvie twine, + How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, + And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, + With queint Bellona in her equipage! + +Reading these words to-day they may well seem to us the charter of the new +age of England's song; and the effect is rendered all the more striking +by the rhythm of the last line with its prophecy of Marlowe and mighty +music to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is +a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more +reverentially than his Bacchic comrade. When Cuddie, acknowledging his own +unworthiness, adds: + + For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne; + He, were he not with love so ill bedight, + Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne; + +Piers breaks out in words fitting the poet of the _Hymnes_: + + Ah, fon! for love doth teach him climbe so hie, + And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre. + +And throughout this high discourse the homely names of Piers and Cuddie +seem somehow more appropriate, or at least touch us more nearly, than +Mantuan's Sylvanus and Candidus, as if, in spite of all Spenser owes to +foreign models, he were yet conscious of a latent power of simple native +inspiration, capable, when once fully awakened, of standing up naked and +unshamed in the presence of Italy and Greece. One might well question +whether there is not more of the true spirit of prophecy in this poem of +Spenser's than ever went to the composition of Vergil's _Pollio_. + +The 'November,' like the 'April,' consists for the most part of a lay +composed in an elaborate stanza--there a panegyric, here an elegy. This +time it is sung by Colin himself, and we again find reference to the +Rosalind motive. The subject of the threnody is a nymph of the name of +Dido, whose identity can only be vaguely conjectured. The chief point of +external form in which Spenser has departed from his model, namely Marot's +dirge for Loyse de Savoye, and from other pastoral elegies, is in the use +of a different form of verse in the actual lament from that in which the +setting of the poem is composed. Otherwise he has followed tradition none +the less closely for having infused the conventional form with a poetry of +his own. The change by which the lament passes into the song of rejoicing +is traditional--and though borrowed by Spenser from Marot, is as old as +Vergil. Both Browne and Milton later made use of the same device. Spenser +writes: + + Why wayle we then? why weary we the Gods with playnts, + As if some evill were to her betight? + She raignes a goddesse now emong the saintes, + That whilome was the saynt of shepheards light, + And is enstalled nowe in heavens hight. + I see thee, blessed soule, I see + Walke in Elisian fieldes so free. + O happy herse! + Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!) + O joyfull verse! + +Although some critics, looking too exclusively to the poetic merit of the +_Calender_ as the cause of its importance, have perhaps overestimated the +beauty of this and the April lyrics, the skill with which the intricate +stanzas are handled must be apparent to any careful reader. As the +_Calender_ in poetry generally, so even more decidedly in their own +department, do these songs mark a distinct advance in formal evolution. +Just as they were themselves foreshadowed in the recurrent melody of +Wyatt's farewell to his lute-- + + My lute, awake! perform the last + Labour that thou and I shall waste, + And end that I have now begun; + For when this song is sung and past, + My lute, be still, for I have done-- + +so they in their turn heralded the full strophic sonority of the +_Epithalamium_. + +Lastly, in the 'December' we have the counterpart of the January eclogue, +a monologue in which Colin laments his wasted life and joyless, for + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + + Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; + Adieu, my deare, whose love I bought so deare; + Adieu, my little Lambes and loved sheepe; + Adieu, ye Woodes, that oft my witnesse were: + Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true, + Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu.[94] + +It will be seen from the above analysis that the architectonic basis of +Spenser's design consists of the three Colin eclogues standing +respectively at the beginning, in the middle, and at the close of the +year. These are symmetrically arranged: the 'January' and 'December' are +both alike monologues and agree in the stanza used, while the 'June' is a +dialogue and likewise differs in metrical form. This latter is supported +as it were by two subsidiary eclogues, those of April and August, in both +of which another shepherd sings one of Colin's lays and refers +incidentally to his passion for Rosalind. It is upon this framework that +are woven the various moral, polemical, and idyllic themes which Spenser +introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric +is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral +composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts +so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, +and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more +strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a +moment. The chief and most obvious device is that suggested by the +title--_The Shepherd's Calender_--'Conteyning twelve Aeglogues +proportionable to the twelve monethes.' This might, indeed, have been no +more than a fanciful name for any series of twelve poems;[95] with Spenser +it indicates a conscious principle of artistic construction. It suggests, +what is moreover apparent from the eclogues themselves, that the author +intended to represent the spring and fall of the year as typical of the +life of man. The moods of the various poems were to be made to correspond +with the seasons represented; or, conversely, outward nature in its cycle +through the year was to reflect and thereby unify the emotions, thoughts, +and passions of the shepherds. This was a perfectly legitimate artistic +device, and one based on a fundamental principle of our nature, since the +appearance of objective phenomena is ever largely modified and coloured by +subjective feeling. Nor can it reasonably be objected against the device +that in the hands of inferior craftsmen it degenerates but too readily +into the absurdities of the 'pathetic fallacy,' or that Spenser himself is +not wholly guiltless of the charge. + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + +These lines bear witness to Spenser's intention. But the conceit is not +fully or consistently carried out. In several of the eclogues not only +does the subject in no way reflect the mood of the season--the very nature +of the theme at times made this impossible--but the time of year is not so +much as mentioned. This is more especially the case in the summer months; +there is no joy of the 'hygh seysoun,' and when it is mentioned it is +rather by way of contrast than of sympathy. Thus in June Colin mourns for +other days: + + Tho couth I sing of love, and tune my pype + Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made: + Tho would I seeke for Queene-apples unrype, + To give my Rosalind; and in Sommer shade + Dight gaudy Girlonds was my common trade, + To crowne her golden locks: but yeeres more rype, + And losse of her, whose love as lyfe I wayd, + Those weary wanton toyes away dyd wype. + +In the same eclogue we may trace a deliberate contrast between various +descriptive passages. Thus Hobbinol feels the magie of the summer woods-- + + Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes, + Which thou were wont on wastfull hylls to singe, + I more delight then larke in Sommer dayes: + Whose Echo made the neyghbour groves to ring, + And taught the byrds, which in the lower spring + Did shroude in shady leaves from sonny rayes, + Frame to thy songe their chereful cheriping, + Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy swete layes. + +Closely following upon this stanza we have Colin's lament, 'The God of +shepheards, Tityrus, is dead,' containing the lines: + + But, if on me some little drops would flowe + Of that the spring was in his learned hedde, + I soone would learne these woods to wayle my woe, + And teache the trees their trickling teares to shedde. + +We have here a specifie inversion of the 'pathetic fallacy.' The moods of +nature are no longer represented as varying in sympathy with the passions +of man, but are deliberately used to heighten an effect by contrast. Even +this inverted correspondence, however, is for the most part lacking in the +subsequent eclogues, and it must be admitted that in so far as Spenser +depended on a cyclic correlation for the unifying of his design, he +achieved at best but partial effect. Another means by which he sought, +consciously or unconsciously, to produce unity of impression was by +consistently pitching his song in the minor key. This accounts for the +inverted correspondence just noted, and for the fact that even the +polemics have an undercurrent of regret in them. In this case the poet has +undoubtedly succeeded in carrying out the prevailing mood of the central +motive--the Rosalind drama--in the subsidiary scenes. Or should we not +rather say that he has extracted the general mood of the whole +composition, and infused it, in a kind of typical form, into the three +connected poems placed at critical points of the complex structure? The +unity, however, thus aimed at, and achieved, is very different from the +cyclic or architectonic unity described above, and of a much less definite +character. + +It remains to say a few words concerning the language of the _Calender_ +and the rough accentual metre in which parts of it are composed, since +both have a particular bearing upon Spenser's attitude towards pastoral in +general. + +Ben Jonson, in one of those utterances which have won for him the +reputation of churlishness, but which are often marked by acute critical +sense, asserted that Spenser 'in affecting the Ancients writ no +Language.'[96] The remark applies first and foremost, of course, to the +_Calender_, and opens up the whole question of archaism and provincialism +in literature. This is far too wide a question to receive adequate +treatment here, and yet it appears forced upon us by the nature of the +case. For Spenser's archaism, in his pastoral work at least, is no +unmeaning affectation as Jonson implies. He perceived that the language of +Chaucer bore a closer resemblance to actual rustic speech than did the +literary language of his own day, and he adopted it for his imaginary +shepherds as a fitting substitute for the actual folk-tongue with which he +had grown familiar, whether in the form of rugged Lancashire or +full-mouthed Kentish. And the homely dialect does undoubtedly naturalize +the characters of his eclogues, and disguise the time-honoured platitudes +that they repeat from their learned predecessors. With our wider +appreciation of literary effect, and our more historical and less +authoritative manner of judging works of art, we can no longer endorse +Sidney's famous criticism:[97] 'That same framing of his stile, to an old +rustick language, I dare not alowe, sith neyther Theocritus in Greeke, +Virgill in Latine, nor Sanazar in Italian, did affect it.'[98] If a writer +finds an effective and picturesque word in an old author or in a homely +dialect it is but pedantry that opposes its use, and it matters little +moreover from what quarter of the land it may hail, as Stevenson knew when +he claimed the right of mingling Ayrshire with his Lothian verse. Even +such archaisms as 'deemen' and 'thinken,' such colloquialisms as the +pronominal possessive, need not be too severely criticized. What goes far +towards justifying Jonson's acrimony is the wanton confusion of different +dialectal forms; the indiscriminate use for the mere sake of archaism of +such variants as 'gate' beside the usual 'goat,' of 'sike' and 'sich' +beside 'such'; the coining of words like 'stanck,' apparently from the +Italian _stanco_; and lastly, the introduction of forms which owe their +origin to mere etymological ignorance, for instance, 'yede' as an +infinitive, 'behight' in the same sense as the simple verb, 'betight,' +'gride,' and many others--all of which do not tend to produce the homely +effect of mother English, but reek of all that is pedantic and +unnatural.[99] + +The influence of Chaucer was not confined to the language: from him +Spenser borrowed the metre of a considerable portion of the _Calender_. It +may at first sight appear strange to attribute to imitation of Chaucer's +smooth, carefully ordered verse the rather rugged measure of, say, the +February eclogue, but a little consideration will, I fancy, leave no doubt +upon the subject. This measure is roughly reducible to four beats with a +varying number of syllables in the _theses_, being thus purely accentual +as distinguished from the more strictly syllabic measures of Chaucer +himself on the one hand and the English Petrarchists on the other. Take +the following example: + + The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine, + That, once sea-beate, will to sea againe: + So loytring live you little heardgroomes, + Keeping you beastes in the budded broomes: + And, when the shining sunne laugheth once, + You deemen the Spring is come attonce; + Tho gynne you, fond flyes! the cold to scorne, + And, crowing in pypes made of greene corn, + You thinken to be Lords of the yeare; + But eft, when ye count you freed from feare, + Cornes the breme Winter with chamfred browes, + Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes, + Drerily shooting his stormy darte, + Which cruddles the blood and pricks the harte: + Then is your carelesse corage accoied, + Your careful heards with cold bene annoied: + Then paye you the price of your surquedrie, + With weeping, and wailing, and misery.[100] + +The syllabic value of the final _e_, already weakening in the London of +Chaucer's later days, was more or less of an archaism even with his most +immediate followers, none of whom use it with his unvarying correctness, +and it soon became literally a dead letter. The change was a momentous +one for English prosody, and none of the fifteenth-century writers +possessed sufficient poetic genius to adapt their verse to the altered +conditions of the language. They lived from hand to mouth, as it were, +without arriving at any systematic tradition. Thus it was that at the +beginning of the sixteenth century Hawes could write such verse as: + + Of dame Astronomy I dyd take my lycence + For to travayle to the toure of Chyvalry; + For al my minde, wyth percyng influence, + Was sette upon the most fayre lady + La Bell Pucell, so muche ententyfly, + That every daye I dyd thinke fyftene, + Tyl I agayne had her swete person sene.[101] + +It is this prosody, dependent usually upon a strong caesural pause to +differentiate it from prose, which may account for the harshness of some +of Wyatt's verse, and which rendered possible the barbarous metre of +Barclay. It was obviously impossible for a poet with an ear like Spenser +to accept such a metrical scheme as this; but his own study of Chaucer +produced a somewhat strange result. The one point which the late +Chaucerians preserved of their master's metric was the five-stress +character of his decasyllabic line; but in Spenser's day all memory of the +syllabic _e_ had long since vanished, and the only rhythm to be extracted +from Chaucer's verse was of a four-stress type. Professor Herford quotes a +passage from the Prologue of the _Canterbury Tales_ as it appears in +Thynne's second edition (1542), which Spenser would inevitably have read +as follows: + + When zéphirus éke wyth hýs sote bréth + Enspýred hath évery hólte and héth, + The téndre cróppes, and the yóng sónne + Háth in the Rám halfe hys cóurse yrónne, + And smále foules máken mélodýe + That slépen al nýght with ópen éye, &c. + +This certainly bears on the face of it a close resemblance to Spenser's +measure. There are, moreover, occasional difficulties in this method of +scansion, some lines refusing to accommodate themselves to the Procrustean +methods of sixteenth-century editors, and exactly similar anomalies are to +be found in Spenser. Such, for instance, are the lines in the May eclogue: + + Tho opened he the dore, and in came + The false Foxe, as he were starke lame. + +Now these lines may be written in strict Chaucerian English thus: + + Tho openëd he the dore, and innë came + The falsë fox, as he were starkë lamë, + +and they at once become perfectly metrical. Under these circumstances +there can, I think, be little doubt as to the literary parentage of +Spenser's accentual measure.[102] + +Like the archaic dialect, this homely measure tends to bring Spenser's +shepherds closer to their actual English brethren. And hereby, it should +be frankly acknowledged, the incongruity of the speakers and their +discourse is emphasized and increased. That discourse, it is true, runs on +pastoral themes, but the disguise and allegory have worn thin with +centuries of use. We can no longer separate the words from the allusions, +and consequently we can no longer accept the speakers in their +unsophisticated shepherd's rôle. Yet it was precisely the desire to give +reality to these transparent phantasms that led Spenser to endow them with +a rustic speech. Whether he failed or succeeded the paradox of the form +remains about equal.[103] + +The importance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ was early recognized, not +only by friendly critics, but by the general public likewise, and six +editions were called for in less than twenty years. Not long after its +appearance John Dove, a Christ Church man, who appears to have been +ignorant of the authorship, turned the whole into Latin verse, dedicating +the manuscript to the Dean.[104] Another Latin version is found in +manuscript in the British Museum copy of the edition of 1597, and after +undergoing careful revision finally appeared in print in 1653. This was +the work of one Bathurst, a fellow of Spenser's own college of Pembroke at +Cambridge.[105] + +The _Shepherd's Calender_ was Spenser's chief contribution to pastoral; +indeed it was by so much his most important contribution that it would +hardly be worth while examining the others did they not bear witness to a +certain change in his attitude towards the pastoral ideal. + +The first of these later works is the isolated but monumental eclogue +entitled _Colin Clouts come Home again_, of which the dedication to +Raleigh is dated 1591, though it was not published till four years later. +This, perhaps the longest and most elaborate eclogue ever written, +describes how the Shepherd of the Ocean, that is Raleigh, induced Colin +Clout, who as before represents Spenser, to leave his rustic retreat in + + the cooly shade + Of the greene alders by the Mallaes shore, + +and try his fortune at the court of the great shepherdess Cynthia, and how +he ultimately returned to Ireland. The verse marks, as might be expected, +a considerable advance in smoothness and command of rhythm over the +non-lyrical portions of the _Calender_, and the dialect, too, is much less +harsh, being far advanced towards that peculiar poetic diction which +Spenser adopted in his more ambitions work. On the other hand, in spite of +a certain _allegrezza_ in the handling, and in spite of the Rosalind wound +being at least partially healed, the same minor key prevails as in the +earlier poems. In the spring of the great age of English song Spenser's +note is like the voice of autumn, not the fruitful autumn of cornfield and +orchard, but a premature barrenness of wet and fallen leaves-- + + The woods decay, the woods decay and fall. + +Thus though time has purged the bitterness of his sorrow, the regret +remains; his early love is still the mistress of his thoughts, but years +have softened his reproaches, and he admits: + + who with blame can justly her upbrayd, + For loving not; for who can love compell?-- + +a petard, it may be incidentally remarked, which, sprung within the bounds +of pastoral, is of power to pulverize in an instant the whole artificial +system of amatory ethics. + +The most notable points in the poem are the loves of the rivers Bregog and +Mulla, the famous list of contemporary poets, and the presentation of the +seamy side of court life, recalling the more direct satire of the probably +contemporary _Mother Hubberd's Tale_. The first of these belongs to the +class of Ovidian myths already noticed in such works as Lorenzo's _Ambra_. +The subject, however, is treated in a more subtly allegorical manner than +by Ovid's direct imitators, and this mode of presentment likewise +characterizes Spenser's tale of Molanna in the fragment on +Mutability.[106] Browne returned to a more crudely metamorphical tradition +in the loves of Walla and Tavy, while a similarly mythological +_Naturanschauung_ may be traced in Drayton's chorographical epic. + +Of the miscellaneous _Astrophel_, edited and in part composed by Spenser, +which was appended to _Colin Clout_, and of the _Daphnaïda_ published in +1596, though, like the former volume, containing a dedication dated 1591, +a passing mention must suffice. The former is chiefly remarkable as +illustrating the uniformly commonplace character of the verse called forth +by the death of one who, while he lived, was held the glory of Elizabethan +chivalry. It contains, beside other verse, pastoral elegies from the pens, +certainly of Spenser, and probably of the Countess of Pembroke, Matthew +Roydon, and Lodowick Bryskett. The last-named, or at any rate a +contributor with the same initiais, also supplied a 'Pastorall Aeglogue' +on the same theme. _Daphnaïda_ is a long lament in pastoral form on the +death of Douglas Howard, daughter of the Earl of Northampton. + +Of far greater importance for our present purpose is the pastoral +interlude in the quest of Sir Calidore, which occupies the last four +cantos of the sixth book of the _Faery Queen_.[107] Here is told how Sir +Calidore, the knight of courtesy, in his quest of the Blatant Beast came +among the shepherd-folk and fell in love with the fair Pastorella, reputed +daughter of old Meliboee; how he won her love in return through his valour +and courtesy; how while he was away hunting she was carried off by a band +of robbers; how he followed and rescued her; and finally, how she was +discovered to be the daughter of the lord of Belgard--at which point the +poem breaks off abruptly. The story has points of resemblance with the +Dorastus and Fawnia, or Florizel and Perdita, legend; but it also has +another and more important claim upon our attention. For as Shakespeare in +_As You Like It_, so Spenser in this episode has, as it were, passed +judgement upon the pastoral ideal as a whole. He is acutely sensitive to +the charm of that ideal and the seductions it offers to his hero-- + + Ne, certes, mote he greatly blamed be, + +says the poet of the _Faery Queen_ recalling the days when he was plain +Colin Clout--but the + + perfect pleasures, which do grow + Amongst poore hyndes, in hils, in woods, in dales, + +are not allowed to afford more than a temporary solace to the knight; the +robbers break in upon the rustic quietude, rapine and murder succeed the +peaceful occupations of the shepherds, and Sir Calidore is driven once +again to resume his arduous quest. The same idea may be traced in the +knight's visit to the heaven-haunted hill where he meets Colin Clout. In +the + + hundred naked maidens lilly white + All raunged in a ring and dauncing in delight + +to the sound of Colin's bagpipe, and who, together with the Graces and +their sovereign lady, vanish at the knight's approach, it is surely not +fanciful to see the gracious shadows of the idyllic poet's vision trooping +reluctantly away at the call of a more lofty theme. With this sense of +regret at the vanishing of an ideal long cherished, but at last +deliberately abandoned for matters of deeper and more real import, we may +turn from the work of the most important figure in English pastoral poetry +to his less famous contemporaries. + + + +III + + +Besides its wider influence on English verse, and the stimulus it gave to +pastoral composition as a whole, the _Shepherd's Calender_ called forth a +series of direct imitations. Of these the majority are but of accidental +and ephemeral interest and of inconspicuous merit; and it is probable that +Spenser himself lived to see the end of this over-direct school of +discipleship. Several examples appeared in Francis Davison's famous +miscellany known as the _Poetical Rhapsody_, the first edition of which, +though it only appeared in 1602, contained the gleanings of the entire +sixteenth century.[108] Of these imitations, four in number, the first, +the work of the editor himself, is a very poor production. It is a love +lament, and the insertion of a song in a complicated lyrical measure in a +plain stanzaic setting is evidently copied from the _Calender_. The other +three poems are ascribed, either in the _Rhapsody_ itself or in Davison's +manuscript list, to a certain A. W., who so far remains unidentified, if, +indeed, the letters conceal any individuality and do not merely stand for +'Anonymous Writer,' as has been sometimes thought. The three eclogues at +any rate bear evidence of coming from the same pen, and the following +lines show that the writer was no incompetent imitator, and at the same +time argue some genuine feeling: + + Thou 'ginst as erst forget thy former state, + And range amid the busks thyself to feed: + Fair fall thee, little flock! both rathe and late; + Was never lover's sheep that well did speed. + Thou free, I bound; thou glad, I pine in pain; + I strive to die, and thou to live full fain. + +The first of these poems is a monologue 'entitled Cuddy,' modelled on the +January eclogue. The second is a lament 'made long since upon the death of +Sir Philip Sidney,' in which the writer wonders at Colin's silence, and +which consequently must, at least, date from before the appearance of +_Astrophel_ in 1595, and is probably some years earlier. It is in the form +of a dialogue between two shepherds, one of whom sings Cuddy's lament in +lyrical stanzas, thus recalling Spenser's 'November.' These stanzas do not +reveal any great metrical gift. The last poem is a fragment 'concerning +old age,' which connects itself by its theme with the February eclogue, +though the form is stanzaic.[109] Again we find mention of Cuddy, a name +evidently assumed by the author, though whether he can be identified with +the Cuddie of the _Calender_ it is impossible to say. Whoever he was, he +shows more disposition than most of his fellow imitators to preserve +Spenser's archaisms. + +But undoubtedly the greatest poet who was content to follow immediately +in Spenser's footsteps was Michael Drayton, who in 1593 published a volume +entitled 'Idea The Shepheards Garland, Fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands +Sacrifice to the nine Muses.' This connexion between the number of the +eclogues and the muses is purely fanciful; Rowland is Drayton's pastoral +name, and Idea, which re-appeared as the title of the 1594 volume of +sonnets, is that of his poetic mistress.[110] It can hardly be said that +the verse of these poems attains any very high order of merit, but the +imitation of Spenser is evident throughout. In the first eclogue Rowland +bewails, in the midst of spring, 'the winter of his grief.' In this and +the corresponding monologue at the end he clearly follows Spenser's +arrangement and likewise adopts his minor key-- + + Fayre Philomel, night-musicke of the spring, + Sweetly recordes her tunefull harmony, + And with deepe sobbes, and dolefull sorrowing, + Before fayre Cinthya actes her Tragedy. + +In Eclogue II a 'wise' shepherd warns a youth against love, and draws a +somewhat gruesome picture of human fate-- + + And when the bell is readie to be tol'd + To call the wormes to thine Anatomie, + Remember then, my boy, what once I said to thee! + +Even this, however, fails to shake the lover's faith in the gentle +passion, and his enthusiasm finds vent in an apostrophe borrowed from +Spenser: + + Oh divine love, which so aloft canst raise, + And lift the minde out of this earthly mire. + +The next eclogue, containing a panegyric on Elizabeth under the name of +Beta, is closely modelled on the 'April,' and abounds with such +reminiscences as the following: + + Make her a goodly Chapilet of azur'd Colombine, + And wreath about her Coronet with sweetest Eglantine: + Bedeck our Beta all with Lillies, + And the dayntie Daffadillies, + With Roses damask, white, and red, and fairest flower delice, + With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloves of Paradice. + +Here, however, Drayton shows himself more skilful in dealing with a +lyrical stanza than most of his fellow imitators. In the fourth eclogue +two shepherds sing a dirge made by Rowland on the death of Elphin, that is +Sidney. In the next Rowland himself sings the praises of Idea; and in the +sixth Perkin those of Pandora, doubtless the Countess of Pembroke. The +seventh is a singularly unentertaining dispute, in which typical +representatives of age and youth abuse one another by turns; the eighth is +a description of the golden age, a theme Spenser had omitted; and lastly, +in the ninth we return to the opening love-motive, this time, as in the +_Calender_, amid the frosts of winter. + +These eclogues were reprinted in a different order in the 'Poems Lyric and +Pastoral' (_c._ 1606) with one additional poem there numbered the ninth. +This describes a rustic gathering of shepherds and nymphs, and contains +several songs. The verse exhibits no small advance on the earlier work, +and one song at least is in the author's daintiest manner. He seldom +surpassed the graceful conceit of the lines: + + Through yonder vale as I did passe, + Descending from the hill, + I met a smerking bony lasse; + They call her Daffadill: + + Whose presence as along she went, + The prety flowers did greet, + As though their heads they downward bent + With homage to her feete. + +Spenser, in spite of the warning he addressed to his book-- + + Dare not to match thy pype with Tityrus his style, + Nor with the Pilgrim that the Ploughman playde awhyle-- + +could nevertheless assert in semi-burlesque rime: + + It shall continewe till the worlds dissolution; + +and his disciple is not to be outdone. Never was truer lover or sweeter +singer-- + + Oenon never upon Ida hill + So oft hath cald on Alexanders name, + As hath poore Rowland with an Angels quill + Erected trophies of Ideas fame: + Yet that false shepheard, Oenon, fled from thee; + I follow her that ever flies from me. + +Thus Drayton endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of a greater than he, +and small success befell him in his uncongenial task. He knew little and +cared less about the moral and philosophical rags that clung yet about the +pastoral tradition. He sang, in his lighter vein at least, for the mere +pleasure that his song could afford to himself and others: the Spenserian +and traditional garb fits him ill. His golden age is rather amorous than +philosophical; he is more concerned that love should be free and true than +that the earth should yield her fruits unwounded of the plough; and even +so he hastens away from that colourless age to troll the delightful ballad +of Dowsabel. The inspiration for this he found, not in Spenser and his +learned predecessors, but in the popular romances, and in it we hear for +the first time the voice of the real Michael Drayton, the accredited bard +to the court of Faery. So again in the barren dispute of the seventh +eclogue, he turns aside from his theme as the shadow of the winged god +flits across his path-- + + That pretie Cupid, little god of love, + Whose imped winges with speckled plumes been dight, + Who striketh men below and Gods above, + Roving at randon with his feathered flight, + When lovely Venus sits and gives the ayme, + And smiles to see her little Bantlings game. + +If these eclogues formed Drayton's only claim upon our attention as a +pastoral poet there would be no excuse for lingering over him. He left +other work, however, which, if but slightly pastoral in subject, is at +least thoroughly so in form and spirit. The _Muses Elizium_ did not appear +till 1630, and it is consequently not a little premature to speak of it in +this place. It is, however, so important as illustrating the freer and +more spontaneous vein traceable in many English pastoralists from Henryson +onwards, that it is worth while to place it for comparison side by side +with the more orthodox tradition as exemplified, in spite of his +originality, in the work of Spenser. + +The _Muses Elizium_ is in truth the culmination of a long sequence of +pastoral work. Of this I have already discussed the beginnings when +dealing with the native pastoral impulse; and however much it was +influenced at a later date by foreign models it never submitted to the +yoke of orthodox tradition, and to the end retained much of its freshness. +The early anthologies are full of this sort of verse, the song-books are +full of it, and so are the romances and the plays. To this lyrical +tradition belong Breton's songs, of which one has already been quoted; +there was hardly a poet of note at the end of the sixteenth century who +did not contribute his quota. We find it once more, intermingling with a +certain formal strain, in Drayton's _Shepherds' Sirena_ containing the +delightful song, with its subtle interchange of dactylic and iambic +rhythms, so admirably characteristic of the author of the _Agincourt_ +ballad: + + Neare to the Silver Trent + Sirena dwelleth, + Shee to whom Nature lent + All that excelleth; + By which the Muses late + And the neate Graces, + Have for their greater state + Taken their places: + Twisting an Anadem + Wherewith to Crowne her, + As it belong'd to them + Most to renowne her. + On thy Bancke, + In a Rancke + Let thy Swanes sing her + And with their Musick + along let them bring her. + +In this pervading impulse of pure and spontaneous pastoral the soul of +what is sweet and winning in things common and familiar as our household +fairies blends with the fresh glamour of early love and the dainty +delights of an ideal world, where despair is only less sweet than +fruition, and love only less divine than chastity, where, as Drayton +frankly tells us, + + The winter here a Summer is, + No waste is made by time, + Nor doth the Autumne ever misse + The blossomes of the Prime; + + The flower that July forth doth bring, + In Aprill here is seene, + The Primrose, that puts on the Spring, + In July decks each Greene, + +a world, in short, in which the nymphs may strew the laureate hearse, not +only with all the flowers and fruits of earth, but with the Amaranth of +paradise and the stars of heaven if the fancy takes them. Of a spirit +compounded of these elements and of its quintessence are the 'Nymphals' of +the _Muses Elizium_. There are portions of the work, it is true, in which +the more vulgar strains of the conventional pastoral make themselves +heard, as in the satires of the fourth and tenth Nymphals; but for the +most part we are allowed to wander undisturbed among the woods and +pastures of an earthly paradise, and revel in the fairy laureate's most +imaginative work. There we meet Lirope, of whom + + Some said a God did her beget, + But much deceiv'd were they, + Her Father was a Rivelet, + Her Mother was a Fay. + Her Lineaments so fine that were + She from the Fayrie tooke, + Her Beauties and Complection cleere + By nature from the Brooke. + +There Naiis sings, roguishly enough, in the martial metre of _Agincourt_: + + 'Cloe, I scorne my Rime + Should observe feet or time, + Now I fall, then I clime, + What is't I dare not?' + + 'Give thy Invention wing, + And let her flert and fling, + Till downe the Rocks she ding, + For that I care not'; + +the song then breaking off into gamesome anapaests: + + The gentle winds sally + Upon every Valley, + And many times dally + And wantonly sport, + About the fields tracing, + Each other in chasing, + And often imbracing, + In amorous sort. + +There, again, we listen to the litany of the Muses, with the response: + + Sweet Muse, perswade our Phoebus to inspire + Us for his Altars with his holiest fire, + And let his glorious, ever-shining Rayes + Give life and growth to our Elizian Bayes; + +or else hear the fairy prothalamium, most irrepressible and inimitable of +bridal songs-- + + For our Tita is this day + Married to a noble Fay. + +There, lastly, we behold the flutter of tender breasts half veiled when +Venus and her wayward archer are abroad, and listen as fair Lelipa reads +the decree: + + To all th' Elizian Nimphish Nation, + Thus we make our Proclamation + Against Venus and her Sonne, + For the mischeefe they have done: + After the next last of May, + The fixt and peremptory day, + If she or Cupid shall be found + Upon our Elizian ground, + Our Edict mere Rogues shall make them, + And as such, who ere shall take them, + Them shall into prison put; + Cupids wings shall then be cut, + His Bow broken, and his Arrowes + Given to Boyes to shoot at Sparrowes; + And this Vagabond be sent, + Having had due punishment, + To mount Cytheron, which first fed him, + Where his wanton Mother bred him, + And there, out of her protection, + Dayly to receive correction. + Then her Pasport shall be made, + And to Cyprus Isle convayd, + And at Paphos, in her Shryne, + Where she hath beene held divine, + For her offences found contrite, + There to live an Anchorite. + +We have here the very essence of whatever most delicately and quaintly +exquisite the half sincere and half playful ideal of pastoral had +generated since the days of Moschus. + +How is it then, we may pause a moment to inquire, that in spite of its +crudities of language and even of metre, in spite of its threadbare themes +but half repatched with homelier cloth, in spite of its tedious +theological controversies, its more or less conventional loves and more or +less exaggerated panegyrics--how is it that in spite of all this we still +regard the _Shepherd's Calender_ as serious literature; while with all its +exquisite justness, as of ivory carved and tinted by the hand of a master +and encrusted with the sparkle of a thousand gems, the _Muses' Elizium_ +remains a toy? It is not merely the prestige of the author's name: it is +not merely that we tend to accept the work of each at his own valuation. +We have to seek the explanation of the phenomenon in the fact that not +only has the _Shepherd's Calender_ behind it a vast tradition, reverend if +somewhat otiose--the devotion of men counts for something--but also that, +however stiffly laced in an unsuitable garb, it sought to deal with +matters of real import to man, or at any rate with what man has held as +such. It treated questions of religious policy which touched the majority +of men more nearly then than now; with moral problems calculated to +interest the mind of an age still tinged with medievalism; with +philosophical theories of human and divine love. In other words, the +_Shepherd's Calender_ lay in the main stream of literature, and reflected +the mind of the age, while the _Muses' Elizium_, in common with so much +pastoral work, did not. These considerations open up an interesting field +of speculation. Are we to suppose that there is indeed a line of +demarcation between great art and little art wholly independent of that +which divides good art from bad art? Are we to go further, and assume that +these two lines of division intersect, so that a work may be akin to +great art though it be not good art, while, however perfect a work of art +may be, it may remain little art for some wholly non-aesthetic reason? But +we digress. + + + +IV + + +It will be convenient, in dealing with the considerable volume of English +pastoral verse which has come down to us from the late sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, to divide it into two portions, according as it +tends to attach itself to orthodox foreign tradition on the one hand, or +to the more spontaneous native type on the other. To the former division +belong in the main the more ambitious set pieces and eclogue-cycles, to +the latter the lighter and more occasional verse, the pastoral ballads and +the lyrics. The division is necessarily somewhat arbitrary, for the two +traditions act and react on one another incessantly, and the types merge +almost imperceptibly the one into the other; but that does not prevent the +spirit that manifests itself in Drayton's eclogues being essentially +different from that which produced Breton's songs. I shall not, however, +try to draw any hard and fast line between the two, but shall rather deal +first with those writers whose most important work inclines to the more +formal tradition, and shall then endeavour to give some account of the +lighter pastoral verse of the time. + +After the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ some years elapsed +before English poetry again ventured upon the domain of pastoral, at least +in any serious composition. In 1589, however, appeared a small quarto +volume, with the title: 'An Eglogue. Gratulatorie. Entituled: To the right +honorable, and renowmed Shepheard of Albions Arcadia: Robert Earle of +Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from Portugall. Done by George +Peele. Maister of arts in Oxon.' Like the 'A. W.' of the _Rhapsody_, Peele +followed Spenser more closely than most of his fellow imitators in the use +of dialect, but his eclogue on the not particularly glorious return of +Essex has little interest. His importance as a pastoralist lies elsewhere. + +The following year the poet of the _Hecatompathia_, Thomas Watson, a +pastoralist of note according to the critics of his own age, but whose +work in this line is chiefly Latin, published his 'Ecloga in Obitum +Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami, Equitis aurati, Divae +Elizabethae a secretis, & sanctioribus consiliis,' entitled _Meliboeus_, +and also in the same year a translation of the piece into English. The +latter is considerably shorter than the original, but still of tedious +length. The usual transition from the dirge to the paean is managed with +more than the usual lack of effect. The eclogue contains a good deal +beyond its immediate subject; for instance, a lament for Astrophel, a +passage in praise of Spenser, and a panegyric on + + Diana, matchless Queene of Arcadie-- + +all subjects hardly possible for a poet to escape, writing _more +pastorali_ in 1590. Watson also left several other pastoral compositions +in the learned tongue, which, from their eponymous hero, won for him the +shepherd-name of Amyntas. Thus in 1585 he published a work in Latin +hexameter verse with the title 'Amyntas Thomae Watsoni Londinensis I. V. +studiosi,' divided into eleven 'Querelae,' which was 'paraphrastically +translated' by Abraham Fraunce into English hexameters, and published +under the title 'The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis' in +1587. This translation, 'somewhat altered' to serve as a sequel to an +English hexametrical version of Tasso's _Aminta_, was republished in 'The +Countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch' of 1591. Again in 1592 Watson produced +another work entitled _Amintae Gaudia_, part of which was translated under +the title _An Old-fashioned Love_, and published as by I. T. in 1594.[111] + +Next in order--passing over Drayton, with whom we have been already +sufficiently concerned--is a writer who, without the advantage of original +genius or brilliant imagination, succeeded by mere charm of poetic style +and love of natural beauty, in lifting his work above the barren level of +contemporary pastoral verse. Richard Barnfield's _Affectionate Shepherd_, +imitated, as he frankly confesses, from Vergil's _Alexis_, appeared in +1594. Appended to it was a poem similar in tone and spirit, entitled _The +Shepherd's Content_, containing a description of country life and scenery, +together with a lamentation for Sidney, a hymn to love, a praise of the +poets, and other similar matters. The easy if somewhat monotonous grace +which pervades both these pieces is seen to better advantage in the +delightful _Shepherd's Ode_, which appeared in his _Cynthia_ of 1595, and +begins: + + Nights were short and days were long, + Blossoms on the hawthorn hong, + Philomel, night-music's king, + Told the coming of the spring; + +or in the yet more perfect song: + + As it fell upon a day + In the merry month of May, + Sitting in a pleasant shade + Which a group of myrtles made, + Beasts did leap and birds did sing, + Trees did grow and plants did spring, + Everything did banish moan, + Save the nightingale alone; + She, poor bird, as all forlorn, + Lean'd her breast against a thorn, + And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, + That to hear it was great pity.... + Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, + None takes pity on thy pain. + Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee; + Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; + King Pandion he is dead, + All thy friends are lapp'd in lead[112]; + All thy fellow birds do sing, + Careless of thy sorrowing; + Even so, poor bird, like thee, + None alive will pity me[113]. + +No particular interest attaches to the four eclogues included in Thomas +Lodge's _Fig for Momus_, published in 1595, but they serve to throw light +on a kind of pastoral freemasonry that was springing up at this period. +Spenser and Sidney, under the names of Colin and Astrophel, or more rarely +Philisides, were firmly fixed in poetic tradition; Barnfield, by coupling +them with these, made Watson and Drayton free of the craft in his +complaint to Love in the _Shepherd's Content_: + + By thee great Collin lost his libertie, + By thee sweet Astrophel forwent his joy, + By thee Amyntas wept incessantly, + By thee good Rowland liv'd in great annoy. + +Now we find Lodge dedicating his four eclogues respectively to Colin, +Menalcus, Rowland, and Daniel. Who Menalcus was is uncertain; not, it +would seem, a poet. The themes are serious, even weighty according to the +estimation of the author, and befit the mood of the poet who first sought +to acclimatize the classical satire[114]. These eclogues do not, however, +testify to any high poetic gift, any more than do the couple in a lighter +vein found in the _Phillis_ of 1593. Lodge was happier in the lyric verses +with which he strewed his romances--such for instance as the lines to +Phoebe in _Rosalynde_, though these did certainly lay themselves open to +parody[115]. In the same romance Lodge rose for once to a perfection of +delicate conceit unsurpassed from his day to ours: + + Love in my bosom like a bee + Doth suck his sweet; + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet. + + Within mine eyes he makes his nest, + His bed amidst my tender breast; + My kisses are his daily feast, + And yet he robs me of my rest. + Ah, wanton, will ye? + +The year 1595 also saw the publication of Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_, +which contains, according to the not wholly accurate title-page, 'Three +Pastorall Eglogues, in English Hexameter.' These constituted the first +attempt in English at writing original eclogues in Vergilian metre, and +the injudicious experiment has not, I believe, been repeated. The subjects +present little novelty of theme, but the treatment illustrates the natural +tendency of English pastoral writers towards narrative and the influence +of the romantic ballad motives. The same volume contains another work of +Sabie's, namely, the _Fishermaris Tale_, a blank-verse rendering of +Greene's _Pandosto_[116]. + +The three pastoral elegies of William Basse, published in 1602, the last +work of the kind to appear in Elizabeth's reign, form in reality a short +pastoral romance. The court-bred Anander falls in love with the +shepherdess Muridella, and charges the sheep-boy Anetor to convey to her +the knowledge of his passion. His love proving unkind he turns shepherd, +and resolves to remain so until his suit obtains better grace. More than +half a century later, namely in 1653, Basse prepared for press a +manuscript containing a series of pastorals headed 'Clio, or The first +Muse in 9 Eglogues in honor of 9 vertues,' and arranged according to the +days of the week. The whole composition is singularly lacking alike in +interest and merit.[117] + +It is not surprising to find the eclogues of the early years of James' +reign reflecting current events. In 1603 appeared a curious compilation, +the work of Henry Chettle, bearing the title: 'Englandes Mourning Garment: +Worne here by plaine Shepheardes; in memorie of their sacred Mistresse, +Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue while shee lived, and Theame of Sorrow, being +dead. To which is added the true manner of her Emperiall Funerall. After +which foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for entertainement of King +James our most potent Soveraigne. Dedicated to all that loved the deceased +Queene, and honor the living King.' The book is a strange medley of verse +and prose, elegies on Elizabeth in the form of eclogues, and political +lectures written in the style of the pastoral romance. The most +interesting passage is an address to contemporary poets reproaching them +for their neglect of the praises of the late queen. The pastoral names +under which they are introduced appear to be merely nonce appellations, +but are worth recording as they refer to a set outside the usual pastoral +circle. Thus Corin is Chapman; Musaeus, of course Marlowe; English Horace, +no doubt Jonson; Melicert, Shakespeare; Coridon, Drayton; Anti-Horace, +most likely Dekker, and Moelibee, mentioned with him, possibly Marston. To +Musidore, 'Hewres last Musaeus' (no doubt corrupt), and the 'infant muse,' +it is more difficult to assign an identity.[118] Throughout Chettle +assumes to himself Spenser's pastoral title. + +To the same or the following year belong the twelve eclogues by Edward +Fairfax, the translater of Tasso's _Gerusalemme_, which are now for the +most part lost. One, the fourth, was printed in 1737 from the original +manuscript, another in 1883 from a later transcript in the Bodleian, while +a third is preserved in a fragmentary state in the British Museum.[119] +All three deal chiefly with contemporary affairs, the two former being +concerned with the abuses of the church, while the last is a panegyric of +the 'present age,' and especially of English maritime adventure. This is +certainly the most pleasing of the three, though the style is at times +pretentious and over-charged with far-fetched allusions. There are, +however, fine passages, as for instance the lines on Drake: + + And yet some say that from the Ocean maine, + He will returne when Arthur comes againe. + +More directly concerned with the political events of the day is the +curious eclogue Δάφνις Πολυστέφανος by Sir George Buc, published in 1605, +in praise of the Genest crown, the royal right by Apollo's divine decree +of a long line of English kings, who are passed in review by way of +introduction to the praises of their latest representative. The work was +revised by an unknown hand for the accession of Charles, and republished +under the title of _The Great Plantagenet_ in 1635, as by 'Geo. Buck, +Gent.' Sir George held the post of Master of the Revels from 1608 to 1622, +and died the following year. + +In 1607 appeared a poem 'Mirrha the Mother of Adonis,' by William +Barksted, to which were appended three eclogues by Lewes Machin.[120] Of +these, one describes the love of a shepherd and his nymph, while the other +two treat the theme of Apollo and Hyacinth. Composed in easy verse of no +particular distinction these poems belong to that borderland between the +idyllic and the salacious on which certain shepherd-poets loved to dally. + +The years 1614 and 1615 saw the appearance of works of considerably +greater interest from every point of view, among others from that of what +I have described as pastoral freemasonry. In the former year there +appeared a small octavo volume entitled _The Shepherd's Pipe_. The chief +contributor was William Browne of Tavistock, the first book of whose +pastoral epic, _Britannia's Pastorals_, had appeared the previous year. +Besides seven eclogues from his pen, the volume contained one by +Christopher Brooke, one by Sir John Davies, and two by George Wither. +These last two were republished in 1615, with three additional pieces, in +Wither's collection entitled _The Shepherd's Hunting_. With the exception +of one or two of Browne's, these fourteen eclogues all deal with the +personal relation of the friends who disguise themselves respectively, +Browne as Willy, Wither as Roget (a name later exchanged for that of +Philarete), Brooke as Cuddie, and Davies as Wernock. Wither's were +written, as we learn from the title-page of the 1615 volume, while the +author was in prison in the Marshalsea for hunting vice with a pack of +satires in full cry, that is, the _Abuses Stript and Whipt_ of 1611. The +verse seldom rises above an amiable mediocrity, the best that can be said +for it being that it carries on, in a not wholly unworthy manner, the +dainty tradition of the octosyllabic couplet between the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ and Milton's early poems. Browne's eclogues are chiefly +remarkable for the introduction into the first of a long and rather +tedious tale derived from a manuscript of Thomas Occleve's. The last of +the series, an elegy on the death of Thomas, son of Sir Peter Manwood, has +been quoted as the model of _Lycidas_, but the resemblance begins and ends +with the fact that in either case the subject of the poem met his death by +drowning--a resemblance which will scarcely support a charge of +plagiarism[121]. + +In 1621 appeared six eclogues under the title of _The Shepherd's Tales_ by +the prolific miscellaneous writer Richard Brathwaite. Each in its turn +recounts the amorous misfortunes of some swain, which usually arise out of +the inconstancy of his sweetheart, and the prize of infelicity having been +adjudged, the author, not perhaps without a touch of malice, sends the +whole company off to a wedding. The _Tales_ are noteworthy for the very +pronounced dramatic gift they reveal, being in this respect quite unique +in their kind. The same year saw the publication of the not very +successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative +in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.' Brathwaite +had already in 1614 published the _Poet's Willow_, containing a +'Pastorall' which recounts the unsuccessful love of Berillus, an Arcadian +shepherd, for the nymph Eliza[122]. + +Pursuing the chronological order we come next to Phineas Fletcher's +'Piscatorie Eclogs' appended to his _Purple Island_ in 1633. Except that +the scene is laid on the banks of a river instead of in the pastures, and +that the characters spend their time looking after boats and nets instead +of tending flocks, they differ in nought from the strictly pastoral +compositions. They are seven in number, and deal either with personal +subjects or with conventional themes. As an imitation of the _Shepherd's +Calender_, without its uncouthness whether of subject or language, and +equally without its originality or higher poetic value, the work is not +wanting in merit, but it is most decidedly wanting in all power to arrest +the reader's attention. + +The last collection that will claim our notice is that of Francis Quarles, +which appeared posthumously in 1646 under the title of 'The Shepheards +Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues[123]. The interest of the volume +lies not so much in its poetic merit, which however is considerable, as in +the fact that it deals with almost every form of religious controversy at +a critical point in English history. Quarles was a stanch Anglican, and he +lashes Romanists and Precisians with impartial severity. One of the +eclogues opens with a panegyric on Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of +which a messenger enters bearing the news of his death, thus fixing the +date of the poem in all probability in the winter of 1632-3. In the +eleventh and last the Puritan party is mercilessly satirized in the person +of Anarchus, in allusion to the supposed socialistic tendency of its +teaching. He is thus described in a dialogue between Philarchus and +Philorthus (the lovers of order and justice presumably): + + _Philor._ How like a Meteor made of zeal and flame + The man appears! + + _Philar._ Or like a blazing Star + Portending change of State, or some sad War, + Or death of some good Prince. + + _Philor._ He is the trouble + Of three sad Kingdoms. + + _Philar._ Even the very Bubble, + The froth of troubled waters. + + _Philor._ Hee's a Page + Fill'd with Errata's of the present Age. + + _Philar._ The Churches Scourge-- + + _Philor._ The devils _Enchiridion_-- + + _Philar._ The Squib, the _Ignis fatuus_ of Religion. + +To their address Anarchus replies in a song which it would be easy to +illustrate from the dramatic literature of the time, and which well +indicates the estimation in which the faction was popularly held. Here is +one verse: + + Wee'l down with all the Varsities, + Where Learning is profest, + Because they practise and maintain + The Language of the Beast: + Wee'l drive the Doctors out of doores, + And Arts what ere they be, + Wee'l cry both Arts, and Learning down, + And, hey! then up goe we. + +The whole song for sheer rollicking hypocrisy is without parallel in the +language. The date of the poem is doubtful, but Quarles lived till 1644, +and after two years of civil strife the terms which the interlocutors in +the above passage apply to the Puritan party can hardly be regarded as +prophetic. + +Besides the works we have examined above, several others are known to have +existed, though they are not now traceable. Thus 'The sweete sobbes, and +amorous Complaintes of Shepardes and Nymphes in a fancye confusde by An +Munday' was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company on August 19, +1583. Two years earlier, on August 3, 1581, had been entered 'A Shadowe of +Sannazar.' Again we know, alike from Wood's _Athenae_ and Meres' _Palladis +Tamia_, that Stephen Gosson left works of the kind of which we have now no +trace; while Puttenham in his _Art of English Poesy_ mentions an eclogue +of his own, addressed to Edward VI, and entitled _Elpine_. Puttenham and +Meres in dealing with pastoral writers also mention one Challener, no +doubt the Thomas Chaloner who contributed to the _Mirror for Magistrates_, +and Nashe in his preface to _Menaphon_ adds Thomas Atchelow, who may be +plausibly identified with the Thomas Achelly who contributed verses to +Watson's _Hecatompathia_ and various sententious fragments to _England's +Parnassus_, among them a not very happy rendering of those lines of +Catullus which might almost be taken as a motto to pastoral poetry as a +whole: + + The sun doth set, and brings again the day, + But when our light is gone, we sleep for aye. + + + +V + + +It is not easy to arrange the mass of occasional lyric verse of a pastoral +nature in a manner to facilitate a general survey. We may perhaps divide +it roughly into general groups which possess certain points in common and +can be treated more or less independently. Little would be gained by +following a strictly chronological order, even were it possible to do so. + +We occasionally meet with translations, though from the nature of the case +these, as well as evidences of direct foreign influence, are less +prominent here than in the more formal type of pastoral verse. We have +already seen that Googe, besides borrowing from Garcilaso's version of a +portion of the _Arcadia_, himself paraphrased passages of the _Diana_ in +his eclogues, and the latter work also supplied material for the pen of +Sir Philip Sidney. His debt consists in translations of two songs from +Montemayor's romance, printed among his miscellaneous poems[124]. About a +dozen translations from the same source appeared in _England's Helicon_, +the work of Bartholomew Yong. They are for the most part very inferior to +the general average of the collection, but the opening of one at least is +worth quoting: + + 'Guardami las vaccas, + Carillo, por tu fé.-- + Besami primero, + Yo te las guardaré.' + + I prithee keep my kine for me, + Carillo, wilt thou? tell.-- + First let me have a kiss of thee, + And I will keep them well. + +Another translation is the poem headed 'A Pastorall' in Daniel's _Delia_ +of 1592, a rendering of the famous chorus to the first act of Tasso's +_Aminta_. + +When we turn to original verse, the first group of poets to arrest our +attention is the court circle which gathered round Sir Philip Sidney. +There is a poem by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, preserved in +Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_, and there headed 'A Dialogue between two +Shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astrea.' It was composed for the +entertainment of the queen, and was no doubt sung or recited in character. +Such was likewise the mode of production of Sir Philip's 'Dialogue between +two Shepherds, uttered in a pastoral show at Wilton,'[125] which is more +rustic in character. _Astrophel and Stella_ supplies a graceful 'complaint +to his flock' against the cruelty of + + Stella, fiercest shepherdess, + Fiercest, but yet fairest ever; + Stella, whom the heavens still bless, + Though against me she persever. + Though I bliss inherit never. + +The _Poetical Rhapsody_ again preserves two others, the outcome of +Sidney's friendship with Greville and Dyer. The first is a song of +welcome; the second, headed 'Dispraise of a Courtly Life,' ends with the +prayer: + + Only for my two loves' sake, + In whose love I pleasure take; + Only two do me delight + With the ever-pleasing sight; + Of all men to thee retaining, + Grant me with these two remaining. + +Of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the loyal admirer and biographer of +Sidney, who desired on his tomb no better passport to posterity than that +he had been Sir Philip's friend, we have among other works published in +1633 a series of so-called sonnets recording his love for the fair +Caelica. There is a thin veil of pastoralism over the whole, with here and +there a more definite note as in 'Sonnet' 75, a poem of over two hundred +lines lamenting his lady's cruelty-- + + Shepheardesses, yet marke well + The Martyrdome of Philocell. + +Of Sir Edward Dyer's works no early edition was published. Such isolated +poems as have survived were collected by Grosart in 1872 from a variety of +sources. If the piece entitled _Cynthia_ is authentic, it gives him a +respectable place beside Greville among the minor pastoralists of his day. +Lastly, in connexion with Sidney we may note a curious poem which appeared +in the first edition of the _Arcadia_ only.[126] It is a 'bantering' +eclogue, in which the shepherds Nico and Pas first abuse one another and +then fall to a comic singing match. It is evidently suggested by the fifth +Idyl of Theocritus, and is a fair specimen of a very uncommon class in +English. Akin to this is the burlesque variety, of which we have already +met with examples in Lorenzo's _Nencia_ and Pulci's _Beca_, and which is +almost equally rare with us. A specimen will be found in the not very +successful eclogue in Greene's _Menaphon_. The following is as near as the +author was able to approach to Lorenzo's delicately playful tone: + + Carmela deare, even as the golden ball + That Venus got, such are thy goodly eyes: + When cherries juice is jumbled therewithall, + Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies. + +It would, of course, be grossly unfair to judge Robert Greene, the +ever-sinning and ever-repentant, by the above injudicious experiment. His +lyrical powers appear in a very different light, for instance, in the +'Palmer's Ode' in _Never Too Late_ (1590), one of the most charming of his +many confessions: + + As I lay and kept my sheepe, + Came the God that hateth sleepe, + Clad in armour all of fire, + Hand in hand with Queene Desire, + And with a dart that wounded nie, + Pearst my heart as I did lie, + That, when I wooke, I gan sweare + Phillis beautie palme did beare. + +From the same romance I must do Greene the justice of quoting the +delightful, though but remotely pastoral, song of every loving nymph to her +bashful swain: + + Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Upon thy Venus that must die? + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + + See how sad thy Venus lies-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Love in heart and tears in eyes; + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + +It is hard to refrain from quoting half a dozen other pieces. There is the +courting of Phillis in _Perimedes the Blacksmith_ (1588), with its purely +idyllic close; or again the famous 'Shepherd's Wife's Song' from the +_Mourning Garment_ (1590): + + Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing, + As sweet unto a shepherd as a king; + And sweeter too, + For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, + And cares can make the sweetest love to frown: + Ah then, ah then, + If country loves such sweet desires do gain, + What lady would not love a shepherd swain? + +No one not utterly callous to the pathos of human life, or warped by some +ethical twist beyond the semblance of a man, has ever been able to pass +unmoved by the figure of Robert Greene. We see him, the poet of all that +is truest and tenderest in human affection, abandoning his young wife and +child, drawn by the power of some fatal fascination into the whirlpool of +low life in London, and then, as if inspired by a sudden revelation of +objective vision, penning the throbbing lines of the forsaken mother's +song: + + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. + +We see him again amid the despair and squalor of his death-bed, warning +his friends against his own example, and addressing to the wife he had not +seen for years those words endorsed on a bill for ten pounds, words ever +memorable in the history of English letters: 'Doll, I charge thee by the +love of our youth, and by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man +paid; for if he and his wife had not succoured me I had died in the +streets.' Such are the scenes of sordid misery which underlie some of the +choicest of English songs. It is best to return to the surface. + +The lyric 'sequences' published towards the close of the sixteenth +century frequently contain more or less pastoral matter. Barnabe Barnes +appended some poems of this sort to his _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_ (c. +1593), among others a version of Moschus' idyl of runaway love, a theme +which had long been a favourite one with pastoral writers. Poliziano's +Latin translation of Moschus[127] was commended by E. K. in his notes to +the _Shepherd's Calender_, and the same original supplied Tasso with the +subject of his _Amore fuggitivo_, which served as epilogue to the +_Aminta_. William Smith's _Chloris_ (1596), except for plentiful swearing +by pastoral deities, is less bucolic in spite of its dedication to Colin +Clout. The most important of the sequences from our present point of view +is Nicholas Breton's _Passionate Shepherd,_ which was not published till +1604. It contains five pastorals in praise of Aglaia: + + Had I got a kingly grace, + I would leave my kingly place + And in heart be truly glad + To become a country lad, + Hard to lie and go full bare, + And to feed on hungry fare, + So I might but live to be + Where I might but sit to see, + Once a day, or all day long, + The sweet subject of my song; + In Aglaia's only eyes + All my worldly paradise. + +This is a fair specimen of Breton's dainty muse, but his choicest work +appeared in that wonderful anthology published in 1600 under the title of +_England's Helicon_. To this collection Breton contributed such verses as +the following: + + On a hill there grows a flower-- + Fair befall the dainty sweet!-- + By that flower there is a bower, + Where the heavenly muses meet. + + In that bower there is a chair, + Fringèd all about with gold; + Where doth sit the fairest fair, + That ever eye did yet behold. + + It is Phyllis fair and bright, + She that is the shepherd's joy; + She that Venus did despite, + And did bind her little boy. + +Or again: + + Good Muse, rock me asleep + With some sweet harmony; + The weary eye is not to keep + Thy wary company. + + Sweet Love, begone awhile, + Thou knowest my heaviness; + Beauty is born but to beguile + My heart of happiness. + +Another poem no less perfect has been already quoted at length. In its own +line, the delicate carving of fair images as in crystal or some precious +stone, Breton's work is unsurpassed. We cannot do better than take, as +examples of a very large class, some of the poems printed, in most cases +for the first time, in _England's Helicon_. Of Henry Constable, the poet +indicated doubtless by the initiais H. C., we have a charming song between +Phillis and Amaryllis, the counterpart and imitation of Spenser's +'Bonibell' ballad: + + _P._ Fie on the sleights that men devise-- + (Heigho, silly sleights!) + When simple maids they would entice. + (Maids are young men's chief delights.) + _A._ Nay, women they witch with their eyes-- + (Eyes like beams of burning sun!) + And men once caught they do despise; + So are shepherds oft undone. + + * * * * * + + _P._ If every maid were like to me-- + (Heigho, hard of heart!) + Both love and lovers scorn'd should be. + (Scorners shall be sure of smart.) + _A._ If every maid were of my mind-- + (Heigho, heigho, lovely sweet!) + They to their lovers should prove kind; + Kindness is for maidens meet[128]. + +Of Sir John Wotton, the short-lived half-brother of the more famous Sir +Henry, there is a spirited song, betraying unusual command over a +complicated rhythm: + + Jolly shepherd, shepherd on a hill, + On a hill so merrily, + On a hill so cheerily, + Fear not, shepherd, there to pipe thy fill; + Fill every dale, fill every plain; + Both sing and say, 'Love feels no pain.' + +Another graceful poet of _England's Helicon_ is the 'Shepherd Tony,' whose +identity with Anthony Munday was finally established by Mr. Bullen. He +contributed, among other verses, a not very interesting reply to Harpelus' +complaint in 'Tottel's Miscellany,' and the well-known and exquisite: + + Beauty sat bathing by a spring + Where fairest shades did hide her, + +which reappears in his translation of the Castilian romance _Primelion_. + +In Marlowe's 'Passionate Shepherd to his Love,' of which _England's +Helicon_ supplies one of three texts[129], we come to what is, with the +possible exception of _Lycidas_ alone, the most subtly modulated specimen +of pastoral verse in English. So far as internal evidence is concerned the +poem has absolutely nothing but its own perfection to connect it with the +name of Marlowe; it is utterly unlike all other verse, dramatic, +narrative, or lyric, ascribed to him. An admirable eclectic text, which +exhibits to the full the delicacy of the rhythm, has been prepared by Mr. +Bullen in his edition of Marlowe's works. It would be impossible not to +quote the piece in full: + + Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and vallies, dales and fields, + Woods or steepy mountain yields. + + And we will sit upon the rocks, + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals. + + And I will make thee beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies, + A cap of flowers and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-lined[130] slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold. + + A belt of straw and ivy-buds, + With coral clasps and amber studs; + And if these pleasures may thee move, + Come live with me, and be my love. + + The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing + For thy delight each May-morning: + If these delights thy mind may move, + Then live with me, and be my love. + +The popularity of this poem was testified by its widespread influence on +the poets of the day. _England's Helicon_ contains 'the Nymphs reply,' +commonly attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also a long imitation; +Donne wrote a piscatory version, and Herrick paid it the sincerest form of +flattery, while less distinct reminiscences are common in the poetry of +the time. Yet Kit Marlowe's verses stand unrivalled. + +The pastoral influence in Shakespeare's verse, both lyric and dramatic, is +too obvious to need more than passing notice. Every reader will recall +'Who is Sylvia,' from the _Two Gentlemen_, and 'It was a lover and his +lass,' the song of which, in Touchstone's opinion, 'though there was no +great matter in the ditty, yet the tune was very untuneable,' or again the +famous speech of the chidden king: + + O God! methinks it were a happy life, + To be no better than a homely swain; + (3 _Henry VI_, II. v. 21.) + +and Arthur's exclamation: + + By my christendom + So I were out of prison and kept sheep, + I should be as merry as the day is long. + (_K. John_, IV. i. 16.) + +One poem, bearing a certain resemblance to verses of Barnfield's already +discussed, may be quoted here. It was originally printed in the fourth +act of _Love's Labour's Lost_ in 1598, reappeared in the _Passionate +Pilgrim_ in 1599, and again in _England's Helicon_ in 1600. + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May, + Spied a blossom passing fair + Playing in the wanton air. + Through the velvet leaves the wind + All unseen gan passage find, + That the shepherd, sick to death, + Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. + Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; + Air, would I might triumph so! + But, alas, my hand hath sworn + Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; + Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, + Youth is apt to pluck a sweet. + [Do not call it sin in me + That I am forsworn for thee;] + Thou for whom Jove would swear + Juno but an Ethiope were, + And deny himself for Jove, + Turning mortal for thy love.[131] + +Lastly, _England's Helicon_ preserves two otherwise unknown poems of +Drayton's, one probably an early work, having little to recommend it +beyond the pretty though not original conceit: + + See where little Cupid lies + Looking babies in her eyes! + +the other similar in style to the eclogue first published in the +collection of c. 1606. About contemporary possibly is the anonymous ballad +'Phillida flouts me,' which in command alike of rhythm and language is +remarkably reminiscent of some, and that some of the best, of Drayton's +work. + + Oh, what a plague is love! + How shall I bear it? + She will unconstant prove, + I greatly fear it. + + It so torments my mind + That my strength faileth; + She wavers with the wind, + As the ship saileth. + Please her the best you may, + She looks another way; + Alas and well-a-day! + Phillida flouts me[132]. + +I have already had occasion to mention the mysterious A. W. in Davison's +_Poetical Rhapsody_, but I cannot refrain from calling attention to one +other poem of his. It is headed 'A fiction, how Cupid made a nymph wound +herself with his arrows,' and is perhaps the nearest thing in English to a +Greek _idyllion_, though in the manner of Moschus rather than of +Theocritus. The opening scene will give an idea of the style: + + It chanced of late a shepherd's swain, + That went to seek a strayèd sheep, + Within a thicket on the plain, + Espied a dainty nymph asleep. + + Her golden hair o'erspread her face, + Her careless arms abroad were cast, + Her quiver had her pillow's place, + Her breast lay bare to every blast. + + The shepherd stood, and gazed his fill; + Nought durst he do, nought durst he say; + When chance, or else perhaps his will, + Did guide the god of love that way. + +And so the long pageant troops by, not without its passages of dullness, +its moments of pedestrian gait, for it must be borne in mind that the +poems quoted above are for the most part the choice of what has survived +in a few volumes, and that this in its turn represents the gleanings from +a far larger body of verse that once existed. In spite of its perennial +freshness the charge of want of originality has not unreasonably been +brought even against the best compositions of the kind. It could hardly be +otherwise. Except in the rarest cases originality was impossible. The +impulse was to write a certain kind of amatory verse, for which the +fashionable medium was pastoral; not to write pastoral for its own sake. +The demand was for convention, the familiar, the expected; never for +originality or truth. The fault was in the poetic requirements of the age, +and must not be laid to the charge of those admirable craftsmen who gave +the age what it wanted; especially when in so doing they enriched English +poetry with some of its choicest gems. + +The pastoral lyric of the next two reigns is far too wide a subject to be +entered upon here. Grave or gay, satirical or idyllic, coy or wanton, +there is scarcely a poet of note or obscurity who did not contribute his +share. Nowhere is a rarer note of pastoral to be found than in +_L'Allegro_, with its + + every shepherd tells his tale + Under the hawthorn in the vale. + +Before, however, saying farewell to this, the lighter side of English +pastoral verse, I would call attention to a poem which perhaps more than +any other illustrates the spirit of _voluttà idillica_, characteristic of +so much that possesses abiding value in pastoral. Unfortunately Carew's +_Rapture_ is almost throughout of a nature that forbids reproduction +except in a scientific edition, or an admittedly erotic collection. Though +its licence is coterminous with the bounds of natural desire, the candour +of its appeal to unvitiated nature saves it from reproach, and the +perfection of its form makes it an object of never-failing beauty. The +idea with which the poem opens, the escape to a land where all +conventional restrictions cease to have a meaning, was of course suggested +by the first chorus of the _Aminta_: + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno; + Quel che dal volgo insano + Onor poscia fu detto-- + Che di nostra natura 'l feo tiranno. + +I can only extract one short passage out of Tom Carew's poem, that which +describes how + + Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot + Which th' angry Gods had fast'ned with a root + To the fix'd earth, doth now unfetter'd run + To meet th' embraces of the youthful Sun. + She hangs upon him, like his Delphic Lyre; + Her kisses blow the old, and breath new, fire; + Full of her God, she sings inspired lays, + Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the Bays, + Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies + In Petrarch's learned arms, drying those eyes + That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow, + As made the world enamoured of his woe. + +This is not itself pastoral, but it belongs to that idyllic borderland +which we previously noticed in dealing with Italian verse. And again, as +in Italy, so in England, we find the same spirit infusing the mythological +tales. Did time and space allow it would be an interesting diversion to +trace how the pastoral spirit evinced itself in such works as Peele's +_Tale of Troy_, Lodge's _Scilla's Metamorphosis_, Drayton's _Man in the +Moon_, Brathwaite's _Narcissus Change_ (in the _Golden Fleece_), and found +articulate utterance in the voluptuous cadences of _Venus and Adonis_. + + + +VI + + +There are two specimens of English pastoral verse which I have reserved +for separate discussion in this place, namely, _Lycidas_ and _Britannia's +Pastorals_. The one is probably the most perfect example of the +allegorical pastoral produced since first the form was invented by Vergil, +the other the longest and most ambitious poem ever composed on a pastoral +theme.[133] + +Milton's poem was written on the occasion of the death of Edward King, +fellow of Christ's College, who was drowned on his way to Ireland during +the long vacation of 1637, and first appeared in a collection of memorial +verses by his Cambridge friends published in 1638. It gathers together +within its narrow compass as it were whole centuries of pastoral +tradition, fusing them into an organic whole, and inspiring the form with +a poetic life of its own. + + Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more + Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sear, + I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, + And with forc'd fingers rude, + Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. + +For Lycidas is dead and claims his meed of song. + + Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, + That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; + Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string. + +Sing first their friendship, nursed upon the self-same hill, their youth +spent together. But oh! the heavy change; now the very caves and woods +mourn his loss. Where then were the Muses, that their loved poet should +die? And yet what could they do for Lycidas, who had no power to shield +Orpheus himself, + + When by the rout that made the hideous roar, + His goary visage down the stream was sent, + Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore. + +What then avails the poet's toil? Were it not better to taste the sweets +of love as they offer themselves since none can count on reward in this +life? The prize, however, lies elsewhere-- + + Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. + +But such thoughts are too lofty for the swains of Arethusa and Mincius. +Listen rather as the herald of the sea questions the god of winds about +the fatal wreck. It was no storm drove the ill-starred boat to +destruction: + + The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine, + Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd, + +sounds the reply. Next, footing slow, comes the tutelary deity of Alma +Mater, and in one sad cry mourns the promise of a life so soon cut short. +Lastly, 'The Pilot of the Galilean lake,' with denunciation of the +corrupt hirelings of a venal age, laments the loss of the church in the +death of Lycidas. As his solemn figure passes by, the gracious fantasies +of pastoral landscape shrink away: now + + Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past, + That shrunk thy streams, + +bid the nymphs bring flowers of every hue, + + To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies-- + +and yet indeed even this comfort is denied, we dally with false +imaginings, + + Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas + Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurld, + Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, + Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide + Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world, + +or on the Cornish coast, + + Where the great vision of the guarded Mount + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. + +But enough! + + Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more, + For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar, + So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, + And yet anon repairs his drooping head, + And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore, + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. + +On this note the elegy ends, and there follow eight lines in which the +poet glances at his own pastoral self that has been singing, and realizes +that the world will go on even though Lycidas be no more, and that there +are other calls in life than that of piping on an oaten reed. These lines +correspond to the plain stanzaic frames in which Spenser set his lyrics in +the _Shepherd's Calender_: + + Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th' Okes and rills, + While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, + He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, + With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: + And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the Western bay; + At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: + To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. + +The poem, in common with the whole class of allegorical pastorals, is +undoubtedly open to the charge of artificiality, since, in truth, the +pastoral garb can never illustrate, but only distort and obscure subjects +drawn from other orders of civilization. Yet none but a great master +could, to produce a desired effect, have utilized every association which +tradition afforded with the consummate skill observable in Milton's poem. +He has been blamed for the introduction of St. Peter, on the ground of +incongruity; but he has tradition on his side. St. Peter, as we have +already seen, figures, under the name of Pamphilus, in the eclogues of +Petrarch, and his introduction by Milton is in nicest keeping with the +spirit of the kind. The whole poem, and indeed a great deal more, must +stand or fall with the Pilot of the Galilean Lake, for to censure his +introduction here is to condemn the whole pastoral tradition of three +centuries, a judgement which may or may not be just, but which is not a +criticism on Milton's poem. So again with the flowers that are to be +strewn on the laureate hearse. Three kinds of berries and eleven kinds of +flowers are mentioned, and it has been pointed out with painful accuracy +that nine of the latter would have been over, and none of the former ripe +on August 11, when King was drowned; while all the flowers, with the +exception of the amaranth, if it were of the true breed, would have been +dead and rotten in November, when the poem was presumably written. It +would be foolish to quarrel with Milton on this point, since where all is +imaginary such licence is as natural as the strictest botany; yet it must +not be forgotten that it is just this disseverance from actuality that has +made the eclogue the type of all that is frigid and artificial in +literature. The dissatisfaction felt by many with _Lycidas_ was voiced by +Dr. Johnson, when he wrote: 'It is not to be considered the effusion of +real passion, for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions.... Where there is leisure for fiction there is little +grief[134].' This is so absolutely true, with regard to the present poem +at all events, that it would appear hardly worth saying were it not that +there have always been found persons to maintain the contrary. There is no +reason whatever to suppose that Milton felt any keen personal grief at the +death of Edward King. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing, one might +almost say, genuine in the lament. This is indeed strictly irrelevant to +the question of its artistic merit, but it must nevertheless be admitted +that there is thus much justice in the censure, that the poem purports to +be the expression of an intimate sorrow, of the reality of which the +reader is never wholly convinced. In so far as it lacks this +'soul-compelling power,' it may be said, not unfairly, to fail of its own +artistic purpose. + +One further question, however, inevitably presents itself when we have to +consider such a work as _Lycidas_, a work, that is, in which art has +attained the highest perfection in one particular kind. Although the +objections urged against the individual poem may be shown to miss their +mark as criticisms on that poem, may they not have force as criticisms on +the class? The allegorical pastoral, though in one sense, as I have said, +created by Vergil, was yet, in another, a plant of slow growth, and +represents a tradition gradually evolved to meet the needs of a long line +of poets. Petrarch, Mantuan, Marot, Spenser were more than mere imitators +of Vergil or of one another; they wrote in a particular form because it +answered to particular requirements, and they fashioned it in the using. +Nevertheless it may be urged with undoubted force, that the requirements +were not primarily of an artistic nature, being ever governed by some +alien purpose, and that consequently the form which evolved itself in +answer to those requirements and to fulfil that purpose, was not by nature +calculated to yield the highest artistic results. And thus, though any +attempt to question the perfection of the art which Milton brought to the +composition of his elegy must needs be foredoomed to failure, the question +of the propriety of the form as an artistic medium remains open; and in so +far as critical opinion tends to give an unfavourable answer, in so far +does the form of pastoral instituted by Vergil and handed down without +break from the fourteenth century to Milton's own time stand condemned in +its most perfect flower. + +Few things could be less like _Lycidas_ than the work which next claims +our attention. Unique of its kind, and, in spite of its shortcomings, +possessed of no small poetic interest, William Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ may be regarded at pleasure either as a pastoral epic or as a +versified romance. It resembles the prose romances in being by nature +discursive, episodic and inconsequent, and like not a few it remained +unfinished. Little would be gained by giving any detailed analysis of the +plot developed through the leisurely amplitude of its 10,000 lines, while +any attempt to deal, however slightly, with the sources and literary +analogues of the work would lead us far beyond the scope of the present +chapter[135]. With regard to the latter, it must suffice to note that +among the works to which incidents can be directly traced are Tasso's +_Gerusalemme_, Montemayor's _Diana_, and Fletcher's _Faithful +Shepherdess_, while a more general indebtedness may in particular be +observed to Chaucer, _Piers Plowman_, and the _Faery Queen_. The plot +involves two more or less connected threads of action, the one dealing +with the adventures of the swains and shepherdesses, the other concerned +with the progress of Thetis and her court. This latter recalls the poetic +geography of Drayton's _Polyolbion_. The principal episodes in the former +are the loves of Celandine and Marina, and the allegorical story of Fida +and Aletheia, each of which leads to numerous ramifications. Indeed, so +far as the pastoral action is concerned, the whole is one string of barely +connected episodes. + +Celandine loves the shepherdess Marina, who is readily brought to return +his affection. To the love thus easily won he soon becomes indifferent, +and Marina in despair seeks to end her sorrows in a stream. Saved by the +god of the fountain, she is carried off to Mona, and there imprisoned in a +cave by the monster Limos (hunger). With her loss, Celandine's love +revives, and in his search for her he is led to visit the faery realm, +where he finds Spenser lying asleep. The poem ends abruptly in the midst +of his adventures. The story of Fida centres round the slaughter of her +pet hind by the monster Riot. From the mangled remains of the animal rises +the beautiful form of Aletheia (truth). The new-transformed nymph is the +daughter of Chronos (time), born, Pallas-like, without a mother. The +narrative of her rejection by the world gives occasion for some biting +satire on the ill-living of the religious orders, the vanity of the court, +and the dishonesty of the crafts. Meanwhile Riot, who from this point +ceases to be an embodiment of cruelty, and comes to typify fallen +humanity--the _Humanum Genus_ of the moralities--passing successively by +Remembrance, Remorse, and Repentance, is purged of his foul shape, and +appears as the shepherd Amyntas, finally to be united in marriage with +Aletheia. With these adventures is interwoven the progress of Thetis, who +comes to view her dominions. From the Euxine and the Hellespont her train +sweeps on by Adriatic and Atlantic shores, past lands which call up the +names of a long line of poets--Vergil, Ovid, Ariosto, Petrarch, Tasso, Du +Bartas, Marot, Ronsard--till ultimately she arrives off the coast of +Devon--the Devon of Browne and Drake. Here the shepherds assemble to do +her honour, from Colin Clout down to Browne's immediate circle, Brooke, +Davies, and Wither, and here the poet entertains her with the tale of +Walla and Tavy, which forms a charming incidental piece. The nymph Walla +loved the river-god Tavy, and while gathering flowers to weave a garland +for him was surprised by a satyr, who pursued her into a wood. She sought +refuge in a cave, where, being overtaken by her pursuer, she prayed to +Diana, and in the last resort to Ina, by whom she was transformed into a +spring, which, after drowning the venturesome satyr, ran on to join its +waters with those of her beloved Tavy. Thus Browne wove the common names +of his familiar home into a romance of pastoral invention. The +metamorphosis of Arethusa pursued by Alpheus, of Ambra by Ombrone, of the +nymphs by the satyrs of the _Salices_, or as frescoed on the temple of +Pales in the _Arcadia_, the loves of Mulla and Mollana in Spenser, and the +mythological impersonations of the _Polyolbion_, find, as it were, a +meeting-place in Browne's lay of Walla. + +The three parts of _Britannia's Pastorals_ did not appear together. Book +I was published during the winter of 1613-14, Book II in 1616, each +containing five songs; while the fragment of Book III, containing two +songs only, remained in manuscript till 1853, when it was discovered in +the Cathedral Library at Salisbury, and printed for the Percy +Society[136]. + +The narrative, as may have been inferred from what has already been said, +is sufficiently fantastic. In the introduction of allegorical characters +Browne was probably influenced by Spenser, and in a lesser degree by the +masque literature of his day and by the study of Langland. Since the work +is unfinished, we may in charity suppose that had Browne completed his +design the whole would have presented a somewhat less incongruous +appearance; there is, however, a marked tendency towards the accumulation +of unexplained incidents, which may most plausibly be referred to the +influence of the Spanish romances, especially of the _Diana_, which was +already accessible in Yong's translation, and one incident of which Browne +did undoubtedly borrow. + +In style and poetic merit Browne's work is most astonishingly unequal, +though the general level of _Britannia's Pastorals_ is distinctly higher +than that of the _Shepherd's Pipe_. The author passes at times abruptly +from careful and loving realism to the most stilted conventionality, and +from passages of impassioned eloquence to others grotesquely banal. In +some of his peculiarities, as in the perpetuai use of elaborate similes +and in the indulgence in inflated paraphrases, he anticipates some of the +worst faults of style cultivated by writers of the next century. There are +portions of the poem where the narrative is literally carried on through a +succession of highly wrought comparisons, each paragraph beginning with an +'As' followed by a correlative 'So' half a page further on. No such series +of pictures, however fairly wrought--and Browne's too often end in +bathos--can possibly convey the impression of continuons action. It is the +same with periphrasis. Used with discretion it may be one of the subtlest +ornaments of style, and even when fulfilling no particular purpose is +capable of imparting a luxuriant and somewhat rococo richness to the +verse. The effect, however, is frequently one of unrelieved frigidity, as +in the lines: + + And now Hyperion from his glitt'ring throne + Sev'n times his quick'ning rays had bravely shown + Unto the other world, since Walla last + Had on her Tavy's head the garland plac'd; + And this day, as of right, she wends abroad + To ease the meadows of their willing load. + (II. iii. 855.) + +At times it was Browne's moral preoccupation that curbed his muse, as in +his description of the golden age where, for the sensuous glow of Tasso +and for Carew's pagan paradise, he substitutes the insipid convention of a +philosophical age of innocence[137]. In his genuine mood as a loving +observer of country life he is a very different poet. His feeling is +delicate in tone and his observation keen; he was familiar with every tree +that grew in the woods, every fish that swam in the waters of his beloved +Devon; he entered tenderly into the homely life of the farm-- + + By this had chanticleer, the village clock, + Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock, + And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stay'd, + That he might till those lands were fallow laid; + The hills and vailles here and there resound + With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound; + Each shepherd's daughter, with her cleanly peal,[138] + Was come afield to milk the morning's meal. + (I. iv. 483.) + +When, however, naturalism of this kind is introduced into pastoral it is +already on the high road toward ceasing to be pastoral at all. Nor are +touches of higher poetic imagination wanting, as when Time is described as + + a lusty aged swain, + That cuts the green tufts off th' enamell'd plain, + And with his scythe hath many a summer shorn + The plough'd-lands lab'ring with a crop of corn. + (I. iv. 307.) + +The love of his country is, however, the altar at which Browne's poetic +genius takes fire: + + Hail, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot, + Whose equal all the world affordeth not! + Show me who can so many crystal rills, + Such sweet-cloth'd valleys or aspiring hills,.... + And if the earth can show the like again, + Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. + Time never can produce men to o'ertake + The fames of Grenville, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, + Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more + That by their power made the Devonian shore + Mock the proud Tagus, for whose richest spoil + The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil + Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost + By winning this, though all the rest were lost. + (II. iii. 601.) + +It is after all in such a passage as this that we see the true William +Browne, with all his high-handedness and worthy enthusiasm, the poet who +not only loves his country with a lover's passion and cannot tolerate that +any should be compared to her in fairness of feature, in stateliness of +stature, or in virtue of mind; but who, first perhaps among English poets, +has that more local patriotism, narrower and more intimate, for his own +home, for its moors, its streams, its associations, all the actual or +imagined surroundings of his beloved Tavistock, and carries in his heart +for ever the cry of the wild west-- + + Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain! + + + +VII + + +Approaching the romance, as we do, from the point of view rather of the +development of the pastoral ideal than of the history of prose narrative +or of the novel, we may spare ourselves any detailed consideration of the +famous work of John Lyly. Although in the novel which has made 'Euphuism' +a word and a bye-word in the language he supplied the literary medium for +the work of subsequent pastoral writers such as Greene and Lodge, his +own compositions in this kind are confined entirely to the drama. + +The translations in this department are for the most part negligible. +There is, however, one notable exception, namely, the rendering by +Bartholomew Yong or Young of Montemayor's _Diana_, together with the +continuations of Ferez and Gil Polo. Completed as early as May, 1583, the +work remained in manuscript until 1598, when it was published in the form +of a handsome folio. Although, as we have already had occasion to notice, +the verse portions were not for the most part of a nature to add lustre to +an anthology such as _England's Helicon_, the whole forms a not unworthy +Tudor translation. We learn from Yong's preface that portions of the +romance had already been Englished by Edward Paston, a descendant of the +famous Norfolk letter-writers, who had family relations with Spain and +possessed an intimate knowledge of the language. Of this work nothing +further is known. Some two years, however, before Yong's version issued +from the press, the first book of Montemayor's portion was again +translated by Thomas Wilson, and of this a manuscript yet survives[139]. +Passing mention may also be made of Angel Day's translation of _Daphnis +and Chloe_ containing the original insertion of the _Shepherd's Holiday_ +with the praises of Elizabeth in verse, and of Robert Tofte's _Honours +Academy_ (1610), distantly following Ollenix du Mont-Sacré's _Bergerie de +Juliette_, but which, as also John Pyper's version of d'Urfé's _Astrée_ +(1620), have received sufficient notice in being recorded in connexion +with their originals. + +Earlier in date of publication and belonging to an elder tradition than +the _Arcadia_, though later in date of composition, and it may be at times +betraying a familiarity with Sidney's manuscript, the romances of the +Bohemian Robert Greene, and the buccaneer-physician Thomas Lodge, are +naturally the first to claim our attention. + +With the exception of _Menaphon_, Greene's romances offer little that is +important in pastoral, apart from the more notable works which they +inspired. And even _Menaphon_, in so far as the general conception is +concerned, can hardly be said necessarily to involve the existence of any +antecedent pastoral tradition. Greene's novel is, indeed, far from being +purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney's, to use Professor Herford's +happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta. In +this it undoubtedly resembles the Spanish romances, but the resemblance +does not appear to go much further; it is on the whole warlike without +being chivalric, the tone Greek, or what Greene considered such, rather +than medieval--indeed it might be argued that in its martial incidents it +rather recalls _Daphnis and Chloe_ than the _Diana_. There is certainly +nothing chivalric about King Democles, who, when some ten score shepherds +are besieging a castle, sends to the 'General of his Forces,' and not only +has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days' +notice--in itself a notable piece of strategy--but when they arrive on the +scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush! No wonder that when +the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, +they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain +masters of the situation. + +The plot might perhaps be considered improbable as well as intricate for +anything but a pastoral or chivalric romance: judged by the standards +prevailing in these species it is neither. Democles, king of Arcadia, has +a daughter Sephistia, who contrary to his wishes has contracted a secret +marriage with Maximus. When the birth of a son leads to discovery, +Democles has them placed in an oarless boat and so cast adrift. A storm +arising they are not unnaturally wrecked, and ultimately husband and wife +are cast upon different points of the Arcadian coast(!), where, either +supposing the other to have perished, they adopt the pastoral life, +assuming the names respectively of Melicertus and Samela. The young mother +has with her child Pleusidippus, but while still in early boyhood he is +carried off by pirates and presented as a gift to the King of Thessaly. In +the meantime Menaphon, 'the king's shepherd of Arcadia,' has fallen in +love with Samela, but while accepting his hospitality she meets her +husband in his shepherd's guise, and without recognizing one another +husband and wife again fall in love. Years pass on and Pleusidippus, who +has risen to fame at court, hears of the beauty of the shepherdess of +Arcadia, and must needs go to test the truth of the report himself. He +does so, and promptly falls in love with his own mother. Nor is this all, +for Democles equally hears of Samela's fame, and disguising himself as a +shepherd falls in love with his own daughter. He endeavours to command +Samela's affection by revealing to her his own identity, but Pleusidippus +is beforehand with more drastic measures, and with the help of a few +associates carries Samela off to a neighbouring castle, to which Democles +and the shepherds, headed by Melicertus, proceed to lay siege. A duel +between father and son is unceremoniously interrupted by the inroad of +Democles' soldiery. Upon this the identity of Samela is revealed by a +convenient prophetess, and all ends happily. + +In the relation of verse and prose Greene's work differs from that of +Sannazzaro and Sidney, the former being of considerably greater merit than +the latter. The style adopted exhibits a very marked Euphuism, and the +whole form of narrative is characterized by that fondness for petty +conceit which not seldom gives an air of puerility to the lighter +Elizabethan prose. Puerile in a sense it had every right to be, for modern +prose narration was then in its very infancy in this country. No artistic +form destined to contribute to the main current of literature is born +perfect into the world; the early efforts appear not only tentative, +uncouth, at times rugged, but often childish and futile, unworthy the +consideration of serions men. The substance of the _Gesta Romanorum_ and +the style of the _Novellino_ appear so, considered in relation to the +_Decameron_; the mystery plays are an obvious instance, not to be +explained by any general immaturity of medieval ideas. Traces of the +tendency may even be noticed where revival or acclimatization, rather than +original invention, is the aim; we find it in the _Shepherd's Calender_, +nor was it absent in the days of the romantic revival, either from the +German _Lenores_ or the English _Otrantos_. And so it is with the +novelists of the Elizabethan age. Renouncing the traditions of the older +romance, which was adult and perfect a hundred years before in Malory, but +had now fallen into a second childhood, and determined on the creation of +a new and genuine form of literary expression, they paid the price of +originality in the vein of childishness that runs through their writings. + +If, however, Greene was content in the main to adopt the style of the new +novel, he, as indeed Lyly too, could at times snatch a straightforward +thought or a vigorous phrase from current speech or controversial +literature, and invest it with all the greater effectiveness by +contrasting it with its surroundings. Here, as an example of euphuistic +composition, is Democles' address to the champions about to engage in +single combat: + + Worthy mirrors of resolved magnanimitie, whose thoughts are above your + fortunes, and your valour more than your revenewes, know that Bitches + that puppie in hast bring forth blind whelpes; that there is no herbe + sooner sprung up than the Spattarmia nor sooner fadeth; the fruits too + soone ripe are quickly rotten; that deedes done in hast are repented at + leisure: then, brave men in so weightie a cause,... deferre it some + three daies, and then in solemn manner end the combat[140]. + +With this we may contrast the closing sentence of the work: + + And lest there should be left any thing imperfect in this pastorall + accident, Doron smudged himselfe up, and jumped a marriage with his old + friend Carmela. + +This is, of course, intentionally cast in a homely style in contrast to +the courtliness of the main plot; but Greene, as some of his later works +attest, knew the value of strong racy English no less than his friend +Nashe, who, in the preface he prefixed to this very work, pushed +colloquialism and idiom to the verge of affectation and beyond. + +The incidental verse, on the other hand, though very unequal, is of +decidedly higher merit. Sephistia's famous song should alone suffice to +save any book from oblivion, while there are other verses which are not +unworthy of a place beside it. I may instance the opening of the +'roundelay' sung by Menaphon, the only character strictly belonging to +pastoral tradition, with its picture of approaching night: + + When tender ewes brought home with evening Sunne + Wend to their foldes, + And to their holdes + The shepheards trudge when light of day is done. + +Such as it was, _Menaphon_ appealed in no small degree to the taste of the +moment. We know how great was Greene's reputation as an author, how +publishers were ready to outbid one another for the very dregs of his wit. +Thomas Brabine was but voicing the general opinion when, in some verses +prefixed to _Menaphon_, he wrote, condescending to an inevitable pun, but +also to a less excusable mixed metaphor: + + Be thou still Greene, whiles others glorie waine. + +Of his other romances it is sufficient in this place to mention that +_Pandosto_, which contains the pastoral loves of Dorastus and Fawnia, and +supplied Shakespeare with the outlines of the _Winter's Tale_, appeared +the year before _Menaphon_, while the year after saw his _Never Too Late_, +which is likewise of a generally pastoral character, but does not appear +to have suggested or influenced any subsequent work. + +The remarks that have been made concerning Greene apply in a large +measure also to his fellow euphuist Thomas Lodge. His earliest romance, +_Forbonius and Prisceria_, published in 1584, is partly pastoral in plot, +a faithful lover being driven by the opposition of his lady's father into +assuming the pastoral habit; but it is chiefly the connexion of his +_Rosalynde_ of 1590 with Shakespeare's _As You Like It_ that gives him a +claim upon our attention. _Rosalynde_ is not only on this account the +best-known, but is also intrinsically the most interesting of his +romances. The story is too familiar to need detailing. Its origin, as is +also well known, is the _Tale of Gamelyn_, the story which Chaucer +intended putting into the mouth either of the cook, or more probably of +the yeoman, and the hero of which apparently belongs to the Robin Hood +cycle. The interest centres round the three sons of Sir John of Bordeaux, +who retains his name with Lodge and is Shakespeare's Sir Roland de Bois, +and whose youngest son, Lodge's Rosader and Shakespeare's Orlando, is +named Gamelyn, and the outlaw king, Lodge's king of France and +Shakespeare's Duke senior[141]. The entire pastoral element, as well as +the courtly scenes of the earlier portion of the novel, are Lodge's own +invention. His shepherds, whether genuine, as Coridon and Phoebe, or +assumed, as Rosalynde and Rosader, are all alike Italian Arcadians, +equally polished and poetical. Montanus, a shepherd corresponding to +Shakespeare's Silvius, is a dainty rimester, and is not only well posted +in the loves of Polyphemus and Galatea, but can rail on blind boy Cupid in +good French, and on his mistress too-- + + Son cuer ne doit estre de glace, + Bien que elle ait de Neige le sein. + +Thus Lodge added to the original story the figures of the usurper, +Rosalynde, Alinda (Celia), and the shepherds Montanus (Silvius), Coridon +(Corin) and Phoebe, while to Shakespeare we owe Amiens, Jacques, +Touchstone, Audre, and a few minor characters; whence it appears that +Lodge's contribution forms the mainstay of the plot as familiar to modern +readers. Moreover, in spite of the stiltedness of the style where the +author yet remembers to be euphuistic, in spite of the long 'orations,' +'passions,' 'meditations' and the like, each carefully labelled and giving +to the whole the air of a series of rhetorical exercises, in spite of the +mediocre quality of most of the verses, if we except its one perfect gem, +the romance yet retains not a little of its silvan and idyllic sweetness. + +Before leaving the school of Lyly, which included a number of more or less +famous writers, I may take the opportunity of mentioning two authors +usually reckoned among them. One, John Dickenson, left two works of a +pastoral nature. His short romance entitled _Arisbas_ appeared in 1594, +and may have supplied Daniel with a hint for the kidnapping of Silvia in +_Hymen's Triumph_. Another yet shorter work, entitled the _Shepherd's +Complaint_, which is undated, but was probably printed in the same year, +is remarkable for being composed more than half in verse, largely +hexameters. In it the author falls asleep and is transported in his dreams +to Arcady, where he listens to the lament of a shepherd for the love of +Amaryllis. The cruel nymph is, however, soon punished, for, challenging +Diana in beauty, she falls a victim to the shafts of the angry goddess, +and is buried with full bucolic honours, whereupon the author awakes. The +other writer is William Warner, well known from his _Albion's England_, +published in 1586, who left a work entitled _Pan his Syrinx_, which +appeared in 1584; but in this pastoralism does not penetrate beyond the +title-page. + +Of the books which everybody knows and nobody reads, _The Countess of +Pembroke's Arcadia_ is perhaps the most famous[142]. Yet though an account +of the romance may be found in the pages of every literary textbook, the +history of how the work came to be printed has never been fully cleared +up[143]. The _Arcadia_, as it remained at Sidney's death, was +fragmentary. Two books and a portion of a third were all that had +undergone revision, and possibly represented the portion which Sidney +compiled while living with his sister at Wilton, after his retirement from +court in 1581--the portion for the most part actually written in his +sister's presence. Even of this trustworthy manuscripts were rare, most of +those that circulated being copies of the unrevised text. Sidney died on +October 17, 1586, and even before the end of the year we find his friend +Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, writing to Sidney's father-in-law, +Sir Francis Walsingham, to the effect that the bookseller, William +Ponsonby, had informed him that some one was about to print the _Arcadia_, +and that if they were acting without authority a notification of the fact +should be lodged with the archbishop. Greville proceeds to say that he had +sent to Walsingham's daughter, that is, Lady Sidney, the corrected +manuscript of the work 'don 4 or 5 years sinse, which he left in trust +with me; wherof there is no more copies, and fitter to be reprinted then +the first, which is so common[144].' A complaint was evidently lodged, and +the publication stayed, and we may assume that Ponsonby was rewarded for +his notification by being entrusted with the publication of the revised +manuscript mentioned by Greville, for it was from his house that issued +the quarto edition of 1590. Evidence that it was Greville who was +responsible for the publication of the _Arcadia_ is found in the +dedication of Thomas Wilson's manuscript translation from the _Diana_, +where, addressing Greville, the translater speaks of Sir Philip's +_Arcadia_, 'w^{ch} by yo^{r} noble vertue the world so hapily enjoyes.' In +this edition, containing the first two and a half books only, the division +into chapters and the arrangement of the incidental verse were the work of +the 'over-seer of the print.' The text, however, was not considered +satisfactory, and when the romance was reprinted in 1593 the division into +chapters was discarded, certain alterations were made in the arrangement +of the verse, and there was added another portion of the third book, +together with a fourth and fifth, compiled by the Countess of Pembroke +from the loose sheets sent her from time to time by her brother. This +edition has been commonly regarded as the first published with due +authority, and the term 'surreptitious' has been quite unjustly applied to +the original quarto. The charge, indeed, receives colour from the preface, +signed H. S., to the second edition; but, whoever H. S. may have been, +there is nothing to make one suppose that he was speaking with authority. +The quarto of 1590 having been duly licensed on August 23, 1588, the +rights of the work were in Ponsonby's hands, and to him the publication of +the revised edition had to be entrusted. In 1598 a third edition, to which +other remains of the author were for the first time added, was also +published by Ponsonby. There still remained, however, a lacuna in Book +III, which was not remedied till 1621, when a supplement was added from +the pen of Sir William Alexander. In the edition of 1627 a sixth book was +appended, the work of one Richard Beling, whose initials alone, however, +appear. The early editors seem to have assumed that the unfinished state +of the work, or rather the unrevised state of the later portions, was due +to the author's early death, but most of it must have been written between +the years 1581 and 1583, and it may well be questioned whether in any case +Sidney would have bestowed any further attention upon it. Jonson, indeed, +has preserved the tradition that it had been Sir Philip's intention 'to +have transform'd all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthure[145],' +though how the transformation was to be accomplished he forbore to hint; +but the more familiar tradition of Sidney's having expressed on his +death-bed a desire that the romance should be destroyed assorts better +with what else we know of his regard for his 'idle worke.' + +For the name of his romance Sidney was no doubt indebted to Sannazzaro, +whom he twice mentions as an authority in his _Defence of Poesy_, but +there in all probability his direct obligation ends, since even the _rime +sdrucciole_, which he occasionally affected, may with equal probability be +referred to the influence of the _Diana_. It was, undoubtedly, +Montemayor's romance which served as a model for, or rather suggested the +character of, Sidney's work[146]. Thus the chivalric element, unknown to +Sannazzaro, is with Sidney even more prominent than with Montemayor and +his followers. It is, however, true that, like Greene's, his heroes are +rather of a classical than a medieval stamp, and he also chose to lay the +scene of the action in Greece rather than in his native land, as was the +habit of Spanish writers. The source upon which Sidney chiefly drew for +incidents was the once famous _Amadis of Gaul_, but a diligent reading of +the other French and Spanish romances of chivalry would probably lengthen +the list of recorded creditors. Heliodorus supplies several episodes, and +an acquaintance at least can be traced with both Achilles Tatius and +Chariton. + +The intricate plot, with its innumerable digressions, episodes, and +interruptions, need not here be followed in detail, especially as we shall +have ample opportunity of becoming familiar with its general features when +we come to discuss the plays founded upon it. Here it will be sufficient +to note one or two points. In the first place the romance contains no +really pastoral characters, the personae being all either shepherds in +their disguise only, or else, like Greene's Doron and Carmela, burlesque +characters of the rustic tradition. Secondly, it may be observed that the +amorous confusion is even greater than in _Menaphon_, Pyrocles disguising +himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved +Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in +his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, +while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected +his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part +innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion[147]. + +In general the _Arcadia_ is no more than it purports to be, the 'many +fancies' of Sidney's fertile imagination poured forth in courtly guise for +the entertainment of his sister, though his own more serious thoughts +occasionally find expression in its pages, and he even introduces himself +under the imperfect anagram of Philisides, and shadows forth his +friendship with the French humanist Languet. More than this it would be +rash to assert, and Greville did his friend an equivocal service when he +sought to find a deep philosophy underlying the rather formal characters +of the romance[148]. These characters, as we have seen, are for the most +part essentially courtly; the pastoral guise is a mere veil shielding them +from the crude uncompromising light of actuality, with its prejudice in +favour of the probable; while the few rustic personages merely supply a +not very successful comic antimasque. + +To the popularity of the _Arcadia_ it is hardly necessary to advert. It +has been repeatedly printed, added to, imitated, abbreviated, modernized, +popularized; four editions appeared during the last decade of the +sixteenth century, nine between the beginning of the seventeenth and the +outbreak of the civil wars[149]. It was first published at a moment when +the public was beginning to tire of Euphuism, and when the heroic death of +the author had recently set a seal upon the brilliance of his fame. +Looking back in after years, writers who, like Drayton, had lived through +the movement from its very birth, could speak of Sidney as of the author +who + + did first reduce + Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use, + +and could praise his style as a model of pure English. In spite of the +generous, if misguided, efforts of occasional critics, posterity has not +seen fit to endorse this view. While finding in Sidney's style the same +historical importance as in Lyly's, we cannot but recognize that in itself +Arcadianism was little if at all better than Euphuism. It is just as +formal, just as much a trick, just as stilted and unpliable, just as +painful an illustration of the fact that a figure of rhetoric may be an +occasional ornament, but cannot by any degree of ingenuity be made to +serve as a basis of composition. In the same way as Euphuism is founded +upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the +use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and +metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural +history'; so Sidney's style in the _Arcadia_ is based on a balance usually +obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, +together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the +pathetic fallacy. These last have been dangers in all periods of stylistic +experiment; the former, figures duly noted as ornaments by contemporary +rhetoricians, Sidney no doubt borrowed from Spain. There in one famous +example they were shortly to excite the enthusiasm of the knight of La +Mancha--'The reason of the unreason which is done to my reason in such +manner enfeebles my reason that with reason I lament your beauty'--a +sentence which one is sometimes tempted to imagine Sidney must have set +before him as a model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential +elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their +models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost +any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the +balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which +inclines perhaps towards Euphuism: + + I am no herald to enquire of mens pedegrees, it sufficeth me if I know + their vertues, which, if this young mans face be not a false witnes, doe + better apparrell his minde, then you have done his body. (1590, fol. + 8v.) + +Or again, as an instance of the jingle of words, take the following from +the steward's narration: + + I thinke you thinke, that these perfections meeting, could not choose + but find one another, and delight in that they found, for likenes of + manners is likely in reason to drawe liking with affection; mens actions + doo not alwaies crosse with reason: to be short, it did so in deed. (ib. + fol. 20.) + +Of Sidney's power of description the stock example is his account of the +Arcadian landscape (fol. 7), and it is perhaps the best and at the same +time the most characteristic that could be found; the author's peculiar +tricks are at once obvious. There are 'the humble valleis, whose base +estate semed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers,' and the +'thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so +to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds'; there are the +pastures where 'the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams +comfort,' where sat the young shepherdess knitting, whose 'voice comforted +her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices musick,' a +country where the scattered houses made 'a shew, as it were, of an +accompanable solitarines, and of a civil wildnes,' where lastly--_si sic +omnia_!--was the 'shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be +old.' It must not be supposed that these are occasional embroideries; they +are the very cloth of which the whole pastoral habit is made. The above +examples all occur within a few pages, and might even have been gathered +from a yet smaller plot. It is, however, on the prose, such as it is, that +the reputation of the _Arcadia_ rests; a good deal of occasional verse is +introduced, but it has often been subject of remark how wholly unworthy of +its author most of it is. + +Given the widespread popularity of the work, the influence exercised by +the story on English letters is hardly a matter for wonder. Of its general +influence on the drama it will be my business to speak later; at present +we may note that while yet in manuscript it probably supplied Lodge with +certain hints for his _Rosalynde_, and so indirectly influenced _As You +Like It_. One of the best-known episodes, again, that of Argalus and +Parthenia, was versified by Quarles in 1632, and, adorned with a series of +cuts, went through a large number of editions before the end of the +century, besides being dramatized by Glapthorne. The incident of Pyrocles +heading the Zelots has been thought to have suggested the scene in the +_Two Gentlemen of Verona_ in which Valentine consents to lead the robber +band, while to Sidney Shakespeare was likewise indebted, not only for the +cowards' fight in _Twelfth Night_, but in the 'story of the Paphlagonian +unkinde king,' for the original of the Gloster episode in _King Lear_. A +certain prayer out of the later portion of the romance was, as is well +known, a favourite with Charles I in the days of his misfortune, but the +controversial use made of the fact by Milton it is happily possible to +pass over in silence. + +Finally, it is worth mentioning as illustrating the vogue of Sidney's +romance, that it not only had the very singular honour of being translated +into French in the first half of the seventeenth century, but that two +translations actually appeared, the rivalry between which gave rise to a +literary controversy of some asperity[150]. + +Thus we take leave of the pastoral novel or romance, a kind which never +attained to the weighty tradition of the eclogue, or the grace of the +lyric, nor was subjected to the rigorous artistic form of the drama[151]. +It remained throughout nerveless and diffuse, and, in spite of much +incidental beauty, was habitually wanting in interest, except in so far as +it renounced its pastoral nature. As Professor Raleigh has put it: 'To +devise a set of artificial conditions that shall leave the author to work +out the sentimental inter-relations of his characters undisturbed by the +intrusion of probability or accident is the problem; love _in vacuo_ is +the beginning and end of the pastoral romance proper.' A similar attempt +is noticeable in the drama, but the conditions soon came to be recognized +as impossible for artistic use. The operation of human affection under +utterly imaginary and impossible conditions is not a matter of human +interest; the resuit was a purely fictitious amatory code, as absurd as it +was unhealthy, and, when sustained by no extrinsic interest of allegory or +the like, the kind soon disappeared. As it is, in the pastoral novel, it +is only when the enchanted circle is broken by the rough and tumble of +vulgar earthly existence that on the featureless surface of the waters +something of the light and shade of true romance replaces the steady +pitiless glare ot a philosophical or sentimental ideal. + + + + +Chapter III. + +Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +We have now passed in review the main classes of non-dramatic pastoral +both abroad and in this country. Such preliminary survey was necessary in +order to obtain an idea of the history and nature of pastoral composition +in general. It was further rendered imperative by more particular +considerations which will appear in the course of the present chapter, for +we shall find that the pastoral drama comes into being, not through the +infusion of the Arcadian ideal into pre-existing dramatic forms, but +through the actual evolution of a new dramatic form from the pre-existing +non-dramatic pastoral. + +It is time to retrace our steps and to pick up the thread which we dropped +in a former chapter, the development, namely, of the vernacular eclogue in +Italy. If in so doing we are forced to enter at greater length upon the +discussion of individual works, we shall find ample excuse, not only in +their intrinsic merit, but likewise in their more direct bearing upon what +is after all the main subject of this volume. The pastoral drama of Italy +is the immediate progenitor of that of England. Further, it might be +pleaded that special interest attaches to the Arcadian pastoral as the +only dramatic form of conspicuous vitality for which Italy is the crediter +of European letters. + +The history of the rise of the pastoral drama in Italy is a complicated +subject, and one not altogether free from obscurity. Many forces were at +work determining the development of the form, and these it is difficult so +to present as at once to leave a clear impression and yet not to allow any +one element to usurp an importance it does not in reality possess. Any +account which gives a specious appearance of simplicity to the case +should be mistrusted. That I have been altogether successful in my +treatment I can hardly hope, but at least the method followed has not been +hastily adopted. I propose to consider, first of all and apart from the +rest, the early mythological drama, which while exercising a marked +influence over the spirit of the later pastoral can in no way be regarded +as its origin. Next, I shall trace the evolution of the pastoral drama +proper from its germ in the non-dramatic eclogue, by way of the _ecloghe +rappresentative_, and treat incidentally the allied rustic shows, which +form a class apart from the main line of development. Lastly, I shall have +to say a few words concerning the early pastoral plays by Beccari and +others before turning to the masterpieces of Tasso and Guarini, the +consideration of which will occupy the chief part of this chapter[152]. + +The class of productions known as mythological plays, which powerfully +influenced the character of the pastoral drama, sprang from the union of +classical tradition with the machinery of native religious +representations, in Poliziano's _Favola d' Orfeo_. This was the first +non-religious play in the vernacular, and its dependence on the earlier +religious drama is striking. Indeed, the blending of medieval and +classical forms and conventions may be traced throughout the early secular +drama of Italy. Boiardo's _Timone_, a play written at some unknown date +previous to 1494, preserves, in spite of its classical models, much of the +allegorical character of the morality, and was undoubtedly acted on a +stage comprising two levels, the upper representing heaven in which Jove +sat enthroned on the seat of Adonai. The same scenic arrangement may well +have been used in the _Orfeo_, the lower stage representing Hades[153]; +while Niccolò da Correggio's _Cefalo_ was evidently acted on a polyscenic +stage, the actors passing in view of the audience from one part to +another[154]. At a yet earlier period Italian writers in the learned +tongue had taken as the subjects of their plays stories from classical +legend and myth, and among these we find not only recognized tragedy +themes such as the rape of Polyxena dramatized by Lionardo Bruni, but +tales such as that of Progne put on the stage by Gregorio Corrado, both of +which preceded by many years the work of Politian and Correggio. + +The earliest secular play in Italian is, then, nothing but a _sacra +rappresentazione_ on a pagan theme, a fact which was probably clearly +recognized when, in the early editions from 1494 onwards, the piece was +described as the 'festa di Orpheo[155].' It was written in 1471, when +Poliziano was about seventeen, and we learn from the author's epistle +prefixed to the printed edition that ît was composed in the short space of +two days for representation before Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. +From the same epistle we learn that the author desired, or at least +assumed the attitude of desiring, that his composition should share the +fate of the ill-fashioned Lacedaemonian children; 'Cognoscendo questa mia +figliuola essere di qualità da fare più tosto al suo padre vergogna che +onore; e più tosto atta a dargli malinconia che allegrezza.' The _favola_ +as originally put forth continued to be reprinted without alteration, till +1776, when Ireneo Affò published the _Orphei Tragoedia_ from a collation +of two manuscripts. This differs in various respects from the printed +version, among others in being divided, short as it is, into five acts, +headed respectively 'Pastorale,' 'Ninfale,' 'Eroico,' 'Negromantico,' and +'Baccanale.' It is now known to represent a revision of the piece made, +probably by Antonio Tebaldeo, for representation at Ferrara, and in it +much of the popular and topical element has been eliminated. The action +of the piece is based in a general manner upon the story given by Ovid in +the tenth book of the _Metamorphoses_. + +The performance begins with a prologue by Mercury which is nothing but a +short argument of the whole plot. 'Mercurio annunzia la festa' is the +superscription in the original, evidently suggested by the appearance of +'un messo di Dio' with which the religious _rappresentazioni_ usually +open. At the end of this prologue a shepherd appears and finishes the +second octave with the couplet: + + State attenti, brigata; buono augurio; + Poi che di cielo in terra vien Mercurio. + +In the Ferrarese revision these stanzas appear as 'Argomento' without +mention of Mercury, while for the above lines are substituted the +astonishing doggerel: + + Or stia ciascuno a tutti gli atti intento, + Che cinque sono; e questo è l' argomento. + +Thereupon (beginning Act I of the revision) enters Mopso, an old shepherd, +meeting Aristeo, a youthful one, with his herdsman Tirsi. Mopso asks +whether his white calf has been seen, and Aristeo, who fancies he has +heard a lowing from beyond the hill, sends his boy to see. In the +meanwhile he detains Mopso with an account of his love for a nymph he met +the day before, and sings a _canzona_: + + Ch' i' so che la mia ninfa il canto agogna[156]. + +It runs on the familiar themes of love: 'Di doman non c' è certezza.' + + Digli, zampogna mia, come via fugge + Con gli anni insieme la bellezza snella; + E digli come il tempo ne distrugge, + Ne l' età persa mai si rinovella; + Digli che sappi usar sua forma bella, + Che sempre mai non son rose e viole... + Udite, selve, mie dolci parole, + Poi che la ninfa mia udir non vole. + +The boy Tirsi now returns, having with much trouble driven the strayed +calf back to the herd, and narrates how he saw an unknown nymph of +wondrous beauty gathering flowers about the hill. Aristeo recognizes from +this description the object of his love, and, leaving Mopso and Tirsi to +shake their heads over his midsummer madness, goes off to find her. + +So far we might be reading one of the _ecloghe rappresentative_ which we +shall have to consider shortly, but of which the earliest known examples +cannot well be less than ten or twelve years later than Poliziano's play. +With the exception, indeed, of one or two in Boccaccio's _Ameto_, it is +doubtful whether any vernacular eclogues had appeared at the time. The +character of Tirsi belongs to rustic tradition, and must be an experiment +contemporary with, if not prior to, Lorenzo's _Nencia_. The portion before +the _canzone_ is in _terza rima_; that after it, like the prologue, in +octaves. + +The original proceeds without break to the song of Aristeo as he pursues +the flying Euridice (Act II in the revision): + + Poi che 'l pregar non vale, + E tu via ti dilegui, + El convien ch' io ti segui. + Porgimi, Amor, porgimi or le tue ale. + +While Aristeo is following Euridice, Orfeo enters upon the scene with a +Latin ode in Sapphic metre in honour of Cardinal Gonzaga. A note informs +us that this was originally sung by 'Messer Braccio Ugolino, attore di +detta persona d' Orfeo.' In place of this ode the revised text contains a +long 'Coro delle Driadi,' with two speeches in _terza rima_ by the +choragus, announcing and lamenting the death of Euridice, who as she fled +from Aristeo has been stung in the foot by a serpent. After this the news +of her death is reported to Orfeo--by a shepherd in the original, by a +dryad in the revised version. That the substitution of the chorus for the +Sapphic ode is an improvement from the poetic point of view will hardly be +denied, yet this improvement has been attained at the cost of some +dramatic sacrifice. In the original Orfeo is introduced naturally enough +in his character of supreme poet and musician to do honour to the +occasion, and it is only after he has been on the stage some time that the +news of Euridice's death is brought. In the revision he is merely +introduced for the purpose of being informed of his wife's death--he has +hardly been so much as mentioned before. He thus loses the slight +opportunity previously afforded him of presenting a dramatic individuality +apart from the very essence of his tragedy. + +The announcement to Orfeo of Euridice's death begins the third act of the +revised text, which is amplified at this point by the introduction of a +satyr Mnesillo, who acts as chorus to Orfeo's lament. The character of a +friendly satyr is interesting in view of the role commonly assigned to his +species in pastoral. + +After this we have in the original the direction 'Orfeo cantando giugne +all' Inferno,' while in the revision there is again a new act, the fourth. +Symonds pointed out that the merits of the piece are less dramatic than +lyrical, and that fortunately the central scene was one in which the +situation was capable of lyrical expression. The pleading of Orfeo before +the gates of Hades and at the throne of Pluto forms the lyrical kernel of +the play, and gives it its poetic value. The bard appears before the +iron-bound portals of the nether world, and the pains of hell surcease. +'Who is he?' asks Pluto-- + + Chi è costui che con sì dolce nota + Muove l' abisso, e con l' ornata cetra? + Io veggo ferma d' Ission la rota,... + Nè più P acqua di Tantalo s' arretra; + E veggo Cerber con tre bocche intente, + E le furie acquietar il suo lamento. + +At length he stands before Pluto's throne, the seat of the God of the +_sacre rappresentazioni_, the rugged rock-seat surrounded by the monstrous +demons of Signorelli's _tondo_[157]. Here in presence of the grim ravisher +and of his pale consort, in whom the passionate pleading of the Thracian +bard stirs long-forgotten memories of spring and of the plains of Enna, +Orfeo's song receives adequate expression. It is closely imitated from the +corresponding passage in Ovid, but the lyrical perfection and passionate +crescendo of the stanzas are Poliziano's own. Addressing Pluto, Orfeo +discovers the object of his quest: + + Non per Cerber legar fo questa via, + Ma solamente per la donna mia. + +May not love penetrate even the forbidden bounds of hell?-- + + se memoria alcuna in voi si serba + Del vostro celebrato antico amore, + Se la vecchia rapina a mente avete, + Euridice mia bella mi rendete. + +Why should death grudge the few years at most which complete the span of +human life?-- + + Ogni cosa nel fine a voi ritorna; + Ogni vita mortal quaggiù ricade: + Quanto cerchia la luna con sue corna + Convien che arrivi alle vostre contrade-- + +or why reap amid the unmellowed corn?-- + + Così la ninfa mia per voi si serba, + Quando sua morte gli darà natura. + Or la tenera vite e l' uva acerba + Tagliata avete con la falce dura. + + Chi è che mieta la sementa in erba + E non aspetti ch' ella sia matura? + Dunque rendete a me la mia speranza: + Io non vel chieggio in don, questa è prestanza. + +Next he invokes the pity of the stern god by the name of Chaos whence the +world had birth, and by the dread rivers of the nether world, by Styx and +Acheron: 'E pel sonante ardor di Flegetonte'; and lastly, turning to 'the +faery-queen Proserpina,' + + Pel pome che a te già, Regina, piacque, + Quando lasciasti pria nostro orizzonte. + E se pur me la niega iniqua sorte, + Io no vo' su tornar, ma chieggio morte![158] + +Hell itself relents, and, as Boccaccio had written, + + forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione-- + +the condition being that he shall not turn to behold her before attaining +once again to the land of the living. The condition, of course, is not +fulfilled. Orfeo seeks to clasp 'his half regain'd Eurydice,' with the +triumphant cry of Ovid holding the conquered Corinna in his arms: + + Ite triumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus: Eurydice reddita vita mihi est. + Haec est praecipuo Victoria digna triumpho. + Hue ades, o cura parte triumphe mea[159]. + +He turns, and his unsubstantial love sinks back into the realm of shadows +with the cry: + + Oimè che 'I troppo amore + Ci ha disfatti ambe dua. + Ecco ch' io ti son tolta a gran furore, + Nè sono ormai più tua. + + Ben tendo a te le braccia; ma non vale, + Che indietro son tirata. Orfeo mio, _vale_. + +As he would follow her once more a fury bars the road. + +Desperate of his love, the bard now forswears for ever the company of +women (Act V of the revised text). + + Da qui innanzi vo corre i fior novelli ... + Ouesto è più dolce e più soave amore; + Non sia chi mai di donna mi favelli, + Poi che morta è colei ch' ebbe il mio core. + +Now that she is dead, what faith abides in woman?-- + + Quanto è misero l' uom che cangia voglia + Per donna, o mai per lei s' allegra, o duole!... + Che sempre è più leggier ch' al vento foglia, + E mille volte il di vuole e disvuole. + Segue chi fugge; a chi la vuol, s' asconde, + E vanne e vien come alla riva l' onde. + +The cry wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of +later pastorals. Upon this the scene is invaded by 'The riot of the tipsy +Bacchanals,' eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[160]. They +drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his 'gory +visage,' break out into the celebrated chorus 'full of the swift fierce +spirit of the god.' This gained considerably by revision, and in the later +text runs as follows: + + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, oè oè. + Di corimbi e di verd' edere + Cinto il capo abbiam così + Per servirti a tuo richiedere + Festeggiando notte e dì. + Ognun beva: Bacco è quì; + E lasciate here a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io ho vuoto già il mio corno: + Porgi quel cantaro in qua. + Questo monte gira intorno, + O 'l cervello a cerchio va: + Ognun corra in qua o in là, + Come vede fare a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io mi moro già di sonno: + Sono io ebra o sì o no? + Più star dritti i piè non ponno. + Voi siet' ebri, ch' io lo so; + Ognun faccia com' io fo; + Ognun succe come me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Ognun gridi Bacco, Bacco, + E poi cacci del vin giù; + Poi col sonno farem fiacco, + Bevi tu e tu e tu. + Io non posso ballar più; + Ognun gridi Evoè.[161] + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, oè oè. + +Lyrical beauty rather than dramatic power was, it has already been +remarked, Poliziano's aim and achievement. The want of characterization in +the hero, the insignificance of the part allotted to Euridice, the total +inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author's power as a +dramatist. It is the lyrical passages--Aristeo's song, Orfeo's impassioned +pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus--that supply the firm supports of +art upon which rests the slight fabric of the play. + +The same simplicity of construction, a simplicity in nature rather +narrative than dramatic, characterizes Niccolò da Correggio's _Cefalo_. +The play was represented in state in the great courtyard of the ducal +palace at Ferrara, on the occasion of the marriage of Lucrezia d' Este +with Annibale Bentivogli, on January 21, 1487[162]. Like the _Orfeo_, the +piece exhibits traces of its origin in the religious shows, though, unlike +the original draft of Poliziano's play, it is divided into five acts each +of some length, and is provided with regular choruses on the classical +model. In spite of its inferiority to the _Orfeo_ in lyric power and its +possibly even greater deficiency from a dramatic point of view, it will be +worth while giving some account of the piece in order to get as clear an +idea as possible of the nature and limitations of the mythological drama, +and also because it has never, I believe, been reprinted in modern times, +and is in consequence practically unknown to English readers. + +The author, a descendant of the princely house of Correggio, was born +about 1450, and married the daughter of the famous _condottiere_ +Bartolommeo Colleoni. He lived for some years at Milan at the court of +Lodovico Sforza; later he migrated to that of the Estensi. In 1493 he sent +an allegorical eclogue to Isabella Gonzaga at Mantua, which may possibly +have been represented, though we have no note of the fact, and the poem +itself has perished[163]. He died in 1508. + +After a prologue which resembles that of the _Orfeo_ in giving an argument +of the whole piece, the first act opens with a scene in which Aurora seeks +the love of Cefalo. Offended at finding her advances repulsed, the goddess +hints that the wife to whom Cefalo is so careful of his faith is, for her +part, more free of her favours; and upon Cefalo indignantly refusing +credence to the slander, suggests that he should himself in disguise make +trial of her fidelity. This the unfortunate youth resolves to do. He +approaches Procri in the habit of a merchant, with goods for sale, and +takes the opportunity thus afforded of declaring his love. She turns to +fly, but the pretended passion of his suit stays her, and she is brought +to lend an ear to his cunning. He retails the commonplaces of the +despairing lover: + + Deh, non fuggire, e non si altiera in vista; + Odime alquanto, e scolta i preghi mei. + Che fama mai per crudeltà se acquista? + Bellissima sei pur, cruda non dei. + Non sai che Amor non vol che se resista + A colpi soi? così vinto mi dei + Subito ch' io ti viddi; eh, non fuggire, + Forza non ti farò; deh, stammi audire. + +Not Jove or Phoebus he to assume strange shapes for her love; he is but +her slave, and can but offer his pedlar's pack; but he knows of hidden +treasure in the earth, and hers, too, shall be vesture of the fairest. +After gold and soft raiment comes the trump card of the seducer--secrecy: + + Cosa secreta mai non se riprende; + El tempo che si perde mai non torna; + Qui non serai veduta, or che se attende + Quel se ha a dolere, che al suo ben sogiorna. + Secreto è il loco, el sol pur non vi splende; + Bella sei tu, sol manca che sii adorna + Di veste come io intendo ultra il tesoro. + Deh, non mi tener più; vedi ch' io moro. + +She is almost won; one last assault, and her defences fall. Why, indeed, +should she hesitate-- + + Poi ch' Amor dice, ogni secreta è casta? + +This stroke of cynicism is put forward as it were but half intentionally, +and with no appreciation of its intense irony in the mouth of the husband. +Throughout the scene indeed he appears merely as a common seducer, and the +author seems wholly to have failed to grasp the real dramatic value of the +situation. On the other hand, the lesser art of the stage has been +mastered with some success, and there is an adaptation of language to +action which at least argues that the author had a vivid picture of the +staging of his play in his mind when he wrote. + +The moment Procri has consented to barter her honour, Cefalo discovers +himself, and the unhappy girl flies in terror. Seeing now, too late, the +resuit of his foolish mistrust, Cefalo follows with prayers and +self-reproaches-- + + Son ben certo + Che tu mi cognoscesti ancor coperto-- + +but in vain. The act ends with a song in which Aurora glories in the +success of her revenge-- + + Festegiam con tutto il core; + Biastemate hor meco Amore! + +In the second act Procri, having recovered from her fright, is bent on +avenging herself for the deceit practised by Cefalo, upon whose supposed +love for Aurora she throws the blame in the matter. She seeks the grove of +Diana, where she is enrolled among the followers of the goddess. Cefalo, +who has followed her flight, rejoins her in the wood, and there renews his +prayers. She refuses to recognize him, denies being his wife, and is about +to renew her flight, when an old shepherd, attracted by Cefalo's +lamentation, stays her and forces her to hear her husband's pleading. +Other shepherds appear on the scene, and the act ends with an eclogue. In +the next we find her reconciled to Cefalo, to whom she gives the +wind-swift dog and the unerring spear which she had received as a nymph of +Diana. Cefalo at once sets the hound upon the traces of a boar, and goes +off in pursuit, while his wife returns home. He shortly reappears, having +lost boar and hound alike, and, tired with the chase, falls asleep. +Meanwhile a faun, finding Procri alone, tells her that he had seen Cefalo +meeting with his love Aurora in the wood--a piece of news in return for +which he seeks her love. She, however, resolves to go and surprise the +supposed lovers, and setting fire to the wood, herself to perish with them +in the flames. On Cefalo's return he is met with bitter reproaches, and +the act ends with a chorus of fauns and satyrs. The fourth contains the +catastrophe. Procri hides in the wood in hope of surprising her husband +with his paramour. Cefalo enters ready for the chase, and, seeing what he +takes to be a wild beast among bushes, throws the fatal spear, which +pierces Procri's breast. A reconciliation precedes her death, and the +close of the act is rendered effective by the successive summoning of the +Muses and nymphs in some graceful stanzas. With a little polishing, such +as Poliziano's bacchanalian chorus received in revision, the scene would +not be unworthy of the time and place of its production. + + Oimè sorelle, o Galatea, presto! + Donate al cervo ormai un poco pace; + Soccorrete al pianger quel caso mesto. + Oimè sorelle, Procri morta giace, + L' alma spirata, e il ciel guardando tace. + +At Cefalo's desire Calliope summons her sister Muses, Phillis the nymphs, +after which all join in a choral ode calling upon the divinities of +mountain, wood, and stream to join in a universal lament: + + Weep, spirits of the woods and of the hills, + Weep, each pure nymph beside her fountain-head, + And weep, ye mountains, in a thousand rills, + For the fair child who here below lies dead: + Mourn, all ye gods, the last of human ills, + Your sacred foreheads all ungarlanded. + +Here the traditional story of Cephalus and Procris, as founded on the +rather inferior version in the seventh book of the _Metamorphoses_, ends. +There remains, however, a fifth act, in which Diana appears, raises +Procri, and restores her to her husband. + +The play, composed for the most part in octaves with choruses in _terza +rima_, is, from the dramatic point of view, open to obvious and fatal +objections. The preposterous _dea ex machina_ of the last act; the +inconsequence of motive and inconsistency of character, partly, it is +true, inherent in the original story, but by no means made less obvious by +the dramatist; the insufficiency of the action to fill the necessary +space, and the inability of the author to make the most of his materials, +are all alike patent. On the other hand, we have already noticed a certain +theatrical ability displayed in the writing of the first act, and we may +further attribute the alteration by which Procri is represented as jealous +of Cefalo's original lover, Aurora, instead of the wholly imaginary Aura, +as in Ovid, to a desire for dramatic unity of motive. + +The extent to which either the _Orfeo_ or _Cefalo_ can be regarded as +pastoral will now be clear, and it must be confessed that they do not +carry us very far. The two fifteenth-century plays constitute a distinct +species which has attained to a high degree of differentiation if not of +dramatic evolution, and critics who would see in them the origin of the +later pastoral drama have to explain the strange phenomenon of the species +lying dormant for nearly three-quarters of a century, and then suddenly +developing into an equally individualized but very dissimilar form[164]. +It should, moreover, be borne in mind that contemporary critics never +regarded the Arcadian pastoral as in any way connected with the +mythological drama, and that the writers of pastoral themselves claimed no +kinship with Poliziano or Correggio, but always ranked themselves as the +followers of Beccari alone in the line of dramatic development. On the +other hand, there can be no reasonable doubt that such performances went +to accustom spectators to that mixture of mythology and idealism which +forms the atmosphere, so to speak, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +This must be my excuse for lingering over these early works. + + + +II + + +When dealing with the Italian eclogue we saw how, at a certain point, it +began to assume a distinctly dramatic character, and in so doing took the +first step towards the possible evolution of a real pastoral drama. It +will be my task in the ensuing pages to follow up this clue, and to show +how the pastoral drama arose through a process of natural development from +the recited eclogue. + +The dramatic tendency was indeed inherent in the eclogue from the very +first. Throughout there is a steady growth in the use of dialogue: of the +Idyls of Theocritus only about a third contain more than one character; of +Vergil's Bucolics at least half; of Calpurnius' all but one; of the +eclogues of Petrarch and Boccaccio all without exception. This tendency +did not escape Guarini, who, when not led into puerilities by his love of +self-laudation, often shows considerable insight. 'The eclogue,' he says, +'is nothing but a short discussion between shepherds, differing in no +other manner from that sort of scene which the Latins call dialogue, +except in so far as being whole and independent, possessing within itself +both beginning and end[165].' + +Having thus gradually altered the literary form of the eclogue, this +tendency towards dramatic expression next showed itself in the manner in +which the poem was presented to the world. For circulation in print or +manuscript, or for informal reading, came to be substituted recitation in +character. The dialogue was divided between two persons who spoke +alternately, and it is evident from the somewhat meagre texts that survive +that, in the earliest examples, these _ecloghe rappresentative_, or +dramatic eclogues as I shall call them, differed in no way from the purely +literary productions which we considered in an earlier section. Evidence +of actual representation is often wanting, and the exact date in most +cases is uncertain; but, since there is no doubt that such performances +actually did take place, we are not only justified in assuming that +several poems of the period belong to this class, but we can also, on +internai evidence, arrange them more or less in a natural sequence of +dramatic development. One such eclogue has come down to us from the pen of +Baldassare Taccone, a Genoese who also wrote mythological plays on the +subjects of Danaë and Actaeon. Another, interesting as dealing with the +corruption of the Curia at a moment when its scandalous traffic was +carried on in the light of day with more than usually cynical +indifference, was actually presented at Rome under the patronage of +Cardinal Giovanni Colonna at the carnival of 1490, during the pontificate +of Innocent VIII. Gradually a more complex form was evolved, the number of +speakers was increased, and some of these made their entrance during the +progress of the recitation. So too in the matter of metrical form, the +strict _terza rima_ of the earlier examples came to be diversified with +_rime sdrucciole_, and by being intermingled with verses with internal +rime, with _ottava rima, settenarî_ couplets, and lyrical measures. +Castiglione's representation at Urbino has been noticed previously. Among +similar productions may be mentioned two poems by a certain Caperano of +Faenza, printed in 1508, while others are found at Siena in 1517 and 1523. +Besides the texts that are extant we also have record of a good many which +have perished. In 1493 the representation of eclogues formed part of the +revels prepared by Alexander VI for the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with +Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, and this was again the case when, having +been divorced from Giovanni, and her second husband having perished by the +assassin's dagger, she finally in 1502 became the wife of Alfonso d'Este, +heir to the duchy of Ferrara. Eclogues were again represented at Ferrara +in 1508, and received specific mention among the dramatic performances +dealt with by the laws of Venice. + +We thus see that the eclogue had every opportunity of developing into a +regular dramatic form. At this point a variety of external influences made +themselves felt, which facilitated or modified its growth. Perhaps +foremost among these should be reckoned that of the 'regular' drama--that +is of the drama based upon an imitation of the classics, chiefly of the +Latin authors. The conception of dramatic art which was in men's minds at +the time naturally and inevitably influenced the development of a form of +poem which was daily becoming more sensibly dramatic. Next there was the +influence of the mythological drama embodying the romantic and ideal +elements of classical myth, but in form representing the tradition of the +old religious plays. This led to the occasional introduction of +supernatural characters, counteracted the rationalizing influence of the +Roman dramatists, and supplied the pastoral with its peculiar imaginative +atmosphere. Lastly, there was the 'rustic' influence, which was at no time +very strong, and left no mark upon the form as finally evolved, but which +has nevertheless to be taken into account in tracing the process of +development. The influence exercised by burlesque and realistic scenes +from real life cannot have been brought to bear on the eclogue until it +had already attained to a dramatic character of some complexity. The +earliest text of the kind we possess dates from 1508, and it is doubtful +whether or not it was acted. In 1513 we have record of a rustic +performance at the Capitol, and a satyrical and allegorical piece of like +nature, and belonging to the same year, is actually preserved, as is also +one in Bellunese dialect. These shows became the special characteristic of +the Rozzi society at Siena, in whose hands they soon developed into short +realistic farces of low life, composed in dialectal verse and acted by +members of the society at many of the courts of Italy. The fashion, +though never widely spread, survived for many years, the most famous +author of such pieces being Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger at the +beginning of the next century. + +These _drammi rusticali_, as they were called, may not improbably have +owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' +Medici in his _Nencia_, and may thus in their origin have been related to +the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at most +parallel to that of the pastoral drama, and should not be regarded either +as the origin or as a subdivision of this latter. Nor did the rustic +compositions exercise any permanent influence on the pastoral drama; the +most that can be said is that an occasional text shows signs of being +affected by the low vulgarity of the kind. + +Returning to the polite eclogues, we soon find an increase in the dramatic +complexity of the form. Tansillo's _Due pellegrini_, which cannot be later +than 1528, contains the rudiments of a plot, two lovers bent on suicide +being persuaded by a miraculous voice to become reconciled with the world +and life. Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di +Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love +the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the +devotion of Orindio. + +We now come to what may almost be regarded as the first conscious attempt +to write a pastoral play--an attempt, however, which met with but partial +success. This is the _Amaranta_, a 'Comedia nuova pastorale' by +Giambattista Casalio of Faenza, which most probably belongs to a date +somewhat before 1538. In it the mutual love of Partenio and Amaranta is +thwarted by the girl's mother Celia, who destines her for a goatherd. +Partenio is led to believe that his love has played him false, while in +her turn Amaranta supposes herself forsaken. The two meet, however, at the +hut of a wise nymph Lucina, through whose intervention they are reconciled +and their union effected. The piece, which attains to some proportions, is +divided into five acts, and, while owing a certain debt to the _Orfeo_, is +itself pastoral in character with occasional coarse touches borrowed from +the rustic shows. It is in the _Amaranta_ that we first meet with an +attempt to introduce a real plot of some human interest into a purely +pastoral composition; we are no longer dealing with a merely occasional +piece written in celebration of some special person or festivity, no +longer with a mythological masque or pageant, nor with an amorous +allegory, but with a piece the interest of which, slight as it is, lies in +the fate of the characters involved. + +The fifteen years or so which separate the work of Casalio from that of +Beccari saw the production of a succession of more or less pastoral works +which serve, to some extent at least, to bridge over the gap which +separates even the most elaborate of the above compositions from the +recognized appearance of the fully-developed pastoral drama in the +_Sacrifizio_. The chief characteristic which marks the work of these years +is a tendency to deliberate experiment. The writers appear to have been +conscious that their work was striving towards a form which had not yet +been achieved, though they were themselves vague as to what that form +might be. Epicuro's _Mirzia_ tends towards the mythological drama; the +_Silvia_ written by one Fileno, which, like the _Amaranta_, turns on the +temporary estrangement of two lovers, introduces considerable elements +from the rustic performances; in Cazza's _Erbusto_ the amorous skein is +cut by the discovery of consanguinity and an ἀναγνώρισις after the manner +of the Latin comedy. Similar in plot to this last is a fragmentary +pastoral of Giraldi Cintio's published from manuscript by Signor Carducci. +Another curious but isolated experiment is Cintio's _Egle_, in intent a +revival of the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, in substance a dramatization +of the motive of Sannazzaro's _Salices_. In one sense these experiments +ended in failure; it was not through the elaboration of mythological or +superhuman elements, nor through the humour of burlesque or realistic +rusticity, nor yet through the violence of unexpected discoveries, that +the destined form of the pastoral drama was to be attained. On the other +hand, they undoubtedly served to introduce an elaboration of plot and +complexity of dramatic structure which is altogether lacking in the +earlier eclogues and masques, but without which the work of Tasso and +Guarini could never have occupied the commanding position that it does in +the history of literature. They carry us forward to the point at which the +pastoral drama took its shape and being. + +Of the elements compounded of pastoral idealism and the graceful purity of +classical myth, and combining the scenic attractions of the masque with +the reasoned action and human interest of the regular drama, the Arcadian +pastoral first achieved definite form in the work of Agostino Beccari. His +_Sacrifizio_, styled 'favola pastorale' on the title-page of the first +impression, was acted at the palace of Francesco d' Este at Ferrara in the +presence of Ercole II and his son Luigi, and of the Duchess Renata and her +daughters Lucrezia and Leonora, on two occasions in February and March +1554. The piece was revived more than thirty years later, namely in 1587, +when the courtly world was already familiar with Tasso's masterpiece, and +was ringing with the prospective fame of the _Pastor fido_, and +represented both at Sassuolo and Ferrara. + +The action involves three pairs of lovers. Turico loves Stellinia in spite +of the fact that she has transferred her affections to Erasto. Erasto in +his turn pays his homage to Callinome, the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, a nymph vowed to the service of Diana. There remains +Carpalio, whose love for Melidia is secretly returned; its consummation +being prevented by the girl's brother Pimonio, who refuses to countenance +the match, and keeps dragon guard over his sister. In the meanwhile +shepherds and shepherdesses assemble to honour the festival and sacrifice +of Pan, which proves the occasion for the unravelling of the amorous +tangle. Stellinia, wishing to rid herself of her rival in Erasto's love, +induces Callinome so far to break her vestal vow as to be present at the +forbidden feast. Here she is promptly detected by the offended goddess and +sentenced to do battle against one of the fiercest of the Erymanthian +boars. Erasto comes to her aid with a magic ointment, which has the power +of rendering the user invisible, and with the help of which she achieves +her task unharmed. Out of gratitude she rewards her preserver with her +love. Not only is Stellinia thus condemned to witness the failure of her +plot, but she is herself carried off by a satyr, who endeavours to deceive +each of the nymphs in turn. Being rescued from his power by the faithful +Turico, she too capitulates to love. Lastly, in the absence of Pimonio, +who has gone to be present at the games held at the festival, Carpalio and +Melidia pluck the fruit of love, and are saved from the anger of the +brother through his conveniently falling into an enchanted lake whence he +emerges in the shape of a boar. + +In the prologue the author boldly announces the novelty of his work-- + + Una favola nova pastorale + ............nova in tanto + Ch' altra non fu giammai forse più udita + Di questa sorte recitarsi in scena. + +Guarini, who is said to have supplied a prologue for the revival of the +piece, bore out Beccari's claim when he wrote in his essay on +tragi-comedy: 'First among the moderns to possess the happy boldness to +make in this kind, namely the pastoral dramatic tale, of which there is no +trace among the ancients, was Agostin de' Beccari, a worthy citizen of +Ferrara, to whom alone does the world owe the fair creation of this sort +of poem[166].' + +Several pieces of no great interest or importance serve to fill the decade +or so following on the production of Beccari's play. Groto, known as the +Cieco d' Adria, combined the mythological motive with much of the vulgar +obscenity of the Latin comedy. Lollio also produced a hybrid of an earlier +type in his _Aretusa_. In 1567 a return was made to the pastoral tradition +of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_. Among the +spectators who witnessed the first performance of this piece before Duke +Alfonso and his court at Ferrara was a youth of twenty-two, lately +attached to the household of the Cardinal Luigi d' Este. In all +probability this was Tasso's first introduction to a style of composition +which not many years later he was to make famous throughout Europe. The +play he witnessed on that occasion, however, was no work of surpassing +genius. It cannot, indeed, be said to mark any decided advance on +Beccari's work except in so far, perhaps, as it at times foreshadows the +somewhat sickly sentiment of later pastorals, including Tasso's own. The +shepherd Sfortunato loves Dafne, Dafne loves Iacinto, who in his turn +pursues Flaminia, while she loves only Silvio, who loves himself. Nothing +particular happens till the fourth scene of Act III. Then Silvio, tired of +being the last link in the chain of love, devises a plan for placing +Flaminia and Dafne in the power of their respective lovers. Flaminia, +assailed by Iacinto, makes up her mind to bow to fate, and accepts with a +good grace the love it is no longer in her power to fly. Sfortunato, on +the other hand, rather than offend his mistress, allows her to depart +unharmed, and since he thereby forgoes his only chance of enjoying the +object of his passion, determines to die. His vow is overheard by Dafne, +who, seeing that her love for Iacinto may no more avail, at last relents. +A third nymph, introduced to make the numbers even, takes the veil among +the followers of Diana, and so lives the object of Silvio's chaste regard. +It will be readily seen how in the character of Sfortunato we have the +forerunner of Tasso's Aminta; but it will also appear what poor use has +been made of the situation. The truth is that we have up to now been +dealing merely with origins, with productions which are of interest only +in the reflected light of later work; whatever there is of real beauty and +of permanent value in the pastoral drama of Italy is due to the breath of +life inspired into the phantasms of earlier writers by the genius of Tasso +and Guarini. + + + +III + + +We have now followed the dramatic pastoral from its obscure origin in the +eclogue to the eve of its assuming a recognized and abiding position in +the literature of Europe[167]. But if it is in a measure easy thus to +trace back the Arcadian drama to its historical sources, and to show how +the _Aminta_ came to be possible, it is not so easy to show how it came to +be actual. All creative work is the outcome of three fashioning forces, +the historical position, the personal circumstances of the artist, and his +individual genius. The pastoral drama had reached what I may perhaps be +allowed to call the 'psychological point' in its development. At the same +moment it happened that Tasso, having returned from a fruitless and +uncongenial mission to the Valois court, enjoyed a brief period of calm +and prosperity in the congenial society of Leonora d' Este, before the +critical bickerings to which he exposed himself in connexion with the +_Gerusalemme_ wrought havoc with an already over-sensitive and +overstrained temperament. Furthermore it happened that he brought to the +spontaneous composition of his courtly toy just that touch of languorous +beauty, that soft vein of sentiment, which formed perhaps his most +characteristic contribution to the artistic tone of his age, veiling a +novel mood in his favourite phrase, _un non so che_[168]. Had all this not +been, had not the fortune of a suitable genius and the chance of personal +surroundings jumped with the historical possibility, we might indeed have +had any number of lifeless 'Sacrifices' and 'Unhappy Ones,' but Italy +would have added no new kind to the forms of dramatic art. Had it not been +for the _Aminta_, the pastoral drama must almost necessarily have been +stillborn, for Guarini was too much of a pedant to do more than to imitate +and enlarge, while other writers belong to the decline. + +The _Aminta_, while possessing a delicate dramatic structure of its own, +yet retains not a little of the simplicity of the _ecloga +rappresentativa_. Indeed, it is worth noting, alike on account of this +quality in the poem itself as also of its literary ancestry, that, in a +letter written within a year of its original production, Tiburio Almerici +speaks of it by the old name of eclogue[169]. Referring to its +representation at Urbino, he writes: 'Il terzo spettacolo, che si è +goduto questo carnovale, è stato un' egloga del Tasso, che fu recitata +questo giovedì passato da alcuni gioveni d' Urbino nella sala, che fu +fatta per la venuta delia Principessa.' The princess in question was none +other than Lucrezia d' Este, who had lately become the wife of Tasso's +former companion Francesco Maria della Rovere, now Duke of Urbino, and who +with her sister Leonora, the heroine of the Tasso legend, had, it will be +remembered, stood sponsor to Beccari's play nearly twenty years before. +The representation at Urbino to which Almerici alludes was not of course +the first. Written in the winter of 1572-3 during the absence of Duke +Alfonso, the piece was acted after his return from Rome in the summer of +the latter year. Ferrara, as we have seen, had become and was long +destined to remain the special home of the pastoral drama in Italy. Here +on July 31, in the palace of Belvedere, built on an island in the Po, the +court of the Estensi assembled to witness the production of Tasso's +play[170]. The staging, both on this and on subsequent occasions, was no +doubt answerable to the nature of the piece, and added the splendour of +the masque to the classic grace of the fable. Almerici remarks on the +special attractions for spectators and auditors alike of what he calls 'la +novità del coro fra ciascuno atto,' by which he clearly meant the +spectacular interludes known as _intermedî_, the verses for which are +commonly printed at the end of the play[171]. But the representation which +struck the imagination of contemporaries was that before the Grand Duke +Ferdinand at Florence. This took place in 1590[172]. Guarini's play had in +its turn won renown far beyond the frontiers of Italy, while the author +of the _Aminta_, a yet attractive but impossible madman, was destined for +the few remaining years of his life to drag his tale of woes and but too +often his rags from one Italian court to another, ere he sank at last +exhausted where S. Onofrio overlooks St. Peter's dome. + +The structure of the play is not free from a good deal of stiffness and +artificiality, which it bequeathed to its successors. It borrowed from the +classical drama a chorus, on the whole less Greek than Latin, the use of +confidants, and the introduction of messengers and descriptive passages. +These last, it may be noted, are deliberately and wantonly classical, not +merely necessitated by the exigencies of the action, difficult of +representation as in the attempted suicide of Aminta, impossible as in the +rescue of Silvia from the satyr, but resorted to in order to veil the +dramatic weakness of the author's imagination, as is plain from the +description of the final meeting of the lovers. Yet it may be freely +admitted that to this device, the substitution namely of narrative for +action, we owe most of the finest poetic passages of the play: the +description of the youthful loves of Aminta and Silvia and the former's +ruse to win a kiss, the picture of Silvia bound to the tree by the pool, +Tirsi's account of the court, the description of Silvia at the spring--one +of the most elaborate in the piece--the account of her escape from the +wolves, last but not least that description of Silvia finding the +unconscious Aminta, so full of subtle and effeminate seduction, prophetic +of a later age of morals and of taste: + + Ma come Silvia il riconobbe, e vide + Le belle guance tenere d' Aminta + Iscolorite in sì leggiadri modi, + Che viola non è che impallidisca + Si dolcemente, e lui languir sì fatto, + Che parea già negli ultimi sospiri + Esalar l'alma; in guisa di Baccante + Gridando, e percotendosi il bel petto, + Lasciò cadersi in sul giacente corpo, + E giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. (V. i.) + +So too the chorus, though awkward enough from a dramatic point of view +and in so far as it fulfils any dramatic purpose, offers a sufficient +justification for its existence in the magnificent ode on 'honour,' that +rapturous song of the golden age of love, the poetic supremacy of which +has never been questioned, whatever may have been thought of its ethical +significance. To that aspect we shall return later. At present it will be +well to give some more or less detailed account of the action of the piece +itself. + +The shepherd Aminta loves Silvia, formerly as a child his playmate and +companion, now a huntress devoted to the service of Diana, proud in her +virginity and unfettered state. The play opens in a sufficiently +conventional manner, but wrought with sparkling verse, with two companion +scenes. In the first of these Silvia brushes aside the importunities of +her confidant Dafne who seeks to allure her to the blandishments of love +with sententious natural examples and modern instances. + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei, + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +such is the burden of her song, or yet again, recalling the golden days of +love she too of yore had wasted: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +Words of profound melancholy these, uttered in the days of the burnt-out +fires of the renaissance. But all this moves not Silvia, nymph of the +woods and of the chase, and, if she is indeed as fancy-free as she would +have us believe, her lover may even console himself with the reflection +that + + If of herself she will not love, + Nothing will make her-- + The devil take her! + +She has, after all, every right to the position. The next scene introduces +Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history +of his love. Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great +interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches +that lie scattered throughout the play. + + All' ombra d' un bel faggio Silvia e Filli + Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme; + Quando un' ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo + Sen giva il mel per que' prati fioriti, + Alle guance di Fillide volando, + Alle guance vermiglie come rosa, + Le morse e le rimorse avidamente; + Ch' alla similitudine ingannata + Forse un fior le credette. + +Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole +description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Tasso's +which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality. Aminta feigns +to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt. + + La semplicetta Silvia, + Pietosa del mio male, + S' offrì di dar aita + Alla finta ferita, ahi lasso! e fece + Più cupa e più mortale + La mia piaga verace, + Quando le labbra sue + Giunse alle labbra mie. + +It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though +they kissed from now to doomsday. But only the reader who cannot feel its +beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Tasso's style. + +The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, +type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly +shepherds. He inherits no savoury character from his literary +predecessors, and he is content to play to the rôle. His monologue may be +passed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical +indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts. It is a +quality wholly different from the mere coarseness exhibited in the English +drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one +who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes +of the _Mandragola_. The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants +Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an +understanding between Aminta and Silvia. The scene is characterized by +those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant +iciness of the 'careless' nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral +drama. + + Or, non sai tu com' è fatta la donna? + Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch' altri la giunga; + Niega, e negando vuol ch' altri si toglia; + Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch' altri la vinca. + +Listening to the deliberations of these two, it cannot but strike us that +in spite of their polished speech the straightforward London stage would +have hesitated but little to bestow on them the names they deserve, and +which it were yet scarce honest to have here set down. We pass on, and, +whatever may be said regarding the moral atmosphere of the rest of the +play, we shall not again have to make complaint of the corruption of +manners assumed in the situation. In the following scene Tirsi undertakes +the difficult task of inducing Aminta to intrude upon Silvia, where she is +said to be alone at the spring preparing for the chase. It is only by +hinting that Silvia has secretly instructed Dafne to arrange the tryst +that he in the end succeeds in persuading the bashful lover to risk the +displeasure of his mistress. + +At the opening of Act III Tirsi enters lamenting in bitter terms the +cruelty of Silvia. Interrogated by the chorus, he relates how, as he and +Aminta approached the spring where Silvia was bathing, they heard a cry +and, hastening to the spot, found the nymph bound hand and foot to a tree, +and confronting her the satyr. At their approach the monster fled, and +Aminta released the nymph, who _ignuda come nacque_ at once took flight, +leaving her lover in despair. In the meanwhile Aminta has sought to kill +himself with his own spear, but has been prevented by Dafne, and the two +now enter. At this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the +piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in +the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having +prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the +recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock +pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her +escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses +her fear that the false report of Silvia's death may indeed prove the +death of Aminta. The nymph at first shows herself incredulous, but on +learning that he had already once sought death on her account she wavers +and owns to pity if not to love-- + + Oh potess' io + Con l' amor mio comprar la vita sua, + Anzi pur con la mia la vita sua, + S' egli è pur morto! + +Hereupon Ergasto enters with the news that Aminta has thrown himself from +a cliff, and Silvia, now completely overcome, goes off with the intention +of dying on the body of her dead lover. + +The shortness, as well as the dramatic weakness, of the fifth act is +conspicuous even in proportion to the modest limits of the whole. It runs +to less than one hundred and fifty lines, and merely relates how Aminta's +fall was broken, how Silvia's love awoke, and all ended happily. The most +significant passage, that namely which describes Aminta being called back +to life in Silvia's arms, has been already quoted. He revives unharmed, +and the lovers, + + Alike in age, in generous birth alike + And mutual desires, + +gather in love the fruits which they have sown in weeping. + +It is worth while quoting the final chorus in witness of the spirit of +half bantering humour in which the whole was conceived even by the serious +Tasso, a spirit we unfortunately too often seek in vain among his +followers. + + Non so se il molto amaro + Che provato ha costui servendo, amando, + Piangendo e disperando, + Raddolcito esser puote pienamente + D' alcun dolce presente: + Ma, se più caro viene + E più si gusta dopo 'l male il bene, + Io non ti chieggio, Amore, + Questa beatitudine maggiore: + Bea pur gli altri in tal guisa; + Me la mia ninfa accoglia + Dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: + E siano i condimenti + Delle nostre dolcezze + Non sì gravi tormenti, + Ma soavi disdegni, + E soavi ripulse, + Risse e guerre a cui segua, + Reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua. + +It is with these words that the author leaves his graceful fantasy; and +such, we have perhaps the right to assume, was the spirit in which the +whole was composed. Were any one to object to our seeking to analyse the +quality of the piece, arguing that to do so were to break a butterfly upon +the wheel, much might reasonably be said in support of his view. +Nevertheless, when a work of art, however delicate and slender, has +received the homage of generations, and influenced cultivated taste for +centuries, and in widely different countries, we have a right to inquire +whereon its supremacy is based, and what the nature of its influence has +been. + +With the sources from which Tasso drew the various elements of his plot we +need have little to do. The child-love of Silvia and Aminta is of the +stuff of _Daphnis and Chloe_; the ruse by which the kiss is obtained is +borrowed from Achilles Tatius; the compliment to the court of the Estensi +is after the manner of Vergil, or of Castiglione, or of Ariosto, or of any +other of the allegorical eclogists of whom Vergil was the first; the germ +of the golden-age chorus is to be found in the elegies of Tibullus (II. +iii); the character of the satyr belongs to tradition; the rent veil of +Silvia reminds us of that of Ovid's Thisbe (_Met._ IV. 55). The language +too is reminiscent. The finest lines in the play-- + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--(_Coro_ I.) + +belong to Catullus: + + Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus;... + soles occidere et redire possunt; + nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux, + nox est perpetua una dormienda. (_Carm._ V.) + + +The words in which Amore describes himself in the prologue-- + + non mica un dio + Selvaggio, o della plebe degli dei, + Ma tra' grandi celesti il più possente-- + +recall Ovid's lines: + + nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna + sceptra manu teneo. (_Met._ I. 595.) + +Again, the line: + + Dove la costa face di sè grembo; + +which occurs alike in the play (V. i.) and in the _Purgatorio_ (VII. 68), +supplies evidence, as do similar borrowings in the _Gerusalemme_, of +Tasso's study of Dante. + +The prologue introduces Amore in pastoral disguise, escaped from the care +of his mother, who would confine his activity to the Courts, and intent on +loosing his shafts among the nymphs and shepherds of Arcadia. In the form +of this prologue, which became the model for subsequent pastoral writers +in Italy[173], and in the heavenly descent of the principal characters, we +may see the influence of the mythological play; while the substance both +of the prologue and of the epilogue, or _Amore fuggitivo_, in which Venus +comes to seek her runaway among the ladies and gallants of the court, is +of course borrowed from the famous first idyl of Moschus. Again the +topical element is not absent, though it is less prominent than some of +the earlier work might lead us to expect. In the poet Tirsi-- + + allor ch' ardendo + Forsennato egli errò per le foreste + Sì, ch' insieme movea pietate e riso + Nelle vezzose ninfe e ne' pastori; + Nè già cose scrivea digne di riso, + Sebben cose facea digne di riso--(I. i.) + +we may, of course, see the poet himself. In Batto too, mentioned together +with Tirsi, it is not unreasonable to recognize Battisto Guarini, whom at +that time Tasso might still regard as his friend. Again, it is usual to +identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the +Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was +yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little +fulsome: + + Or non rammenti + Ciò che l' altrieri Elpino raccontava, + Il saggio Elpino a la bella Licori, + Licori che in Elpin puote cogli occhi + Quel ch' ei potere in lei dovria col canto, + Se 'l dovere in amor si ritrovasse; + E 'l raccontava udendo Batto e Tirsi, + Gran maestri d' amore; e 'l raccontava + Nell' antro dell' Aurora, ove sull' uscio + È scritto: _Lungi, ah lungi ite, profani_? + Diceva egli, e diceva che gliel disse + Quel grande che cantò l' armi e gli amori, + Ch' a lui lasciò la fistola morendo; + Che laggiù nello 'nferno è un nero speco, + Là dove esala un fumo pien di puzza + Dalle tristi fornaci d' Acheronte; + E che quivi punite eternamente + In tormenti di tenebre e di pianto + Son le femmine ingrate e sconoscenti. (I. i.) + +He who sang of arms and love is of course Ariosto-- + + Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori, + Le cortesie, l' audaci imprese io canto-- + +from whom Tasso borrows the above description of the reward awaiting +ungrateful women, as also the fiction of the tell-tale walls and chairs in +Mopso's account of the court (I. ii). And this Elpino, whose pipe +elsewhere + + correr fa di puro latte i fiumi + E stillar melle dalle dure scorze, (III. i.) + +later becomes the Alete of the _Gerusalemme_, + + Gran fabbro di calunnie adorne in modi + Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi. (II. 58.) + +His flattery had not shielded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of +the minister[174]. + +Again, the picture drawn by Tirsi of the ideal court (I. ii.) is a glowing +compliment to that of the Estensi and to Duke Alfonso himself. It is +contrasted with the usual pastoral denunciation of court and city put into +the mouth of the pretended augur Mopso. In this character it has been +customary to see Sperone Speroni, who later accused Tasso of plagiarizing +him in the _Gerusalemme_, and was the first to apply the ominous word +'madman' to the unfortunate poet. To Speroni's play _Canace_ Tasso may +have been indebted for the free measures with which he diversified his +blank verse, as likewise for the line: + + Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede;[175] + +though it must not be supposed that there is any resemblance in style +between the _Aminta_ and Speroni's revolting and frigid declamation of +butchery and lust. Nor did the debt pass unnoticed. In 1585 Guarini, who +had long since parted with the sinking ship of the younger poet's +friendship, was ready to flatter Speroni with the declaration 'che tanto +di leggiadria è sempre paruto a me, che abbia nell' Aminta suo conseguito +Torquato Tasso, quant' egli fù imitatore della Canace[176].' + +Lastly, in the hopeless suit of Aminta to Silvia, criticism has not failed +to see a reference to the supposed relation between Tasso and Leonora d' +Este. That Tasso, who in his overwrought imagination no doubt harboured a +sentimental regard for the princess, was conscious of the parallel is in +some degree probable; that he should have identified his creation with +himself is, in view of the solution of the dramatic situation, utterly +impossible. Indeed, it would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose that +his care to identify himself with Aminta's confidant may have been an +unusual but not untimely piece of caution on his part, to prevent poisoned +gossip connecting him too closely with his hero. + +The question of the influence of the _Aminta_ on later works and on +European thought generally opens up large and difficult issues. It is one +of those works which we are not justified in treating from the purely +literary point of view. If we wish to see it in its relation to +contemporary society, and to estimate its influence upon subsequent +literature, we cannot afford to neglect its ethical bearings. This inquiry +must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, +but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of +pastoral literature has no right to shirk. + +The central motive of the piece is the struggle between the feverish +passion of Aminta and the virginal coldness of Silvia. Of this motive and +of the manner in which it is treated it is not altogether easy to speak, +and this less from any inherent element in the subject or from the +difficulty of accurately apprehending the peculiarities of sentiment +proper to former ages, than from the readiness of all ages alike to accept +in such matters the counterfeit coin of conventional protestation for the +sterling reticence of natural delicacy. No doubt this tendency has been +aided by the fact that the secrets of a girl's heart, whatever may be +their true dramatic value, form an unsuitable and ineffective subject for +declamation. The difficulties must not, however, be allowed to weigh +against the importance of coming to a clear understanding as to the true +nature of this _non so che_ of false sentiment, of which it would hardly +be too much to affirm that it made the fortune of the pastoral in +aristocratic Italy on the one hand, and proved its ruin in middle-class +London on the other. + +To Tasso is due that assumption of extravagant and conventional _pudor_ +which forms one of the most abiding features of the pastoral drama. To +censure an exaggeration of the charm of modesty on the threshold of the +_seicento_, or to object a strained sense of chastity against the author +of the golden-age chorus, may indeed seem strange; but, as with Fletcher +at a later date, the very extravagance of the paradox may supply us with +the key to its solution. + +The falsity of Tasso's position is evinced partly in the main action of +the drama, partly in the commentary supplied by the minor personages. The +character of Aminta himself is unimportant in this respect; when we have +described him as effeminate, sickly, and over-refined, we have said all +that is necessary in view of the position he occupies with regard to +Silvia. She, we are given to understand, is the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, the unspotted nymph of Diana[177], rejoicing in the chase +alone, and importuned by the love of Aminta, which she neither +reciprocates nor understands, and of the genuineness of which she shows +herself, indeed, not a little sceptical. If, however, she is as careless +as she appears, her conversion is certainly most sudden. The picture, +moreover, drawn by Dafne of Silvia coquetting with her shadow in the pool, +though possibly coloured by malice, supplies a sufficient hint of the +true state of the girl's fancy. She is in truth such a Chloe of innocence +as might spring up in the rank soil of a petty Italian court infected with +post-Tridentine morality. Were she indeed careless of Aminta's devotion we +could easily sympathize with her when she brushes aside Dafne's +importunity with the words: + + Faccia Aminta di sè e de' suoi amori + Quel ch' a lui piace; a me nulla ne cale. (I. i.) + +It is altogether different with her attitude of arrogant pudicity when she +announces: + + Odio il suo amore + Ch' odia la mia onestate; (Ib.) + +and again: + + In questa guisa gradirei ciascuno + Insidiator di mia virginitate, + Che tu dimandi amante, ed io nemico. (Ib.) + +Silvia here conjoins the unwholesome medieval ideal of virginity with the +corrupt spectre of renaissance 'honour'-- + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno[178], (_Coro_ I.) + +as Tasso himself styled it--that conventional mask so bitterly contrasted +with the natural goodness of the age of gold[179]. + +The general conception of love and its attendant emotions that permeates +the work and vitiates so many of its descendants appears yet more +glaringly characterized in some of the minor personages. On these it is +not my intention to dwell. Of Dafne and Tirsi, that is, be it remembered, +Tasso's self, I have spoken, however briefly, yet at sufficient length +already. Suffice it to add here that Dafne's suggestion, that modesty is +commonly but a veil for lust, is nothing more than the cynical expression +of the attitude adopted throughout the play. Love is no ideal and +idealizing emotion, but a mere gratification of the senses--a _luxuria_ +scarcely distinguishable from _gula_. Ignorance can alone explain an +attitude of indifference towards its pleasures. The girl who does not care +to embrace opportunity is no better than a child--'Fanciulla tanto +sciocca, quanto bella,' as Dafne says. So, again, there is nothing +ennobling in the devotion of the hero, nothing elevating in his fidelity. +All the mysticism, all the ideality, of the early days of the renaissance +have long since disappeared, and chivalrous feeling, that last lingering +glory of the middle age, is dead. + +We are, indeed, justified in regarding what I may term the degeneration of +sexual feeling in the _Aminta_ as to a great extent the negation of +chivalrous love, for, even apart from the allegorizing mysticism of Dante, +that love contained its ennobling elements. And yet, strangely enough, not +a little of the convention at least of chivalrous love survives in the +debased Arcadian love of the sentimental pastoral. Both alike are +primarily of an animal nature, and this in a sense other than that in +which physical love may be said to form an element in all natural relation +between man and woman. Again, in both we find the rational machinery by +which love shall be rewarded. The lover serves his apprenticeship, either +with deeds of arms or with sighs and sonnets, and the credit of the +mistress is light who refuses to reward him for his service. The System +assumes neither choice, nor passion, nor pleasure on her part. Her act is +regarded in the cold light of a calculated payment, undisguised by any joy +of passionate surrender. But whereas in the outgrowth of feudalism, in the +chivalry of the middle ages, this system formed the great incentive to +martial daring, whereas when idealized in Beatrice it became almost +undistinguishable from the ferveurs of religion, we find it with Tasso +sinking into a weak and mawkish sensuality. More than any other +sentimentalist Tasso justified his title by 'fiddling harmonics on the +strings of sensualism,' and it may be added that the ear is constantly +catching the fundamental note. + +The foregoing remarks appeared necessary in order to understand the +subsequent history of the dramatic pastoral as well as the conditions +under which it took form and being, but they have led us far beyond the +limits of literary criticism proper. The next characteristic of the play +to be considered is one which, while possessing an important ethical +bearing, is also closely connected with the aesthetic composition. I refer +to the peculiar, not sensual but sensuous, nature of the beauty. The +effect produced by the descriptions, by the suggestions, by the general +tone, by the subtle modulations of the verse in adaptation to its theme, +is less one of literary and intellectual than of direct emotional +perception, producing the immediate physical impression of an actual +presence. The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and +voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect +produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same +impression remains with us afterwards. Smooth limbs, soft and white, that +shine through the waters of the spring and amid the jewelled spray, or +half revealed among the thickets of lustrous green, a slant ray of +sunlight athwart the loosened gold of the hair--the vision floats before +us as if conjured up by the strains of music rather than by actual words. +This kinship with another art did not escape so acute a critic as Symonds +as a characteristic of Tasso's style. But the kinship on another side with +the art of painting is equally close; a thousand pictures rise before us +as we follow the perfect melody of the irregular lyric measures. The white +veil fluttering and the swift feet flashing amid the brambles and the +trailing creepers of the wood, bright crimson staining the spotless purity +of the flying skirts as the huntress bursts through the clinging tangles +that seek to hold her as if jealous of a human love, the lusty strength of +the bronzed and hairy satyr in contrast with the tender limbs of the +captive nymph, the dark cliff, and the still mirror of the lake reflecting +the rosebuds pressed artfully against the girl's soft neck as she crouches +by its brink, + + Backed by the forest, circled by the flowers, + Bathed in the sunshine of the golden hours, + +the armed huntress, the grey-coated wolves, and the white-robed +chorus--here are a series of pictures of seductive beauty for the brush of +a painter to realize upon the walls of some palace of pleasure. + +The _Aminta_ attained a wide popularity even before the appearance of the +first edition from the Aldine house at Venice early in 1581--the epistle +is dated 1580. The printer of the Ferrarese edition of the same year +remarks: 'Tosto che la Fama ... mi rapportò, che in Venetia si stampava l' +Aminta, ... così subito pensai, che quella sola Impressione dovesse essere +ben poca per sodisfattione di tanti virtuosi, che sono desiderosi di +vederla alla luce.' A critical edition was prepared at Paris in the middle +of the following century by Egidio Menagio of the Accademia della Crusca, +and dedicated to Maria della Vergna, better known, under her married name +of Madame de la Fayette, as the author of the _Princesse de Clèves_[180]. +In 1693 the play was attacked by Bartolomeo Ceva Grimaldi, Duke of Telese, +in an address read before the Accademia degli Uniti at Naples[181]. He was +answered before the same society by Francesco Baldassare Paglia, and in +1700 appeared Giusto Fontanini's elaborate defence[182]. To each chapter +of this work is prefixed a passage from Grimaldi's address, which is then +laboriously refuted. The Duke's attack is puerile cavil, and in spite of +the reputed ability of its author the defence must be admitted to be much +on the same level. + + + +IV + + +The attention which we have bestowed upon the _Aminta_ will allow us to +pass more rapidly than would otherwise have been possible over its +successor and rival, the _Pastor fido_. This is due to the fact that the +moral and artistic environment of the two pieces is much the same, and +further, that it is this environment which to a great extent determined, +not only the individual character of the poems, but likewise the nature of +their subsequent influence. + +Recent research has had the effect of dispelling not a few of the +traditional ideas respecting Guarini's play. Among them is the fable that +it took twenty years to write, which would carry back its inception to +days before the composition of the _Aminta_. It is now recognized that +nine years is the utmost that can be assigned, letters being extant which +fix the genesis of the play in 1581, or at the earliest in 1580 a year or +so previous to Guarini's departure from Ferrara[183]. Again, it has been +usual to assume that the play was performed as early as 1585, whereas +there is in truth no evidence of any representation previous to the +appearance of the first edition dated 1590[184]. The early fortunes of the +play are indeed typical of the ill-success that dogged the author +throughout life. Though untouched by the tragic misfortunes which lend +interest to Tasso's career, his lot was at times a hard one and we may +excuse him if, at the last, he was no less embittered than his younger +rival. He was not cursed, it is true, with Tasso's incurable idealism; +but, if in consequence he exposed himself less to the buffets of +disillusionment, he likewise lacked its sustaining and ennobling power. +Tasso used the pastoral machinery to idealize the court; Guarini accepted +the pastoral convention of the superiority of the 'natural' life of the +country, and used it as a means of pouring out his bitterness of soul. The +_Aminta_, it should be remembered, was written during a few weeks, months +at most, at a time when Tasso was comparatively fortunate and happy; the +_Pastor fido_ was the ten years' labour of a retired and disappointed +courtier, whose later days were further embittered by domestic +misfortunes. In the same way as it was characteristic of Tasso's rosy view +that no law should be allowed to curb the purity of natural love in his +dream of the ideal age, so it was characteristic of the spirit of his +imitator to seek the ideal in the prudent love that strives towards no +distant star beyond the bounds of law. And the fact that Guarini saw fit +seriously to oppose a scholastic's moral figment to the poet's age of gold +may serve as a sufficient measure of the soul of the pedant. + +When Battista Guarini[185] entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara in +1567 he was already married and had attained the age of thirty, being +seven years older than Tasso. His duties at court were political, and he +was employed on several missions of a diplomatic character. There was no +reason whatever, beyond his own perverse ambition, why he should have come +into rivalry with Tasso, yet he did so both as a writer of verses and as a +hanger-on of court beauties. It is impossible to acquit him of bad taste +in the manner in which he and some at least of his fellow courtiers +treated the unfortunate poet, and there was certainly bad blood between +the two soon after the production of the _Aminta_, owing, probably, to the +ungenerous remarks passed by Guarini upon the author's indebtedness to +previous writers. After Tasso's confinement to S. Anna in 1579, Guarini +became court poet, and the luckless prisoner was condemned to see his own +poems entrusted to the editorial care of his rival. + +Guarini, however, was not satisfied with the court of Ferrara. His estate +was reduced by the expenses entailed by his missions as ambassador, for +which, like Machiavelli, he appears never to have received adequate +supplies, and by the continuous litigation in which he involved himself. +His political imagination, too, had been fired during a stay at Turin with +the possibilities inherent for Italy in the house of Savoy--an enthusiasm +which possibly did not tend to smooth his relations with his own master. +In 1582 he left Ferrara and the service of Alfonso and retired to his +ancestral estates of S. Bellino. Here he devoted himself to the +composition of the play he had lately taken in hand, which, in spite of +spasmodic returns to political life not only at the court of the Estensi +but also at Turin and Florence, forms thenceforward with its many +vicissitudes the central interest of his biography. He survived till 1612, +dying at the age of seventy-four. + +To do justice to the _Pastor fido_ it would be best to give the story in +the form of a continuous narrative rather than an analysis of the actual +scenes, since the author's constructive power lay almost wholly in the +invention of an intricate plot and his weakness in the scenic rendering of +it. His dramatic methods, however, so far elaborated from the simplicity +of Tasso's, had a vast influence over subsequent work, and it is highly +important to obtain a clear idea of their nature. We shall, therefore, be +condemned to follow Guarini, part-way at least, through the stiff +artificiality of his interminable scenes. + +A complicated story which is narrated at length in the course of the play +explains the peculiar laws of Arcadia on which the plot hinges[186]. These +comprise an edict of Diana to the effect that any nymph found guilty of a +breach of faith shall suffer death at the altar unless some one offers to +die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and +twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought +to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: + + Non avrà prima fin quel che v' offende, + Che duo semi del ciel congiunga amore; + E di donna infedel l' antico errore + L' alta pietà d' un pastor fido ammende. + +The only two in Arcadia who fulfil the conditions of the oracle are +Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano, and Amarilli, daughter of +Titiro, who have in their veins the blood of Hercules and Pan. These two +have consequently been betrothed and, being now arrived at marriageable +age, their final union is imminent. + +At this point the play opens. Silvio cares for nothing but the chase, +regardless alike of his destined bride and of the love borne him by the +nymph Dorinda; Amarilli is seemingly heart-whole, but secretly loves her +suitor Mirtillo, a stranger in Arcadia, whom, however, she persists in +treating with coldness in view of the penalty involved by a breach of +faith. Mirtillo in his turn is loved by Corisca, a wanton nymph who has +learned the arts of the city, and who is pursued both by Coridone, to whom +she is formally engaged, but whom she neglects, and by a satyr. Almost +every character is provided with a confidant: Silvio has Linco; Mirtillo, +Ergasto; Dorinda, Lupino; Carino[187], the supposed father of Mirtillo, +has Uranio; Montano and Titiro act as confidants to one another. The only +case arguing any dramatic feeling is that in which Amarilli makes a +confidant of her rival Corisca; while Corisca and the satyr alone among +the more important characters are left to address the audience directly. +Even the confidants sometimes need confidants in their turn, these being +supplied by a conveniently ubiquitous chorus. + +In the first scene of Act I, after the prologue, in which Alfeo rises to +pay compliments to Carlo Emanuele and his bride, we are introduced to +Silvio and Linco, who are about to start in pursuit of a savage boar which +has been devastating the country. Linco taxes his companion with his +neglect of the softer joys of love, to which Silvio replies with +long-drawn praise of the free life of the woods. The scene is parallel to +the first of the _Aminta_, and the author has sought here and elsewhere to +point the contrast. Thus where Tasso wrote: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +Guarini has: + + Lascia, lascia le selve, + Folle garzon, lascia le fere, ed ama. + +In the next scene, again modelled on the corresponding one in Tasso's +play, we find Ergasto comforting Mirtillo in his despair at Amarilli's +'cruelty.' Mirtillo has but recently arrived in Arcadia, and is ignorant +of its history and customs, which Ergasto explains at length. The third +scene is devoted to a long monologue by Corisca; the fourth to a +conversation between Montano and Titiro, who discuss the oracles +concerning the approaching marriage and recount portentous dreams. A +monologue by the satyr relating his ill-usage at the hands of Corisca, +followed by a chorus, ends the first act. The next scene contains the +history of Mirtillo's passion as narrated to his confidant. Ergasto has +enlisted the services of Corisca, and the whole paraphernalia of love lead +in the next act to an interview between Mirtillo and Amarilli. The +author's dramatic method whereby he presents us with alternate scenes from +the various threads of the plot will by now be evident to the reader, and +the remainder may for clearness' sake be thrown into narrative form. + +Corisca, well knowing that it is impossible for Amarilli to show favour to +Mirtillo, and hoping to ingratiate herself with him, prevails upon the +nymph to grant her lover a hearing, provided the interview be secret and +short. During a game of blind man's buff the players suddenly retire, +leaving Mirtillo and Amarilli alone. The interview of course comes to +nothing, but as soon as Mirtillo has left her Amarilli relieves her +feelings in a monologue confessing her love, which is overheard by +Corisca[188]. Charged with her weakness, she confesses her dislike of the +marriage with Silvio. Hereupon Corisca conceives a plan for ridding +herself at once of her rival in Mirtillo's affections and of her own +affianced lover. She leads Amarilli to suppose that Silvio is faithless +to his betrothal vow. If Amarilli can prove Silvio guilty she will +herself be free, and she agrees to hide in a recess in a cave where +Corisca alleges that Silvio has an assignation. Next Corisca makes an +appointment to meet her lover Coridone in the same cave, intending that he +and Amarilli shall be surprised together. Finally, in order to obtain a +witness, she accuses Amarilli to Mirtillo of being faithless, and bids him +watch the mouth of the cave in which she alleges the nymph has an +assignation with Coridone. This ingenious plan would have succeeded to +perfection but for Mirtillo's precipitancy, for, seeing Amarilli enter the +cave, he at once concludes her guilt and follows her forthwith to wreak +revenge. At that moment the satyr appears and, misunderstanding some words +of Mirtillo's, proceeds to bar the entrance to the cave with a huge rock, +thinking he is imprisoning Mirtillo and Corisca. He then goes off to +inform the priests of the pollution committed so near their temple. These +enter the cave and apprehend the lovers. Amarilli is at once condemned to +death, but Mirtillo thereupon offers himself in her place and, being +accepted by the priests, is kept as a sacrifice, Amarilli being at the +same time closely guarded lest she should lay violent hands upon herself. + +In the meantime Silvio has been successful in his hunting of the boar, +whose head he brings home in triumph. There follows an echo-scene, one of +those toys which, as old as the Greek Anthology, and cultivated in Latin +by Tebaldeo, and in Italian by Poliziano, owed, not indeed their +introduction, but certainly their great popularity in pastoral, to +Guarini. His example is fairly successful. The echo predicts that the end +of Silvio's 'carelessness' is at hand, when he shall himself break his bow +and follow her who now follows him. The prophecy is quick of fulfilment. +With a jest he turns to go, when his eye falls on a grey object crouching +among the bushes. He supposes it to be a wolf, and looses an arrow at it. +It proves, however, to be Dorinda, who has throughout followed his chase +disguised in the rough wolf-skin coat of a herdsman, and who is now led +fainting on to the scene by Lupino. Silvio is overcome with remorse, and, +careless alike of his troth to Amarilli and of the fate of Arcadia, +declares that thenceforth he will love none but Dorinda, and will die +with her should his arrow prove fatal. They leave the stage for good--to +get healed and married. + +To return to the main plot. At sundown Mirtillo is led out to die, and the +sacrifice is about to be performed when his supposed father, an Arcadian +by birth, though he has long lived at Elis, and has just arrived in search +of his foster child, interposes. Explanations ensue, and it gradually +appears that Mirtillo is the eldest son of Montano, washed away in his +cradle by the floods of the Alpheus twenty years before. Thus in the love +between him and Amarilli, and in his voluntary sacrifice of himself in her +place, the oracle is fulfilled, and Arcadia freed from its maiden tribute. +This seems obvious enough, though it takes the inspiration of a blind +prophet to drive it into the heads of the assembled Arcadians. A final +difficulty remains--the broken troth. But it so happens that Mirtillo was +originally named Silvio, so that to 'Silvio' no faith is broken. A +casuistical reason indeed; but good enough for the purpose. No attempt is +made to clear Amarilli of the compromising evidence on which she had been +condemned, but the pair have the favour of the gods, and the chorus makes +no difficulty of chanting the virtue of the bride. + +Such is Guarini's play; a plot constructed with consummate ingenuity, but +presented with an almost entire lack of dramatic feeling. Almost the whole +of the action takes place off the stage. Silvio and Dorinda leave the +scene apparently for a tragic catastrophe; their subsequent union is only +reported; so is the surprisal of Mirtillo and Amarilli, the scene in which +the former offers himself as a sacrifice in her place, and their meeting +after the cloud of death has passed. The solitary scene revealing any real +dramatic power is that between Amarilli and the priest Nicandro, in which +the girl maintains her innocence. Her terror when confronted with death is +drawn with some delicacy and pathos, though we sadly miss those poignant +touches that the English playwrights seem always to have had at command on +similar occasions. Her fear of death, however, stands in powerful dramatic +contrast with the sudden courage she displays when her lover seeks to die +in her place. Guarini was perfectly aware of the value of this contrast, +for he placed the following lines in the mouth of the _messo_ who reports +the scene: + + Or odi maraviglia. + Quella che fu pur dianzi + Sì dalla tema del morire oppressa, + Fatta allor di repente + A le parole di Mirtillo invitta, + Con intrepido cor così rispose: + 'Pensi dunque, Mirtillo, + Di dar col tuo morire + Vita a chi di te vive? + O miracolo ingiusto! Su, ministri; + Su, che si tarda? omai + Menatemi agli altari.' (V. ii.) + +And yet this dramatic contrast has been wantonly thrown away by the +substitution of narrative for representation, less for the sake of a blind +adherence to classical convention, as on account of the author's inability +honestly to face a powerful situation. The same dramatic incapacity shows +itself in his use of borrowings. It will be sufficient to mention the +sententious words from Ovid (_Amores_, I. viii. 43) placed in the mouth of +the chorus: + + Dunque non si dirà donna pudica + Se non quella che mai + Non fu sollecitata; (IV. in.) + +in order to compare them with the use made of the same by Webster when he +made Vittoria at her trial exclaim: + + Casta est quam nemo rogavit!-- + +a comparison which at once reveals the gulf fixed between the clairvoyant +dramatist and the mere pedantic scholar. + +And yet the subsequent history of pastoral reminds us that it is quite +possible to underestimate Guarini's merits as a playwright. In the +construction of a complicated plot, apart from the dramatic presentation +thereof, he achieved a success not to be paralleled by any previous work +in Italy, for the difference in the titles of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, the one styled _favola_ and the other _tragi-commedia_, indicates a +real distinction; and Guarini's proud claim to have invented a new +dramatic kind was not wholly unfounded[189]. It was this that caused +Symonds to speak of his play as 'sculptured in pure forms of classic +grace,' while describing the _Aminta_ as 'perfumed and delicate like +flowers of spring.' And lastly, it was this more elaborately dramatic +quality that was responsible for the far greater influence exercised by +Guarini than by Tasso, both on the subsequent drama of Italy and still +more on the fortunes of the pastoral in England. + +Moreover, in Amarilli, Guarini created one really dramatic character and +devoted to it one really dramatic scene. His heroine is probably the best +character to be found in the whole of the pastoral drama, and this simply +because there is a reason for her coldness towards the lover, upon her +love to whom the plot depends. Unless love is to be mutual the motive +force of the drama fails, and consequently, when nymphs insist on parading +their inhuman superiority to the dictates of natural affection, they are +simply refusing to fulfil their dramatic _raison d'être_. With Amarilli it +is otherwise. She has the right to say: + + Ama l' onestà mia, s' amante sei; (III. iii.) + +and there is a pathos in the words which the author may not have himself +fully understood; whereas the similar expression of Tasso's Silvia quoted +on a previous page is insufferable in its smug self-conceit. + +Of this quality of extravagant virginity noticed as a characteristic of +Tasso's play there is on the whole less in the _Pastor fido_. It is also +freer from the tone of cynical corruption and from improper suggestion. +These merits are, however, more than counterbalanced in the ethical scale +by the elaboration of the spirit of sentimental sensualism, which becomes +as it were an enveloping atmosphere, and lends an enervating seduction to +the piece. This spirit, already present in the _Aminta_, reappeared in an +emphasized form in the _Pastor fido_, and attained its height in the +following century in Marino's epic of _Adone_. We find it infusing the +scene of Mirtillo's first meeting with Amarilli, which may be said to set +the tone of the rest of the poem. Happening to see the nymph at the +Olympian games, Mirtillo at once fell in love and contrived to introduce +himself in female attire into the company of maidens to which she +belonged. Here, the proposal being made to hold a kissing match among +themselves, Amarilli was unanimously chosen judge, and, the contest over, +she awarded the prize to the disguised youth. The incident owes its +origin, as Guarini's notes point out, to the twelfth Idyl of Theocritus, +and the suggestion of the kissing match is aptly put into the mouth of a +girl from Megara, where an annual contest of kisses among the Greek youths +was actually held. Guarini, however, most probably borrowed the episode +from the fifth canto of Tasso's _Rinaldo_. + +The sentimental seductiveness of this and other scenes did not escape +sharp comment in some quarters within a few years of the publication of +the play. In 1605 Cardinal Bellarmino, meeting Guarini at Rome, told him +plainly that he had done as much harm to morals by his _Pastor fido_ as by +their heresies Luther and Calvin had done to religion. Later Janus Nicius +Erythraeus, that is Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, in his _Pinacoteca_, compared +the play to a rock-infested sea full of seductive sirens, in which no +small number of girls and wives were said to have made shipwreck. It is at +first sight ratifier a severe indictment to bring against Guarini's play, +especially when we remember that a work of art is more often an index than +a cause of social corruption. After what has been said, however, of the +nature of the sentiment both in the _Pastor fido_ and the _Aminta_, the +charge can hardly be dismissed as altogether unfounded. It is only fair to +add that very different views have been held with regard to the moral +aspect of the play, the theory of its essential healthiness finding an +eloquent advocate in Ugo Angelo Canello[190]. + +Little as it became him, Guarini chose to adopt the attitude of a +guardian of morals, and Bellarmino's words clearly possessed a special +sting. This pose was in truth but a part of the general attitude he +assumed towards the author of the _Aminta_. His superficial propriety +authorized him, in his own eyes, to utter a formal censure upon the +amorous dream of the ideal poet. He paid the price of his unwarranted +conceit. Those passages in which he was at most pains to contrast his +ethical philosophy with Tasso's imaginative Utopia are those in which he +most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in +his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid +declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay +beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the _Pastor +fido_ with Tasso's great ode; his sententious 'Piaccia se lice' with +Tasso's 'S' ei piace, ei lice'; his utterly banal + + Speriam: che 'l sol cadente anco rinasce; + E 'l ciel, quando men luce, + L' aspettato seren spesso n' adduce, + +with Tasso's superb, even though borrowed, paganism: + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce-- + +when we make this comparison we have the spiritual measure of the man. A +similar comparison will give us his measure as a poet. Take the graceful +but over-elaborated picture: + + Quell' augellin che canta + Sì dolcemente, e lascivetto vola + Or dall' abete al faggio, + Ed or dal faggio al mirto, + S' avesse umano spirto + Direbbe: 'Ardo d' amore, ardo d' amore!' + +Compare with this the spontaneous sketch of Tasso: + + Odi quell' usignuolo + Che va di ramo in ramo + Cantando: 'Io amo, io amo!'[191] + +Or again, with the irresistible slyness of the final chorus of the +_Aminta_ already quoted compare the sententious lines with which Guarini +closed his play: + + O fortunata coppia, + Che pianto ha seminato, e riso accoglie! + Con quante amare doglie + Hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi! + Quinci imparate voi, + O ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, + I sinceri diletti, e i veri mali. + Non è sana ogni gioia, + Nè mal ciò che v' annoia. + Quello è vero gioire, + Che nasce da virtù dopo il soffrire. + +It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that we are listening in +the one case to a genuine poet of no common order, in the other to a +poetaster of considerable learning and great ingenuity, who elected to don +the outward habit of a somewhat hypocritical morality. The effect of the +contrast is further heightened when we remember that Guarini never for a +moment doubted that he had far surpassed the work of his predecessor. + +Guarini's comment on the _Aminta_ in his letter to Speroni has been +already quoted: it does little credit to the writer. Manso, the companion +and biographer of Tasso, records that, the poet being asked by some +friends what he thought of the _Pastor fido_, a copy of which had lately +found its way to him at Naples: + + Et egli, 'Mi piace sopramodo, ma confesso di non saper la cagione perchè + mi piaccia.' Onde io rispondendogli, 'Vi piacerà per avventura,' + soggiunsi, 'quel che vi riconoscete del vostro.' Et egli replicò, 'Ne + può piacere il vedere il suo in man d' altri.'[192] + +Guarini would hardly have acknowledged his indebtedness to Tasso in the +way of art, but he drew on all sources for the incidents of his plot, and, +since he appears to have valued a reputation for scholarship above one for +originality, he recorded a fair proportion of his borrowings in his notes. + + * * * * * + +The _Pastor fido_ was the talk of the Italian Courts even before it was +completed. Early in 1584 the heir to the duchy of Mantua, Vincenzo +Gonzaga, to whose intercession Tasso later owed his liberty, entreated +Guarini to let him have his already famous pastoral for the occasion of +his marriage with Eleonora de' Medici. The poet, however, found it +impossible to complete the work in time, and sent the _Idropica_ instead. +In the autumn a projected representation of the now completed play came to +naught. The following year Guarini presented his play to the Duke of +Savoy, and received a gold chain as an acknowledgement. The occasion was +the entry into Turin of Carlo Emanuele and his bride, Catharine of +Austria, the marriage having taken place at Saragossa some time +previously. The dedication is recorded on the title-page of the first +edition in words that have not unnaturally been held to imply that the +play was performed on that occasion.[193] It is clear, however, from +contemporary documents that this is an error, and, though preparations +were made in view of a performance at the following carnival, these too +were abandoned. After this we find mention of preparations made at a +variety of places, but they never came to anything, and there is reason to +believe that some at least were abandoned owing to the opposition of +Alfonso d' Este, who never forgave a courtier who transferred his +allegiance to another prince. In 1591 Vincenzo Gonzaga, now duke, summoned +Guarini to Mantua, and matters advanced as far as a _prova generale_ or +dress rehearsal. The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing +to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome. We possess the +scheme for the four _intermezzi_ designed for this occasion, representing +the _Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell' Aria_, and _Celeste_. They were +scenic and musical only, without words. About this time too, that is after +the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of +preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which +is uncertain. The first representation of which there is definite +evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in +Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[194]. After this +performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the +play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua. On +all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were substituted +for that addressed to _gran Caterina_ and _magnanimo Carlo_[195]. + +In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the +publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism +of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a +member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the _Gerusalemme_. +Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and +recommendations of these two men. The work finally appeared, as we learn +from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589. It is a handsome +quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the +following year[196]. In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the title-page +to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti. This +represents Guarini's final revision of the text, and contains, besides a +portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on +tragi-comedy[197]. + +The _Pastor fido_ was the object of a violent attack while as yet it +circulated in manuscript only. As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores +or Denores, a Cypriot noble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the +university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing +between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in +which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced +tragi-comedies and pastorals as 'monstrous and disproportionate +compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil +philosophy.' Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving +to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the +reference was palpable. He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast +which he named _Il Verato_ (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the +time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ in 1567. In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor's +propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism: 'As in compounds the +hot accords with the cold, its mortal enemy, as the dry humour with the +moist, so the elements of tragedy and comedy, though separately +antagonistic, yet when united in a third form,' _et cetera et cetera_. De +Nores replied in an _Apologia_ (1590), disclaiming all personal allusion, +and the poet finally answered back in a _Verato secondo_, first published +in 1593, after his antagonist's death, restating his arguments and +seasoning them with a good deal of unmannerly abuse. These two treatises +of Guarini's were reprinted with alterations as the _Compendio della +poesia tragicommica_, in the 1602 edition of the play, and together with +the notes to the same edition form Guarini's own share of the +controversy[198]. But in 1600, before these had appeared, a Paduan, +Faustino Summo, published a set attack on and dissection of the play; +while a certain Giovan Pietro Malacreta of Vicenza illustrated the +attitude of the age with regard to literature by putting forward a series +of critical _dubbî_, that is, doubts as to the 'authority' of the form +employed. Both works are distinguished by a spirit of puerile cavil, which +would of itself almost suffice to reconcile us to the worst faults of the +poet. Thus Malacreta is not even content to let the author choose his own +title, arguing that Mirtillo was faithful not in his quality of shepherd +but of lover[199]. He goes on to complain of the tangle of laws and +oracles which Guarini invents in order to motive the action of his play; +and here, though taken individually his objections may be hypercritical, +he has laid his finger on a very real weakness of the author's ingenious +plot. It is, moreover, a weakness common to almost the whole tribe of the +Arcadian, or rather Utopian, pastorals. Apologists soon appeared, and had +little difficulty in disposing of most of the adverse criticisms. A +specific _Risposta_ to Malacreta appeared at Padua in 1600 from the pen of +Paolo Beni. Defences by Giovanni Savio and Orlando Pescetti were printed +at Venice and Verona respectively in 1601, while one at least, written by +Gauges de Gozze of Pesaro, under the pseudonym of Fileno di Isauro, +circulated in manuscript. These writings, however, are marked either by +futile endeavours to reconcile the _Pastor fido_ with the supposed +teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as +that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, +it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of +Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles[200]. Finally, Summo returned to the +charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in +1601[201]. But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the +popularity of the _Pastor fido_ and its successors. Moreover, the critical +position of the combatants on both sides was essentially false. It would +be an easy task to fill a volume with strictures on the play touching its +sentimental tone, its affected manners, its stiff development, its +undramatic construction, the weak drawing of character, the lack of motive +force to move the complex machinery, and many other points--strictures +that should be unanswerable. But those who wish to understand the +influence exercised by the play over subsequent literature in Europe will +find their time better spent in analysing those qualities, whether +emotional or artistic, which won for it the enthusiastic worship of the +civilized world. + +Numerous translations bear witness to its popularity far beyond the shores +of Italy. The earliest of these was into French, and appeared in 1595; it +was followed by several others. The Spanish versions have already been +mentioned, and the English will occupy our attention shortly. Besides +these there are versions, often more than one, in German, Greek, Swedish, +Dutch, and Polish. There are likewise versions in the Bergamasc and +Neapolitan dialects, while the manuscript of a Latin translation is +preserved in the University Library at Cambridge. + + + +V + + +There were obvious advantages in treating the two masterpieces of pastoral +drama in Italy in close connexion with one another. It must not, however, +be supposed that they stood alone in the field of pastoral composition. +Both between the years 1573 when the _Aminta_ was composed and 1590 when +the _Pastor fido_ was printed, and also after the latter year, the stream +of plays continued unchecked, though, apart from a general tendency +towards greater regularity of dramatic construction, they do not form any +organic link in the chain of artistic development. Few deserve more than +passing notice. In the earlier ones, at least, we still find a tendency to +introduce extraneous elements. Thus _Gl' Intricati_, printed in 1581, and +acted a few years before at Zara, the work of Count Alvise, or, it would +appear, more correctly Luigi, Pasqualigo, contains a farcical and magical +part combined with some rather coarse jesting between two rogues, one +Spanish and one Bolognese, who speak in their respective dialects. Another +play in which a comic element appears is Bartolommeo Rossi's _Fiammella_ +(1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical +characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another +piece belonging to this period is the _Pentimento amoroso_ by Luigi Groto, +which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and +intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in +_sdrucciolo_ verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, +Gabriele Zinano's _Caride_, surreptitiously printed in 1582, and included +in an authorized publication in 1590, has the peculiarity of placing the +prologue in the mouth of Vergil. Lastly, I may mention Angelo Ingegneri's +_Danza di Venere_, acted at Parma in 1583, and printed the following year. +It contains the incident of a mad shepherd's regaining his wits through +gazing on the beauty of a sleeping nymph, thus borrowing the motive of +Boccaccio's tale of Cymon and Iphigenia. Its chief interest for us, +however, lies in the episode of the hero employing a gang of satyrs to +carry off his beloved during a solemn dance in honour of Venus. This looks +like a reminiscence of Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_, and through it of the old +satyric drama[202]. + +These plays all belong to the period between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_. Tasso's and Guarini's masterpieces mark the point of furthest +development attained by the pastoral drama in Italy, or indeed in Europe. +With them the vitality which rendered evolution possible was spent, though +the power of reproduction remained unimpaired for close on a century. +Signor Rossi, in the monograph of which I have already made such free use, +mentions a number of plays, whose dependence on the _Pastor fido_ is +evident from their titles, though Guarini's influence is, of course, far +more widely spread than such eclectic treatment reveals. The most curious, +perhaps, is a play, _I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed +Amarilli_, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children +of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a +genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance +that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of +supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso +and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding +proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that +influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino +possessed no less than eighty pastoral plays; while by 1700, the year of +Fontanini's work on the _Aminta_, Giannantonio Moraldi is said to hsve +brought together in Rome a collection of over two hundred.[203] Every +device was resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo +Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find +her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's _Finta +Fiammetta_ (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courtship of +Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's +_Fida Armilla_ (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous +serpent--all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and +romance. Two plays only call for closer attention, and this rather on +account of a certain reputation they have gained than of any intrinsic +merit. One of these, Antonio Ongaro's _Alceo_, which was printed in 1582 +and is therefore earlier than the _Pastor fido_, has been happily +nicknamed _Aminta bagnato_. It is a piscatorial adaptation of Tasso's +play, which it follows almost scene for scene. The satyr becomes a triton +with as little change of character as the nymphs and shepherds undergo in +their metamorphosis to fisher girls and boys. Alceo shows less +resourcefulness than his prototype in that he twice tries to commit +suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The last act is spun out to +three scenes in accordance with the demand for greater regularity of +dramatic construction, but gains nothing but tedium thereby. The other +play to be considered connects itself in plot rather with the _Pastor +fido_. It is the _Filli di Sciro_, the work of Guidubaldo Bonarelli della +Rovere. The poet's father enjoyed the protection of the Duke Guidubaldo II +of Urbino, but in after days he removed to the court of the Estensi at +Ferrara. It was here that the play appeared in 1607, though it is +dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, who had by that time succeeded +his father in the duchy of Urbino. The plot of the play is highly +intricate, and shows a tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous +element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the +island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is +replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract +two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely +wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with +both her rescuers at once, and it is only when one of them proves to be +her long-lost brother that she is able to make up her mind between +them[204]. This brother had been carried off as a child by the Thracians +together with his betrothed Filli, and having escaped was lately returned +to his native land. From a dramatic point of view the _dénoûment_ is even +more preposterous than usual. The principal characters leave the stage at +the end of the fourth act, under sentence of death, and do not reappear, +the whole of the last act being occupied with narratives of their +subsequent fortunes. A point which is possibly worth notice is the +introduction of that affected talk on the technicalities of sheepcraft +which adds so greatly to the already intolerable artificiality of the +later pastoral drama, but which is happily absent from the work of Tasso +and Guarini. + + * * * * * + +We have now reached the end of our survey of the Italian pastoral drama. +In spite of the space it has been necessary to devote to the subject, it +must be borne in mind that we have treated it from one point of view only. +Besides the interest which it possesses in connexion with the development +of pastoral tradition, it also plays a very important part in the history +of dramatic art, not in Italy alone, but over the whole of Europe. On this +aspect of the subject we have hardly so much as touched. Nor is this all. +If it is true, as is commonly assumed, that the opera had its birth in the +_Orfeo_ of Angelo Poliziano, it is not less true that it found its cradle +in the Arcadian drama. A few isolated pieces may still be able to charm us +by their poetic beauty. In dealing with the rest it must never be +forgotten that without the costly scenery and elaborate musical setting +that lent body and soul to them in their day, we have what is little +better than the dry bones of these _ephemeridae_ of courtly art. + + + + +Chapter IV. + +Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of +this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the +growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the +seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a +connected web the loose threads of my discourse. + +Taking birth among the upland meadows of Sicily, the pastoral tradition +first assumed its conventional garb in imperial Rome, and this it +preserved among learned writers after its revival in the dawn of the +Italian renaissance. With Arcadia for its local habitation it underwent a +rebirth in the opening years of the sixteenth century in Sannazzaro's +romance, and again towards the close in the drama of Tasso. It became +chivalric in Spain and courtly in France, and finally reached this country +in three main streams, the eclogue borrowed by Spenser from Marot, the +romance suggested to Sidney by Montemayor, and the drama imitated by +Daniel from Tasso and Guarini. Once here, it blended variously with other +influences and with native tradition to produce a body of dramatic work, +which, ill-defined, spasmodic and occasional, nevertheless reveals on +inspection a certain character of its own, and one moreover not precisely +to be paralleled from the literary annals of any other European nation. + +The indications of a native pastoral impulse, manifesting itself in the +burlesque of the religions drama and the romance of the popular ballads, +we have already considered. The connexion which it is possible to trace +between this undefined impulse and the later pastoral tradition is in no +wise literary; in so far as it exists at all and is one of temperament +alone, a bent of national character. In tracing the rise of the form in +Italy upon the one hand, and in England upon the other, we are struck by +certain curious contrasts and also by certain curious parallelisms. The +closest analogy to the ballad themes to be discovered in the literature of +Italy is in certain of the songs of Sacchetti and his contemporaries, but +it would be unwise to insist on the resemblance. The more suggestive +parallel of the _novelle_ has to be ruled out on the score of form, and is +further differentiated by the notable lack in them of romantic spirit. +Again, in the _sacre rappresentazioni_, the burlesque interpolations from +actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through +it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the +rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a +direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, +a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct +imitation,[205] must be taken to indicate a real parallelism in the +evolution of the tradition in the two countries, that in England as in +Italy the way was paved for pastoral by the appearance of mythological +plays, introducing incidentally pastoral scenes and characters, and +anticipating to some extent at any rate the peculiar atmosphere of the +Arcadian drama. + + * * * * * + +The earliest of these English mythological plays, alike in date of +production and of publication, was George Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_, +'A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Majestie, by the children of +her Chappell,' no doubt in 1581, and printed three years later.[206] It +partakes of the nature of the masque in that the whole composition centres +round a compliment to the Queen, Eliza or Zabeta--a name which, as Dr. +Ward notes, Peele probably borrowed along with one or two other hints from +Gascoigne's Kenilworth entertainment of 1575. The title sufficiently +expresses its mythological character, and the precise value of the term +'pastoral' on the title-page is difficult to determine. The characters are +for the most part either mythological or rustic; the only truly pastoral +ones being Paris and Oenone, whose parts, however, in so far as they are +pastoral, are also of the slightest. It is of course impossible to say +exactly to what extent the fame of the Italian pastoral drama may have +penetrated to England--the _Aminta_ was first printed the year of the +production of Peele's play, and waited a decade before the first English +translation and the first English edition appeared[207]--but no influence +of Tasso's masterpiece can be detected in the _Arraignment_; still less is +it possible to trace any acquaintance with Poliziano's work. + +After a prologue, in which Atè foretells in staid and measured but not +unpleasing blank verse the fall of Troy, the silvan deities, Pan, Faunus, +Silvanus, Pomona, Flora, enter to welcome the three goddesses who are on +their way to visit 'Ida hills,' and who after a while enter, led by Rhanis +and accompanied by the Muses, whose processional chant heralds their +approach. They are greeted by Pan, who sings: + + The God of Shepherds, and his mates, + With country cheer salutes your states, + Fair, wise, and worthy as you be, + And thank the gracions ladies three + For honour done to Ida. + +When these have retired from the stage there follows a charming idyllic +scene between the lovers Paris and Oenone, which contains the delightful +old song, one of the lyric pearls of the Elizabethan drama: + + _Oenone._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + The fairest shepherd on our green, + A love for any lady. + + _Paris._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + Thy love is fair for thee alone, + And for no other lady. + + _Oenone._ My love is fair, my love is gay, + As fresh as bin the flowers in May, + And of my love my roundelay, + My merry, merry, merry roundelay, + Concludes with Cupid's curse-- + They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + + _Both._ They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + +The second act presents us the three goddesses who have come to Ida on a +party of pleasure with no very definite object in view, and are now +engaged in exercising their tongues at one another's expense. The scene +consists of a cross-fire of feminine amenities, not of the most delicate, +it is true, and therefore not here to be reproduced, yet of a keenness of +temper and a ringing mastery in the rimed verse little less than brilliant +in themselves, and little less than a portent at the date of their +appearance. Then a storm arises, during which, the goddesses having sought +refuge in Diana's bower, Atè rolls the fatal ball upon the stage. On the +return of the three the inscription _Detur pulcherrimae_ breeds fresh +strife, until they agree to submit the case for judgement to the next man +they meet. Paris arriving upon the scene at this point is at once called +upon to decide the rival claims of the contending goddesses. First Juno +promises wealth and empery, and presents a tree hung as with fruit with +crowns and diadems, all which shall be the meed of the partial judge. +Pallas next seeks to allure the swain with the pomp and circumstance of +war, and conjures up a show in which nine knights, no doubt the nine +worthies, tread a 'warlike almain.' Last Venus speaks: + + Come, shepherd, come, sweet shepherd, look on me, + These bene too hot alarums these for thee: + But if thou wilt give me the golden ball, + Cupid my boy shall ha't to play withal, + That whenso'er this apple he shall see, + The God of Love himself shall think on thee, + And bid thee look and choose, and he will wound + Whereso thy fancy's object shall be found. + +Whereupon 'Helen entereth in her bravery' attended by four Cupids, and +singing an Italian song which has, however, little merit. As at a later +day Faustus, so now Paris bows before the sovereignty of her beauty, and +then wanders off through Ida glades in the company of the victorious queen +of love, leaving her outraged rivals to plot a common revenge. Act III +introduces the slight rustic element. Hobbinol, Diggon, and Thenot enter +to Colin, who is lamenting the cruelty of his love Thestylis. The names +are obviously borrowed from the _Shepherd's Calender_, but while Colin is +still the type of the hopeless lover, there is no necessity to suspect any +personal identification. The _Arraignment_ was probably produced less than +two years after the publication of Spenser's eclogues, and Peele, who was +an Oxford man, may even have been ignorant of their authorship[208]. Still +more unnecessary are certain other identifications between characters in +the play and persons at court which have been propounded. Such +identifications, at any rate, have no importance for our present task, +which is to ascertain in what measure and in what manner Peele's work +paved the way for the advent of the Italian pastoral; and we note, with +regard to the present scene, that the more polished and more homely +elements alike--both Colin on the one hand, and Diggon, Hobbinol, and the +rest on the other--are inspired by Spenser's work, and by his alone. +Meanwhile Oenone enters, lamenting her desertion by Paris. There is +delicate pathos in the reminiscence of her former song which haunts the +outpouring of her grief-- + + False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one, + To range and change old loves for new; but now those days be gone. + +She is less happy in a set lament, beginning: + + Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs, + +in which we may perhaps catch a distant echo of Spenser's: + + Melpomene, the mournfull'st Muse of nine. + +As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris +to appear at Juno's suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of +partiality in judgement. A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, +in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the +unsuspecting nymph--it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the +lover's duet. + + _Mercury._ Is love to blame? + + _Oenone._ The queen of love hath made him false his troth. + + _Mer._ Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love? + + _Oen._ Even wanton Cupid's dame. + + _Mer._ Why, was thy love so lovely, then? + + _Oen._ His beauty height his shame; + The fairest shepherd on our green. + + _Mer._ Is he a shepherd, than? + + _Oen._ And sometime kept a bleating flock. + + _Mer._ Enough, this is the man. + +In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together. First the goddess +directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, 'The love whom +Thestylis hath slain,' as the epitaph of the now dead Colin. When these +have left the stage she turns to Paris: + + Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love? + + _Paris._ Lady, a little once. + +She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which +is a good example of Peele's use of the old rimed versification, and as +such deserves quotation. + + My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry, + That haply erst thou hast not heard: in hell there is a tree, + Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers, + With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers + Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat + Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat. + This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell + T'impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well: + And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee, + Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee; + For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start, + Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart. + + _Paris._ Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity? + + _Venus._ Pity it were that love should not be linkèd with indifferency.[209] + +Then follow Colin's funeral, the punishment of the hard-hearted Thestylis, +condemned to love a 'foul crooked churl' who 'crabbedly refuseth her,' +and the scene in which Mercury summons Paris before the Olympian tribunal. +Here we find him in the next act. The gods being seated in the bower of +Diana, Juno and Pallas, and Venus and Paris appear 'on sides' before the +throne of Jove, and in answer to his indictment the shepherd of Ida +delivers a spirited speech. Again the verse is of no small merit. +Defending himself from the charge of partiality in the bestowal of the +prize, he argues: + + Had it been destinèd to majesty-- + Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace-- + Then stately Juno might have borne the ball. + Had it to wisdom been intitulèd, + My human wit had given it Pallas then. + But sith unto the fairest of the three + That power, that threw it for my farther ill, + Did dedicate this ball--and safest durst + My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought, + To judge of form and beauty rather than + Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness--... + Behold, to Venus Paris gave the fruit, + A daysman[210] chosen there by full consent, + And heavenly powers should not repent their deeds. + +After consultation the gods decide to dismiss the prisoner, though we +gather that he is not wholly acquitted. + + _Jupiter._ Shepherd, thou hast been heard with equity and law, + And for thy stars do thee to other calling draw, + We here dismiss thee hence, by order of our senate; + Go take thy way to Troy, and there abide thy fate. + + _Venus._ Sweet shepherd, with such luck in love, while thou dost live, + As may the Queen of Love to any lover give. + + _Paris._ My luck is loss, howe'er my love do speed: + I fear me Paris shall but rue his deed. + + _Apollo._ From Ida woods now wends the shepherd's boy, + That in his bosom carries fire to Troy. + +This, however, does not settle the case, and the final adjudication of the +apple of beauty is entrusted by the gods to Diana, since it was in her +grove that it was found. Parting company with classical legend in the +incident which gives its title to the play, Peele further adds a fifth +act, in which he contrives to make the world-famous history subserve the +courtly ends of the masque. When the rival claimants have solemnly sworn +to abide by the decision of their compeer, Diana begins: + + It is enough; and, goddesses, attend. + There wons within these pleasaunt shady woods, + Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature + Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold, ... + Far from disturbance of our country gods, + Amid the cypress springs[211], a gracions nymph, + That honours Dian for her chastity, + And likes the labours well of Phoebe's groves; + The place Elizium hight, and of the place + Her name that governs there Eliza is, + A kingdom that may well compare with mine, + An auncient seat of kings, a second Troy, + Y-compass'd round with a commodious sea. + +The rest may be easily imagined. The contending divinities resign their +claims: + + _Venus._ To this fair nymph, not earthly, but divine, + Contents it me my honour to resign. + + _Pallas._ To this fair queen, so beautiful and wise, + Pallas bequeaths her title in the prize. + + _Juno._ To her whom Juno's looks so well become, + The Queen of Heaven yields at Phoebe's doom. + +The three Fates now enter, and singing a Latin song lay their 'properties' +at the feet of the queen. Then each in turn delivers a speech appropriate +to her character, and finally Diana 'delivereth the ball of gold into the +Queen's own hands,' and the play ends with a couple of doggerel hexameters +chanted by way of epilogue by the assembled actors: + + Vive diu felix votis hominumque deumque, + Corpore, mente, libro, doctissima, candida, casta. + +The jingle of these lines would alone suffice to prove that Peele's ear +was none of the most delicate, and he particularly sins in disregarding +the accent in the rime-word, a peculiarity which may have been noticed +even in the short passages quoted above. Nevertheless, even apart from its +lyrics, one of which is in its way unsurpassed, the play contains passages +of real grace in the versification. The greater part is written either in +fourteeners or in decasyllabic couplets with occasional alexandrines, in +both of which the author displays an ease and mastery which, to say the +least, were uncommon in the dramatic work of the early eighties; while the +passages of blank verse introduced at important dramatic points, notably +in Paris' defence and in Diana's speech, are the best of their kind +between Surrey and Marlowe. The style, though now and again clumsy, is in +general free from affectation except for an occasional weakness in the +shape of a play upon words. Such is the connexion of Eliza with Elizium, +in a passage already quoted, and the time-honoured _non Angli sed +angeli_-- + + Her people are y-clepèd Angeli, + Or, if I miss, a letter is the most-- + +occurring a few lines later; also the words of Lachesis: + + Et tibi, non aliis, didicerunt parcere Parcae. + +With regard to the general construction of the piece it is hardly too much +to say that the skill with which the author has enlarged a masque-subject +into a regular drama, altered a classical legend to subserve a particular +aim, and conducted throughout the multiple perhaps rather than complex +threads of his plot, mark him out as pre-eminent among his contemporaries. +We must not, it is true, look for perfect balance of construction, for +adequacy of dramatic climax, or for subtle characterization; but what has +been achieved was, in the stage of development at which the drama had then +arrived, no mean achievement. The dramatic effects are carefully prepared +for and led up to, reminding us almost at times of the recurrence of a +musical motive. Thus the song between Paris and Oenone, just before the +shepherd goes off to cross Dame Venus' path, is a fine piece of dramatic +irony as well as a charming lyric; while the effect of the reminiscences +of the song scattered through the later pastoral scenes has been already +noticed. Another instance is Venus' warning of the pains in store for +faithless lovers, which fittingly anticipates the words with which Paris +leaves the assembly of the gods. Again, we find a conscious preparation +for the contention between the goddesses in their previous bickerings, and +a conscious juxtaposition of the forsaken Oenone and the love-lorn Colin. +Lastly, there are scattered throughout the play not a few graphic touches, +as when Mercury at sight of Oenone exclaims: + + Dare wage my wings the lass doth love, she looks so bleak and thin! + +Such then is Peele's mythological play, presented in all the state of a +court revel before her majesty by the children of the Chapel Royal, a play +which it is more correct to say prepared the ground for than, as is +usually asserted, itself contained the germ of the later pastoral drama. +In spite of the care bestowed upon its composition, the _Arraignment of +Paris_ remains a slight and occasional production; but it nevertheless +claims its place as one of the most graceful pieces of its kind, and the +ascription of the play to Shakespeare, current in the later seventeenth +century, is perhaps more of an honour to the elder than of an insult to +the younger poet. Nor, at a more recent date, was Lamb uncritically +enthusiastic when he said of Peele's play that 'had it been in all parts +equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in +this sort of Writing.' + +Before leaving Peele, mention must be made of one other play from his pen, +namely the _Hunting of Cupid_, known to us unfortunately from a few +fragments only. This is the more tantalizing on account of the freshness +of the passages preserved in _England's Helicon_ and _England's +Parnassus_, and in a commonplace-book belonging to Drummond of +Hawthornden, and also from the fact that there is good reason to suppose +that the work was actually printed[212]. So far as can be judged from the +extracts we possess, and from Drummond's jottings, it appears to have been +a tissue of mythological conceits, much after the manner of the +_Arraignment_, though possibly somewhat more distinctly pastoral in +tone[213]. + +About contemporary with the _Arraignment of Paris_ are the earliest plays +of John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of these are of a mythological character, +while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their +pastoral tendency, namely, _Gallathea, Love's Metamorphosis_, and the +_Woman in the Moon_[214]. + +Although Lyly's romance itself lay outside the scope of this inquiry, we +have already had, in the pastoral work of his imitators, ample +opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of the style +he rendered fashionable. Its laborious affectation is all the more +irritating when we remember that its author, on turning his attention to +the more or less unseemly brawling of the Martin Mar-prelate pasquilade, +revealed a command of effective vernacular hardly, if at all, inferior to +that of his friend Nashe; and its complex artificiality becomes but more +apparent when applied to dramatic work. Nevertheless in an age when prose +style was in an even more chaotic state than prosody, Euphuism could claim +qualities of no small value and importance, while as an experiment it was +no more absurd, and vastly more popular, than those in classical +versification. Its qualities, when we consider the general state of +contemporary literature, may well account for the popularity of Lyly's +attempt at novel-writing, but the style was radically unsuited for +dramatic composition, and the result is for the most part hardly to be +tolerated, and can only have met with such court-favour as fell to its +lot, owing to the general fashion for which its success in the romance was +responsible. It is indeed noteworthy that Lyly is the only writer who ever +ventured to apply his literary invention _in toto_ to the uses of the +stage, while even in the romance he lived to see Euphuism as a fashionable +style pale before the growing popularity of Arcadianism[215]. The opening +of _Gallathea_ may supply a specimen of the style as it appears in the +dramas; the scene is laid in Lincolnshire, and Tyterus is addressing his +daughter who gives her name to the piece: + + In tymes past, where thou seest a heape of small pyble, stoode a stately + Temple of white Marble, which was dedicated to the God of the Sea, (and + in right being so neere the Sea): hether came all such as eyther + ventured by long travell to see Countries, or by great traffique to use + merchandise, offering Sacrifice by fire, to gette safety by water; + yeelding thanks for perrils past, and making prayers for good successe + to come: but Fortune, constant in nothing but inconstancie, did change + her copie, as the people their custome; for the Land being oppressed by + Danes, who in steed of sacrifice, committed sacrilidge, in steede of + religion, rebellion, and made a pray of that in which they should have + made theyr prayers, tearing downe the Temple even with the earth, being + almost equall with the skyes, enraged so the God who bindes the windes + in the hollowes of the earth, that he caused the Seas to breake their + bounds, sith men had broke their vowes, and to swell as farre above + theyr reach, as men had swarved beyond theyr reason: then might you see + shippes sayle where sheepe fedde, ankers cast where ploughes goe, + fishermen throw theyr nets, where husbandmen sowe their Corne, and + fishes throw their scales where fowles doe breede theyr quils: then + might you gather froth where nowe is dewe, rotten weedes for sweete + roses, and take viewe of monstrous Maremaides, in steed of passing faire + Maydes. + +The unsuitability of the style for dramatic purposes will by this be +somewhat painfully evident, and, as may be imagined, the effect is even +less happy in the case of dialogue. To pursue: the offended deity consents +to withdraw his waters on the condition of a lustral sacrifice of the +fairest virgin of the land, who is to be exposed bound to a tree by the +shore, whence she is carried off by the monster Agar, in whom we may no +doubt see a personification of the 'eagre' or tidal wave of the Humber. At +the opening of the play we find the two fairest virgins of the land +disguised as boys by their respective fathers, in order that they may +escape the penalty of beauty. While they wander the fields and graves, +another maiden is exposed as the sacrifice, but Neptune, offended by the +deceit, rejects the proffered victim, and no monster appears to claim its +prey. In the meanwhile, Cupid has eluded the maternal vigilance, and, +disguised as a nymph, is beginning to display his powers among the +followers of Diana. Here is an example of a euphuistic dialogue. Cupid +accosts one of the nymphs: + + Faire Nimphe, are you strayed from your companie by chaunce, or love + you to wander solitarily on purpose? + + _Nymph._ Faire boy, or god, or what ever you bee, I would you knew + these woods are to me so wel known, that I cannot stray though I would, + and my minde so free, that to be melancholy I have no cause. There is + none of Dianaes trayne that any can traine, either out of their waie, or out + of their wits. + + _Cupid._ What is that Diana? a goddesse? what her Nimphes? + virgins? what her pastimes? hunting? + + _Nym._ A goddesse? who knowes it not? Virgins? who thinkes it not? + Hunting? who loves it not? + + _Cup._ I pray thee, sweete wench, amongst all your sweete troope, is + there not one that followeth the sweetest thing, sweet love? + + _Nym._ Love, good sir, what meane you by it? or what doe you call it? + + _Cup._ A heate full of coldnesse, a sweet full of bitternesse, a paine ful + of pleasantnesse; which maketh thoughts have eyes, and harts eares; + bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jelousie, kild by dissembling, + buried by ingratitude; and this is love! fayre Lady, wil you any? + + _Nym._ If it be nothing else, it is but a foolish thing. + + _Cup._ Try, and you shall find it a prettie thing. + + _Nym._ I have neither will nor leysure, but I will followe Diana in the + Chace, whose virgins are all chast, delighting in the bowe that wounds + the swift Hart in the Forrest, not fearing the bowe that strikes the softe + hart in the Chamber. + +The nymphs are soon in love with the two girls in disguise, and what is +more, each of these, supposing the other to be what her apparel betokens, +falls in love with her. After a while, however, Diana becomes suspicious +of the stranger nymph, and her followers make a capture of the boy-god, +whom they identify by the burn on his shoulder caused by Psyche's lamp, +and set him to untie love-knots. There follows one of those charming songs +for which Lyly is justly, or unjustly, famous[216]. + + O Yes, O yes, if any Maid, + Whom lering Cupid has betraid + To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne, + And would in madnes now see torne + The Boy in Pieces--Let her come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + O yes, O yes, has any lost + A Heart, which many a sigh hath cost; + Is any cozened of a teare, + Which (as a Pearle) disdaine does weare?-- + Here stands the Thiefe, let her but come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + Is any one undone by fire, + And Turn'd to ashes through desire? + Did ever any Lady weepe, + Being cheated of her golden sleepe, + Stolne by sicke thoughts?--The pirats found, + And in her teares hee shalbe drownd. + Reade his Inditement, let him heare + What hees to trust to: Boy, give eare! + +This is the position of affairs when Venus appears in search of her +wanton, and is shortly followed by the irate Neptune. After some +disputing, Neptune, to quiet the strife between the goddesses, proposes +that Diana shall restore the runaway to his mother, in return for which he +will release the land for ever from its virgin tribute. This happily +agreed upon, the only difficulty remaining is the strange passion between +the two girls. Venus, however, proves equal to the occasion, and solves +the situation by transforming one of them into a man. An allusion to the +story of Iphis and Ianthe told in the ninth book of the _Metamorphoses_ +suggests the source of the incident[217]. Otherwise the play appears to be +in the main original. The exposing of a maiden to the rage of a +sea-monster has been, of course, no novelty since the days of Andromeda, +but it is unnecessary to seek a more immediate source[218]; while the +intrusion of Cupid in disguise among the nymphs was doubtless suggested by +the well-known idyl of Moschus, and probably owes to this community of +source such resemblance as it possesses to the prologue of the _Aminta_. +A comic element is supplied by a sort of young rascals, and a mariner, an +alchemist, and an astrologer, who are totally unconnected with the rest of +the play. The supposed allusions to real characters need not be taken +seriously. Lyly's rascals are generally recognized as the direct ancestors +of some of Shakespeare's comic characters, and we not seldom find in them +the germ at least of the later poet's irresistible fun. Take such a speech +as Robin's: 'Why be they deade that be drownd? I had thought they had +beene with the fish, and so by chance beene caught up with them in a Nette +againe. It were a shame a little cold water should kill a man of reason, +when you shall see a poore Mynow lie in it, that hath no understanding.' +As regards the euphuistic style, the passages already quoted will suffice, +but it may be remarked that the marvellous natural history is also put +under requisition. 'Virgins harts, I perceive,' remarks one of Diana's +nymphs, 'are not unlike Cotton trees, whose fruite is so hard in the +budde, that it soundeth like steele, and beeing rype, poureth forth +nothing but wooll, and theyr thoughts, like the leaves of Lunary, which +the further they growe from the Sunne, the sooner they are scorched with +his beames.' At times one is almost tempted to imagine that Lyly is +laughing in his sleeve, but as soon as he feels an eye upon him, his face +would again do credit to a judge. The following is from a scene between +the two disguised maidens: + + _Phillida._ It is pitty that Nature framed you not a woman, having + a face so faire, so lovely a countenaunce, so modest a behaviour. + + _Gallathea._ There is a Tree in Tylos, whose nuttes have shels like fire, + and being cracked, the karnell is but water. + + _Phil._ What a toy is it to tell mee of that tree, beeing nothing to the purpose: + I say it is pity you are not a woman. + + _Gall._ I would not wish to be a woman, unless it were because thou art + a man. (III. ii.) +_Gallathea_ may be plausibly enough assigned to the year 1584[219]. The +date of the next play we have to deal with, _Love's Metamorphosis_, is +less certain, though Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1588-9 seems reasonable. +All that can be said with confidence is that it was later than +_Gallathea_, to which it contains allusions, that it is an inferior work, +and that it has the appearance at least of having been botched up in a +hurry[220]. The story is as follows. Three shepherds, or rather woodmen, +are in love with three of the nymphs of Ceres, but meet with little +success, one of the maidens proving obdurate, another proud, and the third +fickle. The lovers make complaint to Cupid, who consents at their request +to transform the disdainful fair ones into a rock, a rose, and a bird +respectively. Hereupon Ceres in her turn complains to the God of Love, who +promises that the three shall regain their proper shapes if Ceres will +undertake that they shall thereupon consent to the love of the swains. She +does so, and her nymphs are duly restored to their own forms, but at first +flatly refuse to comply with the conditions. After a while they yield: + + _Nisa._ I am content, so as Ramis, when hee finds me cold in love, or + hard in beliefe, hee attribute it to his owne folly; in that I retaine some + nature of the Rocke he chaunged me into.... + + _Celia._ I consent, so as Montanus, when in the midst of his sweete + delight, shall find some bitter overthwarts, impute it to his folly, in that + he suffered me to be a Rose, that hath prickles with her pleasantnes, as + hee is like to have with my love shrewdnes.... + + _Niobe._ I yeelded first in mind though it bee my course last to speake: + but if Silvestris find me not ever at home, let him curse himselfe that gave + me wings to flie abroad, whose feathers if his jealousie shall breake, my + policie shall imp.[221] (V. iv.) + +This plot, at once elementary and violent, is combined with the fantastic +story of Erisichthon, 'a churlish husband-man,' who in the nymphs' despite +cuts down the sacred tree of Ceres, into which the chaste Fidelia had +been transformed. For this offence the goddess dooms him to the plague of +hunger. The ghastly description of this monster, who may be compared with +Browne's Limos, was probably suggested by some similar descriptions in the +_Faery Queen_ (I. iv. and III. xii). Erisichthon is put to all manner of +shifts to satisfy the hunger with which he is ever consumed, and is at +last forced to sell his daughter Protea to a merchant, in order to keep +himself alive. Protea, it appears, was at one time the paramour of +Neptune, who now in answer to her prayer comes to her aid in such a way +that, when about to embark on the vessel of her purchaser, she justifies +her name by changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded +merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart +without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being +tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and +comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore--the scene being +laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her +disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time to warn her lover of his +danger. Finally, at Cupid's intercession her father is relieved of his +affliction by the now appeased goddess. This plot is even more crudely +distinct from the principal action of the play than is usual with +Lyly[222]. + +It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the +nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in +_Gallathea_; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical +conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the +_Woman in the Moon_. It would almost seem as though his experience of the +inconstancy of the royal sunshine had made Lyly a less enthusiastic +devotee of womanhood in general and of virginity in particular, and that +with an unadvised frankness which may well account for his disappointments +at court, he failed to conceal his feelings. The play is likewise +distinguished from the other dramatic works of its author by being +composed almost entirely in blank verse. Certain lines of the prologue-- + + Remember all is but a Poets dreame, + The first he had in Phoebus holy bowre, + But not the last, unlesse the first displease-- + +have not unnaturally been taken to mean that the piece was the first +venture of the author; but on investigation this will be seen to be +impossible, since the constant reminiscence of Marlowe in the construction +of the verse points to 1588 or at earliest to 1587 as the date. Mr. +Fleay's suggestion of 1589-90 may be accepted as the earliest likely +date[223]. To my mind it would need external proof of an unusually cogent +description to render plausible the theory that the year, say, of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ saw the appearance of such lines as: + + What lack I now but an imperiall throne[224], + And Ariadnaes star-lyght Diadem? (II. i.) + +or: + + O Stesias, what a heavenly love hast thou! + A love as chaste as is Apolloes tree, + As modest as a vestall Virgins eye, + And yet as bright as Glow wormes in the night, + With which the morning decks her lovers hayre; (IV. i.) + +or yet again: + + When will the sun go downe? flye Phoebus flye! + O, that thy steeds were wingd with my swift thoughts: + Now shouldst thou fall in Thetis azure armes[225], + And now would I fall in Pandoraes lap. (IV. i.) + +Nor are these isolated passages; from the opening lines of the prologue to +the final speech of Nature the verse has the appearance of being the work +of a graceful if not very strong hand writing in imitation of Marlowe's +early style. We must, therefore, it seems to me, take the words of the +prologue as signifying not that the play was the first work of the author, +but that it was his earliest adventure in verse. + +The plan of the work is as follows. The shepherds of Utopia come to dame +Nature and beg her to make a woman for them. She consents and fashions +Pandora, whom she dowers with the virtues of the several Planets. These, +however, are offended at not being consulted in the matter, and determine +to use their influence to the bane of the newly created woman. Under the +reign of Saturn she turns sullen; when Jupiter is in the ascendant he +falls in love with her, but she has grown proud and scorns him; under Mars +she becomes a vixen; under Sol she in her turn falls in love, and turns +wanton under Venus; she learns deceit of Mercury when he is dominant, and +runs mad under the influence of Luna. At length, since the shepherds will +no longer have anything to do with the lady, Nature determines to place +her in the heavens. Her beauty makes each planet desire her as companion. +Nature gives her the choice: + + Speake, my Pandora; where wilt thou be? + _Pandora._ Not with old Saturne for he lookes like death; + Nor yet with Jupiter, lest Juno storme; + Nor with thee Mars, for Venus is thy love; + Nor with thee Sol, thou hast two Parramours, + The sea borne Thetis and the rudy morne; + Nor with thee Venus, lest I be in love + With blindfold Cupid or young Joculus; + Nor with thee Hermes, thou art full of sleightes, + And when I need thee Jove will send thee foorth. + Say Cynthia, shall Pandora rule thy starre, + And wilt thou play Diana in the woods, + Or Hecate in Plutos regiment? + _Luna._ I, Pandora. + _Pand._ Fayre Nature let thy hand mayd dwell with her, + For know that change is my felicity, + And ficklenesse Pandoraes proper forme. + Thou madst me sullen first, and thou Jove, proud; + Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan: + Thou Venus madst me love all that I saw, + And Hermes to deceive all that I love; + But Cynthia made me idle, mutable, + Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde; + These be the humors that content me best, + And therefore will I stay with Cynthia.... + _Nat._ Now rule, Pandora, in fayre Cynthias steede, + And make the moone inconstant like thy selfe; + Raigne thou at womens nuptials, and their birth; + Let them be mutable in all their loves, + Fantastical, childish, and foolish, in their desires, + Demaunding toyes: + And stark madde when they cannot have their will. + Now follow me ye wandring lightes of heaven, + And grieve not, that she is not plast with you; + Ail you shall glaunce at her in your aspects, + And in conjunction dwell with her a space. (V. i.) + +And so Pandora becomes the 'Woman in the Moon.' The play, in its topical +and satiric purpose, and above all, in its utilization of mythological +material, bears a distinct relationship to the masque. The shepherds are +in their origin philosophical, standing for the race of mankind in +general, rather than pastoral; Utopian, in fact, rather than Arcadian. +These early mythological plays stand alone, in that the pastoral scenes +they contain are apparently uninfluenced by the Italian drama. The kind +attained some popularity as a subject of courtly presentation, but it did +not long preserve its original character. The later examples, with which +we shall be concerned hereafter, always exhibit some characteristics which +may be immediately or ultimately traced to the influence of Tasso and +Guarini. This influence we must now turn to consider in some detail, as +evidenced as well in translations and imitations as in the general tone +and machinery of an appreciable portion of the Elizabethan drama.[226] + + + +II + + +In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature +it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of +translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, +as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position +unjustified by its intrinsic importance. In most cases, probably, the +energy devoted to the task of rendering the foreign models directly into +the language they influenced is rather useful as supplying us with a rough +measure of their popularity than itself significant as a step in the +operation of that influence. We may safely assume that, in the case of the +English pastoral drama, the influence exercised directly by the Italian +masterpieces was beyond comparison greater than that which made itself +indirectly felt through the labours of translators. + +Having thus anticipated a possible misapprehension it will be worth our +while to devote some little attention to the history of the attempts at +translation in this line. The first English writer to venture upon the +task of turning the choice music of Tasso into his native language was the +eccentric satellite of the Sidneyan circle, Abraham Fraunce, fellow of St. +John's College in Cambridge. It so happened that he was at the time +pursuing that elusive phantasm, the application of the laws of classical +versification to English poetry. The resuit was at least unique, in +English, at any rate, namely a drama in hexameter verse. It also occurred +to him that Watson's _Lamentations of Amyntas_, a translation of which he +had himself published in 1587, might be made to serve as an appendix to +Tasso's play. With this object in view he changed the name of the heroine +from Silvia to Phillis. This appears to have been the exact extent to +which he 'altered S. Tassoes Italian' in order to connect it with 'M. +Watsons Latine Amyntas' and 'to make them both one English.'[227] Certain +other changes were, however, introduced upon other considerations. Various +unessential points were omitted, notably in connexion with Tirsi, whose +topical character disappears; the name Nerina is altered to Fulvia; +frequent allusions are introduced to the nymph Pembrokiana, to whom among +other things is ascribed the rescue of the heroine from the bear which +takes the place of the wolf in Tasso. Lastly, we have the addition of a +whole scene immediately before the final chorus. Phillis and Amyntas +reappear and carry on a conversation, not unamiably, in a sort of +hexametrical stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the +amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between +the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[228] Of this literary curiosity +Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted: + + Sweete face, why be the hev'ns soe to the bountifull, + Making that radiant bewty of all the starrs + Bright-burning, to be fayre Phillis her ornament? + And yet seeme to be soe spytefuly partial, + As not for to aford Argus his eyes to mee, + Eyes too feawe to behould Phillis her ornament? + +It is, perhaps, not a little strange that the pedant who made the +preposterous experiment of turning the _Aminta_ into English hexameters +should nevertheless have been capable of clearly perceiving, however +incapable he was of adequately rectifying, the hopelessly undramatic +character of the last act of Tasso's play. As an example of the style of +the translation we may take the following rendering of the delicate _Chi +crederia_, with which the original prologue opens: + + Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake, + Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? + And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, + But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: + Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing + His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire + Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving, + And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant, + His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon. + +This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to +be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic +pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate +artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a 'God that gads +by the mountaines' is a pithy enough paraphrase of _dio selvaggio_, if +hardly an accurate translation. The unsatisfactory nature of the verse, +however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid +dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas' +resolve to die. + + _Phillis._ As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee + Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased. + + _Daphne._ Phillis alas is alive, but an other's gone to be dying[229]. + + _Ph._ And what mean's this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded, + That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred? + + _Da._ Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other. + + _Ph._ Whose death? + + _Da._ Death of Amyntas. + + _Ph._ Alas how dyed Amyntas? + + _Da._ How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe: + But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe. + + _Ph._ What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas? + + _Da._ Thy death. + + _Ph._ And I alive? + + _Da._ Thy death was lately reported, + And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death. + + _Ph._ Feare of Phillis death prov'd vayne, and feare of Amyntas + Death will proove vayne too: life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.) + +Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which +somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are +not wholly wanting. Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek +her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks: + + Oh tardi saggia, e tardi + Pietosa, quando ciò nulla rileva; + +a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a +homely proverb, and writes: + + When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable. + +It may, at first sight, appear strange that at a time when the Italian +pastoral was exercising its greatest influence over the English drama this +translation by Fraunce of Tasso's play should have satisfied the demand +for more than thirty years. The explanation, of course, is that the +widespread knowledge of Italian among the reading public in England +rendered translation more or less superfluous[230], while at the same time +it should be remembered that in this country Tasso was far surpassed in +popularity by Guarini. So far as we can tell no further translation of the +_Aminta_ was attempted till 1628, when there appeared an anonymous version +which bibliographers have followed one another in ascribing to one John +Reynolds, but which was more probably the work of a certain Henry +Reynolds[231]. However that may be, the translation is of no +inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from +the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of +appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the +higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian +into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. +Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the +general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating +than is the case with translations which many times reveal far higher +qualities. The following is a characteristic specimen chosen from the +story of Aminta's early love for Silvia. + + Being but a Lad, so young as yet scarce able + To reach the fruit from the low-hanging boughes + Of new-growne trees; Inward I grew to bee + With a young mayde, fullest of love and sweetnesse, + That ere display'd pure gold tresse to the winde;... + Neere our abodes, and neerer were our hearts; + Well did our yeares agree, better our thoughts; + Together wove we netts t' intrapp the fish + In flouds and sedgy fleetes[232]; together sett + Pitfalls for birds; together the pye'd Buck + And flying Doe over the plaines we chac'de; + And in the quarry', as in the pleasure shar'de: + But as I made the beasts my pray, I found + My heart was lost, and made a pray to other. (I. ii.) + +Many a translator, moreover, has failed to instil into his verse the swing +and flow of the following stanzas from the golden age chorus, which, +nevertheless follow the metrical form of the original with reasonable +fidelity[233]: + + O happy Age of Gould; happy' houres; + Not for with milke the rivers ranne, + And hunny dropt from ev'ry tree; + Nor that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres, + Without the toyle or care of Man, + And Serpents were from poyson free;... + But therefore only happy Dayes, + Because that vaine and ydle name, + That couz'ning Idoll of unrest, + Whom the madd vulgar first did raize, + And call'd it Honour, whence it came + To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest, + Was not then suffred to molest + Poore lovers hearts with new debate; + More happy they, by these his hard + And cruell lawes, were not debar'd + Their innate freedome; happy state; + The goulden lawes of Nature, they + Found in their brests; and them they did obey. (Ch. I.) + +Before leaving the _Aminta_ it will be worth while straying beyond the +strict chronological limits of this inquiry to glance for a moment at the +version produced by John Dancer in 1660, for the sake of noting the change +which had come over literary hack-work of the kind in the course of some +thirty years. Comparing it with Reynolds' translation we are at first +struck by the change which long drilling of the language to a variety of +uses has accomplished in the work of uninspired poetasters; secondly, by +the fact that the conventional respectability of production, which has +replaced the halting crudities of an earlier date, is far more inimical +to any real touch of poetic inspiration. Equally evident is that spirit of +tyranny, happily at no time native to our literature, which seeks to +reduce the works of other ages into accordance with the taste of its own +day. Thus, having 'improved' Tasso's apostrophe to the _bella età dell' +oro_ almost beyond recognition, Dancer complacently closes the chorus with +the following parody: + + We'l hope, since there's no joy, when once one dies + We'l hope, that as we have seen with our eies + The Sun to set, so we may see it rise. (Ch. I.) + +Again, while all the spontaneity and reverential labour of an age of more +avowed adolescence has disappeared, there is yet lacking the justness of +phrase and certainty of grammar and rime, which later supply, however +inadequately, the place of poetic enthusiasm. The defects of the style, +with its commonplace exaggeration of conceits, the thumbed token-currency +of the certified poetaster, are well seen in such a passage as the +following: + + Weak love is held by shame, but love grows bold + As strong, what is it then can it with-hold: + She as though in her ey's she did contain + Fountains of tears, did with such plenty rain + Them on his cheeks, and they such vertue had, + That it reviv'd again the breathlesse lad;... + Aminta thought 'twas more then heav'nly charms, + That thus enclasp'd him in his Silvia's armes; + He that loves servant is, perhaps may guesse + Their blisse; but none there is can it expresse[234]. (V. i.) + +As was to be expected, the attention of translators was early directed to +the _Pastor fido_. The original was printed in England, together with the +_Aminta_, the year after its first appearance in Italy, that is in 1591, +and bore the imprint of John Wolfe, 'a spese di Giacopo Castelvetri'; the +first translation saw the light in 1602. This version was published +anonymously, and in spite of the confident assertions and ingenious +conjectures of certain bibliographers, anonymous it must for the present +remain; all that can with certainty be affirmed is that it claims to be +the work of a kinsman of Sir Edward Dymocke[235]. Most modern writers who +have had occasion to mention it have shown a praiseworthy deference to the +authority of one of the most venerable figures of English criticism by +each in turn repeating that the translation, 'in spite of Daniel's +commendatory sonnet, is a very bad one.' And indeed, when we have stated +the very simple facts concerning the authorship as distinct from the very +elaborate conjectures, there remains little to add to Dyce's words. With +the exception of the omission of the prologue the version keeps pretty +faithfully to its original, but it does no more than emphasize the tedious +artificiality of the Italian, while whatever charm and perhaps +over-elaborated grace of language Guarini infused into his verse has +entirely evaporated in the process of translation. No less a poet and +critic than Daniel, regarding the work doubtless with the undiscriminating +eye of friendship, asserted that it might even to Guarini himself have +vindicated the poetic laurels of England, and yet from the whole long poem +it is hardly possible to extract any passage which would do credit to the +pen of an average schoolboy. We turn in vain to the contest of kisses +among the Megarean maidens, to the game of blind man's buff, to Amarillis' +secret confession of love, and to her trembling appeal when confronted by +a death of shame, for any evidence of poetie feeling. The girl's speech in +the last-mentioned scene, 'Se la miseria mia fosse mia colpa,' is thus +rendered: + + If that my fault did cause my wretchednesse, + Or that my thoughts were wicked, as thou thinkst + My deed, lesse grievous would my death be then: + For it were just my blood should wash the spots + Of my defiled soule, heavens rage appease, + And humane justice justly satisfie, + Then could I quiet my afflicted sprights, + And with a just remorse of well-deserved death, + My senses mortifie, and come to death: + And with a quiet blow pass forth perhaps + Unto a life of more tranquilitie: + But too too much, Nicander, too much griev'd + I am, in so young years, Fortune so hie, + An Innocent, I should be doom'd to die. (IV. v.) + +The next translation we meet with never got into print. It is preserved in +a manuscript at the British Museum[236], and bears the heading: 'Il Pastor +Fido, or The Faithfull Sheapheard. An Excellent Pastorall Written In +Italian by Battista Guarinj And translated into English By Jonathan Sidnam +Esq, Anno 1630.' The prologue is again omitted, and the translation is +distinguished from its contemporaries by an endeavour to reproduce to some +extent the freer metrical structure of the Italian. This was not a +particularly happy experiment, since it ignored the fact that the +character of a metre may differ considerably in different languages. The +Italian _endecasillabi sciolti_ are far less flexible than our own blank +verse, and it is only when freely interspersed with the shorter +_settinarî_ that they can attempt to rival the range of effect possible to +the English metre in the hands of a skilful artist. Thus the imitation of +the irregular measures of Guarini was a confession of the translator's +inability adequately to handle the dramatic verse of his own tongue. As a +specimen we may take the rendering of Amarillis' speech already quoted +from the 'Dymocke' version: + + If my mischance had come by mine own fault, + Nicander, or had beene as thou beleevst + The foule effect of base and wicked thoughts, + Or, as it now appeares, a deed of Sinn, + It had beene then lesse greevous to endure + Death as a punishment for such a fault, + And just it had beene with my blood to wash + My impure Soule, to mitigate the wrath + And angar of the Godds, and satisfie + The right of humane justice, + Then could I quiett my afflicted Soule + And with an inward feeling of my just + Deserved death, subdue my outward Sence, + And fawne uppon my end, and happelie + With a more settled countenance passe from hence + Into a better world: + But now, Nicander, ah! tis too much greefe + In soe yong yeares, in such a happie state, + To die so suddenlie, and which is more, + Die innocent. (IV. v.) + +It was not until the civil war was at its height, namely in 1647, that +English literature was enriched with a translation in any way worthy of +Guarini's masterpiece. It is easy to strain the interpretation of such +facts, but there is certainly a strong temptation to see in the occasion +and circumstances of the composition of the piece an illustration of a +critical law already noticed, namely the constant tendency of literature +to negative as well as to reproduce the life of actuality, and furthermore +of the special liability of pastoral to take birth from a desire to escape +from the imminence and pressure of surrounding circumstance. Like +Reynolds' _Aminta_, Richard Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ is better appreciated +as a whole than in quotation, though, thanks partly to its own greater +maturity of poetic attainment, partly to the less ethereal perfection of +the original, it suffers far less than the earlier work by comparison with +the Italian. For the same reasons it is by far the most satisfactory of +any of the early translations of the Italian pastoral drama. One +noticeable feature is the constant reminiscence of Shakespeare, whole +lines from his works being sometimes introduced with no small skill. For +instance, where Guarini, describing how love wins entrance to a maiden's +heart, writes: + + E se vergogna il cela, + O temenza l' affrena, + La misera tacendo + Per soverchio desío tutta si strugge; (I. iv.) + +Fanshawe renders the last two lines by: + + Poor soul! Concealment like a worm i' th' bud, + Lies in her Damask cheek sucking the bloud. + +A few illustrative passages will suffice to give an idea of Fanshawe's +style. He stands alone in having succeeded in recrystallizing in his own +tongue some at least of the charm of the kissing match, and is even fairly +successful in the following dangerous conceit: + + With one voice + Of peerlesse Amarillis they made choice. + She sweetly bending her fair eyes. + Her cheeks in modest blushes dyes, + To shew through her transparent skin + That she is no lesse fair within + Then shee's without; or else her countenance + Envying the honour done her mouth perchance, + Puts on her scarlet robes as who + Should say: 'And am not I fair too?' (II. i.) + +So again he alone among the translators has infused any semblance of +passion into Amarillis' confession of love: + + Mirtillo, O Mirtillo! couldst thou see + That heart which thou condemn'st of cruelty, + Soul of my soul, thou unto it wouldst show + That pity which thou begg'st from it I know. + O ill starr'd Lovers! what avails it me + To have thy love? T' have mine, what boots it thee? + (III. iv.) + +In a lighter vein the following variation on the theme of fading beauty by +Corisca also does justice to its original: + + Let us use it whilst wee may; + Snatch those joyes that haste away. + Earth her winter-coat may cast, + And renew her beauty past; + But, our winter come, in vain + We sollicite spring again: + And when our furrows snow shall cover, + Love may return, but never Lover. (III. v.) + +When it is borne in mind that not only is the rendering graceful in +itself, but that as a rule it represents its original if not literally at +any rate adequately, it will be realized that Fanshawe's qualifications as +a translator are not small. His version, which is considerably the best in +the language, is happily easily accessible owing to its early popularity. +It first appeared in 1647 in the form of a handsomely printed quarto with +portrait and frontispiece engraved after the Ciotti edition of 1602, the +remaining copies being re-issued with additional matter the following +year; it went through two editions between the restoration and the end of +the century, and was again reprinted together with the original, and with +alterations in 1736[237]. In the meantime, however, the translation had +been adapted to the stage by Elkanah Settle. In a dedication to Lady +Elizabeth Delaval, the adapter ingenuously disclaims all knowledge of +Italian, and when he speaks of 'the Translated _Pastor Fido_' every reader +would no doubt be expected to know that he was referring to Fanshawe's +work. He left his readers, however, to discover for themselves that, +while he considerably altered, and of course condensed, the original, for +whatever poetic merit his scenes possess he is entirely indebted to his +predecessor. The adaptation was licensed by L'Estrange in 1676, and +printed the following year, while reprints dated 1689 and 1694 seem to +indicate that it achieved some success at the Duke's Theatre. It was +presumably of this version that Pepys notices a performance on February +25, 1668.[238] + +Besides these English translations there is also extant one in Latin, a +manuscript of which is preserved in the University Library at +Cambridge.[239] The name of the translater does not appear, but the +heading runs: 'Il pastor fido, di signor Guarini ... recitata in Collegio +Regali Cantabrigiae.' The title is so scrawled over that it would be +impossible to say for certain whether the note of performance referred to +the present play, were it not for an allusion casually dropped by the +anonymous recorder of a royal visit to Oxford, which not only +substantiates the inference to be drawn from the manuscript, but also +supplies us with a downward limit of August, 1605.[240] In this +translation a dialogue between the characters 'Prologus' and 'Argumentum' +takes the place of Guarini's long topical prologue, and a short +conventional 'Epilogus' is added at the end. + + * * * * * + +It was not till 1655 that _the Filli di Sciro_ of Bonarelli, which has +usually been thought to hold the third place among Italian pastorals, +appeared in English dress. The translation published in that year is +ascribed on the title-page to 'J. S. Gent.,' an ascription which has given +rise to a good deal of conjecture. And yet a very little investigation +might have settled the matter. Prefixed to the translation are some +commendatory verses signed 'I. H.', in a marginal note to which we read: +'This Comedy was Translated long ago by M. _I. S._ and layd by, as also +was _Pastor Fido_, which was since Translated and set forth by Mr. Rich. +Fanshaw.' Another note,[241] to some verses to the reader, tells us that +both translations were made 'neer twenty years agone,' and, as we should +expect, the _Pastor fido_ first; and further, that the latter remained in +manuscript owing to the appearance of Fanshawe's version, which is spoken +of in terms of warm admiration. Now the only manuscript translation of +Guarini's play extant in English is that of Jonathan Sidnam, whose name +gives us the very initials which appear upon the title-page of the printed +play.[242] Since the preliminary verses may have been written any time +between 1647 and 1655, the vague allusion to the date of composition will +quite well fit 1630, the year given in the manuscript. When, furthermore, +we find J. S.'s work characterized by precisely the same use of short +lines as we noted above in the case of Sidnam's, the identification +becomes a practical certainty. The version, though, as the author was +himself aware, it will not stand comparison with Fanshawe's work, is not +without merit, and is perhaps as good as the rather tedious original +deserves. As a specimen we may take a passage in which the author +deliberately followed Tasso, Celia's narration of her adventure with the +centaur: + + There, to a sturdy Oak, he bound me fast + And re-enforct his base inhumane bonds + With the then danglinst Tresses of my hair; + Ingrateful hair, ill-nurtur'd wicked Locks! + The cruel wretch then took up from the foot + Both my loose tender garments, and at once + Rent them from end to end: Imagine then + Whether my crimson red, through shame was chang'd + Into a pale wan tincture, yea or no. + I that was looking toward Heaven then, + And with my cries imploring ayd from thence, + Upon a suddain to the Earth let fall + My shamefac'd eyes, and shut them close, as if + Under mine eye-lids, I could cover all + My naked Members. (I. iii.) + +Of the various unfounded conjectures as to the author of this version, +among which Shirley's name has of course not failed to appear, certainly +the most ingenious is that which has seen in it the work of Sir Edward +Sherburne. The suggestion appears to have been originally made by Coxeter, +on what grounds I do not know. 'There is no doubt of the authorship of +this play,' writes Professer Gollancz in his notes to Lamb's _Specimens_, +'"J. S." is certainly an error for "E. S." I have found in a MS. in the +British Museum Sir E. Sherburne's preface to this play.' Professer +Gollancz deserves credit for having unearthed the interesting document +referred to,[243] but an examination of it at once destroys his theory. It +is a preface 'To the Reader' intended for a translation of the _Filli_, +and another copy also is extant,[244] both being found among the papers of +Sir Edward Sherburne, though in neither does his name actually occur. In +the course of the preface the writer quotes 'the Censure of my sometime +highly valued, and most Ingenious friend S'r. John Denham, to whom (some +years before the happy Restauration of King Charles the 2^{d} being then +at Paris) I communicated Some Part of this my Translation. Who was not +only pleasd to encourage my undertaking, but gave me likewise this +Character of the Original. "I will not say It is a Better Poem then Pastor +Fido, but to speak my Mind freely, I think it a Better Drama."' From this +it is clear that the preface was penned after 1660, and we may furthermore +infer that the version was as yet unfinished when the writer was in Paris, +apparently at some time during the Commonwealth. It is therefore +impossible that the preface should be intended for a translation which was +printed in 1655, and which was then distinctly stated to have been +composed not later than 1635. Furthermore, I question whether either the +preface or the version mentioned therein were by Sherburne at all. There +is a translation extant in a British Museum manuscript[245] purporting to +be the work of Sir George Talbot, who is said to have been a friend of Sir +Edward's, into whose hands some of his papers may have come. The +translation is headed: 'Fillis of Scirus, a Pastorall Written in Italian, +by Count Guidubaldo de' Bonarelli, and Translated into English by S'r. G: +Talbot,' and there follows 'The Epistle Dedicatory To his sacred Ma'ty. +Charles 2'd. &c. prophetically written at Paris, an: 57.' The opening is +not wanting in grace: + + The dawning light breaks forth; I heare, aloofe, + The whistling ayre, the Saints bell of the Heav'n, + Wherewith each morne it call's the drowsy Birds + To offer up theyre Hymnes to th' new-borne day. + But who ere saw, from night's dark bosome, spring + A morne soe fayre and beautifull? Observe + With what imperceptible hand, it steales + The starres from Heav'n, and deck's the earth with flow'rs: + Haile, lovely fields, your flow'rs in this array + Fournish a kind of star-light to the day. + +Or take again Celia's encounter with the centaur. And in this connexion it +is worth while mentioning that, when revising his translation and +introducing a number of verbal changes, in most cases distinctly for the +better, Sir George appears to have been struck by the absurdity of this +machinery, and throughout replaced the centaur by a 'wild man.' After +telling how she was seized and carried to 'the middle of a desart wood,' +Celia proceeds: + + There, to a sturdy oake, he bound me fast, + Doubling my bonds with knots of mine own hayre; + Ungratefull hayre, thou ill returnst my care. + The Tyrant then my mantle took in hand + And with one rash tore it from head to foote. + Consider whether shame my trembling pale + Did now convert into Vermillion: up + I cast my eyes to Heav'n, and with lowd cryes + Implor'd it's ayd; then lookt downe tow'rd the earth, + And phancy'd my dejected eyebrows hung + Like a chast mantle ore my naked limbs. (I. iii.) + +A comparison of this and the preceding renderings with the original will +show that while Talbot's is by far the more fiowing and imaginative, +Sidnam's is on the whole rather more literal, except where he appears to +have misunderstood the original. No other English translation, I believe, +exists. + +Lastly, as in the case of the _Pastor fido_, record has to be made of a +Latin version acted at Cambridge. It was the work of a Dr. Brooke of +Trinity[246], and purports to have been performed, no doubt at that +College, before Prince Charles and the Count Palatine, on March 30, +1612[247]. The title is 'Scyros, Fabula Pastoralis,' which has hitherto +prevented its being identified as a translation of Bonarelli's play, and +it is preserved in manuscripts at the University Library[248], Trinity and +Emmanuel. At the beginning is a note to the effect that in the place of +the prologue--Marino's _Notte_--was to be presented a triumph over the +death of the centaur. The cast is given, and includes three +undergraduates, five bachelors, and five masters. + + + +III + + +After translation the next process in logical sequence is direct +imitation. Although it is true that the influence of Tasso and Guarini may +be traced either directly or indirectly in the great majority of the +English pastorals composed during the first half of the seventeenth +century, there are nevertheless two plays only in which that influence can +be regarded as completely paramount, and to which the term 'imitation' can +be with full justification applied. These are the two pastorals by Samuel +Daniel, historian and court-laureate, namely the _Queen's Arcadia_, 'A +Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Majestie and her Ladies, by the +Universitie of Oxford in Christs Church, in August last. 1605[249],' and +_Hymen's Triumph_, which formed part of the Queen's 'magnificent +intertainement of the Kings most excellent Majestie' on the occasion of +the marriage in 1614 of Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburgh, and Mistress Jean +Drummond, sister of the Earl of Perth[250]. + +The earlier of these pieces displays alike the greater dependence on +Italian models and the less intrinsic merit, whether from a poetic or +dramatic point of view. It is, indeed, in its apparent carelessness of the +most elementary necessities of dramatic construction, distinctly +retrograde as compared with these models themselves. In the first scene we +are introduced to two old Arcadians who hold long discourse concerning the +degeneracy of the age. The simple manners of earlier times are forsaken, +constant quarrels occur, faith is no longer untarnished nor modesty +secure. In the hope of probing to the root of the evil the two determine +to hide close at hand and so overhear the conversations of the younger +swains and shepherdesses. The fact is that Arcadia has recently been +invaded by a gang of rascally adventurers from Corinth and elsewhere: +Techne, 'a subtle wench,' who under pretence of introducing the latest +fashions of the towns corrupts the nymphs; Colax, whose courtier-airs find +an easy prey in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, +who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of the shepherds; Lincus, +'a petty-fogger,' who breeds litigation among the simple folk; and lastly +Pistophanax, who seeks to undermine the worship of Pan. Colax has, it +appears, already abused the love of Daphne, and won that of Dorinda from +her swain Mirtillus; Techne has sown jealousy between the lovers Palaemon +and Silvia; while Lincus has set Montanus and Acrysius by the ears over +the possession of a bit of land. Ail the plotting is overheard by the two +concealed shepherds, who when the crisis is reached come forward, call +together the Arcadians, expose the machinations of the evil-doers, and +procure their banishment from the country. Such an automatic solution is +obviously incompatible with the smallest dramatic interest in the plot; it +is not a _dénoûment_ at all, properly speaking, but a severing of the +skein after Alexander's manner, and it is impossible to feel any emotion +at the tragic complications when all the while the sword lies ready for +the operation. + +The main amorous action centres round Cloris, beloved of Amyntas and +Carinus, the latter of whom is in his turn loved by Amarillis. Carinus' +hopes are founded on the fact that, in imitation of Tasso's Aminta, he has +rescued Cloris from the hands of a satyr, while Amyntas bases his upon +certain signs of favour shown him. Colax, however, also falls in love with +the nymph, and induces Techne to give her tryst in a cave, where he may +then have an opportunity of finding her alone. Techne, hereupon, in the +hope of winning Amyntas' affection for herself if she can make him think +Cloris unworthy, directs him to the spot where she has promised to meet +the unsuspecting maiden. This is obviously borrowed from the _Pastor +fido_; indeed, Techne is none other than Corisca under a new name, and it +was no doubt she who suggested to Daniel the introduction of the other +agents of civilization. Amyntas, on seeing Cloris emerge from the cave in +company with Colax, at once concludes her guilt, and in spite of all +Techne's efforts to restrain him rushes off with the intention of putting +an end to his life. Techne, perceiving the ill-success of her plot, tells +Cloris of Amyntas' resolve. We here return to the imitation of Tasso: +Cloris, like that poet's Silvia, begins by pretending incredulity and +indifference, but being at length convinced agrees to accompany Techne in +search of the desperate swain. Daniel has produced what is little better +than a parody of the scene in his model. Not content with placing in the +girl's mouth the preposterous excuse: + + If it be done my help will come too late, + And I may stay, and save that labour here, (IV. iv.[251]) + +he has spun out the dialogue, already over-long in the original, to an +altogether inordinate and ludicrous extent. When the pair at last come +upon the unhappy lover they find him lying insensible, a horn of poison by +him. The necessary sequel is reported by Mirtillus: + + For we perceiv'd how Love and Modestie + With sev'rall Ensignes, strove within her cheekes + Which should be Lord that day, and charged hard + Upon each other, with their fresh supplies + Of different colours, that still came, and went, + And much disturb'd her, but at length dissolv'd + Into affection, downe she casts her selfe + Upon his senselesse body, where she saw + The mercy she had brought was come too late: + And to him calls: 'O deare Amyntas, speake, + Look on me, sweete Amyntas, it is I + That calles thee, I it is, that holds thee here, + Within those armes thou haste esteem'd so deare.' (V. ii.) + +Amyntas' subsequent recovery is reported in the same strain. The reader +will remember the lines in which Tasso described a similar scene. And yet, +in spite of the identity of the situations and even of the close +similarity of the language, the tone and atmosphere of the two passages +are essentially different; for if Daniel's treatment of the scene, which +is typical of a good deal of his work, has the power to call a tear to the +eye of sensibility, his sentiment, divested as it is of the Italian's +subtle sensuousness, appears perfectly innocuous and at times not a little +ridiculous. + +Cloris and Amyntas are now safe enough, and Carinus has the despised but +faithful Amarillis to console him. The other pairs of lovers need not +detain us further than to note that their adventures are equally borrowed +from Tasso and Guarini. Silvia relates how, wounded by her 'cruelty,' +Palaemon sought to imitate Aminta by throwing himself from a cliff, but +was prevented by her timely relenting. Amarillis fondles Carinus's dog, +and is roughly upbraided by its master in the same manner as her prototype +Dorinda in the _Pastor fido_. + +Amid much that is commonplace in the verse occur not a few graceful +passages, while Daniel is at times rather happy in the introduction of +certain sententious utterances in keeping with the conventionality of the +pastoral form. Thus a caustic swain remarks of a girl's gift: + + Poore withred favours, they might teach thee know, + That shee esteemes thee, and thy love as light + As those dead flowers, shee wore but for a show, + The day before, and cast away at night; + +and to a lover: + + When such as you, poore, credulous, devout, + And humble soules, make all things miracles + Your faith conceives, and vainely doe convert + All shadowes to the figure of your hopes. (I. ii.) + +Colax is a subtle connoisseur in love: + + Some thing there is peculiar and alone + To every beauty that doth give an edge + To our desires, and more we still conceive + In that we have not, then in that we have. + And I have heard abroad where best experience + And wit is learnd, that all the fairest choyce + Of woemen in the world serve but to make + One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. (I. iii.) + +The historical importance of the _Queen's Arcadia_, as the first play to +exhibit on the English stage the direct and unequivocal influence of the +Italian pastoral drama, is evident to the critic in retrospect, and it is +not impossible that it may have lent some extraneous interest to the +performance even in the eyes of contemporaries; but the zest of the play +for a court audience in the early years of the reign of James I was very +possibly the satirical element. The shadowy fiction of Arcadia and its age +of gold quickly vanished when the actual or fancied evils of the day were +exposed to the lash. The abuse of the practice of taking tobacco flattered +the prejudices of the king; the quack and the dishonest lawyer were stock +butts of contemporary satire; Colax and Techne, the he and she +coney-catchers, have maintained their fascination for all ages. +Pistophanax, the disseminator of false doctrine, who had actually presumed +to reason with the priests concerning the mysteries of Pan, was perhaps +the favourite object of contemporary invective. The term 'atheist' covered +a multitude of sins. This character appears in the final scene only, and +even there he is a mute but for one speech. He is indeed treated in a +somewhat different manner from the other subjects of satire in the play. +Thus the discovery that he is wearing a mask to hide the natural ugliness +of his features passes altogether the bounds of dramatic satire, and +carries us back to the allegorical manner of the middle ages. Apart from +these figures, who bear upon them the form and pressure of the time, and +who are, it must be remembered, the main-spring of the action, there is +little of note to fix the attention in this first fruit of the Arcadian +spirit in the English drama. + +In every way superior to its predecessor is the second venture in the kind +made by Daniel after an interval of nearly a decade. Instead of being a +patchwork of motives and situations borrowed from the Italian, and pieced +together with more or less ingenuity, _Hymen's Triumph_ is as a whole an +original composition. The play is preceded by a prologue in which Daniel +departs from his models in employing the dialogue form, the speakers being +Hymen, Avarice, Envy, and Jealousy[252]. In the opening scene we find +Thirsis lamenting the loss of his love Silvia, who is supposed to have +been devoured by wild beasts while wandering alone upon the shore--we are +once again on the sea-board of Arcadia--her rent veil and a lock of her +hair being all that remains to her disconsolate lover. Their vows had been +in secret owing to the match proposed by Silvia's father between her and +Alexis, the son of a wealthy neighbour[253]. In reality she has been +seized by pirates[254] and carried off to Alexandria, where she has lived +as a slave in boy's attire for some two years. Recently an opportunity for +escape having presented itself, she has returned, still disguised, to her +native country, where she has entered the service of the shepherdess +Cloris, waiting till the approaching marriage of Alexis with another nymph +shall have made impossible the renewal of her father's former schemes. +Complications now arise, for it appears that Cloris has fallen in love +with Thirsis, but fears ill success in her suit, supposing him in his turn +to be pining for the love of Amarillis. She employs the supposed boy to +move her suit to Thirsis, and Silvia goes on her errand to court her lover +for her mistress, fearing to find him already faithless to his love for +her[255]. On her mission she is waylaid by the nymph Phillis, who has +fallen in love with her in her male attire, careless of the love borne her +by the honest but rude forester Montanus. The varying fortune of Silvia's +suit on behalf of Cloris, Thirsis' faith to the memory of Silvia, +Montanus' jealousy, and Phillis' shame when she finds her proffered love +rejected by the boy for whom she has sacrificed her modesty, are presented +in a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially advance the +business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach +the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now +imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some +spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she +does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As +Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the +favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs Silvia, and +carries off the garland she is wearing, believing it to be one woven by +the hand of Phillis. This naturally leads to the discovery of Silvia's sex +and identity, and supposing her dead, Thirsis falls in a swoon at her +side. The last act is, as usual, little more than an epilogue, in which we +are entertained with a long account of the recovery of the faithful +lovers, thanks to the care of the wise Lamia, an elaborate passage again +modelled on Tasso, but again falling far short of the poetical beauty of +the original. + +Taken as a whole, and partly through being unencumbered with the satyric +machinery of the _Queen's Arcadia, Hymen's Triumph_ is a distinctly +lighter and more pleasing composition. At least so it appears by +comparison, for Daniel everywhere takes himself and his subject with a +distressing seriousness wholly unsuited to the style; we look in vain for +a gleam of humour such as that which in the final chorus of the _Aminta_ +casts a reflex light over the whole play[257]. Again an advance may be +observed, not only in the conduct of the plot, which moves artistically on +an altogether different level, and even succeeds in arousing some dramatic +interest, but likewise in the verse, which has a freer movement, and is on +the whole less marred by the over-emphatic repetition of words and phrases +in consecutive lines, a particularly irritating trick of the author's +pastoral style, or by the monotonous cadence and painful padding of the +blank verse. Daniel was emphatically one of those poets, neither few nor +inconsiderable, the natural nervelessness of whose poetic diction +imperatively demands the bracing restraint of rime. It is noteworthy that +this applies to his verse alone; such a work as the famous _Defence of +Rime_ serves to place him once for all among the greatest masters of 'the +other harmony of prose.' + +_Hymen's Triumph_ contains many more passages of notable merit than its +predecessor. There is, indeed, one passage in the _Queen's Arcadia_ which +will bear comparison with anything Daniel ever wrote, but it stands in +somewhat striking contrast with its surroundings. This is the opening of +the speech in which Melibaeus addresses the assembled Arcadians, and well +deserves quotation. + + You gentle Shepheards and Inhabitors + Of these remote and solitary parts + Of Mountaynous Arcadia, shut up here + Within these Rockes, these unfrequented Clifts, + The walles and bulwarkes of our libertie, + From out the noyse of tumult, and the throng + Of sweating toyle, ratling concurrencie, + And have continued still the same and one + In all successions from antiquitie; + Whil'st all the states on earth besides have made + A thousand revolutions, and have rowl'd + From change to change, and never yet found rest, + Nor ever bettered their estates by change; + You I invoke this day in generall, + To doe a worke that now concernes us all, + Lest that we leave not to posteritie, + Th' Arcadia that we found continued thus + By our fore-fathers care who left it us. (V. iii.) + +Such passages are more frequent in _Hymen's Triumph_. Take the description +of the early love of Thirsis and Silvia, instinct with a delicacy and +freshness that even Tasso might have envied[258]: + + Then would we kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus + In that first garden of our simplenesse + We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began + To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then + Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, + Check my presumption and my forwardnes; + Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew + What she would have me, yet not have me, know. (I. i.) + +Thirsis, who is the typical 'constant lover' of pastoral convention, and +does + + Hold it to be a most heroicke thing + To act one man, and do that part exact, + +thus addresses his friend Palaemon in defence of love: + + Ah, know that when you mention love, you name + A sacred mistery, a Deity, + Not understood of creatures built of mudde, + But of the purest and refined clay + Whereto th' eternall fires their spirits convey. + And for a woman, which you prize so low, + Like men that doe forget whence they are men, + Know her to be th' especiall creature, made + By the Creator as the complement + Of this great Architect[259] the world, to hold + The same together, which would otherwise + Fall all asunder; and is natures chiefe + Vicegerent upon earth, supplies her state. + And doe you hold it weakenesse then to love, + And love so excellent a miracle + As is a worthy woman? (III. iv.) + +The sententious passages, the occurrence of which we previously noted in +the _Queen's Arcadia_, likewise appear. Thus of dreams: + + Alas, Medorus, dreames are vapours, which, + Ingendred with day thoughts, fall in the night, + And vanish with the morning;[260] (III. ii.) + +and of thoughts: + + They are the smallest peeces of the minde + That passe this narrow organ of the voyce; + The great remaine behinde in that vast orbe + Of th' apprehension, and are never borne. (III. iv.) + +At times these utterances even possess a dramatic value, as where, +bending over the seemingly lifeless form of his beloved Silvia, Thirsis +exclaims: + + And sure the gods but onely sent thee thus + To fetch me, and to take me hence with thee. (IV. v.) + +The two plays we have been considering are after all very much what we +should expect from their author. A poet of considerable taste, of great +sweetness and some real feeling, but deficient in passion, in power of +conception and strength of execution, writing for the court in the +recognized rôle of court-laureate, and unexposed to the bracing influence +of a really critical audience--such is Samuel Daniel as seen in his +experiments in the pastoral drama. We learn from his commendatory sonnet +on the 'Dymocke' _Pastor fido_ that he had known Guarini personally in +Italy, an accident which supplies an interesting link between the dramas +of the two countries, and might suggest a specific incentive to the +composition of his pastorals, were any such needed. So far, however, from +that being the case, the only wonder is that the adventure was not made at +an earlier date, a problem the most promising explanation of which may +perhaps be sought in the rather conservative taste of the officiai court +circle, which tended to lag behind in the general advance during the +closing years of Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James new life +as well as a new spirit entered the court, and is quickly found reflected +in the literary fashions in vogue. It was in 1605 that Jonson wrote in +_Volpone_: + + Here's Pastor Fido ... + ... All our English writers, + I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, + Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; + Almost as much, as from Montagnie: + He has so moderne, and facile a veine, + Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare. (1616, III. iv.) + +On the whole, perhaps, Daniel's merits as a pastoral writer have been +exaggerated. His dependence on Italian models, particularly in his earlier +play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually +lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand +examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the _Queen's Arcadia,_ +of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion--a point in +which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of +narrative as compensation--and of his failure to do justice to such scenes +when forced upon him.[261] If the atmosphere of certain scenes is purer +than is the case with his models, it is in large measure due to his +failure to master the style; if his conception of virtue is more +wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his +sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little +tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly +trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into +penning passages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often +stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[262] On the other +hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is +true, may be said to be rather the _qualités de ses défauts_. The verse is +at least smooth; it is courtly and scholarly, and sometimes graceful; the +language is pure and refined, and habitually simple. The sentiment, if at +times finicking, is always that of a gentleman and a courtier. Moreover, +in reckoning his qualifications as a dramatist, we must not forget to +credit him with the plot of _Hymen's Triumph_, which is on the whole +original, and is happily conceived, firmly constructed, and executed with +considerable ability. + +With Daniel begins and ends in English literature the dominant influence +of the Italian pastoral drama. No doubt the imitation of Tasso and Guarini +is an important element in the subsequent history of pastoralism in this +country, and to trace and define that influence will be not the least +important task of the ensuing chapters. No doubt it supplied the incentive +that induced a man like Fletcher to bid for a hopeless success in such a +play as the _Faithful Shepherdess_, and placed a heavy debt to the account +of Thomas Randolph when he composed his _Amyntas_. But in these cases, as +in others, wherever the author availed himself of the tradition imported +from the Ferrarese court, he approached it as it were from without, +seeking to rival, to acclimatize, rather than to reproduce. Nowhere else +do we find the tone and atmosphere, the structure, situations, and +characters imitated with that fidelity, or attempt at fidelity, which +makes Daniel's plays almost indistinguishable, except for language, from +much of the work of the later Italians.[263] To minimize with many critics +Daniel's dependence on his models, or to emphasize with some that of +Fletcher, is, it seems to me, wholly to misapprehend the positions they +occupy in the history of literature, and to obscure the actual development +of the pastoral ideal in this country. + + + + +Chapter V. + +The Three Masterpieces + + + +I + + +Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be +said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The +first of these is, of course, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_. In the +case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in +the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it +reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ has +prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic +literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism +be classed Thomas Randolph's _Amyntas_, which, however inferior to the +others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of +intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, +well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English +examples of the kind. + +These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, +and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or +less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three +plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain +direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to +the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the +absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the +mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore +gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall +lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence. + +When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it +proved a complete failure.[264] An edition appeared without date, but +before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, +Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had +at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception +accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may +have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no +reason to believe that the _Sad Shepherd_ was taken in hand for another +quarter of a century almost. The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was revived long +after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by +comparison with Montagu's _Shepherds Paradise_ acted the year before. It +was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it +met with some measure of success. + +The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was the earliest, and long remained the only, +deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a +pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of +Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no +mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but +a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its +author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of +his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he +must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of +stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He +further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a +lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, +howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That +he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he +did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco +of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the +spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a +scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained +by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral +stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of +the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the +attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously +to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to +show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to +suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure. + +In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to +Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been +held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable +doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, +that the _Faithful Shepherdess_ may more properly be regarded as written +in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_, the _Faithful Shepherdess_ would never have +come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor +literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian +pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, +on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, +little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, +whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A +certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca +and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the +comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some +traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. +Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, +wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and +deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the +embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference +between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the +respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern +drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, +the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly +superfluous seer in the _dénoûment_ make up the whole sum so far as the +_Pastor fido_ is concerned, while the _Aminta_ cannot even show as much as +this. In the _Faithful Shepherdess_ we find not only the potent herbs, +holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well +and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly +compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265]. +Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the +Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning +ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by +imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known +it, that of Contarini's _Fida ninfa_[266]. + +A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry +which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which +Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph +vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; +in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning +a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so +Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser +flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids +modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its +attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is +the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the +traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into +the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of +Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is +at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a +shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, +hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the +priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside +the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae. + +The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as +forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped +a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly +too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, +leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. +Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at +the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and +damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range +themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the +first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. +Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love +unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for +Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when +he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers +from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis +are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' +innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in +the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is +banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no +more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night. + +The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to +neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in +favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, +is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and +needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage +representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the +movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far +towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece. + +It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain +distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of +love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too +colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained +desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to +find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither +as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn +a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory +recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory +illustrative of certain aspects of love[267]. So regarded much of the +absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to +disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that +abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as +ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass +unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start +into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the _Faithful Shepherdess_ was +among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be +contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art +of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the +popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a +craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the +already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in +reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer +solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing +abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of +every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have +known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover +their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the +absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent. + +What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best +explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place +endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three +centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the +composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the +piece will be necessary. + +The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's +pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he +prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed +two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind +approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some +allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, +and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment +itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: +'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, +and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and +most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for +certaine sometimes are[268]. In his preface to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the +_Queen's Arcadia_, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that +piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted passage writes: +'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and +shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may +agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and +vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such +improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and +poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and +fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such +like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic +representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable +propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and +state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at +above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in +the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of +mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make +it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no +comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind +of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as +in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have +supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in +1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a +very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular +gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a +pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray +cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and +sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is +concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is +obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and +bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his +play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's _Pastor fido_, it is perhaps not +fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same +author's _Compendio della poesia tragicomica_. What is important to note +is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory. + +Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to +individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was +familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his +eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional +characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types +of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human +desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and +the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and +the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, +indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely +careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more +tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to +regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the +cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many +changes of garment-- + + Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso. + +Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and +refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no +plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to +have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a +pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but +because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the +characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his +characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for +themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a +certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the +characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic +business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their +origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that +Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological +conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and +abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later +plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other +fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to +illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of +the present play he had to fashion characters _in vacuo_ and then weave +them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other +words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to +make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual +example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea. + +So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as +to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, +having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every +form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it +necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of +cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal +sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition +of the middle age. Again comparing the _Faithful Shepherdess_ with +Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and +women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the +moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly +conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he +comes to create _in vacuo_ he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory +regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be +with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and +undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument +of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for +this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take +exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the +author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to +honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. +Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he +intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His +cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but +constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The +falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality +of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the +characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous +except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure +who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being +carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion +and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the +profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, +with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his +altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most +sacred in woman. + +In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set +before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one +other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as +an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly +surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false +notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we +have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to +pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must +nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with +regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of +the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or, +non sai tu com' è fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca +describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the +close of the _Orfeo_. In English poetry we find Daniel writing: + + Light are their waving vailes, light their attires, + Light are their heads, and lighter their desires; + (_Queen's Arcadia_, II. iii.) + +while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, +contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed + + that such virtue can + Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,) + +or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of +caprice + + And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.) + +Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn: + + Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity + Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.) + +The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret: + + Thou wert not meant, + Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.) + +and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words: + + Women love only opportunity + And not the man. (ib. 127.) + +So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age +exclaimed: + + ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake! + +But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have +been considering to be justly chargeable against the _Faithful +Shepherdess_, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of +the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its +author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and +again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered +the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of +easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of +phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been +surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of +power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious +criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. +The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty +which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and +flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and +glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for +an instant on the gaze of the rider[269]. + +Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar +to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages +as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his +critics. It is in truth no lame one[270]. + +In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity +at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in +worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the +entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer +sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin: + + By that heavenly form of thine, + Brightest fair, thou art divine, + Sprung from great immortal race + Of the gods, for in thy face + Shines more awful majesty + Than dull weak mortality + Dare with misty eyes behold + And live. Therefore on this mould + Lowly do I bend my knee + In worship of thy deity.[271] (I. i. 58.) + +The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the +conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the +assembled people and purging them with holy water[272], after which they +disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging +her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her: + + Oh you are fairer far + Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star + That guides the wandering seaman through the deep, + Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep + Head of an agèd mountain, and more white + Than the new milk we strip before day-light + From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks, + Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks + Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.) + +They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their +love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where + + 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-lovèd shepherd + With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung + Lays of his love and dear captivity. (I. ii. 99.) + +Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol: + + Come, shepherds, come! + Come away + Without delay, + Whilst the gentle time doth stay. + Green woods are dumb, + And will never tell to any + Those dear kisses, and those many + Sweet embraces, that are given; + Dainty pleasures, that would even + Raise in coldest age a fire + And give virgin blood desire + + Then if ever, + Now or never, + Come and have it; + Think not I + Dare deny + If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.) + +Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just +lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her +with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty: + + lend me all thy red, + Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed + Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.) + +The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest: + + Shepherds all and maidens fair, + Fold your flocks up, for the air + 'Gins to thicken, and the sun + Already his great course hath run. + See the dew-drops how they kiss + Every little flower that is, + Hanging on their velvet heads + Like a rope of crystal beads; + See the heavy clouds low falling, + And bright Hesperus down calling + The dead night from under ground, + At whose rising mists unsound, + Damps and vapours fly apace, + Hovering o'er the wanton face + Of these pastures, where they come + Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.) + +In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, +founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can +plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain: + + 'Tis not the white or red + Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed + My mind to adoration, nor your eye, + Though it be full and fair, your forehead high + And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile + Lies watching in those dimples to beguile + The easy soul, your hands and fingers long + With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue, + Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp; + Your hair woven in many a curious warp, + Able in endless error to enfold + The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould + Of all your body, which as pure doth shew + In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow: + All these, were but your constancy away, + Would please me less than the black stormy day + The wretched seaman toiling through the deep. + But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep, + Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were + In the great womb of air were settled here, + In opposition, I would, like the tree, + Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free + Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.) + +The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in +the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of +Chapman's outburst: + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, + Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water and her keel plows air. + (_Byron's Conspiracy_, III. i.) + +Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to +enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, +which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of +the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his +mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, +mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly +reminiscent of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The wild-wood minister thus +describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a +characteristic of the play: + + Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky, + And the stars, whose feeble light + Give a pale shadow to the night, + Are up, great Pan commanded me + To walk this grove about, whilst he, + In a corner of the wood + Where never mortal foot hath stood, + Keeps dancing, music and a feast + To entertain a lovely guest; + Where he gives her many a rose + Sweeter than the breath that blows + The leaves, grapes, berries of the best; + I never saw so great a feast. + But to my charge. Here must I stay + To see what mortals lose their way, + And by a false fire, seeming-bright, + Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.) + +Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the +transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her: + + What art thou dare + Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care + Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.) + +while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had + + lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that + Which we esteem our honour, virgin state; + Dearer than swallows love the early morn, + Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn; + Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast + Another, and far dearer than the last; + Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all + The self-love were within thee that did fall + With that coy swain that now is made a flower, + For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!... + Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head, + And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.) + +Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn: + + See, the day begins to break, + And the light shoots like a streak + Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold + Whilst the morning doth unfold. + Now the birds begin to rouse, + And the squirrel from the boughs + Leaps to get him nuts and fruit; + The early lark, that erst was mute, + Carols to the rising day + Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.) + +The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action +as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking +in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as +she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. +However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in +itself unsurpassed: + + If there be + Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree, + Receive my body, close me up from lust + That follows at my heels! Be ever just, + Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake + That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake + In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit; + Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute, + Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast + Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste! + (V. iii. 79.) + +Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin: + + Thou divinest, fairest, brightest, + Thou most powerful maid and whitest, + Thou most virtuous and most blessèd, + Eyes of stars, and golden-tressèd + Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest, + What new service now is meetest + For the satyr? Shall I stray + In the middle air, and stay + The sailing rack, or nimbly take + Hold by the moon, and gently make + Suit to the pale queen of night + For a beam to give thee light? + Shall I dive into the sea + And bring thee coral, making way + Through the rising waves that fall + In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall + I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies + Whose woven wings the summer dyes + Of many colours? get thee fruit, + Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute? + All these I'll venture for, and more, + To do her service all these woods adore. + + * * * * * + + So I take my leave and pray + All the comforts of the day, + Such as Phoebus' heat doth send + On the earth, may still befriend + Thee and this arbour! + _Clorin._ And to thee, + All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.) + +Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own +individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it +follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain +traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, +it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of +Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum +total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far +surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate +art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of +the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon +accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was +necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and +range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form +from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or +vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action +and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, +and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been +stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from +the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a +successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for +the scene's sake[273].' + + + +II + + +Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no +doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the +academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he +was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London +about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, +before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that +the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have +occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the +very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this +supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at +that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The +play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's +poems edited by his brother in 1638. + +Like Fletcher's play, the _Amyntas_ is a conscious attempt at so altering +the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation +on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, +before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and +intended by the author for performance on the public boards[274]. Yet the +two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing +the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and +conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless +introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest +commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of +plot which we find in the _Pastor fido_. Randolph, on the other hand, +chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained +much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the +complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of +certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced +elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence +of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism +an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable +proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English +melodrama. + +Like the _Pastor fido_[275], Randolph's _Amyntas_ is weighted with a +preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was +betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the +greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. +Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the +faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and +Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her +tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the +goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse: + + Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide + To every bridegroome, and to every bride: + No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire, + Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire. + The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit + Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.) + +Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister +Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to +Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania +and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went +so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the +uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[276]' +replied: + + That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have + Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave: + Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine + To give Urania this, and she is thine. + +Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had +conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love +of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis. + +This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we +find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and +her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the +most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis' +love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her +choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them +abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the +morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose +love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself. +In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard +of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of +his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his +identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise +that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over +the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the +temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and +Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon, +fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award +of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who +shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks +to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear +and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has +fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her +all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and +finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil +conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make +Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his +old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the +letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares +that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is +forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off +in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we +find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and +bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius' +blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the +fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self. +Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of +wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that +of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues +that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might +without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly +stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are +alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the +general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her +vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels +before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the +appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the +solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband. + +This plot is a mingling of comedy in the scenes of Laurinda's +'wavering'[277] and the 'humours' of Amyntas' madness, and of tragi-comedy +in the catastrophe. But besides this there is what may best be described +as an antiplot of pure farce, in which the main character is the roguish +page Dorylas, who in the guise of Oberon robs Jocastus' orchard, tricks +Thestylis into marrying the foolish augur, and gulls everybody all round. +The humour of this portion of the piece may be occasionally a trifle broad +and at the same time childish, but there is nevertheless no denying the +genuineness of the quality, while the verse is as a rule sparkling, and +the dialogue both racy and pointed, occasionally displaying qualities +hardly to be described as other than brilliant. + +This comic subplot obviously owes nothing to Guarini, but is introduced +in accordance with the usage of the English popular drama, and is grafted +somewhat boldly on to the conventional stock. Dorylas is one of the most +inimitable and successful of the descendants of Lyly's pages; while the +characters of Mopsus and Jocastus, although the former no doubt owes his +conception to a hint in the _Aminta_, belong essentially to the English +romantic farce. The scenes in which the page appears as Oberon surrounded +by his court recall the introduction of the 'mortal fairies' of the _Merry +Wives,_ and that in which Amyntas' 'deluded fancy' takes the augur for a +hound of Actaeon's breed may owe something to a passage in _King Lear_. +But even apart from the elements of farce and comedy there are important +aspects in which the _Amyntas_ severs itself from the stricter tradition +of the Italian pastoral. Randolph, while adopting the machinery and much +of the scenic environment of Guarini's play, made certain not unimportant +alterations in the dramatic construction, tending towards greater variety +and complicity. In the _Pastor fido_ the four main characters, though they +ultimately resolve themselves into two pairs, are throughout +interdependent, and their story forms but a single plot. That the play +should have needed a double solution, the events that bring two couples +together having no connexion with one another, was a dramatic blunder but +imperfectly concealed by the fact that Silvio and Dorinda are purely +secondary, the whole interest being concentrated on the fortunes of +Mirtillo and Amarilli. In Randolph's play, on the other hand, there are no +less than six important characters. These are divided into two groups, +each with an independent plot, one of which contains a telling though +somewhat conventional περιπέτεια, while the other, though possessing +originality and pathos, is lacking in dramatic possibilities. Thus each +supplies the elements wanting in the other, and if woven together +harmoniously, should have been capable of forming the basis of a +well-constructed play. The first of these groups consists of Laurinda, +Alexis, Damon, and Amarillis, the last two being really the dramatically +important ones, though their fortunes are connected throughout. It is +Laurinda's choice of Alexis that leads to the union of Damon and +Amarillis, and it is not till Damon has unconsciously fulfilled the oracle +and been freed by its interpretation, that the loves of Laurinda and +Alexis can hope for a happy event. Thus Randolph has at least not fallen +into the error by which Guarini introduced a double catastrophe into a +single plot, though he has not altogether avoided a somewhat similar +danger. This is due to the other group above mentioned, consisting of +Amyntas and Urania, who, so far as the plot is concerned, are absolutely +independent of the other characters. Their own story is essentially +undramatic, although it possesses qualities which would make it effective +in narrative; and it is, moreover, wholly unaffected by the solution of +the other plot. This is obviously a weak place in the construction of the +play, but the author has shown great resource in meeting the difficulty. +First, by placing the interpretation of the oracle in the mouth of +Amyntas, who must yet himself remain hopeless amid the general rejoicing, +he has produced a figure of considerable dramatic effect, and so kept the +attention of the audience braced, and stayed the relaxing effect of the +anti-climax. Secondly, he has amused the spectators with some excellent +fooling until, while Io and Paean are yet resounding, it is possible to +crown the whole by the solution of the second oracle, and send the hero +and his love to join the others in the festive throng. The imperfection of +plot is there, but the author has been skilful in concealing it, and it +may well be that his success would appear all the greater were his play to +be put to the real test of dramatic composition by being actually placed +on the boards. + +But there is yet another point in which the _Amyntas_ differs not only +from its Italian model but from its English predecessors likewise. This is +a certain genially humorous conception of the whole, quite apart from and +beyond the mere introduction of comedy and farce, which we have never +found so marked before, and which has indeed been painfully absent from +the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the _Aminta_. This +humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in +a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing +the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming +stilted and pretentions--a fault not less commonly and quite as justly +charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of +humour is the great safeguard against an author taking either himself or +his creations too seriously. Randolph's _Amyntas_, it is true, renounces +the high ideality of its predecessors, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, of _Hymen's Triumph_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_; but it makes +up for it by human sanity of feeling and expression, by good humour and by +wit. It is, moreover, genuinely diverting. Here at least we find no +endeavour to attain to the importance and solemnity of a classical tragedy +as with Guarini, nor a striving after an utterly unreal, unsympathetic and +impossible ideal as with Fletcher. It is, moreover, noticeable and +eminently to the credit of the author that the comic scenes, even when +somewhat extravagant alike in tone and proportion, seldom clash +unpleasantly with the more serious passages, nor derogate from the +interest and dignity of the whole. + +The play has generally met with a far from deserved neglect, owing in part +no doubt to the singular failure on the part of most critics to apprehend +correctly the nature and conditions of pastoral poetry.[278] Mr. W. C. +Hazlitt, who edited Randolph's works in 1875, does not so much as mention +the play in the perfunctory introduction, in which he chiefly follows the +extravagant, pedantic, and utterly worthless article in the sixth volume +of the _Retrospective Review_.[279] The merits of the piece have been +somewhat more fully recognized by Dr. Ward and Mr. Homer Smith, but the +treatment accorded the play by the former is necessarily scanty, while +that of the latter is inaccurate. Throughout a tendency is manifest to +find fault with the artificiality of the piece, and to blame the author +for not representing the true 'simplicity' of pastoral life. That the +pastoral tradition was a wholly impossible, not to say an absurd one, +bearing no true relation to nature at all, may be admitted; and it may be +lamented by such as love to shed bitter tears because the sandy shore is +not a well-swept parquet, or because anything you please is not something +else to which it bears not the smallest resemblance. It may or may not be +unfortunate that Randolph should have elected to write _more pastorali_, +but to censure the individual work because it is not of a type to which +its author never had the remotest intention of making it conform, and to +which except for something like a miracle it was impossible that it should +even approach, is the acme of critical fatuity. Judged in accordance with +the intention of the author the _Amyntas_ is no inconsiderable achievement +for a young writer, and compared with other works belonging to the same +tradition it occupies a highly respectable place. With Tasso's _Aminta_ +and Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ it cannot, in point of poetic merit, +for one moment compare, falling as far below them in this as it surpasses +them in complexity and general suitability of dramatic construction. A +fairer comparison may be made between it and the _Pastor fido_ in Italian +or _Hymen's Triumph_ in English, and here again, though certainly with +regard to the former and probably with regard to the latter it stands +second as poetry, as a play it is decidedly better suited than either for +representation on the stage--at least on a stage with the traditions and +conventions which prevailed in this country in the author's day. + + * * * * * + +It is then in the matter of the poetical quality of the verse that +Randolph's play appears to least advantage. Living in a polished and +cultured literary circle at Cambridge, and enjoying after his remove to +London the congenial fellowship of the tribe of Ben, he naturally attained +the ease and skill necessary to maintain a respectable level of +composition, but he was sparing of the higher flights. He seldom strikes +the attention by those purple patches which make many of his +contemporaries so quotable, yet, while by no means monotonously correct, +it is equally seldom that he sinks much below his general level. The +dialogue is on the whole natural and easy, and at the same time crisp and +pointed. A few of the more distinctively poetic and imaginative passages +may be quoted, in order to give some idea of the style. Laurinda thus +appoints a choice to her brace of lovers: + + I have protested never to disclose + Which 'tis that best I love: But the first Nymph, + As soone as Titan guilds the Easterne hills, + And chirping birds, the Saints-bell of the day, + Ring in our eares a warning to devotion-- + That lucky damsell what so e're she be + [That first shall meet you from the temple gate][280] + Shall be the Goddesse to appoint my love, + To say, 'Laurinda this shall be your choice': + And both shall sweare to stand to her award! (III. i.) + +Another passage of deliberate poetic elaboration is the monologue of +Claius on once again treading his native soil: + + I see the smoake steame from the Cottage tops, + The fearfull huswife rakes the embers up, + All hush to bed. Sure, no man will disturbe mee. + O blessed vally! I the wretched Claius + Salute thy happy soyle, I that have liv'd + Pelted with angry curses in a place + As horrid as my griefes, the Lylibaean mountaines, + These sixteene frozen winters; there have I + Beene with rude out-lawes, living by such sinnes + As runne o' th' score with justice 'gainst my prayers and wishes: + And when I would have tumbled down a rock, + Some secret powre restrain'd me. (III. ii.) + +By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few +passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the +verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. The following is a graceful +example in a somewhat conceited vein; the transition, moreover, from +blank to rimed measure has an appearance of natural ease. The rivals are +awaiting the arbitrement of their love: + + _Alexis._ How early, Damon, + Doe lovers rise!... + + _Damon._ No Larkes so soon, Alexis. + + _Al._ He that of us shall have Laurinda, Damon, + Will not be up so soone: ha! would you Damon? + + _Da._ Alexis, no; but if I misse Laurinda, + My sleepe shall be eternall. + + _Al._ I much wonder the Sunne so soone can rise! + + _Da._ Did he lay his head in faire Laurinda's lap, + We should have but short daies. + + _Al._ No summer, Damon. + + _Da._ Thetis[281] to her is browne. + + _Al._ And he doth rise + From her to gaze on faire Laurinda's eyes.... + + _Da._ I heare no noise of any yet that move. + + _Al._ Devotion's not so early up as love. + + _Da._ See how Aurora blushes! we suppose + Where Tithon lay to night. + + _Al._ That modest rose + He grafted there. + + _Da._ O heaven, 'tis all I seeke, + To make that colour in Laurinda's cheeke. (IV. iv.) + +A more tragic note is struck in the speech in which Claius retorts on +Pilumnus after his discovery: + + I, glut your hate, Pilumnus; let your soule + That has so long thirsted to drinke my blood, + Swill till my veines are empty;... I have stood + Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove + Levels his thunder; all my boughes long since + Blasted and wither'd; now the trunke falls too. + Heaven end thy wrath in mee! (IV. viii.) + +In some of these 'high tragical endeavours,' and notably in Damon's +confession, we do indeed find a certain stiltedness, but even here there +rings a true note of pathos in the farewell: + + Amarillis, + I goe to write my story of repentance + With the same inke, wherewith thou wrotes before + The legend of thy love. (IV. ix.) + +These passages will serve to give a fair and not unfavourable impression +of the style, but I have reserved for separate consideration what I +consider to be the most striking portions of the play. The first of these +is the string of Latin songs in which the would-be elves comment on their +nefarious proceedings in Jocastus' orchard. I quote certain stanzas only: + + Nos beata Fauni Proles, + Quibus non est magna moles, + Quamvis Lunam incolamus, + Hortos saepe frequentamus. + + Furto cuncta magis bella, + Furto dulcior Puella, + Furto omnia decora, + Furto poma dulciora. + + Cum mortales lecto jacent, + Nobis poma noctu placent; + Illa tamen sunt ingrata, + Nisi furto sint parata. + + * * * * * + + Oberon, descende citus, + Ne cogaris hinc invitus; + Canes audio latrantes, + Et mortales vigilantes. + + * * * * * + + I domum, Oberon, ad illas + Quae nos manent nunc ancillas, + Quarum osculemur sinum, + Inter poma, lac et vinum. (III. iv.) + +To discuss verses such as these seriously is impossible. The dog-Latin of +the fellow of Trinity is inimitable, while there is a peculiarly roguish +delicacy about his humour. In the admirable ease with which the words are +adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of +the _carmina vagorum_. Lastly, as undoubtedly the finest passage of the +play, and as one that must give us pause when we would deny to 'prince +Randolph' the gifts requisite for the higher imaginative drama, I must +quote the scene in which the distracted Amyntas fancies that in his +endless search for the 'impossible dowry' he has arrived on the shores of +Styx and boarded Charon's bark. + + _Amyntas._ Row me to hell!--no faster? I will have thee + Chain'd unto Pluto's gallies! + + _Urania._ Why to hell, + My deere Amyntas? + + _Amyntas._ Why? to borrow mony! + + _Amarillis._ Borrow there? + + _Amy._ I, there! they say there be more Usurers there + Then all the world besides.--See how the windes + Rise! Puffe, puffe Boreas.--What a cloud comes yonder! + Take heed of that wave, Charon! ha? give mee + The oares!--So, so: the boat is overthrown; + Now Charons drown'd, but I will swim to shore.... + My armes are weary;--now I sinke, I sinke! + Farewell Urania ... Styx, I thank thee! That curld wave + Hath tos'd mee on the shore.--Come Sysiphus, + I'll rowle thy stone a while: mee thinkes this labour + Doth looke like Love! does it not so, Tysiphone? + + _Ama._ Mine is that restlesse toile. + + _Amy._ Is't so, Erynnis? + You are an idle huswife, goe and spin + At poore Ixions wheele! + + _Ura._ Amyntas! + + _Amy._ Ha? + Am I known here? + + _Ura._ Amyntas, deere Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Who calls Amyntas? beauteous Proserpine? + 'Tis shee.--Fair Empresse of th' Elysian shades, + Ceres bright daughter intercede for mee, + To thy incensed mother: prithee bid her + Leave talking riddles, wilt thou?... Queene of darknesse, + Thou supreme Lady of eternall night, + Grant my petitions! wilt thou beg of Ceres + That I may have Urania? + + _Ura._ Tis my praier, + And shall be ever, I will promise thee + Shee shall have none but him. + + _Amy._ Thankes Proserpine! + + _Ura._ Come sweet Amyntas, rest thy troubled head + Here in my lap.--Now here I hold at once + My sorrow and my comfort.--Nay, ly still. + + _Amy._ I will, but Proserpine-- + + _Ura._ Nay, good Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Should Pluto chance to spy me, would not hee + Be jealous of me? + + _Ura._ No. + + _Amy._ Tysiphone, + Tell not Urania of it, least she feare + I am in love with Proserpine: doe not Fury! + + _Ama._ I will not. + + _Ura._ Pray ly still! + + _Amy._ You Proserpine, + There is in Sicilie the fairest Virgin + That ever blest the land, that ever breath'd + Sweeter than Zephyrus! didst thou never heare + Of one Urania? + + _Ura._ Yes. + + _Amy._ This poore Urania + Loves an unfortunate sheapheard, one that's mad, Tysiphone, + Canst thou believe it? Elegant Urania-- + I cannot speak it without tears--still loves + Amyntas, the distracted mad Amyntas. + Is't not a constant Nymph?--But I will goe + And carry all Elysium on my back, + And that shall be her joynture. + + _Ura._ Good Amyntas, + Rest here a while! + + _Amy._ Why weepe you Proserpine? + + _Ura._ Because Urania weepes to see Amyntas + So restlesse and unquiet. + + _Amy._ Does shee so? + Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, + When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; + I will not move a haire, not let a nerve + Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! Hush,-- + Shee sleepes! + + _Ura._ And so doe you. + + _Amy._ You talk too loud, + You'l waken my Urania. + + _Ura._ If Amyntas, + Her deere Amyntas would but take his rest, + Urania could not want it. + + _Amy._ Not so loud! (II. iv.) + +It was no ordinary imagination that conceived this example of the +grotesque in the service of the pathetic. + +I have endeavoured in the above account to do a somewhat tardy justice to +the considerable and rather remarkably sustained qualities of Randolph's +play. I do not claim that as poetry it can be compared with the work of +Tasso, Fletcher, or Jonson, or that it even rivals that of Guarini or +Daniel, though had Randolph lived he might easily have surpassed the +latter. But I do claim that the _Amyntas_ is one of the most interesting +and important of the experiments which English writers made in the +pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its +kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the +genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived +author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not +overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her +laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it +is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun +in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth +of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other +hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to +assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of +the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when +Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works--the _Jealous Lovers_, a +Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the +_Muses' Looking Glass_, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and +the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than +occasionally improper--will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact +that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of +pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due +to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the +loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play +failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature.[282] + + + +III + + +In Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ we find ourselves once again considering a work +which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, +but which at the same time raises important questions of literary +criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to +consider--Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, +Randolph's _Amyntas_--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian +pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the +very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, +aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. +Except for such comparatively unimportant works as _Gallathea_ and the +_Converted Robber_,[283] the spectators found themselves, for the first +time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of +Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,' +the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those +of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, +Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's +rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of +Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which +had been variously present since Tasso styled his play _favola +boschereccia_, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction +of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of +the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of +the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd +Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated +and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to +fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something +fresh and original and new. + +Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is +at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some +years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of +1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what +date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered +upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for +supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor +that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is +conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier +pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost _May Lord_ has +little to recommend it.[284] Seeing that the play is far from being as +generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give +a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place.[285] + +After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with +characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, +lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is +supposed to have been drowned in the Trent. + + Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here! + Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow: + The world may find the Spring by following her; + For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.) + +He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to +fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to +entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the +stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of +melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin +Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country +maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls +forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of +shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical +pretensions of the puritan reformers--a passage which yields, in biting +satire, neither to his own presentation in the _Alchemist_ nor to Quarles' +scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they +become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks +to himself like a madman. + + It will be rare, rare, rare! + An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words! + Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: + If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing! + Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, + On every greene sworth, and in every path, + Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; + There will I knock the story in the ground, + In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, + Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; + And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, + Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. + Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither, + Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water, + Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout, + As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs, + Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine; + Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice; + And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice. + Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest, + And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles, + And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle; + To fling a fellow with a Fever in, + To set it all on fire, till it burne, + Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, + When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.) + +Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that +he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his +distracted fancy breaks out afresh: + + A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes? + Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks? + Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe? + These may grow still; but what can spring betide? + Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died? + As if there since did fall one drop of dew, + But what was wept for her! or any stalke + Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome, + After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith, + You doe not faire, to put these things upon me, + Which can in no sort be: Earine, + Who had her very being, and her name, + With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring, + Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet, + Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd, + And Venus led the Graces out to dance, + And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap, + Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration, + To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know, + How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since, + No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre + Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke, + As it were hung so for her Exequies! + And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell, + But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle, + And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule + Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings! + Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.) + +To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad +north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a +new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer. + + Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this, + This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse; + [_Forces Amie to kiss Karolin._ + Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty, + For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem + From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her: + Now I am poore as you. (ib.) + +There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the +quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's +interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.' + + _Robin._ I! what was that, sweet Marian? [_Kisses her._ + + _Marian._ You'll not heare? + + _Rob._ I love these interruptions in a Story; [_Kisses her + again._ + They make it sweeter. + + _Mar._ You doe know, as soone + As the Assay is taken-- [_Kisses her again._ + + _Rob._ On, my Marian. + I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.) + +To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there + + sate a Raven + On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse! + +crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen +swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by +Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, +broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now +proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie +complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly +explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the +stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the +strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults +Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to +Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act +Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of +Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought +discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it +now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow +tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now +enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases +from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, +which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, +and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, +reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in +which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This +latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned +to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one +might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would +appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of +natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been +awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to +dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of +his nymphs and swains.[286] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce +the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and +by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next +scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill +at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain +possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the +_naïveté_ of _Daphnis and Chloe_. + + How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth, + Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth, + Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by + A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie, + Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree, + Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee? + Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost, + The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost, + My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence, + Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence. + But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove, + Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove; + It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe + All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.) + +To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late +conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of +the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains +unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to +thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and +begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin +declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At +this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to +the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting +poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her +disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its +delicate comedy and pathos. + + _Amie_ [_asleep_]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ... + O', ô. + + _Marian._ How is't Amie? + + _Melifleur._ Wherefore start you? + + _Amie._ O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet. + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men? + The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet! + + _Amie._ I', so! + Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe: + Karol is only faire to mee! + + _Mar._ And why? + + _Amie._ Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die. + Karol he singeth sweetly too! + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men? + + _Amie._ I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing, + But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring, + The Nightingale. + + _Maud._ Then why? then why, alone, + Should his notes please you? ... + + _Amie._ This verie morning, but--I did bestow-- + It was a little 'gainst my will, I know-- + A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine, + And now I wish that verie kisse againe. + His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose, + His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes; + The relish of it was a pleasing thing. + + _Maud._ Yet like the Bees it had a little sting. + + _Amie._ And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe + And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.) + +After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer +doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of +Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise +shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of +venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a +gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes +and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an +Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an +old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As +fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers +kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales +forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and +boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad +Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade! +The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of +lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! +Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie +Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their +habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks +of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a +poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits +play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the +Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, +o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent +charmes. (II. viii.) + +In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as +the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk +it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the +dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The +latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a +'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein +no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas. + + But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine, + Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers, + Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste + To get up to the Moone, and Mercury; + And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring + Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars, + Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe + Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all + The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World + Againe, his first and tunefull planetting! + O' what an age will here be of new concords! + Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages, + Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation, + And throw a silence upon all the creatures!... + The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes + Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse; + Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme + Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht, + To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.) + +After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for +the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again +appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and +their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, +and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle +and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with +it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the +shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and +sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again +addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting +his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch: + + Gang thy gait, and try + Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel'; + +the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we +know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of +Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden +mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her +girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped +by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers. + +Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's +pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford, +who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical +judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of +propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought, +and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the +petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who +stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its +heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, +however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the _Sad +Shepherd_ to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of +it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will +serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They +display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of +judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben +Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour +and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel, +Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian, +and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious +part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque, +was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit; +the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the +success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt +of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary +groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous +contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On +the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate +the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of +composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with +such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the +projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more +amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or +more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise, +but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that +now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt +influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but +he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is +impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone +final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was +of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his +work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and +deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he +denounces the heresy + + That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall, + +as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he +introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by +Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In +_The Sad Shepherd_ [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit +of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than +either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is +due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance +that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It +must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in +part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit +that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be +repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's +invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it +will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as +favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike +are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may +feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There +are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely +refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a +writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but +with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel +bound to record my dissent. + +Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and +genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr. +Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry' +in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive +that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to +repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[287] That Jonson did not +fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only, +however, I believe, because he faiîed to carry it to completion. Had he +lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant +with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question +as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult +and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, +especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the +unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic +construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers +with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted. + +Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, +it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first +place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads, +pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and +seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken +to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and +forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral +tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in +name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and +boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's +_Hymen's Triumph_, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, +are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly +indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the +woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their +essence and history indistinguishable.[288] Probably, however, what the +writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of +popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he +regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by +Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return. + +Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the +comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer +Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as +an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this +view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, +the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin +Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject +of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which +the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of +stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of +a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is +known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we +have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, +_Hymen's Triumph_ and Rutter's _Shepherds' Holiday_; while in the +detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an +exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements +of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by +Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the +materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited +by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the +exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse, +have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part +of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an +unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the +_imbroglio_ can do more than restore the harmony which had been before, +and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the +dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the _Faithful +Shepherdess_. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end +of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose +than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her +confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her +Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the +materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact +that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than +half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the +felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot +as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness +almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the +burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid +Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin +Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which +arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various +threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and +incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic +characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished +shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy +one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr. +Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain +the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are +essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic +composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets +of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the +sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without +qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is +welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's +pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention +of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found +its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious +idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined +creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from +common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many +shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may +frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind, +Phoebe, and Audrey in _As You Like It_? But that is a question to which we +shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the _Sad +Shepherd_ we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined +atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet +constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude +unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels +at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This +brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we +shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of +the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage. + +The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's +pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All +that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the +stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and +with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope +to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be +in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic +characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in +reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts +them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock +and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as +exhibited in the _Sad Shepherd_, would not be worth defending. But it is +not so. + +It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions. +It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain +passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world +in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and +irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so +far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial +Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the +rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine; +of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find +her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of +the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the +singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the +mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean +and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come +dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an +occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense +at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good +angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a +familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of +borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain +incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual +passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as +they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to +lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between +these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be +remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather +beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not +fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had +the play undergone revision. + +Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and +general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. +The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and +may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country +lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular +romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way +antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft +and fairy lore[289]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far +as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no +Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his +lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of +burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic +lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical +tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not +contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, +since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether +necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is +going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,' +they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be +wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, +it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the +pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly +poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce +references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less +naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, +introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable +characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the +same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also +noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one +passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise +incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of +Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically +something of an anachronism. + +Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized +than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular +tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as +Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than +with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood +tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it +exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the +popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock +and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely +less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That +Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found +is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like +Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect. + +Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for +an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic +characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a +mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this +light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for +death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude +audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while +there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private +opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to +cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he +laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister +reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an +imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, +removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of +romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less +idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but +regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more +in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the +shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and +other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition. + +There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the +ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the +groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher +than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the +whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it +is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it +not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere +literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not +only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have +been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum +true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his +day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters +not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we +should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised +fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author +decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his _English Grammar_ shows, +was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and +it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral +himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of +language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have +escaped his critical eye. + +Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor +importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in +previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in +popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a +veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it +remained unfinished at the death of its author. + + * * * * * + +In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment. +This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and +falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure +of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat +qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of +the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and +convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by +which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. +The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but +only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course, +introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all +ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the +hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth +quoting[290]: + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + With breath of bugles sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide, + Nor branchy head will long abide; + Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath, + Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death. + + The hart is slain! his faithful deer, + In spite of hounds or huntsman near, + Despising Death, and all his train, + Laments her hart untimely slain! + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + (Act IV.) + + + + +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. + + + +II + + +The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the +English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At +no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. +Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner +compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic +drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what +had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. +Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this +romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to +attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the +three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as +we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to +bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient +importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it +may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of +classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England +is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless +experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two +cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards +some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true +that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of +time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves +to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object +was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral +drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in +that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with +artistic evolution. + +A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals +will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it +is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us +to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain +doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of +our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of +most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development +would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than +in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is +unhappily wanting. + +In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of +the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as +familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less +consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the +mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the +mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and +more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest +play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous _Maid's +Metamorphosis_, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in +1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it +presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. +Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to +be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, +discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly +into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch +their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live +among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner +left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in +love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of +livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by +Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be +able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication +has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has +fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his +pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the +infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much +regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens +is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the +suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or +Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo +to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this +performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he +the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the +duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it +seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be +welcome. + +Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, +weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of +the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but +little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd +and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic +clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have +drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's _Gallathea_, in which, it will be +remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a +man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the +sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to +note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, +a fact that carries them back towards Peele's _Arraignment_ and the days +previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the +characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish +pages of Lyly.[317] + +The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often +irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it +contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in +description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not +unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, +are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the +master:[318] + + Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found + A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground: + So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe, + As for his life the sunne durst never peepe + Into the entrance: which doth so afright + The very day, that halfe the world is night. + Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound: + There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground, + No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call, + Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all. + No sound is heard in compasse of the hill, + But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still. + Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie, + A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie + Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God, + Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.) + +And again: + + Then in these verdant fields al richly dide, + With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride: + There is a goodly spring whose christal streames + Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames: + There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory, + The Graces sit, listening the melodye: + The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes + Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles, + Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates + Is as a base unto their hollow throates. + Garlands beside they weare upon their browes, + Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes: + From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise, + As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.) + +The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the + + grassie bed + With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.) + +Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of +haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied: + + I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare + With woodmen thus audaciously compare? + Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King, + And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing. + Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene, + Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene. + And so alas, the good Athenian knight, + And swift Acteon herein tooke delight: + And Atalanta the Arcadian dame, + Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game, + That with her traine of Nymphs attending on, + She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.) + +We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, +in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the +songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which +bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by +Eurymine-- + + Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above, + Forge of desires working love, + Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye + Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.) + +there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of +acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song: + + Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a: + Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a. + Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a: + All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.) + +The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is +undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon +Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect: + + _Gemulo._ As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides, + When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne-- + + _Silvio._ As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides, + Where Nightingales record upon the thorne-- + + _Ge._ So rise my thoughts-- + + _Sil._ So all my sences cheere-- + + _Ge._ When she surveyes my flocks-- + + _Sil._ And she my Deare. + + _Ge._ Eurymine! + + _Sil._ Eurymine! + + _Ge._ Come foorth! + + _Sil._ Come foorth! + + _Ge._ Come foorth and cheere these plaines! + + _Both._ Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines-- + + _Sil._ The Wood-mans Love-- + + _Ge._ And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.) + +Not long after the appearance of the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ there was +written a play entitled _The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves_, +which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, +and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe +Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of +Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose +life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or +nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present +at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses +neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in +prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the +author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and +ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted +restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to +be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the +author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only +characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy +hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess +of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the +woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and +reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a +hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her +turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. +While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on +their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent +to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread +of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and +his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from +passages in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The piece has a prologue for +representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that +honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition. + +Passing over the _Faithful Shepherdess_ in 1609, we come to a play of a +very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's +_Sicelides_, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at +Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before +the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, +surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account +for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the +hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the +neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more +particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been +overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have +already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included +under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic +merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues +of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, +which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer +who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the +fountain-head of his inspiration. + +Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his +affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns +indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with +mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is +courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she +turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but +soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has +relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon +offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks +the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is +condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on +the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is +bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, +when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile +Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of +Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, +determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his +mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a +love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, +mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls +into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting +a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but +Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast +from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. +These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of +Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic +under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love +for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends +happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and +uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who +had been carried off long before by pirates. + +This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian +pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the +construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it +is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in +couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at +times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the +author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such +phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. +Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at +Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone: + + Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it + That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.) + +The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to +be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[324]. The orc +probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the +influence of the _Metamorphoses_ is likewise, as so often, present. The +following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many +short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted: + + The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes, + The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes, + And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames, + Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ... + Only love waking rests and sleepe despises, + Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises. + With him the day as night, the night as day, + All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day. + How different from love is lovers guise! + He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.) + +Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral +that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild +production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled +_The Careless Shepherdess._ It was printed many years after its original +production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. +of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this +ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, +where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the +living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is +probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but +the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are +informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at +Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the +playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' +the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last +months of the author's life[325]. The question of the date is interesting +principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking +resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's _Sad +Shepherd_: + + This was her wonted place, on these green banks + She sate her down, when first I heard her play + Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be + Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose + I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke + Then court my eye; She must be here, or else + That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd + Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that + Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head + To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.) + +The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, +while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely +interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the +play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four +characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and +Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not +object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son +of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes +his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of +disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so +continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile +informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the +return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in +despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is +throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the +exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian +predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, +feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far +successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves +him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her +turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus +challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances +to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in +the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two +shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers +desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by +Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two +maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. +While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of +satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a +despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement +that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his +marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the +swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding +their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover +themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No +satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for +while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be +their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. +Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. +Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for +we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and +carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of +the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. +Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and +are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are +actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. +They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr +reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to +induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of +banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now +ends happily. + +In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled +and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent _enlèvements_ by the +satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story +distantly recalls Ingegneri's _Danza di Venere_. One feature of importance +is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended +satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe +his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a +measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner +of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written +in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such +slighter compositions as the _Converted Robber_ and Tatham's _Love Crowns +the End_, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was +no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular +with the audience.[327] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of +Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt +responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves +the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as +is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. +Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely +Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, +introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the +office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a +sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This +mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the +courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the +lyrical verse of the play: + + Come Shepherds come, impale your brows + With Garlands of the choicest flowers + The time allows. + Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair, + And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers + With hast repair: + Where you shall see chast Turtles play, + And Nightingales make lasting May, + As if old Time his youthfull minde, + To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.) + +There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by +Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while +adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. +Of the author of _Rhodon and Iris_, as the play was called, little is +known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare +facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or +chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the +restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have +been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the +same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of +certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters +are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of +the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many +cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose +connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly +subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to +interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the +oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, +moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one +thread is cut short by a _dea ex machina_ of the most mechanical sort, +while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following +is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached +on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she +appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of +Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's +behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has +abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. +The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who +with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of +Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a +love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as +his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused +to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send +Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace +(All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in +time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that +Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a +double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the +attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the +prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan +she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his +followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus +she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to +her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus +Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is +only referred to in the epilogue. + +The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The +large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly +and Spanish type than to that of works like _Menaphon_, or even _Daphnis +and Chloe_. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow +servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine +and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The +allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the +_Queen's Arcadia_.[328] + +This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely +unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the +_Fairy Pastoral_ in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so +at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to +see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse +and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both +in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous +poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for +example, the lines from Eglantine's lament: + + Since that the gods will not my woe redresse, + Since men are altogether pittilesse, + Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare; + Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare, + And listen to my plaints that doe excell + The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel. + Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while, + Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle, + Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone, + Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne, + And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare + The growing liver of the ravisher; + Let these behold my sorrows and confesse + Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.) + +Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine: + + Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains, + That in the woods and mountains art ador'd, + The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires, + Who art for chastity renouned most, + Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure + The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes, + Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply + Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.) + +Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast: + + When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed, + When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,... + When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober, + When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,... + When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down, + When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown, + To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow; + Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.) + +Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a +second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to +write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort: + + Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort + Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames + Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages, + Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed; + But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy + Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd + With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.) + +Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste +and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of +measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The +occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines, +sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play: + + Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire + My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite; + My hopes are vanish'd into ayre, + My day is turn'd to gloomy night; + For since my Rhodon deare is gone, + Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none. + A Cell where griefe the Landlord is + Shall be my palace of delight, + Where I will wooe with votes and sighes + Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite; + Since I have lost my Rhodon deare, + Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.) + +To treat of Walter Montagu's _Shepherds' Paradise_ at a length at all +commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there +are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give +it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of +Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. +The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, +who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. +The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' +Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, +and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence +the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and +likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, +Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a +man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same +pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly +company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in +love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised +Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of +Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds +to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, +it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the +prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to +Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen +perpetual queen[329]. + +The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the +Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited, +in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover, +as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more +intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous +tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of +verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater +merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence +of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from +the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external +circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation. + +One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's _Session +of the Poets_, from which it is evident that the style of the play +attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's +contemporaries: + + Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial, + And did not so much as suspect a denial; + But witty Apollo asked him first of all, + If he understood his own pastoral! + +The _Shepherds' Paradise_ is, however, best remembered on account of +circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a +letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her +ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously +appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in +which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who +appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the +public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific +instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any +personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the +supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears. + +It is presumably at this point that Randolph's _Amyntas_ should appear in +a chronological survey of English pastoralism. + +Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before +the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and +it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[330]. The +songs in the introduction and the _intermedî_ were undoubtedly in French, +and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French +forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles +françaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which +belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only +influenced in the _dénoûment_ by mythological tradition, appears to be +original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to +exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[331] The relation of the +characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account +of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess +Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her +servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to +the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and +passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by +Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the +nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds. +Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e. +Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this +garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love. +Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the +faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now +fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances +of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered +her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene +at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and +begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene +accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to +show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from +Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when +Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene +now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are +interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene. +This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that +they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to +abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her +love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to +Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and +Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the +latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize +shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their +love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them. +Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns +to complete the _tableau_. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many +deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these +marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the +spectators. + +The _Shepherds' Holiday_ is the most typical, as it is on the whole the +most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the +Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page +informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is +satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the +translater of Corneille's _Cid_, who appears to have been in some way +attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of +Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The +following analysis will sufficiently express its nature. + +At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of +Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral +inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished, +carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament, +the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich +shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain +Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene +between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss +of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone, +however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her +love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis, +finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him +with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the +giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she +faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her +father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court. +Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus, +recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son +of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd +Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country +folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had +discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now +again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity +of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile +Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own +daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king +to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore +commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born, +but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and +carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to +commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers +fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the +play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a +restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who +adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her +lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her +still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries, +however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis, +overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a +friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in +accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and +Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to +die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however, +leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends +happily.[332] + +In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be +desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the +unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is +properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot +on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but +clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to +predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The +verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if +its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in +flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser +poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the +_Shepherds' Holiday_ from _Hymen's Triumph_. Rutter's verse also displays +a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it +preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which +Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which +opens with a reminiscence of Spenser: + + All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks, + So pine and languish they, as in despair + He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks + Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair, + Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them. + And now what beauty can there be to live, + When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.) + +Again the opening situation recalls that of _Hymen's Triumph_, a +resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual +names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of +Dorinda are taken from the _Pastor fido_. From the _Aminta_, of course, +comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of +the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the _Pastor fido_ her +confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines +of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation: + + Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul, + Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina + But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so; + To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[333] (II. iii.) + +But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the +construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his +own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his +love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and +also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. +Verbal reminiscences of the _Aminta_ also are scattered through the play, +for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who +seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations +particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. +Her father not unreasonably retorts: + + Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is, + Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth + To follow you with lies and flatteries. + Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades, + Which will not always last, and you go crooked, + As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground, + Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.) + +With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of +those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists +make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, +Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly +have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our +attention. + +Cowley's _Love's Riddle_, published in 1638, but written two or three +years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply +to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it +is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of +genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics +professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not +finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's +conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley +had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the +world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was +perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely +on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less +clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were +interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and +courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic +or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin. + +Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the +shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at +the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her +suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and +Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, +finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost +his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with +the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, +daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral +characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, +who fills at once the rôles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On +Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and +Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister +Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of +some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after +vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under +the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with +Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that +he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad +Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him +home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by +transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, +working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and +Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. +Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in +Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to +recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by +Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their +lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's +identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is +found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, +stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby +removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and +Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent +to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted +by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs +is secured. + +There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley +shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of +individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there +is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole +construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various +threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, +fall apart of themselves, without any _dénoûment_, strictly speaking, at +all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, +absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction. + +The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of +mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below +the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which +possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found +in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora: + + How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples + Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.) + +or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her +brother's sword: + + As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet + Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble: + I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune, + And am almost worne out with often playing; + And therefore I would entertaine my death + As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.) + +Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct +following without imitation of _The Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph.' +Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it +was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its +application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not +taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of +astrologers.[334] That Cowley had read _The Jealous Lovers_, published in +1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the +yet unpublished _Amyntas_. This he may perhaps have seen when it was +performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own +Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of +Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual +verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little +doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque, +half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed +to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of +Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in _Amyntas_, +while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene +of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of +Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation, +rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and +his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have +been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the _Jealous Lovers_, she is +probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in +_Amyntas_. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the +liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will +not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of +incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the +loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere +schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could +be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft +are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some +praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The +position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls +that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia, +particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe. +The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel +finds of course an obvious parallel in _Twelfth Night_. The discovery of +Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in +Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's +_Filli di Sciro_, which might also be traced in the attribution to +centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral +tradition. + +It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral +tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English +stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a +schoolboy. _Love in its Extasy_, described on the title-page as 'a kind of +Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of +Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William +Peaps.[335] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to +have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps +regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile +effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[336] treating of tyrants and +revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might +have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the +publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a +period after 1642. + +_Love in its Extasy_ itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be +called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it +with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the +title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of +the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in +their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is +no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere +of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in +the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or +pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is +for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and, +considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author. +An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two +princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other +appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths, +and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple +elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot +intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be +admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a +wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and +the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it +has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will +be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly +incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one +prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally +important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic +tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics +are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure +respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form. + +The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is +true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the +practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly +unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can +hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines, +as where a lover bids his penitent mistress + + Go, + Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine + Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.) + +There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to +dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness +displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun +writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and +pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have +been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who +know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the +composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities +Cowley's flashy precocity. + +This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated +play entitled _Love's Victory_, extracts from a manuscript of which were +printed in 1853.[337] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the +date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat +archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with +free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is +of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts, +but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a +pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the _finale_, while the +situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the +quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The +only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate +their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the +involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the +whole the poetic merit is small.[338] + +We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within +our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or +at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces +in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for +our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each +other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice +differences of form as may be found to exist among them. + + + + +Chapter VII. + +Masques and General Influence + + + +I + + +The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what +may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the +early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic +kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, +and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of +its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may +often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and +exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines +of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact +usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous +and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate +themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that _Comus_ is a +masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question +of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt +may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must +not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics +such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest +possible signification as including not only the regular and highly +developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on +the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all +dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or +inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the +question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a +particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and +quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of +forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever +classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a +clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat +in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully +developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something +no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from +the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times +especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, +and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral +tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong. + +The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may +well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the +isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the +pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to +supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while +the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing +matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of +structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had +long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and +occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter +forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the +pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more +noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama. + +The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of +interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which +Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according +to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn. +The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it +is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being +no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation. + +The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the +middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for +classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight +entertainment, to which the name of _The Lady of May_ has been given by +modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth +during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to +have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict +sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains +the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind. +The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the +May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending +for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party +being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who +decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show. +A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old +shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the +character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little +more extravagant than that of Sidney's own _Arcadia_. As in the romance, +at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional +songs are of small merit. + +The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work +breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the _Descensus +Astraeae_, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the +Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. +1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment +of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of +pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car +with the words: + + Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green, + Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks; + Such pastures are not common to be seen: + Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks, + For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall; + And heaven's great architect be praised for all[339]. + +In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate +speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together +with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march. + +The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her +Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at +Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right +Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very +characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing +rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the +compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more +detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards +Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild +man who began his speech thus: + + I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why, + nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to + our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan, + whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty + thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee + Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet + counted the god of the Woods. + +He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle +of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their +Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all +join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read +further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest +Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.' +Ceres sings: + + Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking; + Pomona pineth, + Fruitlesse her tree; + Fair Phoebus shineth + Onely on mee. + Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,... + All other Gods of power bereven, + Ceres only Queene of heaven. + + With Robes and flowers let me be dressed; + Cynthia that shineth + Is not so cleare, + Cynthia declineth + When I appeere, + Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ... + And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers, + Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres. + +She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely +Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech; +whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show +accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the +metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree, +having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.' + + Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth, + This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth: + The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene, + And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene. + If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste, + And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.' + +'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne +after, with these words:' + + Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire, + Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste, + And yet because so chaste, must I despaire? + And to despaire, I yeelded have at last. + +'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:' + + I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene + of chastety, &c. + +a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader. +The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus. +Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the +shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the +feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake. +After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in +a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked +Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes +the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of +Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's +delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but +however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other +similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not +necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[340] + +To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces +printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of +_Dialogues and Dramas_.[341] The only one of these that can really be +styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled _Amphrissa, or the +Forsaken Shepherdess_. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and +fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the +unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins +in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise +counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the +scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, +virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously +raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song. + +In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most +appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest +concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in +blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards +Euphuism. Thus we read of men how + + like as the Chamelions change themselves + Into all perfect colours saving white; + So they can to all humors frame their speech, + Save only to prove honest; + +or else how + + light minds are catcht with little things, + And Phancie smels to Fennell. + +Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness +the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in +the _Gallathea_ already quoted (p. 227): + + You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits, + A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse, + And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste: + It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart: + 'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst, + And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie. + +Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us +rather of Daniel and the sonneteers: + + To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst, + And all contingents brooke with patience, + Is a most soveraigne medicine. + +All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who +regards the piece as forming part of the _Five Plays in One_, acted at the +Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed +in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with +the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is +that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, +and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from +the work of Peele and Lyly. In _Jupiter and Io_, which perhaps made part +of the same performance as _Amphrissa_, Mercury disguises himself as a +shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good +purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the +inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the +character of which can be easily imagined from its title, _Apollo and +Daphne_, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of +the mythological pastoral: + + Howsoe're the Minutes go, + Run the heures or swift or slow: + Seem the Months or short or long, + Passe the seasons right or wrong: + All we sing that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + + Early fall the Spring or not, + Prove the Summer cold or hot: + Autumne be it faire or foule, + Let the Winter smile or skowle: + Still we sing, that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + +Passing on to the seventeenth century, the first piece that demands +attention is the St. John's Twelfth Night entertainment, _Narcissus_, +performed at Oxford in 1602. If its pastoral quality is somewhat +evanescent, there is another point of view from which the piece has a good +deal of interest. It is, namely, a burlesque production of the nature of +the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and +flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela +eclogue in _Menaphon_. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the +'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, +evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the _Metamorphoses_, and +which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[342] I +may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, suggested by Ovid, are +introduced and handled with more than usual ingenuity; and further to +quote two characteristic passages. In one of these the nymphs Florida and +Clois court the affections of the loveless hero. + + _Florida._ Shine thou on mee, sweet plannet, bee soe good + As with thy fiery beames to warme my bloud ... + + _Narcissus._ To speak the truth, faire maid, if you will have us, + O Oedipus I am not, I am Davus. + + _Clois._ Good Master Davis, bee not so discourteous + As not to heare a maidens plaint for vertuous. + + _Nar._ Speake on a Gods name, so love bee not the theame. + + _Flo._ O, whiter then a dish of clowted creame, + Speake not of love? How can I overskippe + To speake of love to such a cherrye lippe? + + _Nar._ It would beseeme a maidens slender vastitye + Never to speake of any thinge but chastitye. + + _Flo._ As true as Helen was to Menela + So true to thee will be thy Florida. + + _Clo._ As was to trusty Pyramus truest Thisbee + So true to you will ever thy sweete Clois bee. + + _Flo._ O doe not stay a moment nor a minute, + Love is a puddle, I am ore shooes in it. + + _Clo._ Doe not delay us halfe a minutes mountenance + That ar in love, in love with thy sweet countenance. + + _Nar._ Then take my dole although I deale my alms ill, + Narcissus cannot love with any damzell; + Although, for most part, men to love encline all, + I will not, I, this is your answere finall. + +We are here, it is true, as far as ever from the delicate rusticity of +Lorenzo de' Medici, and not particularly near to the humour of the +Athenian rustics, but for burlesque it is passably amusing. The _Midsummer +Night's Dream_ had appeared possibly a decade earlier, and the audience in +the college hall at Oxford can hardly but have been reminded of Wall and +Moonshine as they listened to the speech by one who enters carrying 'a +buckett and boughes and grasse.' + + A well there was withouten mudd, + Of silver hue, with waters cleare, + Whome neither sheep that chawe the cudd, + Shepheards nor goates came ever neare; + Whome, truth to say, nor beast nor bird, + Nor windfalls yet from trees had stirrde. + [_He strawes the grasse about the buckett._ + And round about it there was grasse, + As learned lines of poets showe, + Which next by water nourisht was; [_Sprinkle water._ + Neere to it too a wood did growe, _[Sets down the bowes._ + To keep the place, as well I wott, + With too much sunne from being hott. + And thus least you should have mistooke it, + The truth of all I to you tell: + Suppose you the well had a buckett, + And so the buckett stands for the well; + And 'tis, least you should counte mee for a sot O, + A very pretty figure cald _pars pro toto_. + +The first strict masque of a pastoral character that we meet with is that +of Juno and Iris, with the dance of nymphs and the 'sunburnt sicklemen, of +August weary,' introduced by Shakespeare into the _Tempest_; but this must +not be taken as altogether typical of the independent productions of the +time. The masques introduced into plays were necessarily, for the most +part, of a slighter and less elaborate character than those performed at +court, or for the entertainment of persons of rank. This is more +particularly the case with the serions portions of the masques, since the +actors, who were engaged for the performance of the antimasques in court +revels, frequently transferred their parts bodily on to the public boards. +Thus, in the entertainment in the _Winters Tale_, in which shepherds also +appear, the main feature was a dance of satyrs, which was no doubt +borrowed from Jonson's _Masque of Oberon_.[343] The _Tempest_ masque, +however, is of the simpler type, without antimasque. At Juno's command +Iris summons Ceres, and the goddesses together bestow their blessing on +the young lovers. Then at Iris' call come the naiads and the reapers for +the dance. The date of the play may be taken as late in 1610, or early the +next year, a time at which the popularity of the masque was reaching its +height. + +Although the mythological element is everywhere prominent, the pastoral is +comparatively of rare occurrence in the regular masque literature of the +seventeenth century. This, considering the adaptability and natural +suitability of the form, is rather surprising. Probably the masque as it +evolved itself at the court of James needed a subject possessing a +traditional story, or at least fixed and known conditions of a kind which +the pastoral was unable to supply. Be this as it may, on one occasion +only did Jonson make extended use of the kind, namely, in the masque which +in the folio of 1640 appears with the heading 'Pans Anniversarie; or, The +Shepherds Holy-day. The Scene Arcadia. As it was presented at Court before +King James. 1625. The Inventors, Inigo Jones, Ben. Johnson[344].' Even +here, however, we learn little concerning the condition of pastoralism in +general, from the highly specialized form employed to a specific purpose. +As in all the regular masques of the Jonsonian type the characters and +situations exist solely for the opportunities they afford for dance and +song. Shepherds and nymphs constitute the personae of the masque proper, +while those of the antimasque are supplied by a band of Bocotian clowns, +who come to challenge the Arcadians to the dance. Some of the songs are +very graceful, suggesting at times reminiscences of Spenser, at others +parallels to Ben's own _Sad Shepherd_, but the piece does not possess +either sufficient importance or interest to justify our lingering over it. +Outside this piece the nearest approach to pastoral characters to be found +in Jonson's masques are, perhaps, the satyr and Queen Mab in the fairy +entertainment at Althorp in 1603, Silenus and the satyrs in _Oberon_ in +1611, and Zephyrus, Spring, and the Fountains and Rivers in _Chloridia_ in +1631. + +During James I's reign pastoral shows of a sort no doubt became frequent. +While in some cases which remain to be noticed they reached the +elaboration of small plays, in others they probably remained simple +affairs enough. We get an interesting glimpse of the conditions of +production in a note of John Aubrey's.[345] 'In tempore Jacobi,' he +writes, 'one Mr. George Ferraby was parson of Bishops Cannings in Wilts: +an excellent musitian, and no ill poet. When queen Anne came to Bathe, her +way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. +He made severall of his neighbours, good musitians, to play with him in +consort, and to sing. Against her majestie's comeing, he made a pleasant +pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in +shepherds' weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that +wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues.' This was in +1613; Ferraby or Ferebe later became chaplain to the king. + +The more elaborate pieces were usually written for performance at schools +or colleges. Such a piece is Tatham's _Love Crowns the End_, composed for +the scholars of Bingham in Nottinghamshire in 1633, and printed in his +_Fancy's Theatre_ in 1640. Small literary interest attaches to the play, +which is equally slight and ill constructed, but is perhaps not +unrepresentative of its class. In spite of its very modest dimensions it +possesses a full romantic-pastoral plot, with the resuit that it is at +times almost unintelligible, owing to the want of space in which to +develop in an adequate and dramatic manner the motives and situations. The +bewildering rapidity with which character succeeds character upon the +stage must have made the representation almost impossible to follow, while +the reading of the piece is not a little complicated by the confusion in +which the stage directions remain in the only modern edition.[346] Some +notion of the complexity of the plot may be gathered from the following +account. Cliton, having in a fit of jealousy sought to kill his love +Florida, is found wandering in the woods by Alexis, who receives his +confession and shows him the way to repentance. Florida, moreover, has +been found and healed by the wise shepherdess Claudia, and is living in +retirement. Meanwhile Cloe (a name which it appears from the rimes that +the author pronounced Cloi) is saved by Lysander from the pursuit of a +Lustful Shepherd, in consequence of which she transfers to him the +affection she previously bore to her lover Daphnes. Next Leon and his +daughter Gloriana appear, together with the swain Francisco, to whom +against her will the maiden is apparently betrothed. They all go off to +view the games in which Lysander, whose heart is also fixed on Gloriana, +proves victor. His refusal to entertain the affection of Cloe drives her +to a state of distraction, in which the nymphs of the woods take pity on +her and bring her to Claudia to be cured. Gloriana in the meantime returns +the affections of Lysander, but the meeting of the lovers is interrupted +by the jealous Francisco and a gang who wound Lysander and carry off +Gloriana. She escapes from her captors, but only after she has lost her +reason, and wanders about until she meets with Cliton, who has turned +hermit and who now undertakes her cure. Throughout the play we find comic +interludes by Scrub, a page or attendant in search of his master, who also +has some farcical business with the Lustful Shepherd, who after being +disappointed of Cloe disguises himself as a satyr, apparently deeming that +rôle suited to his taste. In the end all the characters are brought +together. Francisco, found contrite, is forgiven by Lysander and Gloriana; +Cliton and Florida love once more; so do Daphnes and Cloe, appropriately +enough. Scrub announces the death of the usurping duke, 'who banished good +old Leon;' Francisco and Lysander reveal themselves as princes who left +the court to win his daughter's love, when he was driven from his land, +and so--love crowns the end. + +Through this medley it is not hard to see the various debts the author has +incurred towards his predecessors. The verse, in rimed couplets, whether +deca- or octo-syllabic, ultimately depends on Fletcher; of the comic prose +scenes I have already spoken in dealing with Goffe's _Careless +Shepherdess_, a play the influence of which may perhaps be specifically +traced in the satyr-disguise, the gang who carry off Gloriana, her +unexplained escape, and the songs of the 'Destinies' and a 'Heavenly +Messenger,' who in their inconsequence recall the 'Bonus Genius' of +Goffe's play. Scrub may owe his origin to the same source, though he is +rather more like the page in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The usurping duke +recalls _As You Like It_; the princes seeking their love-fortunes among +the shepherd folk suggest the _Arcadia_; while the influence of the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ is not only traceable in the character of the +Lustful Shepherd, but also in certain specific parallels, as where the +wounded Lysander, seeing his love carried off, exclaims: + + Stay, stay! let me but breathe my last + Upon her lips, and I'll forgive what's past; (p. 24) + +a reminiscence of the lines spoken by Alexis in a similar situation: + + Oh, yet forbear + To take her from me! give me leave to die + By her! (_Faithful Shepherdess_, III. i. 165[347].) + +The general level of the verse is not high, but we now and again light on +some pleasing lines such as the following: + + My dearest love, fair as the eastern morn + As it breaks o'er the plains when summer's born, + Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree, + New life and hope imparting, as to me + Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare + As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air + The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play + The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away, + And thou shalt stand as judge to censure me. (p. 18.) + +So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant +echo of Peele's gem: + + _Gloriana._ Sit, while I do gather flowers + And depopulate the bowers. + Here's a kiss will come to thee! + + _Lysander._ Give me one, I'll give thee three! + + _Both._ Thus in harmless sport we may + Pass the idle hours away. + + _Gloriana._ Hark! hark, how fine + The birds do chime! + And pretty Philomel + Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.) + +Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum +manuscript, where it bears the title of _The Converted Robber_.[348] No +author's name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced. The +scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the +occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with +Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words: + + Lett us that do noe envy beare um + Wish all felicity to Sarum. + +Now in 1636,[349] according to Anthony à Wood, there was acted at St. +John's College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled _Stonehenge_, the +occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as +Dean of Salisbury. We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two +pieces. The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated +1637. This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may +possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting +the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal +reckoning. + +The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a +stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link +between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles _Comus_, +employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai +dances of the masque.[350] + +The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds +and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of +Stonehenge--'stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of +Sarum'--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the +shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved +from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her +love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve +him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd +folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among +them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During +a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda's sister, and +finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to +stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and +is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall +upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason +by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in +his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while +Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful +swains, Palaemon and Dorus. + +In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic +construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque. +The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual +'rime' is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in +the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, +as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of +dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of +keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the +Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one +recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the substitution of the +name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false +etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called 'Pannes blest +babe.' After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old +shepherd proceeds: + + But sturdy shepherds brought all the other stones, + And reard up that great Munster all at once, + Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man, + Do come to worship theyr great God Pann. + +A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by +Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit +to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the +queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, +when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue +ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and +Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain +Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd +and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author +of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest +authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its +construction, of Davenant's _Prince d'Amour_.[351] + +Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on +which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor's pageant. The +'first show by land' of the _Porta Pietatis_, presented by the drapers in +1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot's mayoralty, consisted of a +speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short +account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of +sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft +honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of +London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often +startling information. + +We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the +Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of +Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic +dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age +of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his +_Triumph of Beauty_, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular +masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the goddesses and +their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen +and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of +Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a +comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small +play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden +fleece, reminiscent, like _Narcissus_, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. +This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city +pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite +allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it +was dependent on the _libretto_, demanded a power of light and graceful +lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the +author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of +the goddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary +audience than they do to the reader to-day. + +I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by +Robert Baron in his romance Ἐροτοπαίγνιον, _or the Cyprian Academy_, +printed in 1647. It is entitled _Gripus and Hegio, or the Passionate +Lovers_, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and Daris; +while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of stricter +propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse classical myth; +Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of pastoral +commonplace. The romance also contains a masque entitled _Deorum Dona_, in +which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and the like. +It is in no wise pastoral. + +Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry +than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny's +_Shepherds' Holiday_, printed from manuscript in the _Inedited Poetical +Miscellany_ of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only +slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical +cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather +temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in +the preface. + +A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or +less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. +This is the case, for instance, in the _Acteon and Diana_, published in +1656.[352] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, +a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole. Then +enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs. +Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is +rebuked by the goddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the +forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when +they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the goddess turns upon him, +and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of +the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his +own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre +description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt +depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious +fact, to which Davenant's work among others is witness, that the nominally +private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while +the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it +must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without +sacrificing either propriety or tradition. + +Another similar composition, headed 'The Rural Sports on the Birthday of +the Nymph Oenone,' is printed together with the above. In it the strains +of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, +the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs. + +One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The +reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will +endeavour to repair it. + + + +II + + +In Milton's contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day +we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in +question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict +application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to +extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn +from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the +early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as _Arcades_ +and _Comus_, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether +different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional +commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster +of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow +masque: 'I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the +Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs +and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing +parallel in our Language[353].' + +The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written +within a short while of one another, and the second anticipated by more +than three years the composition of _Lycidas_. But the connexion between +the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was +the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite +evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the +entertainment, of which as we are told _Arcades_ formed a part, originated +with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the +following year probably, bore the chief parts in _Comus_. The +entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, +the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy +at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir +John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando +Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of +actors with whom Shakespeare's name is associated; and secondly, after +his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by +rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The +span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving +events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare's patron, who +may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of +his first appearance on the London stage--the 'Amarillis' of _Colin +Clout_, with whom, and with her sisters 'Phillis' and 'Charillis,' Spenser +claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his _Tears of the Muses_ in +1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amusement in the +reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master +Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of _Paradise Lost_. + +_Arcades_, or 'the Arcadians,' can hardly be dignified by the name of a +masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at +the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the +constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following +year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced +into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription +explicitly informs us, but 'Part of an entertainment presented to the +Countess Dowager of Darby.' Nevertheless it is complete and +self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Masson does, as 'part, +and part only, of a masque,' is to give a wholly false impression; for, +whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the +least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the +portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A +group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, +approach the 'seat of State' where sits the venerable Countess, whom they +address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of +the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[354] This is followed by a song +introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to +a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is +of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the +rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that +to which it served as herald: + + Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more + By sandy Ladons Lillied banks; + On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar + Trip no more in twilight ranks; + Though Erymanth your loss deplore + A better soyl shall give ye thanks. + From the stony Maenalus + Bring your Flocks, and live with us; + Here ye shall have greater grace + To serve the Lady of this place, + Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were, + Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. + Such a rural Queen + All Arcadia hath not seen. + +Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as +also of that harmonious interweaving of classical names which long years +after was to lend weight and dignity to the 'full and heightened style' of +the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the +quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, +indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which +Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he +cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the +fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among +the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his +mind turned, through some natural bent or early association, to the +employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more +forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the +composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college +acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical +transmutation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language. + +It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes +was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of +the _Triumph of Peace_ and the _Coelum Britannicum_, that Milton composed +the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day +familiar with the term 'masque.' In the second of the elaborate +productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no +particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpassed author, Tom +Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief +nobles deigned to bear a part--minor rôles had been assigned to the two +sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master +Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to assume the +Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their +sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed +before the assembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow +Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, +the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest. + +It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in +the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, +but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval +ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and +costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the +spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more +splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great +hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town +upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour +and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall +just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the +unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting +out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate +under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London. + +I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which +we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary +history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in +view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor +Masson. The debts Milton owed to the _Somnium_ of Puteanus, to Peele's +_Old Wives' Tale_ and to Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, are now all +more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and +character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The +second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers +for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while +many passages might be cited to prove Milton's close acquaintance with +Fletcher's poem[355]. + +The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one +important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that +in which it left Milton's hand. This form is attested by the original +quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by +Milton's manuscript draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, +Cambridge. The variant form is found in the manuscript at Bridgewater +House, reputed to be in Lawes' handwriting, which seemingly represents the +acting version. In Milton's text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the +attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long +speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more +appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he +took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently +transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical +speech of the Spirit, substituting the words 'From the heavens' for +Milton's 'To the ocean.' The change was doubtless effective, and was +skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the +poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his +friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements +of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as +performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into +the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his +friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth +into the world in its slender quarto garb. + +A brief analysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is +constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of +the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in +possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by +Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they +seek to trick unwary passengers into drinking of the fateful cup which +shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all +remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them +content 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' Wherefore the Spirit is +sent to guide the steps of those 'favoured of high Jove,' and save them +from the wiles of the fleshly god. Announcing that he goes to assume 'the +weeds and likeness of a swain,' so as to perform his charge unknown, the +Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A +brilliant speech by the god, preceding the first measure, illustrates the +strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that +the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best +work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo +the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning of +sin was intentional on Milton's part; he painted the pleasures of κῶμος in +their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue might appear by +so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to assert that final +victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that unless it was +made psychologically and artistically convincing the total effect would be +the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare the speech of +Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall hardly +escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a mere +schoolboy's idea of 'plot,' as of some combination of events to be infused +with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not such as +should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters themselves. +In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his followers: + + Break off, break off, I feel the different pace + Of some chast footing neer about this ground; + +and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and +narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted +by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding +some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her +brothers' attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus +re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut +where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left +the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with +a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of +virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly +been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's +shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their +sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with +hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the +sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, +'set out with all manner of deliciousness,' where the god and his rabble +are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the +banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its +waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within. +We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the +magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then +follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the +blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the +spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found +to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant +Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin goddess of +the stream: + + Sabrina fair + Listen where thou art sitting + Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, + In twisted braids of Lillies knitting + The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, + Listen for dear honour's sake, + Goddess of the silver lake, + Listen and save. + +Thus conjured in some of the most perfectly musical lines in the language +the daughter of Locrine rises from her waves, and enters the hall with a +song, attended by her obedient nymphs. Having broken the spell and freed +the captive Lady, she at once departs with her train, and after another +speech by the Spirit, the scene changes to the town and castle of Ludlow, +a bevy of shepherds dancing in the foreground. After these have concluded +their measure, the wanderers enter, still guided by the spirit-shepherd, +who presents them safe and sound to their parents. Then follows another +dance, and the Spirit, throwing off, we may presume, his pastoral +disguise, launches into his final speech: + + To the Ocean now I fly, + And those happy climes that ly + Where day never shuts his eye; + +concluding: + + Mortals that would follow me, + Love vertue, she alone is free, + She can teach ye how to clime + Higher than the Spheary chime; + Or if Vertue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +Such is the bare outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help +wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the +flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we +have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the +life it enjoyed for one brief hour nearly three hundred years ago. We must +be thankful that we count the poem itself among our treasures, and be +content to confine our inquiry to it. It is, after all, to the accidents +of its production as the body to the robes that adorn it. + +It must be confessed that outwardly at least _Comus_ has but little +connexion with pastoral. The habit of the Spirit, the disguise of the +magician, the dance in the third scene, these are the only points serving +to connect the poem with pastoral tradition in any formal manner. It is +not, however, on account of these that _Comus_ has been commonly assigned +to the same category as the _Faithful Shepherdess_ and _Lycidas_, but +rather because its whole tone, its mode, one might almost say, is +essentially pastoral, and because it is directly dependent upon previous +pastoral work. + +It has been the fashion to praise _Comus_ above all other masques +whatever, and from the point of view of the poetry it contains it would be +idle to dispute its supremacy. But there are other considerations. As a +masque proper, and from the point of view of what had come to be expected +of such compositions, how does it stand? I am not here concerned to +inquire how far the term can with strict propriety be applied to the +piece, a question which may be left to the somewhat arid region of the +formal classification of literature. The points in which it resembles the +regular spectacular masques, as well as those in which it differs from +them, will be alike evident from the analysis given above. It may, +however, be well to put in a caution against the manner in which some +writers on the masque seek to make their distinctions appear more clearly +defined than they in reality are by declaring _Comus_ to be not a masque +at all but a play. It is no more a regular play than it is a strict +masque, but a dramatic composition containing elements of both in almost +equal proportions. + +That the songs are for the most part exquisite, that they were worthily +set to music and adequately rendered; that the measures, the dance of the +revellers in their half-brutish disguises, the antimasque of country folk, +and the final or main dance of the wanderers, were effective; that the +whole was graceful, complete and polished, is either self-evident to-day, +or may with reason be inferred. The scenery, too, must have been striking; +the dreary forest, its darkness just relieved by the half-seen +'glistering' forms; the heavy drug-like splendour of the enchanted palace +and the cold moonlight outside; the bright, fresh sunshine, lastly, +dew-washed, of the early morning; there were here a series of pictures the +contrasts of which must have added to their individual effect. The scene, +the song and the measure, these form, indeed, the very stuff that masques +are made of. But Milton's poem offered more than this; and it may well be +questioned how far this more was of a nature to recommend it to the tastes +of his audience, or indeed to heighten rather than to diminish its merits +as a work of literature and art. There was, in the first place, a +philosophical and moral intention, which, however veiled in fanciful +imagery and clothed in limpid verse, is yet not content to be an inspiring +principle and artistic occasion of the poem, but obtrudes itself directly +in the length of some of the speeches; refuses, that is, to subserve the +aesthetic purpose, and endeavours to divert the poetic beauty to its own +non-aesthetic ends. In the second place, and probably of greater +importance as regards the actual success of the piece on the stage, it +contained somewhat of dramatic emotion, of incident which depended for its +value upon its effect on the characters involved, which was ill served by +the spectacular machinery and necessary limitations of the composition, +while at the same time it must have interfered with the opportunity for +mere sensuous effect which it was the main business of the masque to +afford. The weight which different persons will attach to these objections +will no doubt vary with their individual temperaments, their +susceptibility to the magical charm of the verse, their sense of artistic +propriety, and the degree to which they are able to recall in imagination +the conditions of a bygone form of artistic presentation. I speak for +myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, +Milton's poem appears to me to be surpassed, for instance, by the best of +Jonson's masques, no less than it surpasses them, and all others of their +kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the 'tragical' or +lyrical portions. + +Since I have ventured to formulate certain objections against an +acknowledged masterpiece, it will be well that I should define as clearly +as possible the ground upon which those objections are based. I have, I +hope, sufficiently emphasized my dissent from that school of criticism +which condemns a work of art for not conforming to one or another of a +series of fixed types. That _Comus_ lies, so to speak, midway between the +drama and the masque, and partakes of the nature of either, is not, by any +inherent law of literary aesthetics, a blemish; what in my view is a +blemish, and that a serions one, is that the means employed are not +calculated to the demands of the situation. The struggle of the Lady +against the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost +sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however +simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel +that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements +of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction. That is to say +that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, +an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium +adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not +in its regular and orthodox form. It follows that the dramatic interest is +a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is +necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content. + +It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely +styled 'A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle'; the title of _Comus_ was +first affixed by Warton. It was an obvious title for a critic to adopt; it +is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of +choosing. Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of +the masques at court, the title of the _Triumph of Virtue_ could not but +have suggested itself. This is indeed the very theme of the piece. Virtue +in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the +attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the +blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of +Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque. It is a +subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular illustration, and +possesses a moral after Milton's own heart. The closing lines of the poem, +already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive. Were the subject, +on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the +Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise--had; indeed, in +varying forms long exercised--the highest dramatic genius. But in this +direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton's most evident +limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the +idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in +undeniable failure. From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the +terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular +performance. Yet in spite of this Milton's conception of the piece is, as +we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the +means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the +Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high rôle. +The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to +satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call +forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual +to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means. + +These considerations have an important bearing upon the other objection +which I ventured to bring forward, that of moralizing; for it cannot be +argued, I imagine, that the direct expression of philosophical or ethical +ideas is in any way illegitimate in the masque proper, any more than it is +in the choric ode. But, as I have said, Milton--no doubt intentionally, +though the point is irrelevant--has raised dramatic issues and dramatic +emotions, and consequently by the laws of the drama, that is, by his +success in satisfying those emotions, he must be judged. All speeches +therefore introduced with a directly moral and philosophical rather than a +dramatic end must be pronounced artistic solecisms. Whether Milton has +been guilty of such undramatic interpolations, such lapses from the one +end of art, may be left to the individual judgement of each reader to +determine; for my own part I cannot conceive that any doubt should exist. + +But even if we pass over what some readers will be inclined to dismiss as +a mere theoretical objection, there are other charges which these same +passages will have to meet. Those who have borne with me in my remarks on +the _Aminta_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_, will probably also agree with +me here, when I say that to me at least there is something not altogether +pleasing in Milton's presentment of virtue. I should add at once, that to +place Milton's poem on an ethical level with either of the above-mentioned +pieces would, of course, be preposterous. It is impossible to doubt the +severe chastity of Milton's own ideal, and to compare it for one moment to +the conventional _onestà_ which replaced virtue in Tasso's world, or with +the nauseous unreality of the puppet Fletcher sought to enthrone in its +place, would be to commit an uncritical outrage. Nevertheless, the +expression Milton chose to give to his ideal cannot, therefore, lay claim +to privilege. That expression had become intimately associated with +pastoral convention, and he accepted it along with much else from his +predecessors. I am not aware of any reason why spectators should have been +prejudiced otherwise than in favour of the Lady Alice Egerton; but she is, +nevertheless, careful to take the first opportunity of informing them, +with much earnest protestation, of her quite remarkable purity and virtue, +implying as it were a naïve surprise at having arrived unsullied at the +perilous age of thirteen. The stilted affectation of this self-conscious +innocence is perhaps less evident in the scene in which we should most +readily look for it--that, namely, in which the Lady defends herself from +the persuasions of the Sorcerer, where a certain fervour of feeling raises +her utterances above a merely colourless level--than in the long soliloquy +in which she indulges on first appearing on the stage. Something of the +same disagreeable quality is present in the rather mawkish discussion +between her two young brothers. Milton, who is entirely untouched, either +with the levity of Tasso or the cynicism of Fletcher, was undoubtedly +himself wholly unconscious that any such charge could be brought against +his work. It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want +of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in passages of +offensively bad taste[356]. As yet it is hardly responsible for anything +worse than a confused conception in the poet's imagination. [Greek: Πάντα +καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς], and the allegory is an old one whereby virtue +appears as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is, however, to those +alone who are innocent of evil that belongs the faery talisman. The +virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, +but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the +glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels +instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth +into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing, of course, would be easier +than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule +upon the whole of Milton's conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is +it more needful than in such a case as the present to remember the +fundamental maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking at its +strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside for the moment all questions of art +and all considerations of taste, there remains a question worthy of being +fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained. Milton has +deliberately penned passages of smug self-conceit upon a subject whose +delicacy he was apparently incapable of appreciating, and these passages +he has placed, to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child +just passing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby outraging at once +the innocence of childhood and the reticence of youth. Is it possible to +pretend that this is an action upon which moral censure has no word to +say[357]? + +It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or +to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the +verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat +injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a +certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality +of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the nobleness of +Milton's conception and the brilliance, within certain limits, of the +execution; but when we are further challenged to admire the 'moral +grandeur' of the figure in which virtue is honoured, there are some at +least who will feel tempted to reply in the significant words: 'Methinks +the lady doth protest too much!' + +A word may be said finally as to the quality of the verse. I need not +repeat that it is exquisite, that the music of it is like a full stream +overflowing the rich pastures; what I am concerned to maintain is, that it +is not for the most part of Milton's best. In the first place, what, for +want of a better name, I have called Milton's moralizing is a blemish upon +the poetic as it is upon the dramatic merits of the piece. The muse of +poetry, like all her sisters, is not slow in avenging herself of a divided +allegiance. By the cynical irony of fortune already noticed, where Milton +would most impress us with his moral he becomes least poetical. There is, +it is true, hardly a speech or a song which does not contain lines worthy +to rank with any in the language, from the opening words: + + Before the starry threshold of Joves Court, + +to the final couplet: + + Or if Virtue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +But there are passages in which these memorable lines appear as so much +rich embroidery superimposed upon the baser fabric of the verse, not woven +of the woof. They are in their nature more easily detached, and often form +the best known and most often quoted passages of the work. Take the first +speech of the Lady, concerning which something has already been said. Here +we find the lines: + + They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n + Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed + Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain; + +or again: + + A thousand fantasies + Begin to throng into my memory + Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire, + And airy tongues, that syllable mens names + On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses; + +or yet again: + + Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud + Turn forth her silver lining on the night? + +We have the song: + + Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen + Within thy airy shell + By slow Meander's margent green, + And in the violet imbroider'd vale + Where the love-lorn Nightingale + Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well. + +Such lines would justly render famous any passage in any poem in which +they occurred. Nevertheless, remove them, which can be done without +material injury to the sequence of the thought, and see whether in its +warp and web the speech can for a moment stand comparison with that of +Comus, to which it stands in direct and dramatic contraposition. + +But this drawback is only incidental; through nine-tenths of the piece, +perhaps, there is little or no moral preoccupation to disturb us. And +here, though no doubt the poetic beauty reaches a climax in the song to +Sabrina--a song for pure music certainly unsurpassed and probably +unequalled by anything else that Milton ever wrote--there are others, such +as 'By the rushy-fringed bank,' as well as less distinctively lyrical +passages, which come within measurable distance even of its perfection. +And yet, with certain noticeable exceptions, there are few passages in +which comparison with Milton's later works will not reveal technical +immaturity. This is no less true of the decasyllabic verse, when compared +with the full sonority of _Lycidas_, than of the shorter measures. Take, +for example, the invocation of Sabrina which follows the song previously +quoted--the speech beginning: + + Listen and appear to us + In name of great Oceanus. + +In spite of its very great beauty there is observable at the same time a +certain monotony of cadence, and an occasional want of success in the +attempts to relieve it, which place the passage distinctly below Milton's +best. And yet it seems almost ungenerous to place Milton even below +himself, particularly when in the very speech we are criticizing we are +brought face to face with two such flawless lines as those on 'fair +Ligea's golden comb', + + Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks + Sleeking her soft alluring locks-- + +lines which anticipate and rival the perfection of rhythmic modulation in +_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_[358]. + + + +III + + +There remains to inquire what influence of pastoral tradition is traceable +in the wider field of the romantic drama, whether in individual scenes and +characters, or more vaguely in general tone and sentiment; and, finally, +to consider for a moment the critical expression given by writers of +various dates to the sentimental philosophy of life which went under the +name of pastoralism in fashionable circles. + +The number of plays in which definite pastoral elements can be traced is +surprisingly small, even when every allowance has been made for the fact +that we have already included in our examination several pieces which come +but doubtfully within the fold. The spirit of the romantic drama, instinct +with sturdy life, had little in common with the artificial and unreal +sentiment of a tradition which had almost ceased to pretend to a basis in +the emotions of natural humanity. The result was, as might be expected, +that when the drama introduced characters of a nominally pastoral type, +they were either direct transcripts from actual life, deliberately +ignoring conventional tradition, or else specifie borrowings from that +tradition, introduced with full consciousness of its fashionable +unreality, and using that unreality for a definite dramatic purpose. Thus, +although the basis of pastoralism is found in non-traditional garb, and +though pastoralism itself is found as the subject of dramatic treatment, +yet, so far as the introduction of individual scenes and characters is +concerned, it is seldom possible to say that pastoral has influenced the +romantic drama in any sensible degree. + +A certain number of plays, presumably of a more or less pastoral nature, +have perished. Thus no trace remains of the _Lusus Pastorales_ licensed to +Richard Jones in 1565, the nature of which can be only vaguely +conjectured. The early date of the entry renders it important, and it is +much to be regretted that the work should have perished, since it might +have thrown very interesting light upon the condition of pastoralism in +England previous to the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_. Most +probably, however, the piece, whatever it may have been, was composed in +Latin. We also have to lament the non-survival of a _Phillida and Corin_, +which, we learn from the Revels' accounts, was acted by the Queen's men +before the court, at Greenwich, on St. Stephen's day, 1584. This again +would be an interesting piece to possess, since the title suggests a +purely pastoral composition contemporary with Peele's mythological play. +On February 28, 1592, Lord Strange's men performed a piece at the Rose, +the title of which is given by Henslowe as 'clorys & orgasto,' presumably +_Chloris and Ergasto_. It was an old play, probably dating from some years +earlier. Whether 'a pastorall plesant Commedie of Robin Hood and little +John,' entered to Edward White in the Stationers' Register, on May 14, +1594, could have justified its title may be questioned, but it is curious +as suggesting an anticipation of Jonson's experiment. Again, on July 17, +1599, George Chapman received of Philip Henslowe forty shillings, in +earnest of a 'Pastorall ending in a Tragydye,' which, however, was +apparently never finished. Possibly our loss is not great, for Chapman's +talents hardly lay in this line; but a tragical ending to a play of the +pure pastoral type would have been something of a novelty, and the early +date would also have lent it some interest. Yet another play known to us +solely from Henslowe's accounts is the _Arcadian Virgin_, on which Chettle +and Haughton were at work for the Admiral's men in December, 1599, and for +which they received sums amounting in all to fifteen shillings. The title +suggests that the play may have been founded on the story of Atalanta, but +it was probably not completed. Ben Jonson's _May Lord_, which we know only +through the notes left by Drummond of his conversations, was almost +certainly not dramatic, though critics have always accepted it as such; +but the same authority records that Jonson at the time of his visit to +Hawthornden was contemplating a fisher-play, the scene to be laid on the +shores of Loch Lomond. There is no evidence that the scheme ever reached a +more mature stage. Finally, I may mention a play entitled _Alba_, a Latin +pastoral, which incurred the royal displeasure when performed before James +and his consort in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605. The +historian of the visit, quoted by Nichols, says that 'It was a pastoral, +much like one which I have seen in King's College, Cambridge, but acted +far worse.' The allusion is presumably to the Latin translation of the +_Pastor fido_. The cause of offence was the appearance of 'five or six men +almost naked,' who no doubt represented satyrs. + +To what extent these plays were of a pastoral character must, of course, +be matter of conjecture. They may have been pastoral plays of a more or +less regular type, they may have been mythological dramas, or they may +have been distinguished from the ordinary run of romantic compositions by +a few incidental traits of pastoralism only. Not a few pieces of the +latter description have been preserved, pieces in which definite traces +of pastoral are to be found, but which cannot as a whole be included in +the kind. + +We have already had occasion to note the very slight pastoral influence +which exists in the short masques or dialogues of Thomas Heywood, in spite +of the opportunity afforded by their mythological character. The same may +be noticed in the plays in which he drew his subject from classical +legend. _Love's Mistress_ is the appropriate and attractive title of a +dramatization of the last-born fancy of the mythopoeic spirit of Greece, +Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche. The early editions add to the title +the further designation of 'The Queen's Masque.' The work is indeed a +composite piece, a masque grown into a play through the accretion of +foreign matter, and was probably in its original state a far simpler +composition than it now appears. The writing is in a dainty vein, and had +the piece been completed in a manner consonant with the simple and idyllic +grace of the earlier scenes, it would have been no such unequal companion +to Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_. What the play contains of pastoral +belongs to one of the accretions. It is a rustic element in the +interludes, satiric and farcical, supplied by a country clown, some +shepherds, and 'a shee Swaine,' Amarillis. In his _Ages_ the pastoral +element shrinks to an occasional dance and song. Thus in the _Golden Age_ +the satyrs and nymphs sing a song in honour of Diana, which introduces the +disguised Jupiter in his courtship of Calisto. In the _Silver Age_, again, +the rape of Proserpine by Pluto is preluded by a song of 'a company of +Swaines, and country Wenches' in honour of Ceres. + +An unkind and quite worthless tradition, based on a manuscript note in an +old copy, has connected Peele's name with the lengthy and tedious drama of +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_. It was admitted into the canon of Peele's +works by Dyce, and though Mr. Bullen differed from his predecessor as to +the justness of the ascription, he retained it in his edition. We find in +it a coarse, dialect-speaking rustic, named Corin, who at one point +succours Clyomon, and with whom Neronis, daughter of the King and Queen of +the Strange Marshes, seeks service in the disguise of a boy. Apart from +his name and the profession of shepherd he is a mere countryman, with +nothing to connect him with pastoral tradition, though the princess' +action finds, of course, abundant parallels therein. The _Old Wives' +Tale_, printed as 'by G. P.,' and of which there is no reason to question +Peele's authorship, connects itself with pastoral chiefly through the +already mentioned parallel which it affords to _Comus_. It also +anticipates, in a song of harvesters, the introduction of the 'sunburnt +sicklemen' of the _Tempest_ masque. + +At a later date we find Shirley in his _Love Tricks_ introducing two +sisters who leave their home and, taking the disguise of shepherd and +shepherdess, dwell among the country folk in the fields and pastures, +whither they are followed by their lovers. There are passages which reveal +a genuine pastoral tone, such as Shirley could readily adopt when it +suited his purpose, and it is not only in the measure that the tradition +reveals itself in such lines as: + + A shepherd is a king whose throne + Is a mossy mountain, on + Whose top we sit, our crook in hand, + Like a sceptre of command, + Our subjects, sheep grazing below, + Wanton, frisking to and fro. (IV. ii.) + +Again, in the _Grateful Servant_ we have a show of 'Satyres pursuing +Nymphes; they dance together. Exeunt Satyres; three Nymphes seem to +intreat [Lodowick] to goe with them,' accompanied by a song of Silvanus. + +Yet slighter traces of pastoral are to be occasionally found in other +plays of the period. Thus in Brome's _Love-Sick Court_ the swains and +nymphs are led in the dance by characters who have sought and found a cure +for love among the country folk. In John Jones' _Adrasta_, the scene of +which is laid at Florence, several of the characters disguise themselves +in pastoral attire, and there is one definitely pastoral scene in which +they appear in the midst of real shepherds and shepherdesses. The play was +printed in 1635, and it is noticeable as containing, in the pastoral +scene, satire on the Puritans resembling that introduced by Jonson in the +_Sad Shepherd_. So again, similar disguisings, though of a less +pronouncedly pastoral character, occur in the anonymous _Knave in Grain_, +in which the scene is Venice. Satyrs and nymphs, clowns and maids, join in +a song in Nashe's curious allegorical show entitled _Summer's Last Will +and Testament_; nymphs and satyrs appear in the interludes of Dekker's +_Old Fortunatus_; Silvanus, with nymphs and satyrs, perform a sort of +interlude with song in the anonymous _Wily Beguiled_; and, lastly, we have +the morris danced by the countrymen and wenches who accompany the jailor's +daughter in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_. + + * * * * * + +The wider influence of tone and spirit is, in the nature of the case, far +more difficult to determine. It is possible that some court-plays may show +the influence of the artificial arrangement of characters and the +conventional play of motives characteristic of the pastoral drama. But it +is a matter of the greatest difficulty to analyse with certainty such +structural peculiarities as these, still more so to assign them with +confidence to their proper origin. Many characteristics which one might at +first sight put down to the influence of the pastoral drama are, in +reality, far more likely to be due to that of the comic stage of Italy in +general. But while it would be rash to assert that the pastoral plays in +this country exercised any wide influence over the regular drama, there +can be no question such an influence was exercised to a very appreciable +degree by pastoral poetry in general. I am not thinking of the romances at +this moment, for as we have already seen it was the non-pastoral elements +in the pastoral novel that exerted such influence as can be traced over +the drama, but rather of the pastoral ideal and the pastoral mode in +general, as expressed either in the lyric, the eclogue, or the drama. In +this the drama shared an influence which was also exercised on other +departments of literature. Numerous songs might be quoted from the scenes +of the Elizabethan dramatists in support of this contention; while, on the +other hand, we also find dramatic and descriptive passages the idyllic +quality of which may not unreasonably be referred to a pastoral source. + +This tendency of the drama to absorb pastoral elements rather from the +lyric and the idyll than from regular plays in that kind is significant. +It is the acknowledgement of an important fact, which pastoralism failed +to recognize; namely, that as the expression of the pastoral idea gained +in complexity of artistic structure it lost in vitality. The pastoral +drama, born late in time, was the outcome of very especial circumstances, +emphatically the child of its age, and little calculated to serve the +artistic requirements of any other. Once the creative impulse that gave it +life was withdrawn the falsity of the kind as a form of art became +manifest; and though it lingered on for many years its life was but that +of a fashionable toy, with little or no hold over the vital literature of +its day. The popularity of the pastoral eclogue or idyll was of far longer +duration. Though the form was more or less definitely conditioned, it had +less of the structural rigidity of the drama, it brought its subject less +into contact with the hard limitations of reality, and, which may also +have been important, brought it less into comparison with other +subject-matter employing the same or a closely analogous form. Thus it was +better able to adapt itself to the tastes and requirements of various +ages, and found favour in such vastly different societies as those for +which Theocritus, Mantuan, Spenser, and Pope produced their works in this +kind. Even here, however, the simple sensuous ideal was too much hampered +by the ungenuine paraphernalia which the conventions of these various +societies had gathered round it to take rank among the permanent and +inevitable forms of literary art. This was granted to the lyric alone. It +was through the lyric that the pastoral ideal and pastoral colouring most +deeply penetrated and influenced existing forms; for the lyric, the freest +and most unconditioned of all poetical kinds, the least tied to the +circumstances and limitations of the actual world, was particularly fitted +to extract the fragrance from the pastoral ideal without raising any +unseasonable questions as to its rational or actual possibility. + + It was a lover and his lass + That o'er the green cornfield did pass-- + +this is the essential; and we ask no more if we are wise. The very +essence, be it remembered, of the pastoral ideal is no more than 'love +_in vacuo_.' And this the lyric alone can give us. + + * * * * * + +But there is one play which more than any other illustrates the nature of +the influence exerted by pastoral tradition over the romantic drama and +the relation subsisting between the two. This is _As You Like It_; for if +in one sense Shakespeare was but following Lodge in the traditional +blending of pastoral elements with those of court and chivalry, in another +sense he has in this play revealed his opinion of, and passed judgement +upon, the whole pastoral ideal. This must necessarily happen whenever a +great creative artist adopts, for reasons of his own, and takes into his +work any merely outward and formal convention. It was rarely that in his +plays Shakespeare showed any inclination to connect himself even remotely +with pastoral tradition. The _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ traces its origin, +indeed, to the _Diana_ of Montemayor; but all vestige of pastoral +colouring has vanished, and Shakespeare may even have been himself +ignorant of the parentage of the story he treated. A more apparent element +of pastoral found its way many years later into the _Winters Tale_; but it +is characteristic of the shepherd scenes of that play, written in the full +maturity of Shakespeare's genius, that, in spite of their origin in +Greene's romance of _Pandosto_, they owe nothing of their treatment to +pastoral tradition, nothing to convention, nothing to aught save life as +it mirrored itself in the magic glass of the poet's imagination. They +represent solely the idealization of Shakespeare's own observation, and in +spite of the marvellous and subtle glamour of golden sunlight that +overspreads the whole, we may yet recognize in them the consummation +towards which many sketches of natural man and woman, as he found them in +the English fields and lanes, seem in a less certain and conscious manner +to be striving in plays of an earlier date. It was characteristic of +Shakespeare, as it has been of other great artists, to introduce into his +early writings incidental sketches which serve as studies for further work +of a later period. In much the same manner the varied, but at times +uncertain, melody of the early love comedies seems to aspire towards the +full sonority and magic of lyric feeling and utterance in _Romeo and +Juliet_. + +Thus it is neither to the mellow autumn of his art, when he had cast aside +as unworthy all the trivialities of convention, nor yet to the storm and +stress of adolescence, the immaturity of pettiness and exaggeration, that +we must look if we would discover Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral +tradition. _As You Like It_ belongs to his middle period. It will be +remembered, from what has been said on an earlier page, that in this play +Shakespeare substantially followed the story of Rosalind as narrated by +Lodge, to whom we owe the introduction of a pastoral element into the old +tale of Gamelyn. The pastoral characters of the play may be roughly +analysed as follows. Celia and Rosalind, the latter disguised as a youth, +are courtly characters; Phebe and Silvius represent the polished Arcadians +of pastoral tradition; while Audrey and William combine the character of +farcical rustics with the inimitable humanity which distinguishes +Shakespeare's creations. It is noteworthy that this last pair is the +dramatist's own addition to the cast. Thus we have all the various +types--all the degrees or variations of idealization--brought side by side +and co-existent in the fairyland of the poet's fancy. The details of the +play are too well known for there to be any call to outrage the delicate +interweaving of character and incident by translating the perfect scenes +into clumsy prose. Nor would such analysis throw any light upon +Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral. That must be sought elsewhere. We +may seek it in the fanciful mingling of ideals and idealizations--of +courtly masking, of the conventional naturalism of polished dreamers, and +of a rusticity more genuine at once and more sympathetic than that of +Lorenzo, all of which act by their very natures as touchstones to one +another. We may seek it in the uncertainty and hovering between belief and +scepticism, earnest and play, reality and imagination--such as can only +exist in art, or in life when life approaches to the condition of an +art--which we find in the scenes where Orlando courts his mistress in the +person of the youth who is but his mistress in disguise. We may seek it +lastly in the manner in which the firm structure of the piece is +fashioned of the non-pastoral elements; in the happiness of the art by +which the pastoral incidents and business appear but as so much fair and +graceful ornament upon this structure, bringing with them a smack of the +free, rude, countryside, or a faint perfume of the polished Utopia of +courtly makers. It is here that we may trace Shakespeare's appreciation of +pastoral, as a delicate colouring, an old-world fragrance, a flower from +wild hedgerows or cultured garden, a thing of grace and beauty, to be +gathered, enjoyed, and forgotten, unsuited in its evanescent charm to be +the serious business of art or life. + +On this note, the realization at once of the delicate loveliness and of +the unsubstantiality of the pastoral ideal, we may close our survey of its +growth and blossoming in our dramatic literature, and before finally +turning from the tradition which fascinated so many generations of +European artists, pause for one moment to inquire of the critical +expression it has received at the hands of more philosophical writers. + +We have already seen how in the early days of modern pastoral composition +Boccaccio, summing up the previous history of the kind, found in allegory +and topical allusion its _raison d'être_. We have seen how in our own +tongue Drayton expressed a similar view, and how Fletcher adopted in +theory at least a more naturalistic position. This antagonism which runs +through the whole of pastoral theory is really dependent upon two +questions which have not always been clearly distinguished. There is, +namely, the question of the allegorical or topical interpretation of the +poems, and there is the question of the rusticity or at least simplicity +of the form and language. It is possible to advocate the introduction of +Boccaccio's 'nonnulli sensus' and yet demand that, whatever the esoteric +interpretation of which the poem may be capable, the outward expression +shall be appropriate to the apparent condition of the speakers; while on +the other hand it is possible to confine the meaning to the evident and +unsophisticated sense of the poem, while allowing such a degree of +idealization in the language and sentiments of the characters as to +differentiate them widely from the actual rustics of real life. The former +of these positions is that assumed by Spenser in the _Shepherd's +Calender_, however much he may have failed in logical consistency; the +second is that which, in spite of much incidental matter of a topical +nature, underlies Tasso's masterpiece in the kind. It is with the second +of the above questions that critics have in the main been concerned. They +have, namely, as a rule, tacitly though not explicitly recognized the fact +that a poem whose value depends exclusively upon an esoteric +interpretation has no meaning whatever as a work of art, while if artistic +value can be assigned to the primary meaning of the work, it is a matter +of indifference aesthetically whether there be an esoteric interpretation +or not. + +Every writer, I think, who comes within the limits of pastoral as usually +understood, has found a certain idealization and a certain refinement +necessary in bringing rustic swains into the domain of art. That any such +process is inherently necessary to produce an artistic result there is no +reason whatever to suppose; it may even be rationally questioned whether +it is necessary to ensure the result falling within the recognizable field +of pastoral; but neither of these considerations affects the historical +fact. It is commonly admitted that among pastoral writers Theocritus +adhered most closely to nature; yet no one has been found to describe him +as a realist, whether in method or intention. But though this process of +idealization is practically universal, few poets have confessed to it. +Only occasionally an author, writing according to the demands of his age +or of his individual taste, has been alive to what appeared to be a +contradiction between his creations and what he mistook for the +fundamental conditions of the kind in which he created. This was the case +with Tasso, and he sought to reconcile the two by making Amore in the +prologue declare: + + Spirerò nobil sensi a' rozzi petti, + Raddolcirò nelle lor lingue il suono, + Perche, ovunque i' mi sia, io sono Amore, + Ne' pastori non men, che negli eroi; + E la disagguaglianza de' soggetti, + Come a me piace, agguaglio. + +This served, of course, no other purpose than to salve the author's +artistic conscience, since it is perfectly evident that the polished +civility of his characters belongs to them by nature, and is not in any +way an external importation. The remark, however, is interesting in +respect of the philosophy of love as a civilizing power, which we have +seen constantly recurring from the days of Boccaccio onward. Ben Jonson +expressed himself sharply on this subject, with respect to Guarini and +Sidney, in his conversations with Drummond. 'That Guarini, in his Pastor +Fido, keept not decorum, in making Shepherds speek as well as himself +could.... That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making everyone speak as +well as himself.'[359] The critical foundation of these censures in an _a +priori_ definition of pastoral is obvious, and they are more interesting +for their authorship than for their intrinsic merit. It would be curious +to know how Jonson defended such a character as his Sad Shepherd--but his +views had time to alter. + +It is to the critics of the late years of the seventeenth century and +early ones of the eighteenth that we owe the attempt to formulate a theory +of pastoral composition. The attempt has not for us any great importance. +All the work we have been considering had appeared, and the vast majority +of it had passed into oblivion, before the French critics first engaged +upon the task. Nor has the attempt much intrinsic interest. The theories +of individual writers such as those already mentioned are of value, as +showing the critical mood in which they themselves created; but these, and +still more the theories of pure critics, are of no importance, either in +the field of abstract critical theory or of historical inquiry. +Fontenelle, offended at the odour of Theocritus' hines, Rapin, with his +Jesuitical prudicity and ethico-literary theories of propriety, are not +the kind of thinkers to advance critical and historical science. Yet it +was to their school that the far greater English critics of the early +eighteenth century belonged. Their work consists for the most part of +various combinations of _a priori_ definition and arbitrary rules, based +on the notion of propriety. Thus Pope in the _Discourse on Pastoral_, +prefixed to his eclogues in 1717, writes: 'A pastoral is an imitation of +the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character.... If we +would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that +pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age. So that we are not +to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they +may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the +employment.' Shallow formalism this; but what else was to be expected from +Alexander Pope at the age of sixteen? His contemporaries, however, and +successors down to Johnson, took his solemn vacuity in all seriousness. +Steele, writing in the _Guardian_ in 1713 (Nos. 22, &c.), follows much the +same lines. He speaks of 'Innocence, Simplicity, and whatever else has +been laid down as distinguishing Marks of Pastoral.' Again, the reader is +informed that 'Whoever can bear these'--namely, certain _concetti_ from +Tasso and Guarini--'may be assured he hath no Taste for Pastoral.' We find +the same pedantic and ignorant objections to Sannazzaro's piscatorials as +were later advanced by Johnson: 'who can pardon him,' loftily queries the +censor, 'for his Arbitrary Change of the sweet Manners and pleasing +objects of the Country, for what in their own Nature are uncomfortable and +dreadful?' An afternoon's idling along the cliffs of Sorento or the shore +of Posilipo will supply a sufficient answer to such ignorant conceit as +this. Lastly, in the same familiar strain, but with all the pompous weight +of undisputed dictatorship, we find Dr. Johnson a generation later laying +down in the _Rambler_ that a pastoral is 'a Poem in which any action or +Passion is represented by its Effects upon a Country Life.... In Pastoral, +as in other Writings, Chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be +observed, and Purity of Manners to be represented; not because the Poet is +confined to the Images of the golden Age'--this is a rap at Pope--'but +because, having the subject in his own Choice, he ought always to consult +the Interest of Virtue.' The one fixed idea which runs throughout these +criticisms is that pastoral in its nature somehow is, or should be, other +than what it is in fact[360]. + +This is a view which very rightly meets with small mercy at the hands of +the modern historical school of criticism. A last fragment of the hoary +fallacy may be traced in Dr. Sommer's remark: 'Die Theorie des +Hirtengedichtes ist kurz in folgenden Worten ausgedrückt: schlichte und +ungekünstelte Darstellung des Hirtenlebens und wahre Naturschilderung.' It +cannot be too emphatically laid down that there is and can be no such +thing as a 'theory' of pastoral, or, indeed, of any other artistic form +dependent, like it, upon what are merely accidental conditions.[361] As I +started by pointing out at the beginning of this work, pastoral is not +capable of definition by reference to any essential quality; whence it +follows that any theory of pastoral is not a theory of pastoral as it +exists, but as the critic imagines that it ought to exist. 'Everything is +what it is, and not another thing,' and pastoral is what the writers of +pastoral have made it. + +It may be convenient before closing this chapter to summarize briefly the +results of our inquiry into the history of pastoral tradition on the +pre-restoration stage in England, without the elaboration of detail and +the many necessary though minor distinctions unavoidable in the foregoing +account. We saw, in the first place, that the idea of a literature dealing +with the humours and romance of farm and sheepcot was not wholly alien to +national English literature; but, on the contrary, that the shepherd plays +of the religions cycles, the popular ballads, and a few of the Scots poets +of the time of Henryson, all alike furnish verse which may be regarded as +the index of the readiness of the popular mind to receive the +introduction of a formal pastoral tradition. Next, preceding, as in Italy, +the introduction or evolution of a regular pastoral drama, we find a +series of mythological plays embodying incidentally elements of pastoral, +written for the amusement of court circles, and founded on the +_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. In these the nature of the pastoral scenes appear +to be conditioned, in so far as they are independent of their classical +source, partly by the already existing eclogue, and partly perhaps by the +native impulse mentioned above[362]. All this anticipates the rise of the +pastoral drama proper. The foreign pastoral tradition reached England +through three main channels. The earliest of these, the eclogue, was +imitated by Spenser from Marot, who, while depending somewhat more +closely, perhaps, than was usual upon the ancients, and adding to his work +a certain original flavour, yet belonged essentially to the tradition of +the allegorical pastoral which took its fashion from the works of Petrarch +and Mantuan. The second, and for the English drama vastly the more +important channel, was the pastoral-chivalric romance borrowed by Sidney +from Montemayor, the great exponent of the Spanish school, which was, +however, based upon the Italian work of Sannazzaro. The third was the +Arcadian drama of the Ferrarese court, which was imitated, chiefly from +Guarini, by Samuel Daniel. Thus, of the three forms, verse, prose, and +drama, adopted by England from Italy, the first came by way of France, the +second by way of Spain, while the third alone was taken direct[363]. These +three blended with the pre-existing mythological play, and with the +traditions of the romantic drama generally, to produce the pastoral drama +of the English stage. The influence ot the eclogue was on the whole +slight, but to it we may reasonably ascribe a share of the topical and +allusive elements, when these do not appear assignable either to the +Arcadian drama or to masque literature generally.[364] The influence of +the mythological drama, again, is not of the first importance, and is also +very restricted in its occurrence; the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ is the most +striking example. The three main influences at work in fashioning the +pastoral drama upon the English stage were, therefore, the Arcadian drama +of Italy, the Sidneian romance borrowed from Spain, and the native +tradition of the romantic drama.[365] But we have seen that the most +important examples of dramatic pastoral in this country, though to some +extent conditioned like the rest by the above-mentioned influences, were +the outcome of direct and conscious experiment. In part, at least, the +earliest, and by far the most simple, was the work of Samuel Daniel +himself, which aimed at nothing beyond the mere transference of the +Italian tradition unaltered on to the English stage. A different aim +underlay the attempts alike of Fletcher and Randolph; the combination, +namely, of the traditions of the Arcadian and romantic dramas. This common +end they sought, however, by very diverse means. Fletcher, while adopting +the machinery and methods of the popular drama, left the ideal and +imaginary content practically untouched, and even chose a plot which in +its structure resembled those familiar in the romantic drama even less +than did Guarini's own. Randolph, on the other hand, while preserving much +of the classical mechanism as he found it in Guarini, altered the whole +tone and character of the piece to correspond to the greater complexity of +interest, more genial humour, and more genuine romanticism of the English +stage. Lastly, we found Jonson cutting himself almost entirely adrift from +the tradition of Italian Arcadianism, and seeking to create an essentially +national pastoral by the combination of shepherd lads and girls, +transmuted from actuality by a natural process of refinement akin to that +of Theocritus, with the magic and fairy lore of popular fancy, and with +the characters of Robin and Marian and all the essentially English +tradition of Sherwood. These three chief experiments in the production of +an English pastoral drama which should rival that of Italy stand, together +with Daniel's two plays, apart from the general run of pieces of the kind. +It is also worth notice that they are all alike unaffected by the Sidneian +romance. The remaining plays which form the great bulk of the contribution +made by English drama to pastoral, and among which we must look for such +dramatic pastoral tradition as existed, are almost all characterized by a +more or less prevalent court atmosphere, disguisings and adventures in +shepherd's garb forming the mainstay of the plot, while the genuine +pastoral elements supply little beyond the background of the action. + +Into the post-restoration pastorals it is no part of my present scheme to +enter. They flourished for a while under the wing of the fashionable +romance of France, but were almost more than their predecessors the things +of artificial convention, having their form and being in a world whose +only pre-occupations were the pangs and transports of sensibility. They +occupy by right a small corner in the _Carte du Tendre_. Nor do I propose +to do more than allude in passing to Allan Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd_. In +spite of the almost unvarying praise which has been lavished upon this +'Scots pastoral,' and even though the characters may have some points of +humanity in common with actual Lothian rustics, the whole composition of +the piece can scarcely be pronounced less artificial than that of the +Arcadian drama itself, and the play has undoubtedly shared in the +exaggerated esteem which has fallen to the lot of dialectal literature +generally. The tradition lingered on throughout the eighteenth and into +the nineteenth century. Goethe in his youth, while under the French +influence, composed the _Laune des Verliebten_, and in his later days at +Weimar the _Fischerin_, a piscatorial adapted for representation on an +open-air stage, in which the interest was purely spectacular. As a general +rule, however, pastoral inanity seldom strayed beyond the limits of the +opera. + +That the pastoral should flourish by the side of the romantic drama was +not to be expected. It was impossible in England, as it was impossible in +Spain. In either case it might now and again achieve a mild success at +court, or under some exceptional conditions of representation; it never +held the popular stage. No literature based on the accidents of a special +form of civilization, or upon a set of artificially imagined conditions, +can ever hope to outlive the civilization or the fashion that gave it +birth. 'Love _in vacuo_' failed to arouse the interest of general mankind. +Every literature of course wears the livery of its age, but where the body +beneath is instinct with human life it can change its dress and pass +unchanged itself from one order of things to another; where the livery is +all, the form cannot a second time be galvanized into life. Pastoral, +relying for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the +essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and +independent form of art. The trivial toy of a courtly coterie, it +attempted to arrogate to itself the position of a philosophy, and in so +doing exposed itself to the ridicule of succeeding ages. Men with a stern +purpose in life turned wearily from the sickly amours of romantic poets +who dreamed that human happiness found its place in the economy of the +world. They left it to a rout of melodious idlers to imagine unto +themselves a state in which serious importance should attach to the +gracious things of sentiment and the loves of youth and maiden. + + + + +Addenda + + + +Page 19.--Even apart from the evidence of the _Bucolica Quirinalium_, it +is, of course, clear that Vergil's eclogues were familiar to the writers +of the early middle ages. How far their interest in them was literary, and +how far, like that of the mystery-writers, it was theological, may, +however, be questioned. It is worth noticing in this connexion that a +German translation was projected by no less a person than Notker, and +since they are coupled by him with the _Andria_, we may reasonably infer +that in this case at least the writer's concern, if not distinctively +literary, was at any rate educational. (See W. P. Ker, _The Dark Ages_, p. +317.) + +Page 112, note 2.--There is an error here. _The Passionate Pilgrim_ +version of 'As it fell upon a day' does not contain the couplet found in +_England's Helicon_. I was misled by its being supplied from the latter by +the Cambridge editors. Another poem of the same description appears in +Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_. (See Sidney Lee's introduction to the Oxford +Press facsimile of the _Passionate Pilgrim_, p. 31.) + +Page 204.--It is perhaps hardly surprising to find Tasso's 'S' ei piace, +ei lice' quoted by English writers as summing up the cynical philosophy of +those whom they not unaptly styled 'politicians.' In Marston's tragedy on +the story of Sophonisba, for instance, the villain Syphax concludes a +'Machiavellian' speech with the words: + + For we hold firm, that 's lawful which doth please. + (_Wonder of Women_, IV. i. 191.) + + + + +Appendix I + +On the Origin and Development of the Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +The chapter in the history of Italian literature which shall deal with the +evolution of the Arcadian drama still remains to be written. The treatment +of it in Symonds' _Renaissance_ is decidedly inadequate, and even as far +as it goes not altogether satisfactory. The explanation of this is, that +the most important works fall outside his period; the _Aminta_ and the +_Pastor fido_ are admirably treated in the volumes dealing with the +counter-reformation, but these are of the nature of an appendix, and +formed no part of his original plan. Tiraboschi's account is also meagre. +A long discussion of the subject will be found in the fifth volume of J. +L. Klein's _Geschichte des Dramas_ (Leipzig, 1867), but the bewildering +irrelevancy of much of the matter introduced by that eccentric writer +seriously impairs the critical value of his work. An excellent sketch of +the early history as far as Beccari, with full references, is given in +Vittorio Rossi's valuable monograph, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_ +(Torino, 1886), pt. ii. ch. i. This has the immense advantage of +conciseness, and of a clear and scholarly style. An important review of +Rossi's book, concerning itself particularly with the chapter in question, +appeared in the _Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie_ +for 1891 (col. 376), from the pen of A. L. Stiefel, who incidentally +announced that he was himself engaged on a comprehensive history of the +pastoral drama. Of this work I have been unable to obtain any further +information. Next an elaborate essay by the veteran Giosuè Carducci, +largely combatting Rossi's conclusions as to the literary evolution of the +form, and bringing forward a good deal of fresh evidence, appeared in the +_Nuova Antologia_ for September, 1894, and was reprinted with additions +and corrections as the second of three papers in the author's pamphlet _Su +l'Aminta di T. Tasso_ (Firenze, 1896). To this Rossi rejoined, effectively +as it seems to me, in the _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +(1898, xxxi. p. 108). The treatment in W. Creizenach's _Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_ (Halle, 1901, ii. p. 359) is unfortunately not yet +complete. + +The theory of development which I have adopted is substantially that +elaborated by Rossi. To him belongs the honour of having been the first +clearly to indicate the historical steps by which the eclogue passes into +the drama. The idea, however, was not original; it underlies the accounts +given by Egidio Menagio in the notes to his edition of the _Aminta_ +(Paris, 1655), by G. Fontanini (_Aminta difeso_, Roma, 1700, and Venezia, +1730), by P. L. Ginguené (_Histoire littéraire d'Italie,_ vol. vi, Paris, +1813), and by Klein. It was also virtually accepted by Stiefel in his +review of Rossi, since he confined his criticism to pointing out and +attempting to fill occasional gaps in the sequence of development, and to +insisting on the influence of the regular drama, and more particularly of +the Intronati comedy. The incomplete state of Creizenach's work, and the +caution with which he expresses himself on the subject, preclude our +reckoning him among the declared supporters of the theory; but there can +be little doubt, I think, as to the tendency of his remarks. This may then +be regarded as the orthodox view. It has not, however, received the +exclusive adherence of scholars, and it may therefore be thought right +that I should both give in detail the arguments by which it is supported +and my reasons for accepting it, and likewise state the grounds on which I +reject the rival theories that have been propounded. + +Two of these latter may be quickly dismissed. These are the views put +forward respectively by Gustav Weinberg, _Das französische Schäferspiel in +der ersten Hälfte des XVIIten Jahrhunderts_ (Frankfurt, 1884), and by J. +G. Schönherr in his _Jorge de Montemayor_ (Halle, 1886). Weinberg finds +the origin of the Italian pastoral drama in the 'Éclogas' of Juan del +Encina. With regard to this theory it may be sufficient to observe that, +at the time Encina wrote, the _ecloga rappresentativa_, or dramatic +eclogue, was already familiar in the Italian courts, and that, so far from +his writings being the source of any pastoral tradition even in his own +country, what subsequent dramatic work of the kind is to be found in Spain +merely represents a further borrowing from Italy. Schönherr, on the other +hand, regards the _Jus Robins et Marion_ as the source of the Arcadian +drama. Not only, however, did Adan de le Hale's play fail to originale any +dramatic tradition in its own country, but it is itself nothing but an +amplified _pastourelle_, a form which, in spite of marked Provençal +influence, never obtained to any extent in Italy. It need hardly be said +that there is not a vestige of historical evidence to support either of +these theories[366]. + +It is different with the theory advanced by Carducci in the essay already +mentioned. The reputation of the great Italian critic would alone entitle +any view he advanced to the most respectful consideration. In the present +case, however, there is more than this, for his essay is a monument of +deep and loving scholarship, and whether we agree or not with its +conclusions, it adds greatly to our knowledge of the subject. Briefly and +baldly stated, his contention is as follows. The Arcadian drama was a +creation of the literary and courtly circles of Ferrara, and so far as +Italy is concerned the precursors of the _Aminta_ are to be sought in +Beccari's _Sacrifizio_ and Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_ alone, with a +connecting link as it were supplied by the pastoral fragment of the latter +author, first printed as an appendix to the essay in question. Beyond +these compositions no influence can be traced, except that of a study of +the classics in general, and of Theocritus in particular. It is certainly +remarkable that the important texts mentioned above, as well as Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ and the _Aminta_ itself, should all alike have been written +for and produced at the court of the Estensi at Ferrara. The selection, +however, I regard as somewhat arbitrary. The _Egle_ appears to lie +entirely off the road of pastoral development, and I cannot help thinking +that Carducci falls into the not unnatural error of exaggerating the +importance of the interesting document he was the first to publish. The +primitive dramatic eclogue was not altogether unknown at Ferrara, nor do +the pastoral shows elsewhere appear to have been always as remote from the +courtly grace of the Arcadian tradition as the critic is at pains to +demonstrate. In view therefore of the practically unbroken line of formal +development, and the consistency of artistic aim observable from +Sannazzaro in the last quarter of the fifteenth to Guarini in the last +quarter of the sixteenth century, I find it impossible to accept +Carducci's conclusions. + +The advocates of the orthodox theory, however, must be prepared to meet +and combat the objections which Carducci has raised, and which, in his +opinion, necessitate the adoption of a different explanation. The +evolution of the pastoral drama from the eclogue he declares to be +impossible, in the first place, on historical grounds. This objection +relates to the evidence as to a continuous development traceable in the +accessible texts, and to it the account given in the following pages +will--or will not--be found a sufficient answer. In the second place, he +declares it to be impossible on aesthetic grounds. These are three in +number, and may be briefly considered here. (_a_) 'Idealization cannot +develop out of caricature.' Here, I presume, he is using 'caricature' in +its technical sense of what Aristotle calls 'imitation worse than nature,' +not merely for the resuit of an inadequate command over the medium of +artistic μίμησις. The remark, therefore, can only apply to the 'rustic' +productions. But, as Aristotle's phrase suggests, burlesque, or +caricature, is only idealization in a different direction, so that there +appears to be less antagonism between the two tendencies than might at +first be supposed. Moreover, no one has suggested that the rustic shows +were the origin of the Arcadian drama, so that it is to be presumed that +Carducci had in mind the more or less frequent but still sporadic elements +borrowed by the eclogues from the popular drama. These, however, are found +in conjunction with idealized elements of courtly tradition, both in the +dramatic eclogues themselves and more especially in the _ecloghe +maggiaiuole_ or May-day shows of the Congrega dei Rozzi. Thus, although it +is true that we should not expect idealization to be evolved out of +caricature, there is no reason to deny its evolution from a form in which +burlesque and romance subsisted side by side. (_b_) 'Those eclogues that +are not burlesque are occasional compositions equally incapable of +developing into the Arcadian drama.' Though, no doubt, usually written for +presentation upon some particular occasion, several of the dramatic +eclogues present no topical features. Nor does it appear why a form of +composition, the type of which was fairly constant although the individual +examples might be ephemeral enough, should not develop into something of a +more permanent nature. Moreover, the topical allusions scattered +throughout the _Aminta_, as well as the highly occasional character of the +prologue to the _Pastor fido_, serve to connect these plays directly with +the 'occasional' eclogue. (_c_) The metrical form of the recognized +dramatic pastorals differs from that of the eclogues.' While beginning, +however, with simple _terza_ or _ottava rima_, the dramatic eclogue +gradually became highly polymetric in structure, though it is true that it +seldom affected the free measures peculiar to the Arcadian drama. These, +however, were no more suited to short compositions than the stiff terzines +and octaves to more complicated dramatic works. The prevalent metre, as +indeed many other points, might well be borrowed by the dramatic pastoral +from the practice of the regular stage without it thereby ceasing to be +the formal descendant of the eclogue. + +Another point in debate is the view taken of the question by contemporary +critics--that is, by Guarini and his adversaries. Rossi pointed out a +passage in Guarini's _Veraio_ of 1588[367] which he held to support his +theory of development. Translated, the passage runs: 'And why should it +not be thought lawful for the eclogue to grow out of its infancy and +arrive at mature years, if this has been possible in the case of tragedy? +... Even as the Muses grafted tragedy upon the dithyrambic stock, and +comedy upon the phallic, so in their ever-fertile garden they set the +eclogue as a tiny cutting, whence sprang in later years the stately growth +of the pastoral,' that is, of the _favola di pastori_, or dramatic +pastoral, as he elsewhere explains. 'But in thèse words,' objects +Carducci, 'the writer is in no way referring to the Italian eclogues of +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The eclogue had passed out of its +infancy in the work of Theocritus.' Here, however, Carducci appears to me +to misinterpret Guarini's meaning in an almost perverse manner. The +metaphoric 'infancy' of which Guarini speaks is the pre-dramatic period of +pastoral growth. No one will deny that the Theocritean idyl had attained +full and perfect development in its own kind; but from the dramatic point +of view, and granted that it contained the germ of the later pastoral +drama, it belonged to a period of infancy, or, to adopt a more strictly +accurate metaphor, of gestation. Were further evidence needed to show that +the allusion is to the Italian rather than to the classical eclogue, it +might be found in the fact that the passage in question was Guarini's +answer to the following criticism of De Nores, as to the meaning of which +there can be no two opinions. Attacking the pastoral tragi-comedy, the +critic remarks: 'Until the other day similar compositions were represented +under the name of eclogues at festivals and banquets, ... but now of a +sudden they have been fashioned of the extension of comedies and tragedies +in five acts[368].' It will be noticed that in his reply Guarini makes no +attempt to question the underlying identity of the pastoral tragi-comedy +with the dramatic eclogue, but contents himself with very justly asserting +the right of the latter to develop into a mature literary form. Two other +passages from Guarini have been quoted as germane to the discussion. They +occur in the _Verato secondo_, written as a counterblast to De Nores' +_Apologia_,[369]. One may be rendered thus: 'Although the dramatic +pastoral, in respect of the characters introduced, recognizes its ultimate +origin in the eclogue and in the satire [i. e. the satyric drama] of the +ancients, nevertheless, in respect of its form and ordinance it may be +said to be a modern kind of poetry, seeing that no example of such +dramatic composition, whether Greek or Latin, is to be found in ancient +times.' The other runs: 'having regard to the fact that Theocritus stepped +beyond the number of persons usual in similar poems, and composed one [the +_Feast of Adonis_] which not only contains many interlocutors, but is of a +more dramatic character than usual, and remarkable also for its greater +length; it seemed to him [Beccari] that he might with great honour supply +that kind neglected by the Greek and Latin authors[370].' In the former of +these passages Guarini, while recognizing the community of subject-matter +between the classical eclogue and the renaissance pastoral drama, claims +that as an artistic form the latter is independent of the former. Nor is +this inconsistent with what he says in the subsequent passage, for it is +perfectly true that it was with Beccari that the pastoral first attained +its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus +means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after +the manner of a _cinquecento_ critic, he is seeking for authority at least +among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found. His +reference to the evolution of classical tragedy and comedy in the passage +cited from his first essay shows clearly that he had in mind a process of +gradual and natural development, not one of definite borrowing or +artificial creation. + +It appears to me, therefore, that Carducci has erred in not taking a +sufficiently broad view of the lines on which literary development +proceeds; and also, more specifically, in failing to recognize the +importance of the distinction between the ordinary and the dramatic +eclogue. This distinction, though on the scanty evidence extant it is +extremely hard to draw it with any degree of certainty, appears to me a +vital point in the history of the species. The value of Carducci's work +lies in his insistence on the influence of the regular drama, to which, +perhaps on account of its very obviousness, Rossi had failed to attach +sufficient importance; in his directing attention to the local Ferrarese +tradition; in the admirable energy and patience with which he has +collected all available evidence; and in his reprinting the interesting +pastoral fragment of Giraldi Cintio. For these he deserves the warmest +thanks of all students of Italian literature; for my own part I need only +refer the reader to the footnotes to the following pages as indicating in +some measure the extent of my indebtedness[371]. + +The theatrical tendency first exhibited itself in the mere recitation of +a dialogue in character, and the earliest examples of these _ecloghe +rappresentative_ are identical in form with those written merely for +literary circulation. For the dates of these external evidence +unfortunately fails us almost entirely, but a fairly well-marked sequence +may be established on the grounds of internal development. Roughly, they +must fall within a few years of the close of the fifteenth century, say +between 1480 and 1510. They are commonly of an allegorical nature, +containing allusions to real persons, and are for the most part composed +in _terza rima_, diversified in the more complex examples by the +introduction of octaves and lyrical measures[372]. Of this primitive form +is a poem by the Genoese Baldassare Taccone, bearing the superscription +'Ecloga pastorale rapresentata nel Convivio dell' III. Sig'r. Io. Adorno, +nella quale si celebra l' amor del Co. di Cayace [Francesco Sanseverino] e +di M. Chiara di Marino nuncupata la Castagnini[373].' This piece, in which +the characters represent real persons, is a mere dialogue without any +semblance of action. Aminta questions his fellow-shepherd Fileno as to the +cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless +passion for a certain cruel nymph. His offer to undertake his friend's +cure is met with the declaration, that of the two death were preferable. +Similar in simplicity of construction is another poem, the work of +Serafino Aquilano, which deals with the corruption of the Church, and was +performed at Rome during the carnival of 1490[374]. An advance in +dramatization is made by an eclogue of Galeotto Del Carretto's, written in +1492, in honour of the newly elected Alexander VI, in that one character +enters upon the scene after the other has been discoursing for some time; +while another, the work of Gualtiero Sanvitale, contains three speakers, +of whom one enters towards the close, and is called upon to decide between +the other two. This arbiter is none other than Lodovico Sforza +himself[375]. So far the eclogues have all been in Sannazzaro's _terza +rima_. A wider range of metrical effect, including not only terzines both +_sdrucciole_ and _piane_, but also hendecasyllables with internal rime and +a _canzone_, and at the same time a more dramatic treatment, is found in +another eclogue of Aquilano's[376]. In this Palemone sends his herdsman +Silvano to inspect his flocks after a stormy night. The herdsman meets +Ircano in a melancholy mood, who when questioned endeavours to hide the +nature of his grief by feigning that he has lost his flock in the storm. +At that moment, however, the real cause of his sorrow enters in the shape +of a nymph, and Ircano leaves Silvano in order to follow her with prayers +and supplications. Silvano endeavours to dissuade him from his love, but +meets with the usual want of success. In the case of this piece, as also +of the two preceding ones, we have no direct evidence of any +representation, but all three, and especially the last, have the +appearance of being composed for recitation. Another piece, exhibiting an +advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo +pasturale,' a disputation on love by Bernardo Bellincioni[377], apparently +in some way connected with Genoa, in the course of which five characters, +probably representing actual personages, though we lack external evidence, +forgather upon the stage. The versification again exhibits novel features, +the piece being for the most part in _ottava rima_ with the introduction +of _settenarî_ couplets. In the former we may perhaps see the influence of +the _Orfeo_, or possibly of the old _sacre rappresentationi_ themselves. +In 1506 the court of Urbino witnessed the eclogue composed and recited by +Baldassare Castiglione and Cesare Gonzaga[378]. It also belongs to the +octave group, and is diversified with a canzonet. Dramatically the piece +is somewhat of a retrogression, but it is interesting from the characters +introduced in pastoral guise. Thus in Iola and Dameta we may see +Castiglione and his fellow author; Tirsi, who gives his name to the poem, +is a stranger shepherd attracted by reports of the court; while among the +characters mentioned are discernible Bembo and the Duchess Elizabeth. At +this point may be mentioned a somewhat similar eclogue found in a Spanish +romance of about 1512, entitled _Cuestion de amor_, descriptive of the +Hispano-Neapolitan society of the time. The eclogue, which is clearly +modelled on the Italian examples, contains five characters, and is +supposed to represent the love affairs of real personages[379]. Two +so-called 'commedie pastorali,' from which Stiefel hoped for useful +evidence, prove on inspection to be medleys of pastoral amours exhibiting +little advance in dramatization, though interesting as showing traces of +the influence of the not yet fully developed 'rustic' eclogue. They are +composed throughout in _terza rima_ without any division into acts or +scenes, and are the work of one Alessandro Caperano of Faenza, thus +hailing, like the later _Amaranta_, from the Romagna[380]. In 1517 we find +a fantastic pastoral entitled _Pulicane,_ written in octaves by Piero +Antonio Legacci dello Stricca, a Sienese, who was also the author of +several rustic pieces, in which is introduced a monster half dog and half +man. Another work by the same, again in octaves, and entitled _Cicro_, +appeared in 1538. Another piece mentioned by Stiefel as likely to throw +light on the development of the dramatic pastoral is the 'Ecloga di +amicizia' of Bastiano di Francesco, or Bastiano 'the +flax-dresser'(_linaiuolo_), also of Siena, which was first printed in +1523. It turns out, however, to be a decidedly primitive composition in +_terza rima_, with a certain slightly satirical colouring[381]. + +If the texts that have survived are somewhat scanty, there is good reason +to believe that they form but a small portion of the eclogues actually +represented at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth +centuries. Thus we find a show, of the nature of which it is not +altogether easy to judge, recorded in a letter by a certain Floriano +Dulfo, written from Bologna in July, 1496[382]. It appears to have been a +composition of some length, pastoral only in part, supernatural in others, +but belonging on the whole rather to the cycle of chivalresque romance +than of classical mythology. In Act I an astrologer announces the birth of +a giant, who in Act II is represented as persecuting the shepherds. Acts +III and IV are occupied by various complaints on his account In Act V, +called by Dulfo 'la ultima comedia, overo egloga,' the giant carries off a +nymph while she is gathering flowers; the shepherds, however, come to her +rescue and restore her to her lover. This incident, reminiscent possibly +of the rape of Proserpine, tends to connect the piece with the +mythological tradition. So far as can be gathered, the verse appears to +have been _ottava rima_ with the introduction of lyrical passages. Again, +we know that the representation of eclogues formed part of the festivities +at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with Giovanni Sforza in 1493, and again +in 1502, when she espoused Alfonzo d' Este. In 1508 the carnival shows at +Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, +Antonio dall' Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[383]. At Venice we have note of +similar performances, and even find _ecloghe_ mentioned among the forms of +dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state. I may also call +attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction +of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a +performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled _La morte +del Danese_[384]. The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and +must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced +into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler +order than actually represented at court. It may also not improbably have +been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its +description as a 'festa in atti rusticali' would seem to indicate. + +Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though +rather in arrear of the courtly variety. In 1508 we find a piece in _terza +rima_, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one +Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen 'villani' appear +with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[385]. Eating +and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female +characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether +the piece was intended for representation. Not till five years later have +we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In +1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided +at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city +was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio,' otherwise Biagio Pallai +delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to +us. A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers +then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper +citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the +two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before +retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a +Christian land. They find the Capitol _en fête_, and the piece ends with a +song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[386]. Of the same year is the 'Egloga +pastorale di Justitia,' the earliest extant specimen of the rustic +dramatic eclogue proper. It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, +who fails to obtain justice because he is poor. He at last appeals to the +king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in +place of Adulation[387]. This form of composition, recalling as it does +the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs +widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical +of rustic representations. Again, to the same year, 1513, belongs an +eclogue in rustic speech and Bellunese dialect, by Bartolommeo Cavassico, +which like the Roman show turns upon the horrors of the war which had been +devastating the country since 1508. Recollections of the 'tagliata di +Cadore[388]' blend incongruously with fauns, nymphs, bears, pelicans, and +wild men of the woods, to form a whole which appears to be of a decidedly +burlesque character. The distribution, however, of these rustic eclogues +never appears to have been very wide, and in later times they were chiefly +confined to the representations of the famous Congrega dei Rozzi at Siena, +though the activity of this society extended, it is true, far beyond the +limits of its Tuscan home. Most of these representations, at any rate in +the earlier years with which we are concerned, were short realistic farces +of low life composed in dialectal verse. Some of the cleverest are by +Francesco Berni, better known for his obscene _capitoli_ and his +_rifacimento_ of Boiardo's _Orlando_, and appeared between 1537 and 1567; +while in later days the kind attained its highest perfection in the work +of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, whose _Tancia_ originally appeared +in 1612[389]. + +It may be questioned to what extent these rustic shows influenced the +development of the pastoral eclogue. Their recognition as a dramatic form +was subsequent to that of the _ecloga rappresentativa_, and no element +traceable to their influence can be shown to exist in the dramatic +pastoral as finally evolved. On the other hand, we do undoubtedly meet +with incidents and characters in the courtly shows which appear to belong +to the style of the popular burlesque. A point of contact between the two +traditions may be found in the _commedie maggiaiuole_, a sort of May-day +shows also represented by the Rozzi, but of a more idealized character +than the rustic drama proper. They may, indeed, be regarded as to some +extent at least a parody of the two kinds--the courtly and the popular +pastoral--since by combining the two each was made the foil and criticism +of the other. Nymphs and shepherds appear as in the pastoral eclogues, but +their loves are interrupted by the incursion of boisterous rustics, who +substitute the unchastened instincts and brute force of half-savage boors +for the delicate wooing and sentimentality of their rivals. + + * * * * * + +We return to the development of the dramatic eclogue in a work of some +importance as marking an advance both in dramatic construction and +versification. _I due pellegrini[390]_, written not later than 1528, when +the author, Luigi Tansillo, was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, was +doubtless produced on some occasion before the court of the Orsini, at +Nola, near Naples. It was revived with great pomp ten years later at +Messina, when Don Garcia de Toledo, commander of the Neapolitan fleet, +entertained Antonia Cardona, daughter of the Count of Colisano, for whose +hand he was a suitor[391]. Two shepherds, pilgrims of love, bereft of the +objects of their affection, the one through death, the other through +inconstancy, meet in a forest and reason of the comparative hardness of +their lots. Unable to decide the question, they each resolve to bear the +strongest possible witness to the depth of their affliction by putting an +end to their lives. At this moment, however, the voice of the dead +mistress is heard from a neighbouring tree, persuading them to relinquish +their intentions, reconciling them once more with the world and life, and +directing them to join the festivities in the city of Nola. Here for the +first time we meet with a pastoral composition of some length pretending +to a dramatic solution, and contrasting with the stationary character of +most of the eclogues we have been examining in that the change of purpose +among the actors constitutes a sort of περιπέτεια, or _rivolgimento_. The +piece is likewise important from a metrical point of view, since it not +only contains a free intermixture of _ottava_ and _terza rima_, and +hendecasyllables with _rimalmezzo_, a favourite verse form in certain +kinds of composition[392], but likewise foreshadows, in its mingling of +freely riming hendecasyllables with _settenarî_, the peculiar measures of +the pastoral drama proper. _I due pellegrini_ was not, however, an +altogether original composition. In 1525 had appeared a work by the +Neapolitan Marco Antonio Epicuro de' Marsi, styled in the original edition +'dialogo di tre ciechi,' and in later reprints 'tragi-commedia intitulata +_Cecaria_[393].' In this three blind men, one blind with love, another +with jealousy, the third with gazing too intently on the sun-like beauty +of his mistress, meet and determine to die together. They fall in, +however, with a priest of Amor, who sends them back to their respective +loves to be cured. It was this theme that Tansillo arranged in pastoral +form, borrowing even the metres of the original, but it was just the +element which justifies our including it here that he added, and it is +useless to seek in Epicuro's work the origin of the form with which it was +thus only accidentally associated. + +A composition of some importance, dating from a period about two years +later than Tansillo's piece, is an 'ecloga pastorale' by the 'mestissimo +giovane' Luca di Lorenzo of Siena.[394] Two nymphs, by name Euridice and +Diversa, respectively seek and shun the delights of love. They meet a +_citto_--that is a _bambino_ in Sienese dialect--who proves to be none +other than Cupid himself, and rewards them according to their deserts, +Euridice obtaining the love of the courtly shepherd Orindio, while Diversa +is condemned to follow the rude and loveless Fantasia. The piece is +written in a mixture of _ottava_ and _terza rima_, with a variety of +lyrics introduced. The contrast between the loving and the careless +nymphs, and the episode of the latter being bound to a tree, appear to +anticipate the later pastoral; while the introduction of Cupid as a +dramatis persona carries one back to the mythological drama, and the +rustic characters connect the piece with the plays of the Rozzi. Another +composition of Tuscan origin is the _Lilia_, first printed in 1538, and +composed throughout in polished octaves.[395] It merely relates how the +shepherd Fileno courted the fair Lilia, a certain rustic element being +introduced in the persons of the herdsmen Crotolo and Tirso. + +With the _Amaranta_ of Casalio we have been sufficiently concerned in the +text (p. 172). It was printed at Venice in 1538,[396] having probably been +written some years earlier. It is composed in _ottava_ and _terza rima_, +with the introduction of a canzonet, and marks an important advance on +previous work, not only in the nature of the plot, but in being divided +into acts and scenes. Sixteen years elapsed between the publication of +_Amaranta_ and the appearance of the regular pastoral drama in Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. Some time ago Stiefel pointed out a considerable hiatus at +this point in Rossi's account, and mentioned certain works which might be +expected to fill it. These and others have since been examined by +Carducci, with the result that it is possible, at least partially, to +bridge the gap. The period proves to be one less of gradual evolution than +of conscious experiment. At least this is how I read the available +evidence. + +Besides the _Cecaria_, mentioned above, Epicuro de' Marsi also left a +manuscript play entitled _Mirzia_, which he describes as a 'favola +boschereccia,' being thus the first to make use of the term later adopted +by Tasso.[397] The piece, which was written some ten years before the +author's death in 1555, leads us off into one of the numerous by-paths +into which the pastorals of this period were for ever wandering. Two +despised lovers, together with their friend Ottimo, witness unseen the +dances of Diana and the nymphs, on which occasion Ottimo falls in love +with the goddess herself. After passing through various plights, into +which they are led by their love of the careless nymphs, they all have +recourse to an oracle, whose predictions are fulfilled through a series of +violent metamorphoses. This mixture of mythology and magic is wholly +foreign to the spirit of the Arcadian drama, and the _Mirzia_ cannot any +more than the _Cecaria_ be regarded as the progenitor of that form. I may +mention incidentally that among the characters is a good-natured satyr, +who consoles Ottimo in his hopeless passion for Diana. + +Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and +one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic +compositions, is the Florentine 'commedia pastorale' first printed in 1545 +under the title of _Silvia_.[398] The author calls himself Fileno +Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the +pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo +Firenzuola. The prologue relates how the first _archimandrita_ of the +academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was +driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, +'Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.' This would seem to imply that the +head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an +interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne +out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola's +departure from Prato. The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already +dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola's death +earlier by three years than the accepted date. The inference, however, is +not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral +character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh. The play +itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, +Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a +variety of metres--_terza rima_, octaves both _sdrucciole_ and _piane_, +and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both +blank and with _rimalmezzo_, and lyrical stanzas. The plot itself is of +the simplest, and resembles that of the _Amaranta_. Through the sovereign +will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love. A temporary +estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his +burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of +Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are +united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of +Cupid and Venus. What could be more complete? + +The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, +_Erbusto_ and _Filena_, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, +the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the +pieces were presumably composed.[399] The first of these, _Erbusto_, is in +three acts, and _terza rima_. The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in +the love of a shepherdess named Flora. The girl's affections are set on +the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be +Erbusto's own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont. +Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent +occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, +as here, with some actual event in contemporary history. The second piece, +_Filena_, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the +_terza rima_. It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat +formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular +pastoral, need not be examined in detail. + +To the next few years belong a series of 'giocose moderne e facetissime +ecloghe pastorali,' by the Venetian Andrea Calmo, composed in +_endecasillabi sdruccioli sciolti_, and published in 1553.[400] They +introduce a number of dialects, suited to various personages; Arcadian +shepherds like Lucido, Silvano, and the rest; rustics with names such as +Grítolo di Burano, mythological figures, and a _satiro villan_ who speaks +Dalmatian. An advance in dramatization may perhaps be seen in the +introduction of a second pair of lovers, while the writer goes even +further than Beccari in the introduction of oracles (a point in which, +however, he had been anticipated by the author of _Mirzia_), and an echo +scene, a device of which Calmo's example is certainly of an elementary +character. + +The most important, however, of the writers between Casalio and Beccari is +the well-known Ferrarese novelist Giovanbattista Giraldi, surnamed Cintio, +the author of the _Ecatommiti_, and of a number of tragedies on the +classical model. The first piece of his which claims our attention is a +_satira_ entitled _Egle_, which was privately performed at the author's +house in February, 1545, and again the following month in the presence of +Duke Ercole and his brother, the Cardinal Ippolito d' Este.[401] The play +is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the +Greeks, a kind of which the _Cyclops_ of Euripides is the only extant +example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the +like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, +at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby +they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of +leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns +and satyrs. On these the unwary maids take pity, and begin forthwith to +dance and play with them in the woods. The deceitful divinities, however, +have only hidden for a while, and when opportunity serves are placed by +Egle where they may surprise the nymphs at sport. They suddenly break +cover, follow and seize the flying girls, and are on the point of enjoying +the success of their plot when Diana intervenes, transforming her outraged +followers into trees, streams, and so forth. The metamorphosis is related +by Pan himself, who returns bearing in his hand a reed, all that is left +of his beloved Syrinx. Thus the piece may be regarded as a dramatization +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_, expanded by the free introduction of +mythological characters, and bears no connexion with the real nature of +pastoral, the life-blood of which, whether in the idyls of Theocritus, the +_Arcadia_ of Sannazzaro, or the _Aminta_ of Tasso, is primarily and +essentially human. + +The other work of Cintio with which we are here concerned, a fragment +which remained in MS. till published by Carducci in 1896 as an appendix to +his essays on the _Aminta_, may be at once pronounced the most important +attempt at writing a really pastoral drama previous to Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. It is found with the heading 'Favola pastorale' in an +autograph MS., along with several other works of the author, including +_Egle_, but with no indication of the date of composition. The author +survived till 1573, but we may reasonably suppose that the piece was +written before his departure from Ferrara in 1558. It consists of what are +apparently intended for two acts, headed respectively _Parte prima_ and +_Parte quinta_, each consisting of several scenes, though these are not +distinguished. The first two form a sort of introduction, in which Cupid +and Diana mutually defy one another on account of the nymph Irinda, whom +the boy-god has wounded with love for Filicio. The shepherd returns her +love, but finds a rival in Viaste, whose blind passion, though unreturned, +will admit no discourse of reason. It is, however, ultimately discovered +that Irinda and Viaste are cousins, a fact which is regarded as a +sufficient reason for the infatuated swain to free himself wholly and +immediately from his passion, and accept the love of the faithful +Frodignisa, who has followed him throughout.[402] The story, which +resembles that of Cazza's _Erlusto_, is thus of a simple order, and it is +chiefly in the composition that the likeness of the play to the regular +pastoral is seen. What the author intended for the middle three acts it is +hard to say, since the action at the opening of the fifth is precisely at +the point at which the first left it. Probably they were never written, +and the author may even have abandoned his work owing to the difficulty of +filling the hiatus. In both Cintio's pieces the metre is blank verse +(hendecasyllabic), diversified in the case of the _Egle_ with a rimed +chorus.[403] + +One point becomes, I think, apparent from the foregoing examination; +namely, that while the fully developed pastoral owes its origin to the +evolution of the eclogue as a dramatic kind, its final form was arrived +at, not merely by a natural and inevitable process of growth, but as the +result of direct experimenting on certain lines. The evolution, that is, +was at the last conscious, not spontaneous. While up to a certain point +the dramatic germs latent in the eclogue develop upon a natural line of +growth, each advance being the reasonable resuit of the action of +surrounding conditions upon a previous stage of evolution, there comes a +time when authors seem to have felt that the form was in a state of +unstable equilibrium, that it was advancing towards a final expression, +which it had so far failed to find, but which each individual writer +sought to realize in his work. The supposition of a theoretic +preoccupation on the part of these writers is reasonable enough, +considering the critical atmosphere in which the pastoral developed, and +the heated controversy which soon centred round the accomplished form; and +it serves at the same time to explain the liabilities of writers before +Tasso to run metaphorically into blind alleys. The conscious endeavour +after a stable and adequate form appears to me a determining factor in the +work of Casalio, Cintio, and finally Beccari. + +Of the _Sacrifizio_ of Agostino Beccari[404] have already spoken at some +length in the text (p. 174). From the account there given it will be seen +that the plot, though from its threefold character it attains a certain +degree of complexity, is in reality little more than the scenic +combination of three distinct stories, each of which might well have +formed the subject of an eclogue, and the whole play is thus closely +connected with the dramatic simplicity of its origin.[405] The verse, +which is blank, interspersed with lyrical passages, shows, like Cintio's, +the influence of the regular drama. For the satyr we need seek no +individual source; he was already as much a recognized character of the +Italian pastoral as the Vice was of the English interlude. The magical +element is doubtless ultimately traceable to a romantic source; it is one +which almost entirely drops out of the later pastoral drama, in which the +more distinctively classical oracle gradually won for itself a place. +Finally, I may remark that Beccari's claim to be considered the originator +of the pastoral drama was made in spite of his being perfectly well +acquainted with Cintio's _Egle_, as a passage in the first scene of Act +III testifies. There is, indeed, no reason to suppose that any writer +before Carducci ever considered Cintio's play as belonging to the realm of +pastoral. + +Beccari's immediate successors were of no great interest in themselves, +and contributed little to the development of the form. In 1556 appeared a +'comedia pastorale,' by the Piedmontese Bartolommeo Braida, a hybrid +composition in octave rime, written possibly for representation at the +court of Claudio of Savoy, governor of Provence and Marseilles, to whose +wife it is dedicated.[406] This piece resembles Poliziano's play, not only +in metrical structure, but in having a prologue spoken by Mercury, while +by its general character it connects itself with such old-fashioned +productions as Cavassico's Bellunese eclogue of 1513, and the +representation reported from Bologna by Dulfo in 1496. On the other hand, +the introduction of three pairs of lovers, and the incident of the nymph +being bound to a tree, suggest that Braida may at least have heard of the +Ferrarese _Sacrifizio_. The whole is a strange medley of various and +incongruous elements--mythological in Mercury and Somnus; pastoral in the +shepherds, Tindaro, Ruffo, Alpardo, and their loves; rustic in the clown +Basso, who speaks Piedmontese in shorter measure; satirical in the wanton +hermit; allegorical in the figure of Disdain; romantic in the wild man of +the woods and the magic herb. Thus on the whole Braida's work represents a +decided retrogression in the development of pastoral; or perhaps it may be +more accurate to say that it renects the tradition of an outlying district +in which that development had been retarded. + +To this period likewise, if we are to believe the author, belongs a 'nova +favola pastorale' entitled _Calisto_, by Luigi Groto, the blind +littérateur of Adria, whose preposterous pastoral, _Il pentimento +amoroso_, was produced between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +According to a note in the original edition, the piece was first +represented at Adria in 1561, revived and rewritten in 1582, and first +printed the following year.[407] It is founded on the well-known tale of +the love of Zeus for Calisto, a nymph of Artemis, who by him became the +mother of the Arcadians, as related by Ovid in the second book of the +_Metamorphoses_ (ll. 401, &c.). It may, therefore, so far as the subject +is concerned, be classed among the mythological plays, but the author has +mingled with his main theme much of the vulgar indecency of the Latin +comedy as adopted in the _cinquecento_ on to the Italian stage. The piece +is composed in _sdrucciolo_ blank verse. + +With our next author, the orator Alberto Lollio, we return once more to +Ferrara. In 1563 a play entitled _Aretusa_[408] was presented before +Alfonso II and his brother the cardinal, by the students of law at +Ferrara, at the command, it is said, of Laura Eustoccia d' Este. The verse +is blank, diversified by a single sonnet, but the piece is again a hybrid +of an earlier type--a love-knot solved by the discovery of +consanguinity--with certain elements of Plautine comedy added. There is +also extant in MS. the plot, or prose sketch, of another comedy by Lollio, +entitled _Galatea_, on the same model as the _Aretusa_, but with somewhat +greater complexity of construction.[409] + +It is evident that, though in the _Sacrifizio_ the final form of the +pastoral drama had been attained, the fact was not immediately recognized. +Indeed, until the seal had been set upon that form by the genius of Tasso, +it must have been difficult for any one to realize what had been achieved. +The form had been discovered, but it remained to prove that it was the +right form, and to show its capabilities. In 1567 a return was made to the +tradition of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_.[410] With +this piece also, composed in blank verse with a couple of lyric songs, we +have already been sufficiently concerned (p. 175). I only wish to draw +attention to one point here, namely, that if Guarini's Silvio is a +companion portrait to Tasso's Silvia, she in her turn is but the feminine +counterpart of Argenti's Silvio. The _Sfortunato_ stands on the threshold +of the _Aminta_, and its performance may have suggested to Tasso the +composition of his pastoral masterpiece, but it contributed little either +to the evolution of the form, or to the poetic supremacy of its successor. + +We have arrived at the end of the catalogue, and it is for the reader to +decide whether or not I have succeeded in establishing a formal continuity +between the eclogue and the pastoral drama, and so answering the most +serious of Carducci's objections. + + + + +Appendix II + +Bibliography + + + +Any attempt at an adequate bibliography of pastoral literature would +require space far greater than that at present at my disposal. In the case +of all the more important works considered in the foregoing inquiry, I +have been careful to mention the edition from which my quotations are +taken whenever this was not the original. Nor do I propose to mention in +this place every book or article which I have consulted in the course of +my study. Where some particular authority has been followed on some +particular point the reference has been given in the form of a footnote. +There are, however, two classes of books which require special mention. +The first of these consists of those works to which I have had cause +constantly to refer, and which I have therefore quoted by abbreviated +titles; and second, of certain works which I have constantly consulted and +followed, but to which I have had no occasion to make specific reference +in the notes. A list of the works coming under one or other of these heads +will give a very fair survey of the critical literature of the subject, +and may therefore not only be convenient to readers of my work, but may +prove useful as a guide to any who may wish to make an independent study. +I have, of course, derived much help from the critical apparatus +accompanying many of the texts cited, but these I have not, as a rule, +thought it necessary to recapitulate here. Where, however, I have used +critical matter in editions other than those quoted for the text, they +have been duly recorded. Ordinary works of reference need no specific +notice. + + + +A. General. + + +(α) Works on General Literature. These chiefly refer to Italian and +English literature. + +(i) _Italian._ J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. IV and V. +Italian Literature._ To the whole of this work, but especially to the +section dealing with literature and to that on the Catholic reaction +mentioned below (B. vi), my indebtedness is far more than any specific +acknowledgement can express. My references are to the new edition (7 +vols., London, 1897-8), which has the advantages of being obtainable, and +of having a full though not very accurate index to the whole work, but +which is unfortunately very carelessly printed. + +B. Weise and E. Pèrcopo. _Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur von den +ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart._ Leipzig und Wien, 1899. I have often +found this of considerable use as summarizing the latest work on the +subject. It is, however, not invariably accurate, and the literary +appreciations, whether original or borrowed, are seldom enlightening. Had +the space occupied by these been devoted to giving references to special +works, the value of the book would have been enormously increased. + +A. D'Ancona and O. Bacci. _Manuale della letteratura italiana._ 5 vols. +Firenze, 1897-1900. I have fonnd the biographical and bibliographical +notes to this collection of the greatest use. + +(ii) _English._ W. J. Courthope. _A History of English Poetry._ 5 vols, +published. London, 1895-1905. Vols, ii and iii contain accounts of English +poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. + +A. W. Ward. _A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of +Queen Anne._ New and revised edition. 3 vols. London, 1899. + +F. G. Fleay. _A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama._ 2 vols. +London, 1891. + + +(β) General Works on Pastoral. Of these some refer chiefly to pastoral +poetry, some mainly to the English drama. + +(i) _Poetry._ E. W. Gosse. _An Essay on English Pastoral Poetry._ A. B. +Grosart, _Rider on Mr. Gosse's Essay._ In Grosart's edition of Spenser, +vol. iii, 1882, pp. ix-lxxi. + +H. O. Sommer. _Erster Versuch über die englische Hirtendichtung._ Marburg, +1888. A useful sketch of the eclogue in English literature from 1510 to +1805, though superficial and not always accurate. + +Katharina Windscheid. _Die englische Hirtendichtung von._1579-1625. Halle, +1895. This contains a good deal of original investigation, and I have +found it of considerable use. In questions of literary judgement, however, +the author is not always happy. + +C. H. Herford. _Spenser. Shepheards Calender, edited with introduction and +notes._ London, 1897. The Introduction contains an admirable sketch of +pastoral poetry in general. + +E. K. Chambers. _English Pastorals, with an introduction._ London, 1895. A +collection of lyrics, eclogues, and scenes, with a useful introduction. + +(ii) _English Drama._ Homer Smith. _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama._ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. +xii (1897), pp. 355-460. This has been constantly cited in my notes. As +the first serious attempt to investigate the English pastoral drama it +deserves credit; but in detail it is often inaccurate, while I generally +disagree with the author on all matters on which divergence of opinion is +possible. + +Josephine Laidler. _A History of Pastoral Drama in England until 1700._ +Englische Studien, July, 1905, xxxv (2). pp. 193-259. This appeared while +my work vas passing through the press, and though I have read it +carefully, I think that the reference to Mahaffy's not very accurate +account of Arcadia (see p. 51, note) is the total extent of my +indebtedness. The article adds little to Homer Smith's work for the period +with which we are concerned, while it is at the same time both incomplete +and inaccurate. + +A. H. Thorndike. _The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605._ +Modern Language Notes, vol. xiv. cols. 228-246 (1899). A careful and +interesting article, which I also only read while my book was in the +press. Though it did not contain much that was new, I was particularly +glad to find myself in agreement with the author as regards the importance +of the pre-Italian tradition in English pastoral. + +(γ) I ought also to mention: J. C. Dunlop. _History of Prose Fiction. A +new edition by H. Wilson.._2 vols. London, 1888. The fact that this work +consists chiefly of summaries of plots and stories makes it of great value +for tracing sources. + + + +B. Special. + + +(i) Classical (Chap. I, sect. ii). J. A. Symonds. _Studies of the Greek +Poets. Third edition._ 2 vols. London, 1893. Chap. XXI deals with 'The +Idyllists.' + +Andrew Lang. _Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus rendered info English Prose, +with an introductory essay._ London, 1889. The introduction contains a +very interesting account of the conditions of Alexandrian poetry. + +Joseph Jacobs. _Daphnis and Chloe: the Elizabethan version from Amyot's +Translation by Angel Day._ London, 1890. The introduction contains an +account of Longus and his translators. + + +(ii) Medieval and Humanistic (Chap. I, sect. iv). F. Macrì-Leone. _La +Bucolica latina nella letteratura italiana del secolo XIV, con una +introduzione sulla bucolica latina nel medioevo._ Parte I (all published). +Torino, 1889. + +P. H. Wicksteed and E. G. Gardner. _Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, +including a critical edition of the text of Dante's 'Eclogae Latinae' and +of the poelic remains of Giovanni del Virgilio._ Westminster, 1902. + +Attilio Hortis, _Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca pubblicati ed +illustrati.._Trieste, 1874. + +Luigi Ruberto. _Le Egloghe del Petrarca._ Il Propugnatore, xi (2). p. +244, xii (1). p. 83, (2). p. 153. Bologna, 1878-9. + +Attilio Hortis. _Studl sulle opere latine del Boccaccio con particolare +riguardo alla storia delia erudizione nel medio evo e alle letterature +straniere._ Trieste, 1879. + +Marcus Landau. _Giovanni Boccaccio, sua vita e sue opere. Traduzione di +Camillo Antona-Traversi approvata e ampliata dall' autore._ Napoli, 1881. +Greatly enlarged from the original German edition. Stuttgart, 1877. + +[Bucolic Collections.] (a) _Eclogae Vergilii. Calphurnii. Nemesiani. +Frcisci. Pe. Ioannis Boc. Ioanbap Mā. Pomponii Gaurici.._Florentiae. +Philippus de Giunta. 1504. Decimo quinto. Calendas Octobris. Contains the +_editio princeps._of Boccaccio's eclogues. + +(β) _En habes Lector Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII. quot quot uidelicet à +Vergilij ætate ad nostra usque tempora, eo poëmatis genere usos, sedulò +inquirentes nancisci in præsentia licuit: farrago quidem Eclogarum CLVI. +mira cùm elegantia tum uarietate referta, nuncque primum in studiosorum +iuuenum gratiam atque usum collecta._ Basel. Ioannes Oporinus. 1546. Mense +Martio. + +[Sannazzaro.] I may note here, what I was unaware of when writing my +account of Sannazzaro's Latin poems, that the _Salices._was translated +into English under the title of _The Osiers._ by Beaupré Bell, about 1724. +The MS. is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; see M. R. James' +Catalogue of the Western MSS., ii. p. 102. + + +(iii) Spanish (Chap. I, sect. vii). George Ticknor. _History of Spanish +Literature. Sixth American edition._ 3 vols. Cambridge (Mass.), 1888. + +J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, _A History of Spanish Literature._ London, 1898. + +H. A. Rennert. _The Spanish Pastoral Romances._ Publications of the Modern +Language Association of America, vol. vii (3). pp. 1-119, (1892). An +elaborate study, which, however, I only discovered when my work was in the +press. + +Francesco Torraca. _Gl' imitatori stranieri di Jacopo Sannazaro. Seconda +edizione accresciuta._ Roma, 1882. A study which I have found very useful +both in relation to Spanish and French pastoralism. + + +(iv) French (Chap. I, sect. viii). L. Petit de Julleville. _Histoire de la +Langue et de la Littérature française._ 8 vols. Paris, 1896-1899. + + +(v) English Poetry (Chap. II). J. G. Underhill. _Spanish Literature in the +England of the Tudors._ New York (Columbia University Studies in +Literature), 1899. A valuable study, particularly in connexion with +Montemayor, with useful bibliography. + +A. W. Pollard. _The Castell of Labour, translated from the French of +Pierre Gringore by Alexander Barclay._ Edinburgh (Roxburghe Club), 1905. +Whatever can be said for Barclay as a poet is admirably said in the +Introduction to this work. + +F. W. Moorman. _William, Browne. His Britannia's Pastorals and the +pastoral poetry of the Elizabethan age._ Strassburg (Quellen und +Forschungen), 1897. + +Walter Raleigh. _The English Novel. Second edition._ London, 1895. To this +brilliant study, and in particular to the treatment of Euphuism and +Arcadianism, I am deeply indebted. + +J. J. Jusserand. _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, translated +from the French by Elisabeth Lee. Revised and enlarged by the author._ +London, 1890. + +K. Brunhuber. _Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachläufer._ Nürnberg, +1903. Though not always accurate, the first part, dealing chiefly with the +sources, possesses original value; the same cannot be said of the second, +dealing with the dramatizations, which is superficial. + + +(vi) Italian Drama (Chap. III). J. L. Klein. _Geschichte des Dramas. Vol. +V. Das italienische Drama. Zweiter Band._ Leipzig, 1867. + +Wilhelm Creizenach. _Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Zweiter Band. +Renaissance und Reformation. Erster Theil._ Halle, 1901. + +Alessandro D'Ancona. _Origini del teatro italiano._ 2 vols. Torino, 1891. +Very much enlarged from the original edition, 2 vols., Firenze, 1877. + +Curzio Mazzi. _La Congrega dei Rozzi di Siena nel secolo XVI._ 2 vols. +Firenze, 1882. + +Vittorio Rossi. _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido. Studio +biografico-critico con documenti inediti._ Torino, 1886. + +Giosuè Carducci. _Su l'Aminta di T. Tassa, saggi tre. Con una pastorale +inedita di G. B. Giraldi Cinthio._ Firenze, 1899. + +J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. VI and VII. The Catholic +Reaction._ (See above, A. a. i.) Chapters VII and XI contain admirable +criticisms of the pastoral work of Tasso and Guarini. + + +(vii) English Masques (Chap. VII). Rudolf Brotanek. _Die englischen +Maskenspiele._ Wien und Leipzig (Wiener Beiträge), 1902. + +David Masson. _The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited with memoir, +introduction, notes, and an essay on Milton's English and versification._ +3 vols. London, 1890. + +M. W. Sampson. _The Lyric and Dramatic Poems of John Milton, edited, with +an introduction and notes._ New York, 1901. + + + + +Index + + + +[In cases where a name occurs several times, the main reference or +references, if any, are distinguished by bold-face type.] + + +Abbot, Sir Maurice, _Lord Mayor_ +Abbruzzese, A. +_Abuses Stript and Whipt_ +_Accademia tusculana_ +Achelly, Thomas +Achilles Tatius +_Actaeon and Diana_ +àdan de le Hale, _or_ le Bochu +Addiaccio, academy at Prato +Admiral, Lord (Charles, Lord Howard) +_Adone_ +_Adrasta_ +Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +_Aeneid_ +_Aethiopica_ +_Affectionate Shepherd_ +Affò, Ireneo +_Ages_ +_Agincourt_ +_Alba_ +Alberti, Leo Battista +_Albion's England_ +_Albumazar_ +_Alceo_ +_Alchemist_ +_Alcon_ +Alcuin +Aldus Manutius, the elder +Aldus Manutius, the younger +Alexander VI, _Pope_ +Alexander, Sir William (Earl of Stirling) +_Alexis_ +Allacci, Leone +_Allegro_ +Almerici, Tiburio +Alva, Duke of +_Amadis of Gaul_ +_Amaranta_ +_Amarilli_ +_Ambra_ (Lorenzo de' Medici) +_Ambra_ (Poliziano) +Ambrogini, Angelo, _see_ Poliziano. +_Ameto_ +_Aminta_ +_Aminta_ (Tasso), English translations: + Fraunce + Reynolds + Dancer + Oldmixon, du Bois, Ayre, Stoekdale, Leigh Hunt, anon. +_Aminta bagnato_ +_Aminta difeso_ +_Amintae Gaudia_ +_Amphrissa_ +_Amore cortese_ +_Amore fuggitivo_ +_Amores_ (Ovid) +_Amorosi sospiri_ +_Amorous War_ +_Amyntas_ (Randolph) +_Amyntas_ (Watson) +Amyot, Jacques +Anacreon +Ancona, Alessandro D' +_Andria_ +_Andromana_ +Angeli, Nicolò degli +_Anglia_ +Anne of Denmark +Annunzio, Gabriele d' +_Anthology_ (Greek) +Antona-Traversi, Camillo +Antonius +_Apollo and Daphne_ +_Apologia contre l'autor del Verato_ +_Apology for Poetry_ +Apuleius +Aquilano, Serafino +Arber, Edward +_Arcades_ +Arcadia, Academy of the +_Arcadia_ (Sannazzaro) +_Arcadia_ (Shirley) +_Arcadia_ (Sidney) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, drama) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, romance) +_Arcadia in Brenta_ +_Arcadia Reformed_ +_Arcadian Lovers_ +_Arcadian Princess_ +_Arcadian Virgin_ +Archer, Edward +_Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_ +_Aretusa_ +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Glapthorne) +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Quarles) +Argenti, Agostino +_Arimène_ +Ariosto, Lodovico +_Arisbas_ +Aristotle +Arnold, Matthew +_Arraignment of Paris_ +Arsocchi, Francesco +_Art of English Poesy_ +_As You Like It_ +_Asolani_ +_Assetta_ +_Astrée_ +_Astrological Discourse_ +_Astrophel_ +_Astrophel and Stella_ +_Atalanta_ +Atchelow, Thomas +_Athenae Oxonienses_ +_Athlette_ +Aubrey, John +_Aucassin et Nicolette_ +Ausonius +_Auto pastoril castelhano_ +Averara, Niccolò +Ayre, William + +B., I. D. +_Babylonica_ +_Bacchus and Ariadne_ +Bacci, Orazio +Baglione family +Balbuenas, Bernardo de +Baldi, Bernardino +Baldini, Vittorio +Baldinucci, Filippo +Baldovini, Francesco +Ballad Society +Bandello, Matteo +Bang, W. +Barclay, Alexander +Barclay, John +Bariola, Felice +Barksted, William +Barnes, Barnabe +Barnfield, Richard +Baron, Robert +Bartoli, Adolfo +Bartoli, Clementi +Basse, William +Bastiano di Francesco (linaiuolo) +Bathurst, Theodore +Baylie, Richard +Beaumont, Francis +_Beautiful Shepherdess of Arcadia_ +_Beca di Dicomano_ +Beccari, Agostino +Bede +Beeching, H. C. +Belcari, Feo +Beling, Richard +Bell, Beaupré +Bellarmino, Roberto, _Cardinal_ +Bellay, Joachim du +Belleau, Remi +_Bellessa, the Shepherd's Queen_ +Bellincione, Bernardo +Bembo, Pietro +Bendidio, Lucrezia +Beni, Paolo +Benivieni, Girolamo +Bentivogli, Annibale +Benvoglienti, Uberto +_Bergerie_ (Belleau) +_Bergerie de Juliette_ +Berni, Francesco +Bertini, Romolo +_Biographia Dramatica_ +Bion +Blake, William +Blosio, _see_ Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio. +Boccaccio, Giovanni +Bodoni, Giambattista +Boethius +Boiardo, Matteo Maria +Bois, P. B. Du +Boleyn, Anne +Bonarelli della Rovere, Guidubaldo +Bond, R. W. +Bonfadino, Giovanbattista +Boni, Giovanni de +Bonifacia, Carmosina +Boninsegni, Fiorino +Bonnivard, François de +_Bonny Hynd_ +_Bonny May_ +Bono de Monteferrato, Manfrido +Borgia, Lucrezia +Boscán Almogaver, Juan +Botticelli, Alessandro +Brabine, Thomas +Brackley, Viscount, _see_ Egerton +Braga, Teofilo +Braida, Bartolommeo +Brandt, Sebastian. +Brathwaite, Richard +Breton, Nicholas +Bridgewater, Earl of, _see_ Egerton. +_Brief Discourse about Baptism_ +_Britannia's Pastorals_ +Brome, Richard +Brooke, Dr. +Brooke, Christopher +Brooke, Samuel +Brookes, Mr. +_Broom of Cowdenknows_ +Brotanek, Rudolf +Browne, William +Brunhuber, K. +Bruni, Lionardo +Bryskett, Lodovic +Buc, Sir George +Buchanan +Buck, George, _Gent._ +_Bucolica Quirinalium_ +_Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII_ +_Bucolics_ (Vergil) +Bulifon, Antonio +Bullen, A. H. +Buonarroti, Michelangelo, the younger +_Burd Helen_ +Byse, Fanny + +C., H. +Caccia, G. A., _see_ Cazza, G. A. +_Caccia col falcone_ +_Caccia d' amore_ +Calderon de la Barca, Pedro +_Calendar of Shepherds_ +_Calisto_ +Callimachus +Calmo, Andrea +Calpurnius +Calvin, Jean +Campori, G. +_Canace_ +Canello, Ugo Angelo +_Canterbury Tales_ +_Canzoniere_ (Petrarca) +Camoens, Luis de +Caperano, Alessandro +_Capitolo pastorale_ (Machiavelli) +Cardona, Antonia +Carducci, Giosuè +_Careless Shepherdess_ +Carew, Thomas +_Caride_ +Carlton, Sir Dudley +Carlo emanuele, _Duke of Savoy_ +_Carmen bucolicum_ (Endelechius) +Caro, Annibale +Carretto, Galeotto Del +_Carte du Tendre_ +Casalio, Giambattista +Cassio da Narni +Castalio +Castelletti, Cristoforo +Castelvetri, Giacopo +Castiglione, Baldassarre +_Castle of Labour_ +Catharine of Austria +Catherine of Siena, _Saint_ +Catullus +Cavassico, Bartolommeo +Cavendish, George +Cazza, Giovanni Agostino +_Cecaria_ +Cecco di Mileto +_Cefalo_ +_Cefalo y Pocris_ +_Celos aun del aire matan_ +_Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ +Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de +Cesana, Gasparo +Chaloner, Thomas +Chamberlain, John +Chambers, E. K. +Chandos, Lord +Chapman, George +Chariton +Charles I +Charles II +Châteillon, Sébastien +Chaucer, Geoffrey +_Chester mysteries_ +Chettle, Henry +Chetwood, W. R. +Child, F. J. +_Child Waters_ +_Chloridia_ +_Chloris_ +_Chloris and Ergasto_ +_Cicro_ +_Cid_ +_Cintia_ +Ciotti, Giovanbattista +Claudio of Savoy +_Clio_ +_Clorys and Orgasto_ +Ciacco dell'Anguillaja +_Citizen and Uplondishman_ +Clement VI, _Pope_ +Coello, Antonio +_Coelum Britannicum_ +Coleridge, S. T. +_Colin Clout's come home again_ +Colisano, Count of +Colleoni, Bartolommeo +Collier, J. P. +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Avignon) +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Rome) +_Columbia University Studies in Literature_ +Compani, A. +_Compendio della poesia tragicomica_ +_Complete Angler_ +_Comus_ +_Conflictus veris et hiemis_ +Conington, John +Constable, Henry +Contarini, Francisco +_Converted Robber_ +_Copa_ +_Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_ +Corazzini, Francesco +Corneille, Pierre +_Cornhill Magazine_ +Corrado, Gregorio +Correggio, Niccolò da +_Cortegiano_ +Count Palatine (Frederick V, Elector Palatine) +Courthope, W. J. +_Coventry mysteries_ +_Cowdenknows,_ see _Broom of Cowdenknows._ +Cowley, Abraham +Cox, Robert +Coxeter, Thomas +Creizenach, Wilhelm +Cresci, Pietro +Crescimbeni, G. M. +Croce, B. +Crusca, Accademia della +Cuchetti, Giovanni Donato +_Cuestion de amor_ +Cunningham, Peter +_Cupid and Psyche_ +_Cupid's Revenge_ +_Cyclops_ +_Cynthia_ (Barnfield) +_Cynthia_ (Dyer) + +D., D. +D., E. +Dancer, John +Daniel, Samuel +Dante Alighieri +_Danza di Venere_ +_Daphnaïda_ +_Daphne_ +_Daphnis and Chloe_ +Δάφνις Πολυστέφανος +Davenant, Sir William +Davies, Sir John +Davison, Francis +Day, Angel +Day, John +_Decameron_ +_Défense de la langue française_ +_Defence of Poesy_ +_Defence of Rime_ +Deighton, Kenneth +Dekker, Thomas +Delaval, Lady Elizabeth +_Delia_ +Denny, Sir William +Denham, Sir John +Denores, Giasone, _see_ Nores, Giasone de. +_Deorum Dona_ +_De Remedio Amoris_ +Derby, Countess Dowager of +Dering, Sir E. +_Descensus Astraeae_ +Devonshire, Duke of +_De Vulgari Eloquio_ +_Dialogo di tre ciechi_ +_Dialogue at Wilton_ +_Dialogue in Praise of Astrea_ +_Dialogues and Dramas_ +_Diana_ +_Diane_ +Diane de Poitiers +Dickenson, John +_Dictionary of National Biography_ +_Dido_ +Digby, Sir Kenelm +Digby, Lady Venetia +Dionisio, Alessandro +Dionisio, Scipione +_Discorso intorno alla commedia_ +_Discourse of English Poetry_ +_Discourse on Pastoral_ +_Discoveries_ +_Dispraise of a Courtly Life_ +_Divina Commedia_ +_Dodsley's Old Plays_ +Dodus +Dolce, Lodovico +_Donald of the Isles_ +Donati, Alesso +Donne, John +_Don Quixote_ +_Dorastus and Fawnia_ +Dorset, Earl of +Dossi, Dosso +Dove, John +Drake, Sir Francis +Drayton, Michael +_Driadeo d'amore_ +Drummond, Jean +Drummond, William +Dryden, John +Du Bartas, Seigneur (Guillaume de Salluste) +_Due pellegrini_ +Dunlop, J. C. +Dulfo, Floriano +Dyce, Alexander +Dyer, Sir Edward +Dymocke, Mr. +Dymocke, Charles +Dymocke, Sir Edward +Dymocke, John + +_Earl Lithgow_ +_Earl Richard_ +Early English Text Society +Ebsworth, J. W. +_Ecatommiti_ +_Ecloga di amicizia_ +_Ecloga di justizia_ +_Ecloga duarum sanctimonialium_ +_Ecloga Theoduli_ +_Éclogas_ (Encina) +_Éclogue au Roi_ (Marot) +_Éclogue Gratulatory_ (Peele) +_Éclogue, ou Chant pastoral_(I. D. B.) +_Éclogues sacrées_ (Belleau) +Edward IV, _King of England_ +Edward V, _King of England_ +Edward VI, _King of England_ +Egerton, Lady Alice +Egerton, John (first Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, John (third Viscount Brackley and second Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, Sir Thomas (Baron Ellesmere and first Viscount Brackley) +Egerton, Thomas (son of John, first Earl of Bridgewater) +_Egle_ +Elizabeth, _Queen of England_ +Elizabeth, _Duchess of Urbino, see_ Gonzaga, Elizabeta. +_Elpine_ +Encina, Juan del +Encinas, Pedro de +Endelechius, Severus Sanctus +_England's Helicon_ +_England's Mourning Garment_ +_England's Parnassus_ +_Englische Studien_ +_English Grammar_ (Jonson) +_English Miscellany_ +Enrique IV, _King of Spain_ +_Entertainment at Althorp_ +_Entertainment at Elvetham_ +_Entertainment at Kenilworth_ +_Entertainment at Richmond_ +Epicuro de' Marsi +_Epithalamium_ (Spenser) +Erasmus, Desiderius +_Erbusto_ +Ἐροτοπαίγνιον +Erythraeus, Janus Nicius +Essex, Earl of +Este, House of (Estensi) +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d' (Ercole I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d'(Ercole II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Francesco d' +Este, Ippolito d', _Cardinal_ +Este, Laura Eustoccia d' +Este, Leonora d' +Este, Lucrezia d' (wife of Annibale Bentivogli) +Este, Lucrezia d' (daughter of Ercole II) +Este, Luigi d', _Cardinal_ (son of Ercole II) +Este, Renata d' (wife of Ercole II, and daughter of Louis XII of France) +_Euphormus_ +Euripides + +_Faery Queen_ +Fairfax, Edward +_Fairy Pastoral_ +_Faithful Shepherdess_ +Falkland, Viscount +_Fancy's Theatre_ +Fanfani, P. +Fanshawe, Sir Richard +_Faunus_ +_Faustus, Dr_. +_Feast of Adonis_ +Ferdinand I, _King of Naples_ +Ferrario, Giulio +Ferraby, George +FF. Anglo-Britannus (_pseud._) +_Fiammella_ +_Fickle Shepherdess_ +_Fida Armilla_ +_Fida ninfa_ +_Fida pastora_ +_Fidus Pastor_ +Field, Nathan +_Fig for Momus_ +_Figlia di Iorio_ +_Figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli_ +Figueroa, Cristóbal Suárez de +Figueroa, Francisco de +_Filena_ +Fileno Addiacciato +_Filide_ +Filleul, Nicolas +_Filli di Sciro_ +_Filli di Sciro_ (Bonarelli), English translations: + Sidnam + Talbot + [Latin] _(Scyros)_ +_Finta Fiammetta_ +Firenzuola, Agnolo +_Fischerin_ +_Fisherman's Tale_ +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James +_Five Plays in One_ +Flamini, F. +Fleay, F. G. +Fleming, Abraham +Fletcher, Giles, the elder +Fletcher, John +Fletcher, Phineas +_Florimene_ +_Flower of Fidelity_ +Folengo, Teofilo +Fontanini, Giusto +Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de +_Forbonius and Prisceria_ +Forde, Thomas +Fortini, Pietro +François I, _King of France_. +Frati, L. +Fratti, Giovanni +Fraunce, Abraham +Frederick of Aragon, _King of Naples_ +Frezzi, Frederigo +_Frutti d'amore_ +Furness, H. H. + +G., T. +_Galatea_ (Cervantes) +_Galatea_ (Lollio) +_Galizia_ +_Gallathea_ +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_ +Garcia de Toledo +Garcilaso de la Vega +Gardner, E. G. +Gascoigne, George +_Gaudeamus!_ +Gauricus, Pomponius +_Gentle Shepherd_ +_Georgics_ +_Gerusalemme liberata_ +_Gesta Romanorum_ +Gifford, William +Ginguené, P. L. +_Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +_Giostra_ +Giovanni del Virgilio +Giraldi _Cintio_, Giovanni Battista +Giunta, Filippo di +Glapthorne, Henry +_Glasgow Peggie_ +_God's Revenge against Murder_ +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang +Goffe, Thomas +_Golden Age_ (Graham) +_Golden Age_ (Heywood) +_Golden Fleece_ +Golding, Arthur +Gollancz, Israel +Gomersall, Robert +Gonzaga, Cesare +Gonzaga, Elisabetta (wife of Guidubaldo II of Urbino) +Gonzaga, Francesco +Gonzaga, Gianvincenzo, _Cardinal_ +Gonzaga, Isabella +Gonzaga, Scipione +Gonzaga, Vincenzo +Goodere, Anne +Goodwin, Gordon +Googe, Barnabe +Gosse, E. W. +Gosson, Stephen +Gower, Lady +Gower, John +Gozze, Gauges de +Graham, Kenneth +_Grateful Servant_ +Gravina, Gian Vincenzo +_Great Plantagenet_ +Greene, Robert +Gregory XI, _Pope_ +Greville, Dorothy +Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke) +Grimaldi, Bartolommeo Ceva, _Duke of Telese_ +Grimani, Marin, _Doge_ +Gringore, Pierre +_Gripus and Hegio_ +Grosart, A. B. +Groto, Luigi +_Guardian_ +Guarini, Alessandro +Guarini, Battista +Guerrini, O. +Guidubaldo I, _see_ Montefeltro, G. +Guidubaldo II, _see_ Rovere, G. della. +Gustavus Adolphus, _King of Sweden_ + +H., I. +Hall, Edward +Hall, Joseph +Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. +Hardy, Thomas +_Harmony of the Church_ +_Harpelus' Complaint_ +Harvey, Gabriel +Harvey, Richard +Harvey, Thomas +_Havelok the Dane_ +Hawes, Stephen +Hazlewood, Joseph +Hazlitt, W. C +Heber, Richard +_Hecatompathia_ +Heliodorus +Henneman, J. B. +Henrietta Maria +_Henry VI_ +Henry VIII, _King of England_ +Henryson, Robert +Henslowe, Philip +_Heptameron_ +Herbert, Sir Henry +Herd, David +Herford, C. H. +_Hermophus_ +Herrick, Robert +Hewlett, Maurice +Heywood, John +Heywood, Thomas +Hiero of Syracuse +_Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane_ +Homer +_Honour's Academy_ +Horace +Hortis, Attilio +_Hospital of Lovers_ +_House of Fame_ +Howard, Douglas +Howard, Sir Edward +Hunt, Leigh +_Hunting of Cupid_ +_Hymen's Triumph_ +_Hymn to Pan_ +_Hymns in honour of Love and Beauty_ + +_Idea_ +_Idropica_ +_Idyllia_ (Ausonius) +_Idyls_ (Theocritus) +Immerito (_pseud._) +Index, Congregation of the +_Index Expurgatorius_ +_Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ +_Inedited Poetical Miscellany_ +Ingegneri, Angelo +_Inner Temple Masque_ +Innocent VIII, _Pope_ +_Intricati_ +_Intrichi d' amore_ +Intronati, academy at Siena +_Iphis and Ianthe_ +Isauro, Fileno di (_pseud._) +_Isle of Dogs_ +_Isle of Gulls_ +_Ivychurch_ + +Jackson, Henry +Jacobs, James +James I, _King of England_ +James, M. R. +James, William +Jauregui, Juan de +_Jealous Lovers_ +Jeanne de Laval +Jennaro, Pietro Jacopo de +_John, King_ +John of Bologna, _see_ Giovanni del Virgilio. +_Johnie Faa_ +Johnson, Samuel +Jones, Inigo +Jones, John +Jones, Richard +Jones, Stephen +Jonson, Benjamin +_Jonsonus Verbius_ +Julius Caesar +_Jupiter and Io_ +Jusserand, J. J. +Juvenal, 6. + +K., E. +Ker, Robert (Earl of Roxburgh) +Ker, W. P. +King, Edward +Kipling, Rudyard +Kirke, Edward +Kirkman, Francis +Klein, J. L. +Kluge, Friedrich +_Knave in Grain_ +Knevet, Ralph +_Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ +_Knight of the Burning Pestle_ +Koeppel, Emil +Kynder, Philip + +_Lady of May_ +_Lady Pecunia_ +La Fayette, Comtesse de +_Lagrime di San Pietro_ +Laidler, Josephine +Lamb, Charles +_Lamentations of Amyntas_ +_Lamenta di Cecco da Varlungo_ +Landau, Marcus +Lang, Andrew +Langland, William +Languet, Hubert +Laud, William +_Laune des Verliebten_ +Laura +Lauro, Cristoforo +Lawes, Henry +_Lawyer's Logic_ +_Lear, King_ +Lee, Elizabeth +Lee, Honoria +Lee, Margaret L. +Lee, S. L. +Lee, William +Lee Priory Press +Legacci dello Stricca, Piero Antonio +Legge, Cantrell +Leicester, Earl of +_Leir, King_ +_Lenore_ +Leo X, _Pope_ +L'Estrange, Sir Roger +_Lettere memorabili_ +_Licia_ +_Ligurino_ +_Lilia_ +_Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie_ +_Lizie Baillie_ +_Lizie Lindsay_ +Lodge, Thomas +_Lodovick Sforza_ +Logan, W. H. +Lollio, Alberto +Longus +_Love Crowns the End_ +_Love in its Ecstasy_ +_Love-Sick Court_ +_Love Tricks_ +_Love's Changelings' Change_ +_Love's Labour's Lost_ +_Love's Labyrinth_ +_Love's Metamorphosis_ +_Love's Mistress_, 407. +_Love's Riddle_ +_Loves Victory_ +Loyse de Savoye +Luca di Lorenzo +Lucian +Lucretius +Lungo, Isidore del +_Lusus Pastorales_ +Luther, Martin +Lydgate, John +_Lycidas_ +Lyly, John + +Macaulay, Lord +Machiavelli, Niccolo +Machiavelli, Paolo +Machin, Lewis +Macrì-Leone, F. +Madan, Falconer +Mahaffy, J. P. +Maidment, James +_Maid's Metamorphosis_ +_Maid's Revenge_ +Malacreta, Giovan Pietro +_Man in the Moon_ +Mancina, Faustina +_Mandragola_ +_Mangora_ +Manso, Giovanni Battista +Mantegna, Andrea +Mantuanus +Manuscripts quoted:-- + Bodleian:-- + Ashmole + Douce + Rawl. Poet. + British Museum:-- + Addit. 10,444 + " 11,743 + " 14,047 + " 18,638 + " 29,493 + Egerton, 1994 + Harl. 6924 + " 7044 + Lansd. 1171 + Sloane, 836 + " 857 + Caius College, Cambridge + Cambridge University Library + Emmanuel College, Cambridge + Trinity College, Cambridge +Manwood, Sir Peter +Manwood, Thomas +Marchesa, Cassandra +Margaret of Navarre +Marini, Giovanbattista +Marlowe, Christopher +Marot, Clement +Marsi, E., _see_ Epicuro de' Marsi. +Marston, John +Martin Mar-prelate (_pseud._) +Martino da Signa +Mason, I. M. +Masson, David +_Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas_ +_Mauriziano_ +_May Lord_ +Mazzi, Curzio +Mazzoni, G. +McKerrow, R. B. +Medici, Eleonora de' +Medici, Ferdinando de' (Ferdinando I), _Grand Duke of Florence_ +Medici, Giuliano de' (brother of Lorenzo) +Medici, Giuliano de' (son of Lorenzo) +Medici, Lorenzo de', _Il Magnifico_ +_Melanthe_ +_Meliboeus_ +Menagio, Egidio +_Menaphon_ +Mendoza, Iñigo de +_Menina e moça_ +Menzini, Benedetto +Meres, Francis +_Merry Wives of Windsor_ +_Metamorphoses_ +_Metellus_ +Meung, Jean de +Meyers, Ernest +_Midsummer Night's Dream_ +Milton, John +Mirari, Alessandro +_Mirrha_ +_Mirror for Magistrates_ +_Mirzia_ +_Modern Language Association of America, Publications of the_ +_Modern Language Notes_ +_Modern Language Quarterly_ +_Modern Language Review_ +Molza, Francesco Maria +Montagu, Walter +Montefeltro, Guidubaldo (Guidubaldo I), _Duke of Urbino_ +Montemayor, Jorge de +Moore, Thomas +Moore, Sir Thomas +Moorman, F. W. +Moraldi, Giannantonio +_Moretum_ +_Morte del Danese_ +_Morte della Nencia_ +Moschus +_Mother Bombie_ +_Mother Hubberd's Tale_ +_Mourning Garment_ +_Mucedorus_ +Munday, Anthony +_Muses' Elizium_ +_Muses' Looking Glass_ +Mussato, Albertino +_Mutability_ +_Mydas_ + +Nappi, Cesare +_Narcissus_ +_Narcissus' Change_ +Nashe, Thomas +Nemesianus +_Nencia da Barberino_ +Nettleship, Henry +_Never too Late_ +_New English Dictionary_ +Nichols, John +Nicolas de Montreux +_Nigella_ +_Ninfa tiberina_ +_Ninfale fiesolano_ +Noci, Carlo +Nores, Giasone de +Norris of Rycote, Baron +Northampton, Earl of +Northumberland, Earl of +Notker the German +_Novelle de Novizi_ +Numerianus +_Nuova Antologia_ +_Nut-brown Maid_ + +_Oberon_ +Occleve, Thomas +Octavianus +_Old-fashioned Love_ +_Old Fortunatus_ +_Old Law_ +Oldmixon, John +_Old Wives' Tale_ +Ollenix du Mont-Sacré +_Ombres_ +_Omphale_ +Ongaro, Antonio +Oporinus, Joannes +_Orfeo_ +_Orlando furioso_ +_Orlando innamorato_ +_Orphei Tragoedia_ +Orsini family +_Osiers_ +_Otranto, Castle of_ +Ovid + +P., G. +Paglia, Francesco Baldassare +_Palladis Tamia_ +Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio +_Palmers Ode_ +Palmerini, I. +_Pan his Syrinx_ +_Pandosto_ +_Pan's Anniversary_ +_Pan's Pipe_ +_Paradise Lost_ +_Paradiso_ +Parsons, Philip +_Parthenia_ +_Parthenophil and Parthenope_ +Pasqualigo, Luigi (Alvisi) +_Passionate Pilgrim_ +_Passionate Shepherd_ +_Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ +Paston, Edward +Paston, Sir William +_Pastor fido_ +_Pastor fido_ (Guarini), English translations: + 'Dymock,' + Sidnam + Fanshawe + Settle + [Latin] + Grove, Clapperton +_Pastor lobo_ +_Pastor vedovo_ +_Pastoral ending in a Tragedy_ +_Pastores de Balue_ +_Pastoureau crestien_ +Patrizi, Francesco +_Paul et Virginie_ +Pausanias +_Pazzia_ +Peaps, William +_Pearl_ +Pearson, John +Peele, George +Pelliciari, Ercole +Pembroke, Countess of +_Pembroke's Arcadia, Countess of_, see _Arcadia_ (Sidney). +_Pembroke's Ivychurch, Countess of_, see _Ivychurch_. +_Penseroso_ +_Pentimento amoroso_ +Pepys, Samuel +Pèrcopo, Erasmo +Percy Society +Percy, Thomas +Percy, William +Pérez, Alonzo +_Perimedes the Blacksmith_ +Perth, Earl of +Perugino (Pietro Vespucci) +_Pescatoria amorosa_ +Pescetti, Orlando +Petit de Julleville, L. +Petowe, Henry +Petrarca, Francesco +Petrarca, Gherardo +Phanocles +_Philaster_ +Philetas +_Phillida and Corin_ +_Phillida and Corydon_ +_Phillida flouts me_ +Phillips, Edward +_Phillis_ +_Phillis of Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_. +Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +Pico delia Mirandola, Giovanni +_Piers Plowman_ +Pigna, Giovanbattista +_Pilgrim_ +_Pinacoteca_ +Pinturicchio, Bernardo +Pio, Ercole +Pius II, _Pope_ +Plato +_Podere_ +_Poems Lyric and Pastoral_ +_Poetical Diversions_ +_Poetical Rhapsody_ +_Poetics_ (Aristotle) +_Poet's Willow_ +_Poimenologia_ +Poliziano (Angelo Ambrogini) +Pollard, A. W. +_Pollio_ +Polo, Gaspar Gil +Polybius +_Polyolbion_ +Ponce, Bartolomé +Ponsonby, William +Pontana, Accademia +Pontano +Pope, Alexander +Porcacchi, Tommaso +_Porta Pietatis_ +_Primavera_ +_Primelion_ +_Prince d'Amour_ +_Princesse de Clèves_ +_Propugnatore_ +_Prova amorosa_ +Prynne, William +Ptolemy Philadelphus +Pulci, Bernardo +Pulci, Luca +Pulci, Luigi +_Pulicane_ +_Purgatorio_ +_Purple Island_ +Puteanus (Hendrik van der Putten) +Puttenham, (George?) +Pynson, Richard +Pyper, John + +_Quadriregio_ +Quaritch, Bernard +Quarles, Francis +_Queen's Arcadia_ +_Quetten und Forschungen_ + +R., J. +Raleigh, Walter +Raleigh, Sir Walter +_Rambler_ +Ramsay, Allan +Randolph, Thomas +Rapin, René +_Rapture_ +Reid, J. S. +Reinolds, _see_ Reynolds. +Reissert, Oswald +_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ +René of Anjou +Renier, R. +Rennert, H. A. +_Retrospective Review_ +Reynolds, Henry +Reynolds, John: + Fellow of New College + of Exeter + author of _God's Revenge_ + translator +Reynolds, Sir John, Colonel +_Rhodon and Iris_ +Ribeiro, Bernardim +_Rinaldo_ +_Risposta al Malacreta_ +_Robene and Makyne_ +Robert of Sicily +_Robin Hood and Little John_ +_Robins et Marion_ +Rodrígues de Lobo, Francisco +Rollinson, Anthony +_Roman de la Rose_ +_Romeo and Juliet_ +Rondinelli, Dionisio +Ronsard, Pierre de +_Rosalynde_ +Rossi, Bartolommeo +Rossi, Giovanni Vittorio +Rossi, Vittorio +Rota, Bernardino +Rovere, Francesco Maria delia +Rovere, Guidubaldo delia (Guidubaldo II), _Duke of Urbino_ +Rowley, William +Roxburghe Club +Royden, Matthew +_Royster Doyster_ +Rozzi, Congrega dei +Ruberto, Luigi +_Rural Sports of the Nymph Oenone_ +Russell, Lady +Rutter, Joseph + +S., E. +S., H. +J. (translater of the _Filli di Sciro_) +S., J. (author of _Andromana_) +Sâ de Miranda, Francisco de +Sabie, Francis +Sacchetti, Franco +Sackville, Edward +_Sacrifizio_ (Beccari) +_Sacrifizio_ (Intronati masque) +_Sacrifizio pastorale_ +_Sad Shepherd_ +Sagredo, Giovanni +Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri Bernardin de +Saintsbury, George +_Salices_ +Salviati, Lionardo +Samson, M. W. +Sand, George +Sandys, J. E. +Sannazzaro, Jacopo +Sansovino, F. +San vitale, Gualtiero +Sappho +_Saturday Review_ +Savio, Giovanni +Schlegel, A. W. von +Schönherr, J. G. +Schucking, L. L. +_Scilla's Metamorphosis_ +Scott, Mary A. +Scott, Sir Walter +_Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_ +Seneca +_Selva d' amore_ +_Selva sin amor_ +Serassi, Pierantonio +Serono, Orazio +_Session of the Poets_ +Settle, Elkanah +Seward, Thomas +Seyffert, Oskar +_Sfortunato_ +Sforza, Giovanni +Sforza, Lodovico +_Shadow of Sannazar_ +Shakespeare, William +Shakespeare Society +Shepherd Tony _(pseud.)_ +_Shepherd's Calendar_ +_Shepherd's Complaint_ +_Shepherd's Content_ +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Angel Day) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Denny) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Rutter) +_Shepherd's Hunting_ +_Shepherds' Masque_ +_Shepherd's Ode_ +_Shepherd's Oracle_ +_Shepherd's Oracles_ +_Shepherds' Paradise_ +_Shepherd's Pipe_ +_Shepherds' Sirena_ +_Shepherd's Taies_ +_Shepherd's Wife's Song_ +Sherburne, Sir Edward +Sherley, James +_Ship of Fools_ +Shuckburgh, E. S. +_Sicelides_ +Sidnam, Jonathan +Sidney, Lady +Sidney, Sir Philip +_Siglo de Oro_ +Signorelli, Luca +Silesio, Mariano +_Silvanus_ +_Silver Age_ +_Silvia_ (Fileno) +_Silvia_ (Kynder) +Sincerus, Actius, _see_ Sannazzaro, Jacopo. +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_ +_Sirena_, see _Shepherds' Sirena._ +Skeat, W. W. +Skelton, John +Smith, G. C. M. +Smith, Homer +Smith, William, 124. +Solerti, Angelo +Solisy Rivadeneira, Antonio de +Sommer, H. O. +_Somnium Puteani (Cornus, sive Phagesiposia Cimeria)_ +_Song of Solomon_ +Sophocles +_Sophy_ +Southampton, Earl of +_Speeches at Bisham, &c._ +Speed, John +Spencer, Sir John +Spenser, Edmund +Speroni, Sperone +Spinelli, A. G. +Stanley, Ferdinando (Lord Strange) +_Steel Glass_ +Steele, Sir Richard +Stesichorus +Stevenson, R. L. +Stiefel, A. L. +Stockdale, Percival +_Stonehenge_ +Strange, Lord, _see_ Stanley, F. +_Stultifera Navis_ +Suckling, Sir Thomas +Suidas +_Summer's Last Will and Testament_ +Summo, Faustino +Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard) +_Sweet Sobs and Amorous Complaints_ +Swinburne, A. C. +Symonds, J. A. + +T., I. +Taccone, Baldassare +Talbot, Sir George +_Tale of Troy_ +_Tancia_ +Tansillo, Luigi +_Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_ +Tasso, Torquato +Tatham, John +Taylor, John +_Taylor's Pastoral_ +_Tears of the Muses_ +Tebaldeo, Antonio +_Tempest_ +Texeda, Jerónimo de +_Theatrum Poetarum_ +Theocritus +Thomason, George +Thorndike, A. H. +_Thracian Wonder_ +Thynne, William +Tibullus +Ticknor, George +_Timone_ +Tiraboschi, Girolamo +_Tirena_ +_Tirsi_ +_Titirus and Galathea_ +Tofte, Robert +_Tottel's Miscellany_ +_Townley mysteries_ +_Triumph of Beauty_ +_Triumph of Peace_ +_Triumph of Virtue_ +Torraca, Francesco +Turberville, George +Turnbull, W. B. +_Twelfth Night_ +_Tivo Gentlemen of Verona_ +_Two Noble Kinsmen_ + +Ugolino, Braccio +Ulloa, Alonzo de +_Under der linden_ +Underhill, J. G. +Uniti, Accademia degli +Urceo +Urfe, Honoré d' + +_Valle tenebrosa_ (_Vallis Opaca_) +Valle, Cesare della +Valois, House of +Vega, Lope de +_Vendemmiatore_ +_Venus and Adonis_ +_Verato_ +_Verato secondo_ +Vergil +Vergna, Maria della, _see_ La Fayette, Comtesse de +Vicente, Gil +Vida, Marco Girolamo +Villon, François +_Volpone_ +_Vuelta de Egypto_ + +W., A. +Waldron, F. G. +Walsingham, Sir Francis +Walther von der Vogelweide +Walton, Isaac +_War without Blows and Love without Suit (? Strife)_ +Ward, A. W. +Warner, William +Warton, Thomas +Waterson, Simon +Watson, Thomas, III +Web, William, _Lord Mayor_ +Webbe, William +Weber, H. W. +Webster, John +Webster, William +Weinberg, Gustav +Weise, Berthold +White, Edward +Wicksteed, P. H. +Wilcox, Thomas +Wilde, George +Wilson, H. +Wilson, Thomas +_Wily Beguiled_ +Windscheid, Katharina +Winstanley, William +_Winter's Tale_ +Wither, George +Wolfe, John +Wolsey, Thomas, _Cardinal_ +_Woman in the Moon_ +_Wonder of Women_ +Wood, Anthony à +Wotton, Sir John +Wotton, Sir Henry +Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder +Wynkyn de Worde + +Yong (or Young), Bartholomew + +_Zanitonella_ +Zinano, Gabriele +Zola, Emil +Zurla, Lodovico + + + +Oxford: Horace Hart, Printer to the University. + + + + +Footnotes + + + + +[1] The often cited pastoralism of the _Song of Solomon_ resolves itself +on investigation into an occasional simile. These argue familiarity with +the scenes of pastoral life, but equally reveal the existence of the +contrast in the mind of the writer. It was on the orthodox interpretation +of this love-song that Remi Belleau founded his _Éclogues sacrées_, but +they contain little or nothing of a pastoral nature. The same may be said +of Drayton's paraphrase, included in his _Harmony of the Church_ in 1591, +which is chiefly remarkable for the evident and honest pleasure with which +he rendered the unsophisticated meaning of the original. It is, however, +just possible that the Hebrew poem may have had some influence on pastoral +poetry in Italy. There is a monograph on the subject by A. Abbruzzese, _Il +Cantico dei Cantici in alcune parafrasi poetiche italiane: contributo alla +storia del dramma pastorale_, which, however, I have not seen. With regard +to possible Greek predecessors of Theocritus, it must be borne in mind +that there were singing contests between shepherds at the Sicilian +festival of Artemis, and it is possible that the competitors may have been +sufficiently influenced by other orders of civilization to have given a +definitely pastoral colouring to their songs. Little is known of their +nature beyond the fact that they probably contained the motive of the +lament for Daphnis, which appears to be as old as Stesichorus. They have +perished all but two lines which are found prefixed by way of motto to the +_Idyls_: + + [Greek: δέξαι τὰν ἀγαθὰν τύχαν, δέξαι τὰν ὑγίειαν, + ἃν φέρομεν παρὰ τᾶσ θεοῦ, ἃν ἐκαλέσσατο τήνα.] + +What I have wished to emphasize above is the fact that because shepherds +sang songs we have no reason to assume that these were distinctively +pastoral. In later times the pastoral generally acknowledged a theoretical +dependence on rustic song, and the popular compositions did actually now +and again affect literary tradition. But this was rare. + +[2] Details concerning the conception of the golden age will be found in +Moorman's _William Browne_, p. 59. + +[3] The tendency to form an ideal picture of his own youth is common both +to mankind and man. The romance of childhood is the dream with which age +consoles itself for the disillusionments of life. This it is that gives a +peculiar appropriateness to the title of Mr. Graham's pictures of +childhood in _The Golden Age_, a work of the profoundest insight and +genius, as delightful as it is unique. I am not aware that there has ever +been another author in English who could have written thus intimately of +children without once striking a false note. + +[4] There is some truth in the charge. Even Symonds wrote of Theocritus, +possibly with Fontenelle's words in his mind: 'As it is, we find enough of +rustic grossness on his pages, and may even complain that his cowherds and +goatherds savour too strongly of their stables.' (_Greek Poets_, ii. p. +246.) + +[5] Landscapes as decoration may be seen on the walls of the so-called +Casa Nuova at Pompeii. It should be remarked that one idyl is addressed to +Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, and it is quite possible that Theocritus may +have been a frequent visitor there. + +[6] Theocritus flourished in the first half of the third century B.C. Some +authorities place the younger poets more than a hundred years later. + +[7] Familiar to English readers through Matthew Arnold's translation. + +[8] Suidas says that Moschus came from Sicily, and some authorities speak +of him as a Syracusan. But in his 'Lament' he alludes to his 'Ausonian' +song, apparently as distinguished from that of Theocritus 'of Syracuse.' +The passage, however, is rendered obscure by an hiatus. Another tradition +made Theocritus a native of the island of Cos. More probably it was +between the time of his leaving Syracuse and that of his settling at +Alexandria that he was the pupil of the Coan poet and critic, Philetas. + +[9] Ernest Myers' version from Andrew Lang's delightful volume in the +Golden Treasury Series. + +[10] Placing the romance, that is, in the third century A.D. Authorities +assign it to various dates from the second to the sixth centuries, +according as they regard it as a model or an imitation of Heliodorus' +work. + +[11] A similar use of ἀναγνώρισις is very frequent in the Italian pastoral +drama, where, however, it is more probably derived from Latin comedy. + +[12] This was not the first Italian version of Longus. _Daphnis and Chloe_ +had been translated directly from the Greek by Annibale Caro in the +previous century. + +[13] Two poems, written in close imitation of Theocritus' natural manner, +and entitled respectively _Moretum_ and _Copa_, have sometimes, but +wrongly, been attributed to Vergil. + +[14] _Greek Poets_, ii. p. 265. + +[15] Symonds speaks strongly on the point. 'Virgil not only lacks his +[Theocritus'] vigour and enthusiasm for the open-air life of the country, +but, with Roman bad taste, he commits the capital crime of allegorising.' +(_Greek Poets_, ii. p. 247.) + +[16] Seyffert's classical dictionary, as revised by Nettleship and Sandys +(1899), definitely assigns Calpurnius to the middle of the first century. +In that case the amphitheatre mentioned was no doubt the wooden structure +that preceded the Colosseum. + +[17] See, in Conington and Nettleship's _Virgil_, 1881, the essay on 'The +Later Bucolic Poets of Rome,' in which will be found a detailed account of +this very intricate controversy. + +[18] It would appear that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue +deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their +purpose. Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the +pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is +characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear. He +was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian +eclogue, and adopted it for definite purposes of utility. Boccaccio is +even more explicit, and I cannot do better than transcribe the very +interesting summary of the history of pastoral verse down to his day, +given in a letter addressed by him to Martino da Signa, which I shall +again have occasion to mention in dealing with his own contributions to +the kind. He writes: 'Theocritus Syracusanus Poeta, ut ab antiquis +accepimus, primus fuit, qui Graeco Carmine Buccolicum escogitavit stylum, +verum nil sensit, praeter quod cortex verborum demonstrat. Post hunc +Latine scripsit Virgilius, sed sub cortice nonnullos abscondit sensus, +esto non semper voluerit sub nominibus colloquentium aliquid sentiremus. +Post hunc autem scripserunt et alii, sed ignobiles, de quibus nil curandum +est, excepto inclyto Praeceptore meo Francisco Petrarca qui stylum praeter +solitum paululum sublimavit et secundum Eclogarum suarum materias continue +collocutorum nomina aliquid significantia posuit. Ex his ego Virgilium +secutus sum quapropter non curavi in omnibus colloquentium nominibus +sensum abscondere.' _Lettere di G. Boccaccio_, ed. Corazzini, 1877, p. +267. + +[19] Line 1228. See Skeat's note in the _Athenæum_, March 1, 1902. + +[20] On all points connected with these compositions see the elaborate +monograph by Wicksteed and Gardner. + +[21] Dante's poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect. It +would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also +some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in +support of the above remarks. It is significant of their independence of +medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of +Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the +whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus. + +[22] Boccaccio was of course acquainted with Dante's eclogues, and in his +life of the poet he allows them considerable beauty. It seems never to +have occurred to him, however, to regard them as serious contributions to +pastoral literature, for, as we have already seen, he stigmatizes all +bucolic writers between Vergil and Petrarch as _ignobiles_. I do not think +this attitude was due to the influence of Petrarch having lessened his +admiration of Dante, as maintained by Wicksteed and Gardner, but simply to +his recognition of the absolute unimportance of the poems in question from +the historical point of view. + +[23] In this connexion it will be remembered that Dante places Brutus and +Cassius, the betrayers of Julius, in company with Judas, the betrayer of +Christ, as arch-traitors in the innermost circle of hell (_Inferno_, +xxxiv). He was no doubt influenced in this by his philosophical Ghibelline +tendencies. + +[24] The evolution of this idea, suggested of course by John X. II, can be +clearly traced in the mosaics at Ravenna. + +[25] So Hortis (_Scritti inediti di F. Petrarca_, pp. 221, &c.), who +combats A. W. von Schlegel's view that the Epy of Eclogue VII stands for +Avignon. + +[26] This spelling was current for some centuries, Spenser among others +adopting it. Indeed, _egloghe_ is still the prevalent form among Italian +scholars. + +[27] One other was discovered and published from MS. by Hortis, in his +_Studi sulle opere latini_, p. 351. + +[28] It is not impossible that Boccaccio may have begun composing eclogues +before his acquaintance with Petrarch, since the influence of the poems +sent by Dante to Giovanni del Virgilio has been traced in the eclogue +printed by Hortis, and in an early version of the _Faunus_, as well as in +the work of Boccaccio's correspondent, Cecco di Mileto. + +[29] So Aeneas Sylvius, in his _De Remedio Amoris_, after a particularly +virulent tirade against women, explained: 'De his loquor mulieribus quae +turpes admittunt amores.' + +[30] 'Syncerius' is the form used, but there can be little doubt who was +intended. + +[31] In the days when it was fashionable for men of learning to discuss +the laws of pastoral composition, a certain northern giant fell foul of +the Neapolitan's piscatory eclogues on somewhat theoretical grounds. +Having never seen the blue smile of the bay of Naples, he suggested that +the sea was an object of terror; forgetful of the monotonous setting of +pastoral verse, he complained that the piscatory life offered little +variety; finally, he contended that the technicalities of the craft were +unfamiliar to readers--but are we to suppose that the learned author of +the _Rambler_ was competent to tend a flock? + +[32] They were at least the first to appear in print. The contributors +were Girolamo Benivieni, of Florence, and Francesco Arsocchi and Fiorino +Boninsegni, of Siena. The first possibly deserves mention as having +introduced Pico della Mirandola as a character in his eclogues: some of +the poems of the last are noteworthy as having been composed as early as +1468. There exists a poem by Luca Pulci on the story of Polyphemus and +Galatea in the form of an eclogue. Luca died in 1470. Leo Battista +Alberti, the famous architect, who died in 1472, also left a poem, which +was published from MS. in 1850, with the heading 'Egloga.' This, however, +proves not to be strictly pastoral. Among other early ventures were ten +Italian eclogues in _terza rima_, by Boiardo. These, and also his ten +Latin eclogues, will be found printed from MS. in his _Poesie volgari e +latine_ (ed. A. Solerti, Bologna, 1894), while full accounts of both will +be found in the essays contributed by G. Mazzoni and A. Campani to the +_Studi su M. M. Boiardo_, edited by N. Campanini (Bologna, 1894). There +can be no doubt that the court of Lorenzo was full of pastoral experiments +in the vernacular for some time before the publication mentioned above. + +[33] Having regard to the general character of the _Ameto_, I am not sure +that it might not be possible to find some hidden meaning in the poem in +question, if one were challenged to do so. The allegory is, however, +mostly of the abstract kind, and the eclogue can hardly conceal allusions +to any actual events. + +[34] A very useful and representative, though of course by no means +complete, collection is that by G. Ferrario, in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[35] Castiglione also figured among the Latin eclogists of his day, and +the influence of his _Alcon_ is even traced by Saintsbury in _Lycidas_ +(_Earlier Renaissance_, p. 34). + +[36] It is said to have been by way of penance for having written the +_Vendemmiatore_ that he later undertook the composition of the _Lagrime di +San Pietro_, a lengthy religious poem, which remained unfinished at his +death in 1568. + +[37] _La Beca_ is ascribed by mistake to Luca Pulci in the first edition +of Symonds' _Renaissance_. + +[38] The best imitation is said to be the _Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo_ +by Francesco Baldovini (1643-1700), which is graceful, though rather more +satiric in tone than its model. + +[39] It differs, however, from most poems of the sort, in that the +langnage of the fisher craft in Italy was capable of the same wantonly +double meaning as was suggested to English writers by the name and terms +of the noble art of venery. This serves to differentiate it from the style +of pastoral, and suggests that we should rather class it along with such +works as Berni's _Caccia d'amore._ + +[40] It is occasionally traceable in the French _pastourelles_, but that +form of courtly composition never became popular south of the Alps. Its +vogue passed completely with the decline of Provençal tradition. D'Ancona +quotes one Italian example of the thirteenth century, the work of a +Florentine, Ciacco dell' Anguillaja. It begins gracefully enough: + + O gemma leziosa, + Adorna villanella, + Che se' più virtudiosa + Che non se ne favella, + Per la virtude ch' hai + Per grazia del Signore, + Aiutami, che sai + Che son tuo servo, amore. + + +[41] Further evidence of the popularity of this poem will be found in the +existence of a religious parody beginning: + + O vaghe di Gesù, o verginelle, + Dove n' andate si leggiadre e belle? + +(_Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari_, &c., Firenze, 1863, p. 105.) It is +founded on the fourteenth ceutury, not on the popular, version. + +[42] The foregoing remarks follow very closely Symonds' treatment in the +third chapter of his _Italian Literature_. In point of fact, I lit on +Donati's poem quite accidentally, before reading the chapter in question, +but I have made no scruple of availing myself of his guidance wherever it +was to be had. + +[43] Symonds has some very severe strictures on these songs from the moral +point of view. Judging from the actual songs themselves his remarks would +appear somewhat exaggerated, but if we take into consideration the +historical circumstances they are probably amply justified. + +[44] It is perhaps worth putting in a word of warning against the possible +confusion of this poem with Politian's Latin composition bearing the same +title. Ambra was a rustic resort in the neighbourhood of Florence, to +which Lorenzo was much attached. By the lover Lauro the author seems to +have meant himself. At least this is rendered probable by some lines near +the end of Politian's poem, in which the villa is again personified as a +nymph: + + Et nos ergo illi grata pietate dicamus + Hanc de Pierio contextam flore coronam, + Quam mihi Caianas inter pulcherrima nymphas + Ambra dedit patriae lectam de gramine ripae: + Ambra mei Laurentis amor, quam corniger Vmbro, + Vmbro senex genuit domino gratissimus Arno: + Vmbro suo tandem non erupturus ab alneo. + (_Opera,_ Basel, 1553, p. 581.) + + +[45] He was born at Montepulciano in 1454, and died, at the age of forty, +two years after Lorenzo. + +[46] Symonds, _Renaissance_, iv. p. 232, note 3. + +[47] It has been sometimes thought that the description of Mars in the lap +of Venus, in stanzas 122-3, suggested Botticelli's picture in the National +Gallery; but, though the lines are worthy of having inspired even a more +successful example of the painter's art, the resemblance is in this case +too general to warrant any such conclusion. + +[48] A favourite phrase of his. 'What has been well called _la voluttà +idillica_--the sensuous sensibility to beauty, finding fit expression in +the Idyll--formed a marked characteristic of Renaissance art and +literature.' _Renaissance_, v. p. 170. + +[49] The similar alternation of verse and prose found in the French and +Provençal _cante-fables,_ notably in _Aucassin et Nicolette,_ is of a +different nature, for in them the prose served properly to explain and +connect the verse-passages which contained the actual story, and it +probably formed no part of the original composition. + +[50] I quote from the handy edition of Boccaccio's _Opere minori_ in the +'Biblioteca classica economica.' The passages cited above will be found on +pp. 246 and 250, or in the _Opere volgari_, 1827-34. xv. pp. 186 and 194. + +[51] It is probably no accident that, like Dante's poem, Boccaccio's +romance is styled a 'comedy.' Both represent, in allegorical form, the +ascent of the human soul from sin, through purgation, to the presence of +God. + +[52] It has been suggested that there is a gradual spiritualization in the +motives of the tales; but this would appear to be a somewhat fanciful +view. + +[53] Proemio, _Opere minori_, p. 145; _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 4. + +[54] _Opere minori_, p. 176, _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 60. + +[55] While greatly shortening the passage, and taking considerable +liberties in the way of paraphrase, I have endeavoured, as far as +possible, to preserve the style and diction of the original. This will be +found in the _Opere minori_, pp. 213, &c., _Opere volgari_, xv. pp. 126, +&c. + +[56] The description of the spring is from Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, III, +407, &c. No doubt a great deal more could be traced to Latin sources. + +[57] For details concerning tree-lists see Moorman's _William Brown_, p. +154. + +[58] Dunlop's notion of the verse being the important part, and the prose +only written to connect the varions eclogues, is clearly wrong. Verse +started by being subordinate in Boccaccio's romance, and remained so in +all subsequent examples. + +[59] _Prosa_ VIII. The whole passage was versified in Spanish by +Garcilaso, whence a portion found its way into Googe's eclogues. Among +other ingenions devices Sannazzaro mentions that of pinning down a crow by +the extremity of its wings and waiting for it to entangle its fellows in +its claws. If any reader should be tempted to imagine that the author has +been drawing on a fertile imagination, let him turn to the adventures of +one Morrowbie Jukes, as related by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, for a description +of this identical method of crow-catching as practised on the banks of an +Indian stream. + +[60] It may be well to point out that at times, as in Carino's invocation +to the Dryads, Symonds has infused into his version a beauty of diction of +which Sannazzaro appears to be innocent. + +[61] The _Arcadia_ must have been extant in its original form as early as +1481, when it served as model for the eclogues of Pietro Jacopo de +Jennaro. The earliest known MS. dates from 1489, and contains the first +ten _Prose_ and _Ecloghe_. In this form it was surreptitiously printed in +1502; the complete work first appeared in 1504. The earliest commentary, +that of Tommaso Porcacchi, appeared in 1558, and went through several +editions. An elaborate variorum edition was printed at Padua in 1723. I +have followed the text in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[62] Arcadia had been called 'the mother of flocks' in the Homeric _Hymn +to Pan_, and Polybius had described the softening effects of music upon +its rude inhabitants. See some interesting remarks on the snbject by J. E. +Sandys, in his lectures on the _Revival of Learning_, Cambridge, 1905; +also J. P. Mahaffy, _Rambles and Studies_, ch. xii. + +[63] Having had occasion in the course of the following pages to call +attention to certain inaccuracies of Ticknor's, I should like in this +place to record my indebtedness to what still remains the standard history +of Spanish literature. I have likewise made free use of +Fitzmaurice-Kelly's admirable monograph. + +[64] _Don Quixote_, pt. ii. ch. 62. + +[65] Calderon wrote an early play on the tale of Cephalus and Procris, +which met, it is said, with success. It was entitled _Celos aun del aire +matan_, and was styled a 'fiesta cantada.' Later in life he parodied it in +the 'comedia burlesca' entitled _Cefalo y Pocris_ (sic). Neither play +appears to have any connexion with the _Cefalo_ of Niccolò da Correggio +(_v. post_, ch. iii). Both are printed in the third volume of Calderon's +comedies in the 'Biblioteca de autores españoles,' 1848-50. The _Pastor +fido_ will be found in vol. iv. + +[66] Mr. Gosse has protested against the use of such terms as 'exotic' in +connexion with products of literary art, and no doubt the word has been +not a little abused. I employ it in its strict sense of 'introduced from +abroad, not indigenons,' and without implying any critical censure. + +[67] Though a Portuguese, and one of the most notable poets in his own +dialect, much of his poetical work is in Castillan. + +[68] So, at least, Theophilo Braga interprets what he calls 'o drama +amoroso das Eclogas,' in his monograph on _Bernardim Ribeiro e o +bucolismo_. Porto, 1897. + +[69] Ticknor is responsible for an unfortunate error, and much consequent +confusion, respecting this date. Some one had cited an imaginary edition +of 1545. Of this Ticknor confessed ignorance, but stated that he had in +his possession a copy consisting of 112 quarto leaves, printed at Valencia +in 1542. This description applies exactly to the earliest edition extant +in the British Museum, except in the matter of the date. There can be no +doubt that this is a mistake. The date 1542 is intrinsically impossible. +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, who himself dates the work 1558-9, points out that one +of the songs refers to events which took place in 1554. The sudden crop of +reprints, dated 1561 and 1562, proves the _Diana_ to have been then a new +book, and inclines me to place the actual publication somewhat after the +date suggested by Kelly. I may mention that Ticknor is also in error over +the date of Ribeiro's work, which he assigns to 1557. + +[70] See the collection of Latin student songs, _Gaudeamus! Carmina +uagorum selecta in usum laetitiae_, Leipzig, 1879, p. 124. + +[71] The novels alluded to will be found in the _Ecatommiti_, I. i, _Cent +Nouvelles nouvelles_, No. 82, and _Novelle de' Novizi_, No. 12. + +[72] _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, II. viii. (Dyce, ii. p. 172), and +_The Pilgrim_, IV. ii. (Dyce, viii. p. 66). + +[73] B. M., Roxburghe, III. 160, also II. 30. + +[74] References are best given to F. J. Child's monumental collection, in +five volumes, where all variants are printed. _Cowdenknows_ and the _Bonny +May_ are No. 217; _The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ 110, the _Bonny +Ilynd_ 50, _Child Waters_ 63, _The Laird of Drum_ 236, _Lizie Lindsay_ +226, _Lizie Baillie_ 227, _Glasgow Peggie_ 228, and _Johnie Faa_ 200. No +doubt further examples might be collected. + +[75] Similar shepherd-scenes are found not only in French but even in +Italian miracle plays. The tendency they indicate, however, is not +traceable in later pastoral, as it is with us. That such representations +as those of the Sienese 'Rozzi' formed no exception to this general +statement I shall have to show later. + +[76] For the literary history of the Wakefield cycle, see A. W. Pollard's +admirable introduction to the edition published by the Early English Text +Society. + +[77] They also criticize the angels' singing in curiously technical +language. + +[78] Towneley Plays, XII. l. 377, &c., and l. 386, &c., cf. Vergil, +_Bucolics_, IV. 6. + +[79] It is perhaps necessary to define the above use of 'idealization' as +that modification of photographie reality observable in all true art. It +is only when the methods of art have become self-conscious that realism +can become an end in itself. + +[80] _An English Garner_: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. +Pollard, 1903, p. 87. The carol is from a MS. at Balliol College. + +[81] The poem will be found in Arber's edition of the 'Miscellany,' p. +138, and in A. H. Bullen's reprint of _England's Helicon_, p. 56. In +dealing with isolated poems I have quoted, wherever possible, from +Bullen's reprints of the song books, &c. + +[82] Forst = cared for. + +[83] It first appeared as 'The Ploughman's Song' in the 'Entertainment at +Elvetham' in 1591. This has been recently claimed for Lyly. Without +expressing any opinion in this place as to the likelihood of such an +ascription for the bulk of the piece, it may be remarked that the song in +question is as like the rest of Breton's work in style as it is unlike +anything to be found in Lyly's writings. + +[84] Of all pedestrian, not to say reptilian, metres, this is perhaps the +most intolerable; indeed, it was not until touched to new life by the +genius of Blake that it deserved to be called a metre at all. + +[85] See R. B. McKerrow's articles on the Elizabethan 'classical metres' in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for December, 1901, and April, 1902, iv. +p. 172, and v. p. 6. + +[86] Eclogues i-iv were printed by Pynson, and the fifth by Wynkyn de +Worde early in the century; i-iii were twice reprinted about 1550. Barclay +died in 1552. + +[87] Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II. I suppose that +it is on account of this statement of Barclay's that English critics have +constantly referred to the work as pastoral. It is nothing but a prose +invective against court life. + +[88] See Dyce's _Skelton_, Introduction, p. xxxvi. + +[89] 'Eglogs Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Newly written by Barnabe Googe: +1563. 15. Marche.' Reprinted by Professer Arber from the Huth copy. + +[90] The title of the collection as originally published is obviously +ambiguous--is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There +is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases +by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice +seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be +little doubt that the title of Spenser's work was suggested by the +_Calender of Shepherds_. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear +that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin +Clout--that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the +shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for +shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I +think, a defensible spelling. + +[91] The alternative view, which would make Spenser his own commentator, +is not without supporters both in Germany and in this country. Even were +the question, however, one of greater importance from our point of view, +the 'proofs' so far adduced do not constitute sufficient of an _a priori_ +case to justify discussion here. + +[92] _Anglia_, iii. p. 266, and ix. p. 205. + +[93] At the end of the _Calender_ Spenser placed as his motto 'Merce non +mercede'--as merchandise, not for reward. + +[94] On all questions relating to the _Shepherd's Calender_ see C. H. +Herford's edition, to which I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. So +far as I am aware, we possess no more admirable edition of any monument of +English literature. + +[95] Cf. the titles of Drayton's _Idea_ and Basse's MS. eclogues, _infra_. + +[96] _Discoveries_, 1640 (-41), p. 116 (Gifford, 1875; § cxxv). The +'ancients,' as appears from the context, are Chaucer and Gower. + +[97] _Apology for Poetry_, 1595; Arber's edition, p. 63. + +[98] Even Sidney's authorities break down to some extent. Theocritus +certainly modified the literary dialect in his pastoral idyls, and we may +recall that when Vergil began his third eclogue with the line-- + + Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei? + +a wit of Rome retorted: + + Die mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus?' anne Latinum? + +Or again it may be asked whether Lorenzo de' Medici is not as good a name +to conjure by as Jacopo Sannazzaro. + +[99] Some of the eclogues are mucn more pronouncedly dialectal than +others, but even within the limits of a single one, literary and dialectal +forms may often be found used indiscriminately. See Herford's remarks on +the subject. + +[100] 'February,' l. 33, &c. Lines 35-6 contain one of the few direct +reminiscences of Chaucer. Cf. _House of Fame_, II. 1225-6. Spenser +repeated the imitation, _Faery Queen_, VI. ix. 43-5, and was followed by +Fletcher, _Faithful Shepherdess_, V. v. 183-4. + +[101] _Pastime of Pleasure_, xxxv. 6, from the edition of 1555 (Percy +Soc., 1845, p. 113). + +[102] In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that +all anomalous lines in Spenser's measure become strict decasyllables when +done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident. My point is +that Chaucer's verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have +often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser's. The view I have +indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (_History of English +Poetry_, ii. p. 253). Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to +Chancer's influence to explain Spenser's anomalies, regards the metre in +question as derived from the old alliterative line. From this view I am +reluctantly forced to dissent. The alliterative line may be readily traced +in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes +and such comedies as _Royster Doyster_; and this tradition may have +affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even +the popular ideas concerning Chaucer's metre. But as to the actual origin +of Spenser's four-beat line there can surely be no doubt. + +[103] The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of +literary casuistry _(Spenser_, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly +astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and +similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the _Calender_ and +elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores +the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done +nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a +Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his +own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for +their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, +while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their +authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. +Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at +all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily +unknown. + +[104] The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is +contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue. It is entitled +_Poimenologia_. The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, +fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596. Dove became Master of Arts in +1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation +probably belongs to an earlier date. I am indebted for knowledge of and +information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof. Moore Smith, and +of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College. + +[105] Winstanley (_Lives of the English Poets_, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it +to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin +version of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. + +[106] _Faery Queen_, VII. vi. 349, &c. + +[107] Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the _Orlando_ and the +_Gerusalemme_, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in +Spenser can be directly referred. + +[108] See A. H. Bullen's edition, two vols., 1890-91. The poems in question +will be fonnd in vol. i, pp. 48, 58, 63 and 76. + +[109] It is worth noting that in the last stanza all the early editions +read 'Thenot' instead of 'Wrenock'; Thenot being the corresponding +character in Spenser. + +[110] Perhaps Anne Goodere: but the question is alien to our present +discussion. Some of the allusions in the eclogues are obvious, and +probably all the names, except perhaps the speaker's, conceal real +personalities. In the _Muses' Elizium_, on the other hand, most of the +names and characters appear to me fictitious. In connexion with the name +'Idea,' in which certain critics have wished to see a deep philosophical +meaning, I would suggest that it may be nothing but the feminine of +'Idaeus,' that is, a shepherd of Mount Ida, a name found in the second +eclogue of Petrarch. It is, however, true that the word 'idea' bore the +meaning of 'an ideal,' in which sense, no doubt, we occasionally find it +applied to England. + +[111] Concerning translations of Watson's Latin poems, I may be allowed to +refer to a paper contributed to the _Modern Language Quarterly_, February, +1904, vi. p. 125. + +[112] Cf. the passage from Spenser's October eclogue, quoted on p. 88. + +[113] A certain similarity between this poem and the song in _Love's +Labour's Lost_, beginning: + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May; + +has caused them to be at times ascribed to Shakespeare. They are +subscribed 'Ignoto' in _England's Helicon_, but appeared among the poems +published with Barnfield's _Lady Pecunia_ in 1598, a tail of thirty lines +of very inferior quality being substituted for the singularly perfect and +effective final couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in +the _Passionate Pilgrim_, this time with both the couplet and the +addition. The _Helicon_ version is certainly by far the best, and not +improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of +Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in _An English Miscellany_, +Oxford, 1901. + +[114] Gascoigne's _Steel Glass_ is far rather medieval in conception. + +[115] Compare with the lines in _Rosalynd_, beginning 'Phoebe sat, sweet +she sat,' those in _Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_, beginning, 'Down I +sat, I sat down,' and see A. H. Bullen's _Poems from Elizabethan Romances_, +1890, p. xi. + +[116] The copy of _Pan's Pipe_ in the British Museum wants the _Tale_, but +this will be found by itself marked C. 40. e. 68 (2, 3). + +[117] Collier and Hazlitt supposed two William Basses, but the balance of +evidence seems against the theory. See S. L. Lee in _Dic. Nat. Biog_., and +the edition by R. W. Bond, 1893. + +[118] Fleay (_Biographical Chronicle_, i. p. 67) identifies Musidore with +Lodge, and 'Hero's last Musaeus' with H. Petowe. The latter +identification, which had already been proposed by Collier +(_Bibliographical Account_, i. p. 130), is in all probability correct. + +[119] Printed by me in the _Modern Language Quarterly_, July, 1901, iv. p. +85. + +[120] These are missing in most copies of the book; the only one I know +containing them is in the Bodleian. + +[121] I do not know who started the idea. It was mentioned in the +_Retrospective Review_ (ii. p. 180) in 1820, accepted by Sommer, and +elaborated with small success by K. Windscheid. Masson makes no mention of +it in his edition of Milton's poetical works. The author of _Lycidas_ was +probably a reader and admirer of Browne's poems, but of _Britannia's +Pastorals_ rather than of the decidedly inferior eclogues. + +[122] The _Arcadian Princess_, translated by Brathwaite from Mariano +Silesio, a kind of metaphorical manual of judicial polity, is in no way +pastoral. It may be remarked that in 1627 there appeared as the work of +one I. D. B. an 'Eclogue, ou Chant Pastoral,' on the marriage (1625) of +Charles and Henrietta Maria, in which two Scotch Shepherds, Robin and +Jacquet, discourse in French Alexandrines. _Taylor's Pastoral_ of 1624 +again, a fanciful treatise of religious and secular history, does not +properly belong to pastoral tradition. + +[123] One of these appeared two years previously, entitled _The Shepherd's +Oracle_. + +[124] Appended to the third edition of the _Arcadia_, 1598. + +[125] Appended to the _Arcadia_ in 1613. + +[126] _Arcadia_, 1590, fol. 237 verso. + +[127] _Opera_, Basel, 1553, p. 622. + +[128] The song is said to be between 'two nymphs, each answering other +line for line'; but the simple alternation adopted by Spenser makes +nonsense of the present poem. The above arrangement seems to distribute +the lines best; viz. the first quatrain to Phillis, with interposition of +lines 2 and 4 by Amaryllis, the second quatrain to Amaryllis, with +interposition of line 2 only by Phillis. + +[129] Others in the _Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, and Walton's _Complete +Angler_, 1653. + +[130] So, rather than 'Fair-lined,' as Bullen prints; but query +'Fur-lined.' + +[131] This is the text of _England's Helicon_, which is superior to that +in the play, except for the omission of the couplet in brackets, and +possibly in the reading 'hath sworn' for 'is sworn,' in l. 11. + +[132] From E. K. Chambers' _English Pastorals_, p. 113. The date is +uncertain, but a tune of the name was extant in 1603. The earliest +recorded text is a broadside, of about 1650, in the Roxburghe collection +(III. 142). The conjecture of an 'original issue, _circa_ 1600,' is on the +whole plausible. In that case there was, somewhere, a poet capable of +anticipating the particular cadences of _Sirena_ and _Agincourt_, and that +poet is more likely to have been Drayton than another. See Ebsworth's +edition for the Ballad Society (_Roxburghe Ballads_, vi. p. 460). + +[133] _Lycidas_ is almost too familiar, one might suppose, to need +comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different +authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt +to view the work critically in relation to pastoral tradition as a whole. + +[134] When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as 'easy, +vulgar, and therefore disgusting,' he was but exhibiting a critical +incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters. + +[135] For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of +parallel passages--as well as some of doubtful relevance--the reader may +be referred to F. W. Moorman's monograph. I use the text of G. Goodwin's +edition of Browne's poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., +1894. + +[136] K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third +book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne. Its merit +is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; +and Browne's work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for +depriving or relieving him of its authorship. + +[137] + + The hatred which they bore was only this, + That every one did hate to do amiss; + Their fortune still was subject to their will; + Their want--O happy!--was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.) + +Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that + + First of all joys that unto sin belong-- + The sweet felicity of doing wrong. + +[138] Pail. + +[139] The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to +ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful +minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been +constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on _Spanish +Literature in England_, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his +wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this +country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. +18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both +on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke +Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator +himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' +The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of +Spanish by Thomas Wilsõ Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle +of Southamptõ who was then uppon y'e Spanish voiage w'th my Lord of +Essex--Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers +are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish +nation, as is of y'e English of [_sic_] y't admirable & never enough +praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.' + +[140] Arber's edition, p. 83. + +[141] See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his +paper on the _Pastoral Influence in the English Drama_. All needful +apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness' +'Variorum' edition of the play. + +[142] Macaulay once remarked of the _Faery Queen_, that few and weary are +the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. It might with +equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere +the Arcadian princesses in Sidney's romance are rescued from the power of +Cecropia. + +[143] Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the +Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here. + +[144] Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile +of the first edition, 1891. + +[145] Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10. + +[146] K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the _Arcadia_ (_Sir Philip Sidneys +Arcadia und ihre Nachläufer_, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to +find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's +influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style +and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet +belonged essentially to the Spanish school. + +[147] Analyses of the _Arcadia_ will be fouud in all works upon the novel +from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which +is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the _Retrospective +Review_, 1820, ii. p. 1. + +[148] An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the +critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his _Art of English +Poesy_ (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas +Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the _Diana_, +given above (p. 141, note). + +[149] A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum. + +[150] See Jusserand's _English Novel in the time of Shakespeare_, 1890, p. +274. + +[151] The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the _Astrée_ +as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most +concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here. + +[152] I should at once say that the view of the development of the +pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set +forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have +swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, +however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I +believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an +appendix. + +[153] 'Orfeo cantando giugne all' Inferno' is one of the stage directions. + +[154] For an elaborate example (1547) of this kind of stage, on which +various localities were simultaneously represented, see Petit de +Julleville, _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, ii. +pp. 416-7. + +[155] Concerning the play see the account given by Symonds, together with +his admirable translation in _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece_, +ii. p. 345, also an elaborate essay, 'L'Orfeo del Poliziano alla corte di +Mantova,' by Isidoro del Lungo, in the _Nuova antologia_ for August, 1881, +and A. D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro italiano_, ii. pp. 2 and 106. The +standard edition of Poliziano's Italian works, that by Carducci, is +unfortunately not in the British Museum. + +[156] A note concerning the use of the term 'nymph' may save confusion. +Creizenach remarks that the introduction of a nymph as the beloved of a +shepherd is a peculiarity of the renaissance pastoral which manifestly +owes its origin to Boccaccio's _Ninfale fiesolano_ (_Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_, ii. p. 196). In so far as this view implies that the +'nymphs' of pastoral convention are the same order of beings as those +either of the _Ninfale_ or of classical myth, it appears to me utterly +erroneous. The 'nymphs' who love the shepherds in the renaissance +pastorals are nothing but shepherdesses. The confusion no doubt began with +Boccaccio. The nymph of Diana in the _Ninfale_ is, as we have already +seen, nothing but a nun in pagan disguise. The nymphs of the _Ameto_ are +represented as of the classical type, but their amorous confessions reveal +them as in nowise differing from mortal woman. The gradual change in the +connotation of the word is one of the results of the blending of Christian +and classical ideas. The original elemental or local spirits even in Greek +myth acquired some of the characteristics of votaries (as in the legeud of +Calisto), and these Christian tradition tended to accentuate, while +popular romance, and in many cases contemporary manners, facilitated the +connecting of such characters with tales of secret passion. Gradually, +however, the idea of illicit love gave place to one merely of unrestrained +natural desire, the religious elements of the character were forgotten as +the supernatural had been earlier, and 'nymph' came to be no more than the +feminine of 'shepherd' in an ideal society which by its freedom of +intercourse, as by its honesty of dealing, presented a complete contrast +to the polished circles of aristocratic Italy. + +[157] A small circular picture in _chiaroscuro_ among the arabesques of +the _cappella nova_ in the cathedral at Orvieto. It represents the +youthful Orpheus crowned with the laureate wreath playing before Pluto and +Proserpine upon a fiddle or crowd of antique pattern. At his feet lies +Eurydice, while around are spirits of the other world. + +[158] In some passages of this speech the resemblance with Ovid is very +close: + + famaque si ueteris non est mentita rapinae, + uos quoque iunxit Amor... + omnia debentur nobis, paulumque morati + serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam... + haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos, + iuris erit uestri; pro munere poscimus usum. + quod si fata negant ueniam pro coniuge, certum est + nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum. (_Met_. x. 28, &c.) + + +[159] Cf. _Amores_, II. xii, ll. 1, 2, 5, and 16. + +[160] This interpretation of the passion of Orpheus, characteristic as it +is of renaissance thought, was not original. Though unknown in early +times, it is found in Phanocles, a poet probably of the third or fourth +century B. C. + +[161] So original: revision 'oè oè.' + +[162] The earliest edition I have seen is that contained in the 'Opere' of +June 10, 1507, where the heading runs: 'Fabula di Caephalo cõposta dal +Signor Nicolo da Correggia a lo Illustrissimo. D. Hercole & da lui +repsentata al suo florẽtissimo Populo di Ferrara nel. M. cccc. lxxxvi. +adi. xxi. Ianuarii.' In this edition, printed at Venice by Manfrido Bono +de Monteferrato, the works are said to be 'Stampate nouamente: & ben +corrette.' Bibliographers record no edition previous to 1510. The date in +the heading is either a misprint, or refers to the year 1486-7 according +to the Venetian reckoning. See D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro_, ii. p. +128-9. Symonds (_Renaissance_, v. p. 120) quotes some Latin lines as from +the prologue to this play. This is an error. He has misread D'Ancona, to +whom he refers (ed. 1877), and from whom he evidently copied the +quotation. The lines actually occur in the prologue to a Latin play on the +subject of the taking of Granada. + +[163] Rossi, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_, 1886, p. 171, note 2. + +[164] I do not, of course, mean that no mythological plays were produced +between the days of Correggio and those of Beccari, but that they show no +signs of consistent development in a pastoral or indeed in any other +direction. + +[165] _Il Verato secondo_, 1593, p. 206. + +[166] _Compendio della poesia tragicomica, tratto dai duo Verati_, 1602, +pp. 49-50. + +[167] In this and the following section I have used the texts of the +exceedingly useful collection of _Drammi de' boschi_ in the 'Biblioteca +classica economica,' which comprises the _Aminta, Pastor fido, Filli di +Sciro_, and _Alceo_. + +[168] Symonds, in dealing with Tasso in the sixth volume of his _Italian +Renaissance_, lays, to my mind very justly, considerable stress upon this +quality. + +[169] Quoted by Serassi, Tasso's biographer, in his preface to the Bodoni +edition of the play (Crisopoli, 1789), p. 8. + +[170] See Angelo Solerti, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Torino, Loescher, 1895, i. +p. 181, &c. Carducci, 'Storia dell' _Aminta_,' the third of the _Saggi_, +80, 1st edition. + +[171] Leigh Hunt pointed out, in some interesting if rather uncritical +remarks prefixed to his translation of the _Aminta_ (London, 1820), that +some at any rate of the regular choruses cannot have formed part of the +original composition. In fact the first edition (Aldus, 1581) contains +those to Acts I and V only; that to Act II appeared in the second edition +(Ferrara, 1581), and also in the collected _Rime_ (Aldus, 1581); the rest +were added in the Aldine quarto of 1590. + +[172] Supposing always that this representation, of which Filippo +Baldinucci, in his _Notizie dei professori del disegno_ (sec. iv, dec. +vii; 1688, p. 102), has left a glowing account, was a representation of +the _Aminta_, and not, as some have maintained, of the _Intrichi d' +amore_, another play sometimes ascribed to Tasso. + +[173] Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce's _Dido_; +and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is +extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of +the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209). The prologue to +the _Pastor fido_ is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of +Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_, which begins with another Ovidian +reminiscence (_Amores_, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken +by a personification of night, that of Ongaro's _Alceo_ by Venus, of +Castelletti's _Amarilli_ by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' of Cristoforo +Lauro's _Frutti d'amore_ by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana's _Prova +amoroso_, by Hercules. The list might be extended indefinitely. Contarini, +at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his +_Finta Fiammetta_ has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, +Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of _amoretti_; that +of his _Fida ninfa_ is spoken by the shade of Petrarch. + +[174] Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, +1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would +identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt +possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience +conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino +contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see +Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and +sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal +Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the +part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent +attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred +the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on +his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on +three of Pigna's wooden _canzoni_, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is +appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the +words: + + Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava + Pur di colei che nell' istessa rete + Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse; + E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo + Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.) + +The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. +94), be sought in an epigram, _Ad Licorim_, found among Pigna's Latin +_Carmina_ (1553). The whole incident throws a curious light on the +pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, +however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while +mentioning that by the _antro dell' Aurora_ was no doubt intended the room +in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of +Leonora, still known as the _sala dell' Aurora_, from a wretched fresco on +the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi. + +[175] _Aminta_, I. i; _Canace_, IV. ii. + +[176] _Lettere del Guarini_, Veneta, Ciotti, 1615, p. 92. See Rossi, +56^{1} + +[177] I have already had occasion to point out that, from the time of +Boccaccio onwards, a nymph of Diana might represent a nun, but the whole +of Silvia's relations with Dafne make it plain that she is in no way vowed +to virginity. Her being represented as a follower of Diana implies no more +than that she is fancy-free, and so in a sense under the protection of the +virgin goddess. This use of the phrase is as old as Theocritus: 'Artemis, +be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow' (_Idyl_ 27). And it is so used +by Silvia herself in her proud and petulant retort to Aminta: 'Pastor, non +mi toccar; son di Diana' (III. i). + +[178] The idea passed from Italian into English verse: + + tell me why + This goblin 'honour,' by the world enshrined, + Should make men atheists, and not women kind-- + +to improve upon the exceedingly neat bowdlerization which the Rev. J. W. +Ebsworth has sought to palm off as the genuine text of Tom Carew. + +[179] We have, in the passages quoted, a foretaste of the priggish +extravagance of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. That there should have been +found critics to combine just but wholly otiose condemnation of Cloe with +reverential appreciation of the absurdities of Clorin and Thenot, and to +clap applause to the self-conscious virtue, little removed from smugness, +in which the 'moral grandeur' of the Lady of the Ludlow masque is clothed, +is indeed a striking witness to the tyranny of conventional morality. If +virginal purity were in fact the hypocritical convention which it is to +some extent possible to condone in the _Aminta_, but which becomes wholly +loathsome in the work of Fletcher, the sooner it disappeared from the +region of practical ethics the better for the moral health of humanity. + +[180] Menagio's edition is said to have appeared in 1650, but I have only +seen the edition of 1655, which I also notice is the date given by Weise +and Pèrcopo (p. 319). The play is said to have been printed in Italy alone +some two hundred times; there are twenty French translations, five German, +at least nine English, several in Spanish and other languages. A version +in the Slavonic Illyrian dialect appeared in 1598; a Latin one in iambic +trimeters by Andrea Hiltebrando, a Pomeranian physician, in 1615; another +in modern Greek in 1745. See Carducci, p. 99. + +[181] Published, together with Paglia's reply, by Antonio Bulifon in his +_Lettere memorabili_, Naples, 1698, iii. p. 307. The play had already been +adversely criticized by Francesco Patrizi and Gian Vincenzo Gravina. + +[182] 'L'Aminta difeso e illustrato da G. Fontanini,' Roma, 1700. Another +edition appeared in 1730 at Venice, with further annotations by Uberto +Benvoglienti. + +[183] It is, however, perfectly true that the play, together with the +writings in its defence and the notes, to be considered later, occupied +the attention of the author for a period of fully twenty years, and it is +possibly thus that the tradition arose. I may say that throughout this +section I am under deep obligations to Rossi's monograph. + +[184] Rossi, p. 183. I shall return to the point. + +[185] In later days he was often called Giovanbattista, but the addition +is without authority, in spite of its appearance in the British Museum +catalogue. + +[186] This preliminary history is drawn, as Guarini himself points out in +his notes of 1602, from Pausanias (VII. 21), though less closely than he +there implies. The rest of the plot he claimed as original, but it is to a +large extent merely a rehandling of the same motive. + +[187] Carino is said to represent Guarini in the same manner as Tirsi does +Tasso. + +[188] There is a legend that this scene was placed on the Index. This, +anyhow, cannot refer to the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_, but only to the +_Index Expurgatorius_, which was at no time an officiai publication. But +the whole story appears to be without foundation. + +[189] In comparing the two pieces, it is worth remembering that, whereas +the _Aminta_ contains about 2,000 lines, the _Pastor fido_ runs to close +upon 7,000. + +[190] _Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo XVI_, Milano, 1880, +pp. 244-7. See Rossi, p. 264. His argument is that it anticipated a revolt +against the conventional nature of domestic love, reflecting better than +any other dramatic work the ideas that towards the end of the +_cinquecento_ were, according to him, leading in the direction of a moral +regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile +his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the +counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a +tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical +convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of +domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid tragedy +of Guarini's own family. + +[191] The quotations are from the opening scene of either play. The +parallel is that selected by Symonds for quotation, and is among the most +striking examples of Guarini's method, but similar instances might be +collected from almost every scene. + +[192] G. B. Manso, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Venezia, Denchino, 1621, p. 329. +Carducci, p. 99. + +[193] 'Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale di Battista Guarini, Dedicata +al Ser'mo. D. Carlo Emanuele Duca di Sauoia, &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S. A. +con la Ser'ma. Infante D. Caterina d'Austria.' The tradition of a +performance on this occasion dates from early in the seventeenth century, +and is endorsed by the poet's nephew and biographer, Alessandro Guarini. +It is in part due to a confusion of words: the play was _presentato_, but +not _rappresentato_. + +[194] Guarini, _Lettere_, Venetia, Ciotti, 1615, p. 174. Rossi, 228^{7}. + +[195] At least one of these, a worthless production by a certain Niccolo +Averara, is extant. That of 1598 was probably spoken by Hymen. Rossi, pp. +232-3. + +[196] It has sometimes been supposed that the Baldini edition, Ferrara, +1590, was the earlier, but Guarini's letter is conclusive. + +[197] Of this edition the British Museum possesses a magnificent copy on +large and thick paper, bearing on the title-page the inscription: 'Al +Ser^{mo}. Principe di Vinegia Marin Grimani,' showing that it was the +presentation copy to the Doge at the time of publication. Another copy on +large but not on thick paper is in my own possession, and has on the +title-page the remains of a similar inscription beginning apparently 'All +Ill^{mo} et R^{mo}...' I rather suspect it of being the copy presented to +the ecclesiastic, whoever he was, who represented the Congregation of the +Index at Venice. Innumerable editions followed; I have notes of no less +than fifty during the half-century succeeding publication, i.e. 1590-1639. + +[198] The authorship of the notes is placed beyond doubt by a letter of +Guarini's, otherwise it might have been doubted whether even he could have +been guilty of the fulsome self-laudation they contain. On the controversy +see Rossi, pp. 238-43. + +[199] Certain modern writers have shown themselves worthy descendants of +the criticaster of Vicenza by insisting that the play should properly be +called the _Pastorella fida_. Guarini was weak enough to reply to +Malacreta's carpings in his notes, and thereby exposed himself to similar +attacks from posterity. + +[200] The absurdity lies of course in the commanding merit ascribed to the +piece. As Saintsbury has pointed out in his _History of Criticism_, had +Aristotle known the romantic drama of the renaissance, the _Poetics_ would +have been largely another work. + +[201] Summo evidently thought that Pescetti's defence at least was the +work of Guarini himself. There is no evidence that this was so, but Rossi +considers it not improbable that Guarini at least directed the labours of +his supporters. + +[202] It is unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of these +plays. The following titles, however, quoted by Stiefel in his review of +Rossi, may be mentioned. Scipione Dionisio, _Amore cortese_, 1570 (?) (not +the Alessandro Dionisio whose _ecloga_, entitled _Amorosi sospiri_, with +intermezzos of a mythological character, was printed in 1599); Niccolò +degli Angeli, _Ligurino_, 1574 (so Allacci, _Drammaturgia_, 1755; the only +edition in the British Museum is dated 1594; Venus and Silenus are among +the characters, and the prologue is spoken by 'Tempo'); Cesare della +Valle, _Filide_, 1579; Giovanni Fratta, _La Nigella_, 1580; Cristoforo +Castelletti, _Amarilli_, 1580 (which edition, though given by Allacci, +appears to be now unknown, as is also the date of composition; a second +edition appeared in 1582; the prologue was spoken by 'Apollo in habito +pastorale,' and Ongaro contributed a commendatory sonnet); Giovanni Donato +Cuchetti, _La Pazzia_, 1581; Pietro Cresci, _Tirena_, 1584; Alessandro +Mirari, _Mauriziano_, 1584; Dionisio Rondinelli, _Galizia_, 1583 (his +_Pastor vedovo_ was printed in 1599, with a prologue spoken by +'Primavera,' and an echo scene). + +[203] Preface to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_, p. 12. + +[204] This episode of the double love of Celia formed the subject of an +attack on the play. The author wrote an elaborate defence which was +printed at Ancona in 1612. It runs to 221 quarto pages. + +[205] I am aware that attempts have been made to find evidence of Italian +influence in Lyly, but of this later. + +[206] The piece appeared anonymously, but the authorship is attested by +Nashe in his preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 1589. Some songs from the +play also appear over Peele's signature in _England's Helicon_, 1600. I +have quoted from A. H. Bullen's edition of Peele's works, 2 vols. 1888. + +[207] Fraunce's translation in his _Ivychurch_ (_vide post_), and J. +Wolfe's edition, together with the _Pastor fido_, both 1591. + +[208] Like Dove. Cf. p. 98. + +[209] i.e. coupled impartially with its reward. + +[210] Umpire. + +[211] Groves. + +[212] The entry of the piece to R. Jones, on July 26, 1591, in the +Stationers' Register, coupled with the fact that _England's Parnassus_ +quotes almost entirely from printed works, puts this practically beyond +doubt. It is of course possible that a copy may yet be discovered. + +[213] Dr. Henry Jackson, than whom no classical scholar has devoted more +study to the Elizabethan drama, draws my attention to the fact that a +somewhat indelicate passage in the play, obscurely hinted at in Drummond's +notes (ed. Bullen, ii. p. 366), evidently forms the basis of that poet's +own epigram 'Of Nisa' (ed. Turnbull, p. 104). + +[214] Two other plays of Lyly's appear at first sight to present pastoral +features. There are five 'shepherds' among the dramatis personae of +_Mydas_, but they appear in one scene only (IV. ii), and merely represent +the common people, introduced to comment on the actions of the king. The +names, as is usual with Lyly, except in the case of comic characters, are +classical. The other play is _Mother Bombie_, which, however, is nothing +but a comedy of low life, combining the tradition of the Latin comedy with +the native farce, which goes back through _Gammer Gurton_ to the old +interludes. It contains a good deal of honest fun and a notable lack of +Euphuism. + +[215] For many years, indeed, his romance continued to run through +ever-fresh editions, that of 1636 being the twelfth. It is clear, however, +that its public had changed. + +[216] It is a curious fact that the authorship of these songs, though it +has never been seriously questioned, rests on very uncertain evidence. I +may refer to an article on the subject in the _Modern Language Review_ for +October, 1905, i. p. 43. + +[217] A play entitled 'Iphis and Ianthe, or A marriage without a man,' was +entered on the Stationers' Register on June 29, 1660, as the work of +Shakespeare. + +[218] Lyly may very possibly have known the story of Hesione cited by R. W. +Bond (ii. 421), but it presents no particular points of similarity, and the +outline of the legend was of course common property. A similar sacrifice +forms an episode in _Orlando furioso_, VIII. 52, &c.; the sacrifice of a +youth to an _orribile serpe_ also forms the central incident in Orazio +Serono's _Fida Armilla_, 1610; while the motive of the annual sacrifice +occurs of course in the _Pastor fido_. + +[219] There can be little doubt as to the identity of the 'Commoedie of +Titirus and Galathea,' entered on the Stationers' Register under date +April 1, 1585; and now that, thanks to Bond's researches, it is evident +that the reference to _Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus_ (see III. iii) +was no _ex post facto_ prophecy, but borrowed from Richard Harvey's +_Astrological Discourse_ of 1583, there is no reason to suppose a double +date. + +[220] Bond argues in favour of the extant text being mutilated, and +representing a late revival about 1600. I am not prepared, and in the +present place certainly not concerned, to dispute his hypothesis; whatever +the cause, the literary result is unsatisfactory, and from his remarks +concerning its dramatic merits I must emphatically dissent. + +[221] Bond's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for _nip_ of the quarto. + +[222] This story, strangely characterized as 'extremely attractive' by +Bond, is elaborated from that given by Ovid in the eighth book of the +_Metamorphoses_. I have elsewhere alluded to the theory of Italian +pastoral influence in Lyly. I had in mind L. L. Schiicking's monograph on +_Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komodie zur italienischen bis +Lilly_, Halle, 1901, but must here state that to my mind he has completely +failed to prove his thesis. I need not enter into details in this place, +but may refer to Bond's discussion in his 'Note on Italian influence in +Lyly's plays' (ii. p. 473). There is, however, one passage in _Love's +Metamorphosis_ (not mentioned by Schucking) which suggests a reminiscence +of the _Aminta_; Cupid, namely, describes himself (V. i.) as 'such a god +that maketh thunder fall out of Joves hand, by throwing thoughts into his +heart.' Compare the lines in Tasso's Prologue: + + un dio... + Che fa spesso cader di mano a Marte + La sanguinosa spada... + E le folgori eterne al sommo Giove. + +I give the parallel for what it is worth. So far as I am aware it is the +only one which can claim the least plausibility, and alone it is clearly +insufficient to prove any borrowing on the part of the English playwright. + +[223] Bond adduces some fairly strong reasons for supposing it later than +1590. A. W. Ward was evidently unable to make up his mind upon the +question, and treats the play at the head of the list of Lyly's works, in +which it seems to me that he hardly does justice to his critical powers. + +[224] A very similar reminiscence of Marlowe's rhythm: /p And think I wear +a rich imperial crowne, p/ occurs in the old play of _King Leir_, which +must belong to about the same date, _c._ 1592. + +[225] It is possible, though of course by no means necessary, that we have +a specifie reminiscence of the lines in _Faustus_: + + More lovely than the monarch of the sky + In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.) + + +[226] I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays +which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the +question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, +mention the _Atalanta_ of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than +Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 +to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though +the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion +with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced. + +[227] See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to +the _Ivychurch_, in which the translation appeared, 1591. + +[228] The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that +Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the +Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in +the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's +relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die +englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in _Anglia_, vol. xi +(1889), p. 11. + +[229] 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would +be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oimè! tu vivi; +Altri non già': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules. + +[230] Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as +happened to be more familiar with that language. + +[231] Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the +opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has +surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests +ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose _Theatrum +Poetarum_, 1675, we find _s.v._ Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): +'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' +Who this John was is open to question. The _Dic. Nat. Biog._ recognizes +three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John +Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, +Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (_fl._ 1621-50), author of _God's +Revenge against Murder_, and of translations from French and Dutch; and +(3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British +Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, +of Exeter, author of _God's Revenge_ and other works, and John Reynolds +the translator (to whom the _Aminta_ is tentatively ascribed). I am not +aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in +the composition of _God's Revenge_ to make one suppose the author capable +of producing the translation of the _Aminta_. On the other hand, it must +be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably +in the _Flower of Fidelity_, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on +a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John +Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is +second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present +case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with +this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which +appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end +of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with +Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable +series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the +Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. +112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice +in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ This ascription is based upon the entry in the +Stationers' Register, which runs: '7º Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred +for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A +booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... +vj^{d}' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an +epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more +reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ +further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is +proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his +remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_ (Parma, 1789), +ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the +dates 1628 and 1698. + +[232] Streams or inlets. + +[233] The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the +translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line. + +[234] Later translations of the _Aminta_ may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, +1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; +Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by +Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had +the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of +the _Aminta_ as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention +that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of +Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the +B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared _c._ 1650. I +have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the +second belongs to _c._ 1730. + +[235] The facts are as follow. The entry on the Stationers' Register is +dated September 16, 1601, and does not mention the translator's name. The +first edition, quarto, 1602, contains a sonnet by Daniel, addressed to Sir +Edward Dymocke, in which he refers to the translator as the knight's +'kinde Countryman.' This is followed by 'A Sonnet of the Translator, +dedicated to that honourable Knight his kinsman, Syr Edward Dymock.' After +this comes an epistle dedicatory addressed to Sir Edward, and signed by +Simon Waterson, the publisher, dated 'London this last of December. 1601.' +In it the writer speaks of Sir Edward's 'nearenesse of kinne to the +deceased Translator.' The play was reprinted in 1633, in 12mo, with an +epistle dedicatory by John Waterson to 'Charles Dymock, Esquire,' +beginning: 'That it may appeare unto the world, that you are Heire of what +ever else was your Fathers, as well as of his vertues, I heere restore +what formerly his gracious acceptance made onely his: Which as a +testimonie to all, that it received Life from none but him, was content to +loose its being with us, since he ceased to bee.' Through the hyperbolical +ambiguity of this passage it clearly appears that Charles was Sir Edward's +son, but not in the least that he was the translator as has been supposed, +still less that he was the son of the translator, as has also been +suggested. The play is first mentioned in the second edition (1782) of the +_Biographia Dramatica_, where the translator is said to be a 'Mr. Dymock,' +and Charles is identified as his son. This was copied in the 1812 edition, +and also by Halliwell, while Mr. Hazlitt has the astonishing statement +that the version was by 'Charles Dymock and a second person unknown.' The +_Dic. Nat. Biog._ does not recognize any of the persons concerned. There +is, however, one curious piece of evidence which has been so far +overlooked. In the list of plays, namely, appended by the publisher Edward +Archer to his edition of the _Old Law_ in 1656, occurs the entry: +'Faithfull Shepheardesse. C[omedy]. John Dymmocke.' The compiler has of +course confused the translation with Fletcher's play, but the ascription +is nevertheless interesting. If we insist on identifying the translator at +all, it must be with this John Dymocke. The entries in Archer's list, +however, are far too untrustworthy for their unsupported evidence to carry +much weight. A translation 'by D. D. Gent. 12mo. 1633,' recorded by +Halliwell and others, is evidently due to a series of blunders on the part +of bibliographers, though what the origin of the initials is I have been +unable to discover. They are probably due to Coxeter. + +[236] MS. Addit. 29,493. + +[237] I understand that an edition of Fanshawe's works is in preparation +for Mr. Bullen. + +[238] Later translations of the _Pastor fido_ appeared in 1782 [by +William Grove], and in 1809 [by William Clapperton?]. + +[239] MS. Ff. ii. 9. + +[240] The allusion, which has hitherto escaped notice, will be found +quoted below, p. 252 note. + +[241] In this note the _Pastor fido_ is said to have been 'Translated by +some Author before this,' but the context makes it evident that 'some' is +a misprint for 'the same.' + +[242] It might be objected that J. S. is called 'Gent,' while Sidnam is +termed esquire; but it should be remarked that in the MS. the 'Esq;' has +been added in a later hand. + +[243] MS. Sloane 836, folio 76^{v}. + +[244] MS. Sloane 857, folio 195^{v}. + +[245] MS. Addit. 12,128. Another MS. in the Bodleian. + +[246] No doubt the Samuel Brooke who became Master in 1629. He was the +brother of the Christopher Brooke who appears in Wither's eclogues under +the pastoral name of Cuddie. Cf. p. 116. + +[247] There is something wrong with this date. The princes were at +Cambridge 2-4 March, 1612-13. (See Nichols' _James I_, iii. (iv.) p. +1086-7. The date 'March 6' in ii. p. 607 is an error.) Probably 'Martij +30º,' which appears in the University Library MS., as well as in several +MSS. at Trinity, is a slip of the transcriber for 'Martij 3º,' which would +set both day and year right. Nichols, indeed, gives the date as 'Martii +3º,' but he refers to the Emmanuel MS., which, like the others, reads +'30.' + +[248] MS. Ee. 5. 16. + +[249] An anonymous writer in B. M. MS. Harl. 7044, quoted by Nichols +(_James I_, i. p. 553), has the following description: '_Veneris_, 30º +_Augusti_ [1605]. There was an English play acted in the same place before +the Queen and young Prince, with all the Ladies and Gallants attending the +Court. It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which +was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cambridge. I was not there +present, but by report it was well acted and greatly applauded. It was +named "Arcadia Reformed."' This has led Fleay into a strange error. '_The +Queen's Arcadia_' he says _(Biog. Chron._ i. p. 110), 'although it is not +known to have been acted till 1605, Aug. 30, had been prepared earlier +(and perhaps acted at Herbert's marriage, 1604, Dec. 27), for it is called +"_Arcadia, reformed_."' Of course the allusion is to the reformation of +Arcadia, not the revision of the play. The play was printed the following +year. + +[250] For further details concerning the occasion of this piece, as also +for information on the state of the text, I may refer to an article of +mine in the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for August, 1903, vi. p. 59. The +first edition appeared in 1615. + +[251] Grosart's edition, printed, not always very correctly, from the +collected works of 1623, offers too unsatisfactory a text for quotation. I +have therefore quoted from the edition of 1623 itself, corrected, where +necessary, by the separate editions, and, in the case of _Hymen's +Triumph_, by Drummond's MS. + +[252] Dramatic prologues occur in some of the later Italian pastorals (see +p. 185, note). That to _Hymen's Triumph_ recalls the dialogue between +Comedy and Envy prefixed to _Mucedorus_. + +[253] Alexis is one of those characters whose appearance, while not +essential to the plot, lends life to the romantic drama, and whose +conspicuous absence in the neo-classic type is ill compensated by the +prodigal introduction of superfluous confidants. + +[254] It is just possible that Daniel took a hint for this episode from +Dickenson's romance, _Arisbas_ (1594), meutioned above, p. 147. + +[255] The similarity between Silvia and Shakespeare's Viola and Beaumont's +Euphrasia-Bellario is too obvious to need comment. It may, however, be +remarked that in Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised +as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. See p. 212. + +[256] This narrative has been much admired, notably by Lamb and Coleridge, +critics from whom it is not good to differ; but I must nevertheless +confess that, to my taste, Daniel's sentiment, here as elsewhere, is +inclined to verge upon the fulsome and the ludicrous. + +[257] It is evident that this pompous inflation of style damaged the piece +upon the stage, for on Feb. 10, 1613-4, John Chamberlain, writing to Sir +Dudley Carleton, described the performance as 'solemn and dull.' + +[258] The corresponding passage in the _Aminta_ (I. ii.) is marred by a +series of rather artificial conceits. + +[259] Architecture or building. A very rare use not recognized by the New +English Dictionary, though it is also found in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ (I. iv. 405): + + To find an house ybuilt for holy deed, + With goodly architect, and cloisters wide. + + +[260] Guarini had already called dreams (_Pastor fido_, I. iv): + + Immagini del dì, guaste e corrotte + Dall' ombre della notte. + + +[261] Saintsbury, in his _Elizabethan Literature_, insists, not +unnaturally, on Daniel's lack of strength. Upon this Grosart commented in +his edition (iv. p. xliv.): 'This seems to me exceptionally uncritical.... +One special quality of Samuel Daniel is the inevitableness with which he +rises when any "strong" appeal is made to ... his imagination.' The +partiality of an editor could surely go no further. + +[262] The prodigality of _Oh's_ and _Ah's_ is an obvious characteristic of +his verse, which may possibly have been in Jonson's mind when, in the +prologue to the _Sad Shepherd_, he wrote: + + But that no stile for Pastorall should goe + Current, but what is stamp'd with _Ah_, and _O_; + Who judgeth so, may singularly erre. + + +[263] This could hardly be maintained as literally true were we to include +the Latin plays of the Universities. Of these, however, I propose to take +merely incidental notice. In no case do they appear to be of considerable +importance, and they are, as a rule, only preserved in MSS. which are +often difficult of access. I may here mention one which reached the +distinction of print, and is of a more regularly Italian structure than +most. The title-page reads: 'Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Iacobus +Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniæ Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, +ibidemq; Musarum, atque eius animi gratiâ dies quinque Commoraretur. +Egerunt alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. +Excudebat Cantrellus Legge. Mart. 27. 1615.' The play was acted, according +to the invaluable John Chamberlain, on March 10, 1614-5, and appears to +have made a very favourable impression. It belongs to the series of +entertainments which included the representation of _Albumazar_, and was +to have included that of Phineas Fletcher's _Sicelides_, had the king +remained another night. The author of _Melanthe_ is said to have been 'Mr. +Brookes,' probably the Dr. Samuel Brooke who had produced the +already-mentioned translation of Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_ two years +before. See Nichols' _Progresses of James I_, iii. p. 55. + +[264] Fleay considers the _Faithful Shepherdess_ a joint production of +Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory +is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten +yeers since, hath [_sic_] written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a +Tragicomedie, well done.' Considering that the same authority makes Jonson +ascribe the _Inner Temple Masque_ to Fletcher, his statement as to the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think +that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher +in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to +think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his _Biographical +Chronicle_, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For +myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand +Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on +account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but +A. H. Thorndike (_The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere_, +Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that +dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than +Fleay imagined. + +[265] Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of +Thenot and the unconventional rôle of the satyr, find parallels in the +earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls +the enchanted lake of the _Sacrifizio_; the introduction of a supernatural +agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's +_Mirzia_; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, +indebted to the revised version of the _Orfeo_; the character of Thenot is +anticipated in the _Sfortunato_. I give the resemblances for what they are +worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have +been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not +impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a +survival of the ordeal by fire. + +[266] Certain critics have suggested that the _Pastor fido_ might more +appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, +since it would mean giving the title-rôle to the wholly secondary Dorinda. +Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. +With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely +nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the +piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central +character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I +incline to believe that it is the latter that is the 'faithful +shepherdess,' since it might be contended that, in the conventional +language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the +'constant shepherdess.' (Cf. II. ii. 130.) + +[267] See Homer Smith's paper on _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama_. His theory concerning the _Faithful Shepherdess_ will be found on +p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the +detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular +instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea. + +[268] 'Poems' [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral +poetry already quoted, p. 18, note. + +[269] One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is +the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to +sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent +absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the +good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in +the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score. + +[270] I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added +the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the 'Temple Dramatists.' + +[271] The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr +is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's +beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle +disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious +power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage +nature appears a little fatuous. + +[272] Specifically from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is +almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when +we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been. + +[273] In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of _La +Fida pastora,_ by 'FF. Anglo-Britannus,' namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as +appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page. + +[274] As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to +court representation. + +[275] Randolph's familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there +is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis' humorous +expansion of Corisca's remark about changing her lovers like her clothes: + + Other Nymphs + Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne, + Nay, every petticote; I have only one, + The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.) + +[276] A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, ὀμφή, a divine voice or +prophecy. He may possibly have associated the word with the Delphic +ὀμφαλός. + +[277] It is possible that Laurinda's indecision may owe something to the +_doppio amore_ of Celia in the _Filli di Sciro_. See especially III. i. of +that play. + +[278] Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as +'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking +of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a +servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the +comments in the _Dictionary of Plays_ are original. The above first +appears in the _Biographia Dramatica_ of 1812, and may therefore be +ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further +words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' +The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical +claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his _Illustrations of +the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (Shakespeare Soc., +1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we +are not informed. + +[279] 1822, p. 61. This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of +the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever +better deserved than that administered by the _Saturday Review_ on August +21, 1875. As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have +had recourse to the very correct first edition of the _Poems_, 1638, +checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues. + +[280] The sense in the original is defective. + +[281] i.e. Tethys, a very common confusion. + +[282] The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes +it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole +collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 +twice. In 1703 appeared the _Fickle Shepherdess_, 'As it is Acted in the +New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all +by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to +be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose +rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the +language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good +verse into bad prose. + +[283] Vide post, p. 382. + +[284] For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to +the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the _Materialien zur Kunde +des älteren Englischen Dramas_ (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may +be quoted. '(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed +more of the _Sad Shepherd_ than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of +the substantial identity of the _Sad Shepherd_ and the _May Lord_ must be +rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at +all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected +in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. +(iv) The _May Lord_ was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) +The date of the _Sad Shepherd_ cannot be fixed with certainty; but there +is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and +the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in _Jonsonus Virbius_], which agree in +placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.' + +[285] The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected +editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary +state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a +separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldrou, whose edition, with +continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. +viii), was given in Lamb's _Specimens_. In quoting from the play I have +preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely +correcting certain obvions errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which +wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text. + +[286] Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion. + +[287] It involves, moreover, the critical fallacy of supposing that poetry +is a sort of richly embroidered garment wherewith to clothe the nakedness +of the underlying substance. This may be so in certain cases in which the +poet is made and not born, or in which he forces himself to work at an +uncongenial theme. But in a genuine work of art the substance cannot so be +separated from the form without injury to both. The poetry in this case is +not an external adornment, but a necessary part of the structure, without +which it would be something else than what it is. Verse, when in organic +relation with the subject, modifies the character of that subject itself, +and the subject can only be rightly apprehended through the medium of the +verse. I contend that the _Sad Shepherd_ is a case in point, and Mr. +Swinburne's remarks, I conceive, bear out my view. I shall not, therefore, +seek to analyse the types represented by the characters--styling poor +little Amie a modification of the type of the 'forward shepherdess'!--nor +count the number of lines assigned respectively to the shepherds, to the +huntsmen, or to the witch; but shall endeavonr to ascertain the particular +object Jonson had in view in adopting a particular presentation of the +subject, the means he employed, and the measure of success he achieved. + +[288] The distinction which appears to belong peculiarly to the drama is +most likely a survival of the influence of the mythological plays, in +which the huntress nymphs of Diana frequently appear. We find, however, a +tendency to a similar dualism in Mantuan's upland and lowland swains. + +[289] It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is +originally none other than the familiar figure of French _pastourelles_. +However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. +It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough +material. See E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_, i. p. 175. + +[290] The author, however, is at fault in his terms of art. If the quarry +to which he likens Aeglamour had a dappled hide, it was a fallow and not a +red deer. In this case it should have been called a buck, and not a hart. +Again, the female should have been a doe: deer is a generic name including +both sexes of red, fallow, and roe alike. + +[291] A translation of the _Astrée_ appeared as early as 1620, but the +French fashion obtained no hold over the popular taste till the later days +of the Commonwealth. + +[292] I may say that this section was written as it stands before K. +Brunhuber's essay on _Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaufer_ came into my +hands. He gives a superficial account of several printed plays, but was +unaware of the existence of those in MS. + +[293] The quotations are from the Gifford-Dyce edition of Shirley's Works +(1833), the only collected edition that has appeared. The text stands +badly in need of revision, but I have had to content myself with a few +obvious corrections. For instance, in the passage quoted above, the +editors have followed the quarto in reducing l. 13 to nonsense, by reading +'no man,' and l. 20 by reading 'And the imagination.' + +[294] So at least in the printed play. In the original draft, and probably +also in the acting version, as Fleay has pointed out, they were king and +queen, and of this traces remain. Thus we twice find Gynetia addressed as +'Queen,' while elsewhere 'Duke' rimes with 'spring,' and 'Duchess' with +'spleen.' The alteration was no doubt made from motives of prudence. Even +so the play was, according to Fleay, published surreptitiously, i.e. it +does not appear on the Stationers' Register. + +[295] A. H. Bullen's reprint of Day's works was privately printed in 1881. +Though the text is not in all respects satisfactory, I have thought myself +justified in quoting from it as the only edition available. + +[296] Not tennis, as Mr. Bullen states (Introd. p. 17), oblivious for the +moment of the impossibility of representing a tennis match on the stage, +as well as of the fact that the game was never, in Elizabethan times, +played by ladies. + +[297] There is one printed play, the relation of which to the _Arcadia_ is +not very clear. The title, _Mucedorus_, at once suggests some connexion, +but it is difficult to follow it out in detail. Mucedorus, 'the king's +sonne of Valentia,' leaves his father's court and goes disguised as a +shepherd to win the love of Amadine, 'the king's daughter of Arragon.' He +twice rescues the princess, is sentenced to banishment, and reveals his +identity just as his father arrives in search of him. The play was +originally printed in 1598, but no doubt originated some years earlier, +_c._ 1588 according to Fleay. Most of the resemblances with the _Arcadia_, +however, are due to scenes which first appeared in 1610, in which edition +the king of Valentia first plays a part. Beyond Mucedorus' disguise there +is absolutely nothing pastoral in the play. With the exception of some of +the additional scenes, which are undoubtedly by a different hand from the +rest, the play is unrelieved rubbish. Probably the original author +utilized in the composition of his piece such elements and incidents of +the _Arcadia_ as he had gathered orally while the unfinished work still +circulated in MS. Later the reviser, being aware of this source, expanded +the play from a knowledge of the completed work. It cannot be said to be a +dramatization of the romance, though it is undoubtedly in a manner founded +upon it. + +[298] Egerton MS. 1994. Not _Love's Changelings Changed_, as usually +quoted. + +[299] _Old Plays_, ii. p. 432. + +[300] Rawl. Poet, 3. + +[301] In the Bodleian MS. Ashmole 788 is a Latin epistle by Philip Kynder, +a miscellaneous writer and court agent under Charles I, born in 1600 at +latest, which was 'prefixt before my _Silvia_, a Latin comedie or +pastorall, translated from the _Archadia_, written at eighteen years of +age.' (See Halliwell's _Dic. of Plays_.) The 'Archadia' might, of course, +refer either to Sannazzaro's or Lope de Vega's romances, though this is +highly improbable. + +[302] So much we learn from the title-page itself. The play had very +likely been acted at court some years earlier, but the document mentioning +such a performance, printed by Cunningham, is of doubtful authenticity, +while Fleay contradicts himself upon the subject. The question is, +happily, immaterial to our present purpose. + +[303] Here, as in the _Isle of Gulls_, the titles of Duke and Duchess have +been imperfectly substituted for King and Queen, probably for court +performance. + +[304] The story in the romance is very different. Erona, after many +adventures, marries her lover. Both episodes are related in Book II, +chapters xiii and following (ed. 1590). They are epitomized by Dyce, whose +edition I have of course used. + +[305] Here, again, the catastrophe of the play bears no resemblance to the +romance. + +[306] See III. v. According to Chetwood (_British Theatre_, 1752, p. 47), +the play was revived in 1671, with a prologue attributing it to Shirley. +This is, of course, possible, but it requires more than Chetwood's +unsupported authority to render it probable. Fleay suggests that the +author is the same as the J. S. of _Phillis of Scyros_, namely, as I have +shown, Jonathan Sidnam. This seems to me highly improbable. The play is +printed in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xiv, whence I quote, with necessary +corrections. + +[307] Bk. I. chaps. v-viii, Bk. III. chap. xii, in the edition of 1590. + +[308] Quotations are taken, with corrections, from Pearson's reprint of +Glapthorne's works (1874). + +[309] K. Deighton's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for 'Love' of the +original. (_Conjectural Readings_, second series, Calcutta, 1898, p. 136.) + +[310] I have been unable to trace this work beyond a reference to Heber's +sale given in Hazlitt's _Handbook_. The original story will be found in +_Albion's England_, Book IV, chap. xx, of the first Part, published in +1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of +Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to +Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base +scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has +sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the +princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this +Argentile is ignorant, and when she hears of her uncle's purpose, she +contrives to escape from court and lives disguised as a shepherdess. After +her flight Curan also leaves the court and assumes a shepherd's garb, and +meeting Argentile by chance again falls in love with her without knowing +who she is. After a while he reveals his identity, and she hers; they are +married, and he conquers back her kingdom from the usurping Edel. + +[311] So far as I am aware, A. B. Grosart was the first to point this out. +(_Spenser_, iii. p. lxx.) + +[312] It is printed in Hazlitt's _Webster_, vol. iv. Fleay, with +characteristic assurance, identifies the _Thracian Wonder_ with a lost +play of Heywood's, known only from Henslowe's Diary, and there called 'War +without blows and love without suit.' He argues: 'in i. 2, "You never +shall again renew your suit;" but the love is given at the end without any +suit; and in iii. 2, "Here was a happy war finished without blows."' The +identification, however, will not bear examination. No battle, it is true, +is fought at Sicily's first appearance, but the title, _War without Blows_ +could hardly be applied to a play in which the whole of the last act is +occupied with fierce fighting between three different nations. So with the +second title, _Love without Suit_. Serena indeed grants her love in the +end without any reason whatever, but only after her lover has 'suited' +himself clean out of his five wits. Moreover, it is not certain that this +second title should not be _Love without Strife_. Heywood's play, I have +little doubt, was a mere love-comedy (cf. such titles as _The Amorous +War_, and similar expressions in the dramatists _passim_). The +identification, moreover, would necessitate the date 1598, though this +does not prevent Fleay from stating that the piece is founded on William +Webster's poem published in 1617. So early a date seems to me rather +improbable. Since William Webster's poem has nothing to do with the +present piece, the suggestion that Kirkman's attribution of the play to +John Webster was due to a confusion of course falls to the ground. + +[313] According to S. L. Lee in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._, who follows the +_Biographia Dramatica._ + +[314] It will be found in Mr. Bullen's admirable collection, _Lyrics from +the Dramatists_, 1889, p. 231. + +[315] Reprinted in 1882 by A. H. Bullen in the first volume of his _Old +English Plays_, and more recently by R. W. Bond in his edition of Lyly. In +quoting, I have generally followed the latter, though I have preferred my +own arrangement of certain passages. None of the suggestions that have +been put forward as to the authorship of the play appear to me to carry +much weight. The ascription of the whole to Lyly, first made by Archer in +1656, and repeated by Halliwell as late as 1860, is now utterly +discredited. The view, first advanced by Edmund Gosse, that the author was +John Day, has been tentatively endorsed by both editors of the piece; but +I agree with Professer Gollancz in thinking it unlikely on the ground of +style. Fleay assigns the serious (verse) portion of the play to Daniel, +and the comic (prose) scenes to Lyly. It seems to me unlikely, however, +that Daniel, who was shortly to appear as the chief exponent of the +orthodox Italian tradition, should at this date have been concerned in the +production of a typical example of the hybrid pastoral of the English +stage. Nor do I believe that Lyly was in any way concerned in the piece, +though some scenes are evident imitations of his work. This, however, +involves the question of the authorship of the lyrics found in Lyly's +plays, and I must refer for a detailed discussion to my article upon the +subject already cited (p. 227). + +[316] _Metamorphoses_, ix. 667, &c. Ward is moved to characterize the plot +as a theme of 'Ovidian lubricity.' I question whether any such censure is +merited. That the theme is one which would have become intolerably +suggestive in the hands of the Sienese Intronati, for instance, may be +admitted, but the author has treated the story with complete _naïveté_. +The obscene passages referred to later on (p. 345) occur in the comic +action, and are in no way connected with the point in question. Ward +further informs us that the play is 'throughout in rime,' notwithstanding +the fact that something approaching a quarter of the whole is in prose. + +[317] I must repeat that I see no advantage to be gained from the method +adopted by Homer Smith, who tries to extract and separate the strictly +pastoral elements from the medley. A play is not a child's puzzle that can +be taken to pieces and labelled, nor even a chemical compound to be +analysed into its component parts. What is of interest is to note the +various influences which have affected and modified the growth of the +literary organism. + +[318] Though the author may very likely have known Spenser's description +of the house of Morpheus _(Faery Queen_, I. i. 348, &c.), he certainly +drew his own account straight from Ovid (_Metam._ xi. 592, &c.), to which, +of course, Spenser was also indebted. I am rather inclined to think the +author drew his material from Golding's translation (xi. 687, &c.). With +the second passage quoted, cf. _Faery Queen_, II. xii. 636, &c. + +[319] 'Trip and go' was a proverbial expression, and is found, with its +obvious rime 'to and fro,' in several old dance-songs. + +[320] The only composition I can recall which at all anticipates the +peculiar effect of this lyric is Thestylis' song in the _Arraignment of +Paris_ (III. ii.), to which, in the old edition, is appended the quaint +note, 'The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.' + +[321] Fleay gives the date 1601, following Halliwell, but Haslewood has +1603. + +[322] According to Fleay, it 'was intended to be presented to James I on +13th Mar. 1614.' This date must be a slip, since it was not till 1615 that +the king was at Cambridge. It is, moreover, correctly given in his +_History of the Stage_. The preparations also appear to have been for the +eleventh, not the thirteenth. Fleay further mentions a performance at +King's before Charles I, but gives no authority. + +[323] An exception must be made of Ward, whose remarks are almost +excessively laudatory, though his treatment of the piece is necessarily +slight. + +[324] The incidents occur, however, in Book II of Browne's work (Songs 4 +and 5), which was not printed till 1616. Either, therefore, Fletcher had +seen Browne's poem in manuscript, or else the play, as originally +performed, differed from the printed version. I think it unlikely that the +borrowing should have been the other way. + +[325] Fleay confuses the two performances, and, by placing Goffe's death +in 1627, is forced to suppose that the 'praeludium' was added by another +hand. It may be noticed that, if this introduction is by Goffe, Salisbury +Court was probably opened in the spring, a point otherwise unsettled. + +[326] The resemblance with the _Sad Shepherd_, I. i, is almost too close +to be fortuitous. It is, on the other hand, not easily accounted for. The +whole passage quoted above is somewhat markedly superior to the general +level of the verse in the play, not merely the two or three lines in which +a distinct resemblance to Jonson can be traced. Is it possible that both +Goffe and Jonson were following, the one slavishly, the other with more +imagination, one common original, now unknown? Or can it be that Goffe is +here reproducing a passage from an early unpublished work of Jonson's own, +a passage which Jonson later refashioned into the singularly perfect +speech of Aeglamour? + +[327] Homer Smith, in making these assertions, overlooks historical +evidence. It is, however, only fair to Goffe to say that other critics +apparently take a very much more favourable view of the merits of the +piece than I am able to do. + +[328] Hardly in those of the prologue to _Hymen's Triumph_, as suggested +by Homer Smith. + +[329] W. C. Hazlitt (_Manual of Plays_, p. 25) records: 'Bellessa, the +Shepherd's Queen: The scene, Galicia. An unpublished and incomplete drama +in prose and verse. Fol.' In the absence of further evidence I conclude +that this is an imperfect MS. of Montagu's piece. + +[330] The designs for the scene, by Inigo Jones, are preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Lansd. 1,171, fols. 15-16. Fols. 5-6 of the same MS. +contain the ground-plans 'for a pasterall in the hall at whitthall w'ch +was ackted by the ffrench on St Thomas day the 23th of decemb'r 1635,' +which may refer to the same piece. + +[331] It may, however, be founded on some French romance. + +[332] The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I +quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have +had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and +Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of +Dorset's _liaison_ with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought +necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author +explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a +pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely +overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, +apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in +pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts +the scene is laid at court. + +[333] See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in +question. + +[334] Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed +Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's +Plautine comedy into confusing it with the _Amyntas_. The criticism is +from an article in the _Cornhill_ for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites +it. + +[335] The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the +Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be +accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name. + +[336] II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition. + +[337] Halliwell, _Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to +which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished_. +MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. +Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, +1899; I have been unable to trace it. + +[338] I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin +plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. +Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play +entitled _Parthenia_, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but +concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan +Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was +influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. +The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male +characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be +recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. +Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no +correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any +allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the _Silvanus_, a MS. of +which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, +1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson--the +name is erased. + +[339] Bullen's _Peele_, i.p. 363. + +[340] The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but +is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at +present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different +edition, is found in Nichols' _Progresses of Elisabeth_, from which a +modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, +it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote. + +[341] See the excellent edition by W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des +alteren englischen Dramas_, vol. iii, 1903. + +[342] All necessary apparatns for the study of this literary curiosity +will be fonnd in Miss M. L. Lee's edition, 1893. The original is a MS. in +the Bodleian. + +[343] See A. H. Thorndike, _Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on +Shakspeare_, 1901, p. 32. In _Mucedorus_ (I. i. 51) we find mention of a +shepherd's disguise used 'in Lord Julio's masque.' The passage occurs in +the additional scenes of 1610, and there are numerous masques of the +period that might claim to be that referred to. Fleay conjectures '_The +Shepherds' Mask_ of James I.'s time,' and elsewhere identifies this title, +which he gets from Halliwell's _Dictionary_, with Jonson's masque, _Pan's +Anniversary, or the Shepherds' Holiday_. This, however, was produced at +earliest in 1623, and can hardly therefore have been alluded to in 1610. +Halliwell took his title from the British Museum MS. Addit. 10,444, in +which appears the music for a number of 'masques,' or dances taken from +masques, and in which this particular _Shepherds' Masque_ (fol. 34^{v}) is +dated 1635. + +[344] The date here assigned presents obvions difficultes. It would +naturally mean that it was performed after March 24, 1625; but as James +died after about a fortnight's serious illness on March 27, this can +hardly be accepted. Nichols placed the performance conjecturally in +August, 1624, for reasons which I am inclined to regard as satisfactory. +Fleay pronounces in favour of June 19, 1623, with a confidence not +altogether calculated to inspire the like feeling in others. + +[345] _Lives_, Oxford, 1898, i. p. 251. + +[346] 'The Dramatic Works of John Tatham,' 1879. In Maidment and Logan's +_Dramatists of the Restoration_. + +[347] Another parallel may be found in Shirley's _Maid's Revenge_, IV. iv, +where the wounded Antonio exclaims: + + Where art, Berinthia? let me breathe my last + Upon thy lip; make haste, lest I die else. + +The situation, however, is different. Shirley's play was licensed in 1626. + +[348] In a small quarto volume, classed as Addit. MS. 14,047. The piece +has hitherto been ascribed to George Wilde, on the authority of Halliwell. +There appears to be no reason for this ascription, beyond the fact that +the same volume also contains two pieces by Wilde. His name, however, does +not occur in connexion with the present play, and the volume, which is in +a variety of hands, certainly includes work not by him. Wilde was scholar +and fellow of St. John's, chaplain to Laud, and Bishop of Londonderry +after the restoration. His plays consist of the two comedies in this +volume, viz. the Latin _Euphormus, sive Cupido Adultus_, acted on Feb. 5, +1634/5, and the _Hospital of Lovers_, acted before the king and queen on +Aug. 29, 1636, both at St. John's. He is also said to have written another +Latin play, called _Hermophus_, though nothing is known of it beyond the +record of its being acted. It was most probably the same as _Euphormus_, +the titles being anagrams of each other. + +[349] The _Dic. Nat. Biog_. gives the date as 1635. + +[350] The stage directions for these entries are interesting: (l) 'Enter +An Antique [i.e. antimasque] of Sheapheards'; (2) 'enter the Masque'; (3) +'the masque enters and dances, and after wardes exit.' The terms 'masque' +and 'antimasque' appear to have been used technically for the dances of +the masque proper, and of its burlesque counterpart. In this sense the +words occur repeatedly in the British Museum Addit. MS. 10,444, which +contains the music only. In the present case the masquers appear to have +been distinct from the characters of the play. + +[351] R. Brotanek, _Die englischen Maskenspiele_, 1902, p. 201. See also +the edition by R. Brotanek and W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des älteren +Englischen Dramas,_ vol. ii, 1903; and further in the _Modern Language +Quarterly_ for April, 1904, vii. p. 17. + +[352] The first issue was printed 'for the use of the Author,' without +date, but was received by Thomason on Sept. 1, 1656, which would appear to +dispose of the fiction that Cox died in 1648. + +[353] This letter was prefixed to the masque in the collected edition of +the Poems (1645), but was written to the author without view to +publication. + +[354] Fifty-eight lines in decasyllabic couplets--not eighty-three lines +of blank verse, as for some inexplicable reason Masson asserts (i. p. +150). + +[355] Specific references will be found scattered through Masson's notes. +To supplement his work I may refer to some interesting remarks on _Comus_ +as a masque, and a useful comparison with Peele's play, by M. W. Samson, of +Indiana University, in the introduction to his edition of Milton's Minor +Poems, New York, 1901. Here, as elsewhere in the case of Milton's Works, I +follow H. C. Beeching's admirable text, Oxford, 1900. + +[356] Not wishing to pursue this point further, I may be allowed to refer +to certain candid and judicious remaries in Saintsbury's _Elizabethan +Literature_, p. 387. + +[357] I am perfectly aware of, and in writing the above have made every +allowance for, three considerations which may be urged in explanation of +the passages in question. In the first place, it must be remembered that +the age was an outspoken one, and used to giving free expression to +thoughts and feelings which we are in the habit of passing over in +silence. Secondly, the age was unquestionably one of considerable licence, +which must be held to have warranted somewhat direct speaking on the part +of those who held to a stricter code of morals; and, moreover, it must be +conceded that the Puritan failing of self-righteous protestation was as a +rule combined with very genuine practice of the professed virtues. +Thirdly, there is the fact that the age of thirteen was at that time, by +common consent, regarded as already mature womanhood. On one and all of +these heads a good deal might be written, but it would only extend yet +further a discussion which has already, it may be, exceeded reasonable +limits. + +[358] I ought, perhaps, to apologize for thus alluding to these poems as +subsequent to _Comus_, seeing that criticism usually places them some +years earlier. There is, however, no external evidence of any kind, and to +me the internal evidence of style points strongly to a later date. +Possibly, since they are not fonnd in the Trinity MS., they were composed +during Milton's travels, which would place them after _Lycidas_ even, +somewhere about 1638 or 1639. One of the ablest of our living critics, +himself a close and original student of Milton, writes in a private +letter: 'I long ago heard a good critic say that _Comus_ seemed to him +prentice work beside _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_; and these do seem to +me, I must confess, the maturer poems.' The point was raised by F. Byse in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for July, 1900, iii. p. 16. + +[359] Conversations, IV and III, Shakespeare Society, 1842, pp. 4 and 2. + +[360] Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find the necessary +references in Sommer's _Erster Versuch über die Englische Hirtendichtung_, +and a full discussion in an elaborate 'Inquiry into the propriety of the +rules prescribed for Pastoral Poetry,' prefixed to the edition of Ramsay's +_Gentle Shepherd_, published at Edinburgh in 1808. Some judicious remarks +will also be found in the Introduction to Chambers' _English Pastorals_, +pp. xliv, &c. + +[361] This limitation, it may be observed, does not necessarily apply to +all literary forms. It may, I think, reasonably be maintained that the +form of the drama, for instance, is essentially conditioned by the +psychological relation of author to audience, through the medium of actual +representation, and that this relation is equivalent to, or at least +capable of forming the basis of, a theory of drama. I am aware that such +an abstract view as this finds little favour with the majority of modern +critics, but while myself doubtful as to its practical value, I do not see +that it involves any critical absurdity. + +[362] This impulse can certainly be traced in some of the eclogues, and +still more markedly in the purely lyrical verse of a pastoral sort. But +the cross influences are too complex to be recapitulated here. + +[363] The influence of the Latin eclogue of the renaissance was +undoubtedly also direct, but though widespread it was hardly vital, and +its importance, as compared with that of the vernacular tradition, may be +not inadequately measured by the relative importance of the chief +exponents of either, Googe and Spenser. + +[364] Especially the allusions to religions controversy. The romance was, +of course, highly topical in Spain, but, waiving the rather debatable +point of Sidney's allusive intentions, it never appears to have been +generally so regarded in this country. + +[365] Possibly I ought to add a fourth, the masques at court; but their +influence in large measure duplicated that of the Italian drama, and +cannot be distinguished from it. + +[366] See Rossi, p. 175, note 1. + +[367] Ferrara, Caraffo, 1588, p. 50. Rossi, 175^{1}. Carducci, 59. + +[368] _Discorso_, Padova, Meieto, 1587; Rossi, 175^{1}. + +[369] _Apologia contro l'autor del Verato_, Padova, Meietti, 1590. + +[370] _Il Verato secondo_, Firenze, Giunti, 1593, pp. 206-7; Carducci, +59-60. + +[371] I make no pretence at having myself examined all the texts mentioned +in the following discussion. Many, indeed, are only to be found in +out-of-the-way provincial libraries in Italy, and have, I believe, never +been examined by any one but Carducci himself. The references in my notes +equally testify my indebtedness to Rossi's monograph; indeed, my whole +treatment of the subject is based on his work. + +[372] I shall endeavour to note the various verse-forms employed, as the +evidence is often of use in determining the question of development. It +may, however, be very easily misleading if unduly pressed, as by Carducci. +In general, the _terza rima_ may be taken as pointing to the influence of +Sannazzaro's _Arcadia; ottava rima_, courtly or rustic, to that of +Poliziano's _Orfeo_ and _Giostra_ and Lorenzo de' Medici's _Nencia_ +respectively; the _endecasillabi sciolti_, or blank verse, to that of the +regular drama. Of the free measures, _endecasillabi e settinarî_, of the +later plays I shall have to speak more in detail hereafter. + +[373] Edited from MS. by Felice Bariola, with other poems of Taccone's, +Firenze, 1884, p. 14. Rossi, 166^{2}; Carducci, 28^{1}. + +[374] Printed in the 'Opere dello elegante poeta Seraphino Aquilano,' +Venetia, Bindoni, 1516, sig. D5. Rossi, 167^{1}. For the date, Carducci, +29^{2}. + +[375] Of these authors little or nothing appears to be known. Both pieces +have come down to us in MS.; see Adolfo Bartoli, _Mss. italiani della +Nazionale di Firenze_, Firenze, 1884, ii. pp. 138 and 163. Concerning the +first, see further, _Poesie inedite di G. Del Carretto_, by A. G. Spinelli, +Savona, pp. 10-15; concerning the second, R. Renier, in the _Giornale +storico della letteratura italiana_, 1885, v. p. 236, note 1. Rossi, +167^{2},^{3}; Carducci, 30^{2}, 28^{3}. + +[376] _Opere_, 1516, as cited, sig. E. Rossi, 167^{4}. + +[377] In _Rime_, ed. P. Fanfani, 1876-8, ii. p. 225. Rossi, 168^{1}. + +[378] Rossi, 169^{2}. Carducci, 26^{3}. + +[379] See B. Croce, 'Napoli dal 1508 al 1512 (da un antico romanzo +spagnuolo),' in _Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_, anno xix, +fasc. i, pp. 141 and 157. Carducci, 29^{1}. + +[380] _Opera nova_, Venetia, Rusconi, 1508. In the old edition the pieces +are merely termed 'commedie,' the designation 'pastorali' being due to the +'Arcadian,' G. M. Crescimbeni, whose _Istoria delia volgar poesia_ +originally appeared in 1698. Carducci, 41^{1}. + +[381] See Carducci, p. 35. Stiefel, being only aware of the edition of +1543, hoped to find in the piece a link between Casalio and Beccari. Among +several female characters introduced is one 'la quale volentieri starebbe +in mezzo di due amanti o mariti: il che,' pursues Carducci, 'è del tutto +opposto all' idealità delia favola pastorale.' One would have thought that +certain traits in the characters of Dafne and Corisca would have occurred +to him. Bitter satire on women was indeed one of the most permanent +features of pastoral comedy, as it had been of the Latin eclogue. + +[382] See D'Ancona, 'II teatro mantovano nel secolo _XVI_,' in the +_Giornale storico_, v. p. 19. Rossi, 170^{1}. + +[383] See G. Campori, _Notizie sulla vita di L. Ariosto_, Modena, 1871, p. +68. Rossi, 172^{1}. No mention of these is made by Carducci, his thesis +being that the _ecloga rappresentativa_ did not obtain at Ferrara, the +home _par excellence_ of the Arcadian drama. Thus, on p. 54 he writes: +'Delie parecchie ecloghe pastorali e rusticali passate in rassegna fin qui +non una ce n' è o scritta o rappresentata o stampata in Ferrara, non una +d'origine ferrarese. In Ferrara entriamo classicamente e signorilmente con +l'_Egle_ [1545].' + +[384] Rossi, 173^{1}. Carducci, 37. + +[385] See L. Frati, 'Un' ecloga msticale del 1508,' in the _Giornale +storico_, xx(1892), p. 186. Carducci, 27^{2}. + +[386] See O. Guerrini, _Narrazione di Paolo Palliolo_, Bologna, Romagnoli, +1885, p. 96. Carducci, 31^{1}. + +[387] See C. Mazzi, _La congrega dei Rozzi di Siena_, i. p. 139 and ii. p. +100. Carducci, 31^{2}. Also Rossi, 174^{3}; his suggestion of the possible +identity of the two last-mentioned pieces has been shown by later research +to be inadmissible. + +[388] A battle was fought at Tai, near Pieve di Cadore. + +[389] The number of such pieces is very large. A list appended to the +_Assetta_ in 1756 runs to 109 items. An exhaustive bibliography will be +found in Mazzi's work. See also the useful collection by Giulio Ferrario, +forming vol. x of the 'Teatro antico' in the 'Classici italiani,' Milan, +1812. It is unfortunate that Symonds should have referred to Ferrario's +list as evidence of the fertility of the pastoral drama, even though +adding that the list is 'devoted solely to rural scenes of actual life,' +since he can hardly escape the charge of regarding the rustic compositions +as part of the pastoral drama proper--a position to which they certainly +have no claim. + +[390] Not, of course, to be confused with the _sacra rappresentazione_ so +called. + +[391] See F. Flamini's edition of Tansillo's poems, Napoli, 1893. Rossi, +171^{1}; Carducci, 39^{2}. + +[392] Used, for example, by Sannazzaro, in his _Farsa_. See his 'Opere +volgari,' Padova, 1723, p. 422. + +[393] See E. Pèrcopo, 'M. Ant. Epicuro,' in the _Giornale storico_, 1888, +xii. p. 1. Carducci, 39^{1}. The earliest edition with the later title I +have met with is one dated 1533, in my possession. The British Museum has +none earlier than 1535. + +[394] Siena, Mazochi, 1530. Carducci, 44^{3}. + +[395] It continued to be occasionally reprinted till as late as 1612. +Carducci, 44. + +[396] Venezia, Zoppino, 1538. Carducci, 43^{1}. + +[397] It may have been a direct borrowing, for we know that Tasso was +acquainted with the plays of Epicuro, whom he imitated in his _Rinaldo_ +(V. 25, &c.). The _Mirzia_ is printed in 'I drammi pastorali di A. Marsi,' +ed. I. Palmerini, Bologna, 1887-8. See also Pèrcopo in the _Giornale_, as +cited. Carducci, 62. The authorship is a little doubtful. Creizenach, ii. +365^{1}. + +[398] Firenze, 1545. Carducci, 46^{1}. + +[399] _Rime_, Venezia, Giolito, 1546. Carducci, 51^{1}. + +[400] Vinegia, Bertacagno, 1553. Carducci, 53^{1}. + +[401] _Egle_, s.l. et a. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 54. + +[402] This strong feeling concerning the incestuous nature of connexion +between cousins, however strange to us, appears to have been very real in +Italy in the sixteenth century. _Sorella germana_, a common term for a +female cousin, is in itself sufficient evidence of the feeling. Readers of +the _novelle_ will remember the discussion on the subject by Pietro +Fortini in his _Novelle de' Novizi_, xxxi. The explanation of the +phenomenon is no doubt to be sought in the peculiar conventions of Italian +society. + +[403] Speaking of the _Favola_, Carducci says: 'lo stile è quel nobile del +Giraldi.' This is a point on which the opinion of a foreigner can never +carry very much weight; but with all deference to Signer Carducci's +judgement, I cannot help expressing my opinion that the verse is +characterized by awkward verbal repetitions and a certain stiffness of +expression, which impart to it a quality of heaviness similar to that +found in the prose of the _Ecatommiti_. It seems to be the result of a +conscious endeavour on the part of the Ferrarese to write pure Tuscan, and +the reader is constantly reminded of the memorable words in the preface to +the _Cortegiano_, in which Castiglione announces his intention 'di farmi +più tosto conoscere per Lombardo, parlando Lombardo, che per non Toscano, +parlando troppo Toscano.' + +[404] Ferrara, De Rossi, 1555. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 57. The piece +must not, of course, be confused either with the _Sacrifizio pastorale_, +paraphrased by Firenzuola from the _Arcadia_, or with the masque called +_El Sacrifizio_, performed by the Intronati at Siena in 1531, and printed +in 1537. + +[405] The remark is Rossi's, and, though strongly controverted by +Carducci, appears to me absolutely true. + +[406] 'Comedia pastorale di nuovo composta per mess. Barth. Brayda di +Summariva,' Torino, Coloni da Saluzzo, 1556. Carducci, 64^{2}. The date is +given as 1550 in the note, and correctly, I take it, as 1556 in the text. + +[407] Vinezia, Zopini, 1583, B. M. The preface is dated Sept, 1, 1580. +Carducci (71^{1}) speaks of the edition of 1586 as the first. + +[408] Ferrara, Panizza, 1564. Carducci, 69^{1}. + +[409] Edited by A. Solerti in the _Propugnatore_, 1891, new series, iv. p. +199. Carducci, 70^{1}. + +[410] Venezia, Giolito, 1568. Carducci, 71^{2}; Klein, v. p. 61. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama +by Walter W. Greg + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + +***** This file should be named 12218-0.txt or 12218-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1/12218/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/12218-0.zip b/old/12218-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f406eb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12218-0.zip diff --git a/old/12218-8.txt b/old/12218-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ee4c2f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12218-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20114 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, by Walter W. Greg + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration + Stage in England + + +Author: Walter W. Greg + +Release Date: April 30, 2004 [EBook #12218] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end.] + +[Note on characters: There are several MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATORs +( - U+00BA) used in this book. These should not be confused with the +DEGREE SIGN ( - U+00B0).] + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + + + _Far, far from here ... + The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, + And by the sea, and in the brakes + The grass is cool, the sea-side air + Buoyant and fresh._ + + Matthew Arnold. + + + + +Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama + +A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in +England. + +By Walter W. Greg, M.A. + +MCMVI. + +Oxford: Horace Hart +Printer to the University + + + + +MAGISTRIS MEIS +AMICISQVE + + + + +Preface + + + +Some ten years ago, it may be, Mr. St. Loe Strachey suggested that I +should write an article on 'English Pastoral Drama' for a magazine of +which he was then editor. The article was in the course of time written, +and in the further course of time appeared. I learnt two things from +writing it: first, that to understand the English pastoral drama it was +necessary to have some more or less extensive knowledge of the history of +European pastoralism in general; secondly, that there was no critical work +from which such knowledge could be obtained. I set about the revision and +expansion of my crude and superficial essay, proposing to prefix to it +such an account of pastoral literature generally as should make the +special form it assumed on the English stage appear in its true light as +the reasonable and rational outcome of artistic and historical conditions. +Unfortunately perhaps, but at least inevitably, this preliminary inquiry +grew to ever greater and more alarming proportions as I proceeded, till at +last it swelled to something over half of the whole work. Part of this +bulk was claimed by foreign pastoral poetry, the origins of the kind; part +by English pastoral poetry, and the introduction of the fashion into this +country; part by the pastoral drama of Italy, the immediate parent of that +of England. The original title proved too narrow to cover the subject with +which I dealt. Hence the rather vague and perhaps ambitions title of the +present volume. I make no pretence of offering the reader a general +history of pastoral literature, nor even of pastoral drama. The real +subject of my work remains the pastoral drama in Elizabethan +literature--understanding that term in the wide sense in which, quite +reasonably, we have learnt to use it--and even though I may have been +sometimes carried away by the interest of the immediate subject of +investigation, I have done my best to keep the main object of my inquiry +at all times in view. The downward limit of my work is a little vague. The +old stage traditions, upon which all the dramatic production of the time +was at least in some measure, and in different cases more or less +consciously, based, were killed by the act of 1642: the new traditions, +created or imported by a company of gentlemen who had come under the +influence of the French genius during the eleven years of their exile, +first announced themselves authoritatively in 1660. During the intervening +eighteen years a number of works were produced, some of which continued +the earlier traditions, while some anticipated the later. My treatment has +been eclectic. Where a work appeared to me to belong to or to illustrate +the older school I have included it, where not, I have refrained from +doing so. Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ (1647) will be found mentioned in the +following pages, T. R.'s _Berger extravagant_ (1654) will not. + +Some explanation may be advisable with regard to my method of quotation. +Where a satisfactory modern edition of the work under discussion was +available I have taken my quotations from it, whether the spelling of the +text was modernized or not. Where none such existed I have had recourse to +the original. This explains the perhaps alarming mixture of old and modern +orthographies which appear in my pages. Such inconsistency seemed to me a +lesser evil than making nonce texts to suit my immediate purpose. I have, +however, exercised the right of following my own fancy in the matter of +punctuation throughout, and also in that of capitalization, though I have +been chary of alterations in the case of old-spelling texts. This applies +to English works. I have found it necessary myself to modernize to some +extent the spelling of the quotations from early Italian in order to +render it less bewildering to readers who may possibly, like myself, have +no very profound knowledge of the antiquities of that tongue. I have been +as sparing as possible, however, and trust I may have committed no +enormities to shock Romance scholars. Lastly, the italics and contractions +which are of more or less frequent occurrence in the original editions +have been disregarded, and certain typographical details made to conform +to modern practice. + +My indebtedness is not small to a number of friends who, during the +progress of my work, have helped me more or less directly in a variety of +ways. A few have received specific mention in the notes. Alike to those +who have, and to the far greater number, I fear me, who have not, I desire +hereby to confess my debt, and humbly to beg them to claim their share in +the dedication of this volume. More specifically I should mention Mr. R. +B. McKerrow, who was the first to read the following pages in manuscript, +and to make many useful suggestions, and Mr. Frank Sidgwick, to whose +careful revision alike of manuscript and proof and to whose kind and +candid criticism I am indebted perhaps more than an author's vanity may +readily allow me to acknowledge. Lastly, it would argue worse than +ingratitude to pass over my obligation to the admirable readers of the +Clarendon Press, whose marvellous accuracy in the most diverse fields and +whose almost infallible vigilance form a real asset of English +scholarship. + +W. W. G. +Park Lodge, Wimbledon. +_December_, 1905. + + + + +Contents + + + +Chapter I. Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + Introduction + I. The origin and nature of pastoral + II. Greek pastoral poetry + III. The bucolic eclogue in classical Latin + IV. Medieval and humanistic eclogues + V. Italian pastoral poetry + VI. The Italian pastoral romance + VII. Pastoral in Spain +VIII. Pastoral in France + + +Chapter II. Pastoral Poetry in England + + I. Early pastoral verse + II. Spenser + III. Spenser's immediate followers + IV. The regular eclogists + V. Lyrical and occasional verse + VI. Milton's _Lycidas_ and Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_ + VII. The pastoral romances + + +Chapter III. Italian Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays containing pastoral elements + II. Evolution of the pastoral drama (see Appendix I) + III. Tasso and his _Aminta_ + IV. Guarini and the _Pastor fido_ + V. Minor pastoral drama + + +Chapter IV. Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays + II. Translations from the Italian + III. Daniel's imitations of Tasso and Guarini + + +Chapter V. The Three Masterpieces + + I. Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ + II. Randolph's _Amyntas_ + III. Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ + + +Chapter VI. The English Pastoral Drama + + I. Plays founded on the pastoral romances + II. The English stage pastoral + + +Chapter VII. Masques and General Influence + + I. Pastoral in the masques and slighter dramatic compositions + II. Milton's masques: _Arcades_ and _Comus_ + III. General influence. Pastoral theory. Conclusion. + + +Appendix I. On the origin and development of the Italian pastoral drama +Appendix II. Bibliography + +Index + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + +Chapter I. + +Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + + +In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon +some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread +through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to +distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to +survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that +present themselves to us. It is the disadvantage of such an artificial +form of literature as that which bears the name of pastoral that no such +_a priori_ guidance is available. To lay down at starting that the +essential quality of pastoral is the realistic or at least recognizably +'natural' presentation of actual shepherd life would be to rule out of +court nine tenths of the work that comes traditionally under that head. +Yet the great majority of critics, though they would not, of course, +subscribe to the above definition, have yet constantly betrayed an +inclination to censure individual works for not conforming to some such +arbitrary canon. It is characteristic of the artificiality of pastoral as +a literary form that the impulse which gave the first creative touch at +seeding loses itself later and finds no place among the forces at work at +blossom time; the methods adopted by the greatest masters of the form are +inconsistent with the motives that impelled them to its use, and where +these motives were followed to their logical conclusion, the resuit, both +in literature and in life, became a byword for absurd unreality. To live +at all the ideal appeared to require an atmosphere of paradox and +incongruity: in its essence the most 'natural' of all poetic forms, +pastoralism came to its fairest flower amid the artificiality of a +decadent court or as the plaything of the leisure hours of a college of +learning, and its insipid convention having become 'a literary plague in +every European capital,' it finally disappeared from view amid the +fopperies of the Roman Arcadia and the puerile conceits of the Petit +Trianon. + +Wherein then, it may be wondered, does the pastoral's title to +consideration lie. It does not lie primarily, or chiefly, in the fact that +it is associated with names of the first rank in literature, with +Theocritus and Vergil, with Petrarch, Politian, and Tasso, with Cervantes +and Lope de Vega, with Ronsard and Marot, with Spenser, Ben Jonson, and +Milton; nor yet that works such as the _Idyls_, the _Aminta_, the +_Faithful Shepherdess_, and _Lycidas_ contain some of the most graceful +and perfect verse to be found in any language. Rather is its importance to +be sought in the fact that the form is the expression of instincts and +impulses deep-rooted in the nature of humanity, which, while affecting the +whole course of literature, at times evince themselves most clearly and +articulately here; that it plays a distinct and distinctive part in the +history of human thought and the history of artistic expression. Moreover, +it may be argued that, from this point of view, the very contradictions +and inconsistencies to which I have alluded make it all the more important +to discover wherein lay the strange vitality of the form and its power of +influencing the current of European letters. + +From what has already been said it will be apparent that little would be +gained by attempting beforehand to give any strict account of what is +meant by 'pastoral' in literature. Any definition sufficiently elastic to +include the protean forms assumed by what we call the 'pastoral ideal' +could hardly have sufficient intension to be of any real value. If after +considering a number of literary phenomena which appear to be related +among themselves in form, spirit, and aim we come at the end of our +inquiry to any clearer appreciation of the term I shall so far have +attained my object. I notice that I have used the expression 'pastoral +ideal,' and the phrase, which comes naturally to the mind in connexion +with this form of literature, may supply us with a useful hint. It +reminds us, namely, that the quality of pastoralism is not determined by +the fortuitous occurrence of certain characters, but by the fact of the +pieces in question being based more or less evidently upon a philosophical +conception, which no doubt underwent modification through the ages, but +yet bears evidence of organic continuity. Thus the shepherds of pastoral +are primarily and distinctively shepherds; they are not mere rustics +engaged in sheepcraft as one out of many of the employments of mankind. As +soon as the natural shepherd-life had found an objective setting in +conscious artistic literature, it was felt that there was after all a +difference between hoeing turnips and pasturing sheep; that the one was +capable of a particular literary treatment which the other was not. The +Maid of Orleans might equally well have dug potatoes as tended a flock, +and her place is not in pastoral song. Thus pastoral literature must not +be confounded with that which has for its subject the lives, the ideas, +and the emotions of simple and unsophisticated mankind, far from the +centres of our complex civilization. The two may be in their origin +related, and they occasionally, as it were, stretch out feelers towards +one another, but the pastoral of tradition lies in its essence as far from +the human document of humble life as from a scientific treatise on +agriculture or a volume of pastoral theology. Thus the tract which lies +before us to explore is equally remote from the idyllic imagination of +George Sand, the gross actuality of Zola, and the combination of simple +charm with minute and essential realism of Mr. Hardy's sketches in Wessex. +Nor does the adoption of the pastoral label suffice to bring within the +fold the fanciful animalism of Mr. Hewlett. By far the most remarkable +work of recent years to assume the title is Signor d'Annunzio's play _La +Figlia di Iorio_, a work in which the author's powerful and delicate +imagination and wealth of pure and expressive language appear in matchless +perfection. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that there is nothing +in common between the 'pastoral ideal' and the rugged strength and +suppressed fire of the great modern Italian's portrait of his native land +of the Abruzzi. + + + +I + + +Some confusion of thought appears to have prevailed among writers as to +the origin of pastoral. We are, for instance, often told that it is the +earliest of all forms of poetry, that it characterizes primitive peoples +and permeates ancient literatures. Song is, indeed, as old as human +language, and in a sense no doubt the poetry of the pastoral age may be +said to have been pastoral. It does not, however, follow that it bears any +essential resemblance to that which subsequent ages have designated by the +name. All that we know concerning the songs of pastoral nations leads us +to suppose that they bear a close resemblance to the type of popular verse +current wherever poetry exists, folk-songs of broad humanity in which +little stress is laid on the peculiar circumstances of shepherd life. An +insistence upon the objective pastoral setting is of prime importance in +understanding the real nature of pastoral poetry; it not only serves to +distinguish the pastoral proper from the more vaguely idyllic forms of +lyric verse, but helps us further to understand how it was that the +outward features of the kind came to be preserved, even after the various +necessities of sophisticated society had metamorphosed the content almost +beyond recognition. No common feature of a kind to form the basis of a +scientific classification can be traced in the spontaneous shepherd-songs +and their literary counterpart. What does appear to be a constant element +in the pastoral as known to literature is the recognition of a contrast, +implicit or expressed, between pastoral life and some more complex type of +civilization. At no stage in its development does literature, or at any +rate poetry, concern itself with the obvious, with the bare scaffolding of +life: whenever we find an author interested in the circle of prime +necessity we may be sure that he himself stands outside it. Thus the +shepherd when he sang did not insist upon the conditions amid which his +uneventful life was passed. It was left to a later, perhaps a wiser and a +sadder, generation to gaze with fruitless and often only half sincere +longing at the shepherd-boy asleep under the shadow of the thorn, lulled +by the low monotonous rustle of the grazing flock. Only when the +shepherd-songs ceased to be the outcome of unalloyed pastoral conditions +did they become distinctively pastoral. It is therefore significant that +the earliest pastoral poetry with which we are acquainted, whatever half +articulate experiments may have preceded it, was itself directly born of +the contrast between the recollections of a childhood spent among the +Sicilian uplands and the crowded social and intellectual city-life of +Alexandria[1]. + +As the result of this contrast there arises an idea which comes perhaps as +near being universal in pastoral as any--the idea, namely, of the 'golden +age.' This embraces, indeed, a field not wholly coincident with that of +pastoral, but the two are connected alike by a common spring in human +emotion and constant literary association. The fiction of an age of +simplicity and innocence found birth among the Augustan writers in the +midst of the complex and luxurious civilization of Rome, as an +illustration of the principle enunciated by Professer Raleigh, that +'literature has constantly the double tendency to negative the life +around it, as well as to reproduce it.' Having inspired Ovid and Vergil, +and been recognized by Lucretius, it passed as a literary legacy to +Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meung; it was incorporated by Frezzi in his +strange allegorical composition the _Quadriregio_, and was thrice handled +by Chaucer; it was dealt with humorously by Cervantes in _Don Quixote_, +and became the prey of the satirist in the hands of Juvenal, Bertini, and +Hall. The association of this ideal world with the simplicity of pastoral +life was effected by Vergil, and in this form it was treated with loving +minuteness by Tasso in his _Aminta_ and by Browne in his _Britannia's +Pastorals_[2]. The fiction no doubt answered to some need in human nature, +but in literature it soon came to be no more than a polite convention. + +The conception of a golden age of rustic simplicity does not, indeed, +involve the whole of pastoral literature. It does not account either for +the allegorical pastoral, in which actual personages are introduced, in +the guise of shepherds, to discuss contemporary affairs, or for the +so-called realistic pastoral, in which the town looks on with amused envy +at the rustic freedom of the country. What it does comprehend is that +outburst of pastoral song which sprang from the yearning of the tired soul +to escape, if it were but in imagination and for a moment, to a life of +simplicity and innocence from the bitter luxury of the court and the +menial bread of princes[3]. + +And this, the reaction against the world that is too much with us, is, +after all, the keynote of what is most intimately associated with the name +of pastoral in literature--the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness +in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, +lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini. For everywhere +in these soft melodies of luscious beauty, even in the studied sketches of +primitive innocence itself, there is an undercurrent of tender melancholy +and pathos: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +I have said that a sense of the contrast between town and country was +essential to the development of a distinctively pastoral literature. It +would be an interesting task to trace how far this contrast is the source +of the various subsidiary types--of the ideal where it breeds desire for a +return to simplicity, of the realistic where the humour of it touches the +imagination, and of the allegorical where it suggests satire on the +corruption of an artificial civilization. + +When the kind first makes its appearance in a world already old, it arises +purely as a solace and relief from the fervid life of actuality, and comes +as a fresh and cooling draught to lips burning with the fever of the city. +In passing from Alexandria to Rome it lost much of its limpid purity; the +clear crystal of the drink was mixed with flavours and perfumes to fit the +palate of a patron or an emperor. The example of adulteration being once +set, the implied contrast of civilization and rusticity was replaced by +direct satire on the former, and later by the discussion under the +pastoral mask of questions of religious and political controversy. Proving +itself but a left-handed weapon in such debate, it became a court +plaything, in which princes and great ladies, poets and wits, loved to see +themselves figured and complimented, and the practice of assuming pastoral +names becoming almost universal in polite circles, the convention, which +had passed from the eclogue on to the stage, passed from the stage into +actual existence, and court life became one continual pageant of pastoral +conceit. From the court it passed into circles of learning, and grave +jurists and administrators, poets and scholars, set about the refining of +language and literature decked out in all the fopperies of the fashionable +craze. One is tempted to wonder whether anything more serious than light +loves and fantastic amours can have flourished amid eighteenth-century +pastoralism. When the ladies of the court began to talk dairy-farming with +the scholars and statesmen of the day, the pretence of pastoral simplicity +could hardly be long kept up. Nor was there any attempt to do so. In the +introduction to his famous romance d'Urf wrote in answer to objectors: +'Responds leur, ma Bergere, que pour peu qu'ils ayent connoissance de toy, +ils sauront que tu n'es pas, ny celles aussi qui te suivent, de ces +Bergeres necessiteuses, qui pour gaigner leur vie conduisent les troupeaux +aux pasturages; mais que vous n'avez toutes pris cette condition que pour +vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte.' No wonder that to Fontenelle +Theocritus' shepherds 'sentent trop la campagne[4].' But the hour of +pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were +playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges +and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the +flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the +old order of social life. + + + +II + + +The Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not the nurse of a great literature, +though the age was undoubtedly one of considerable literary activity. +Scholastic learning and poetic imitation were rife; the rehandling of +Greek masterpieces was a fashionable pastime. For serious and original +composition, however, the conditions were not favourable. That the age +produced no great epic was less due to the disparagement of the form +indulged in by Callimachus, chief librarian and literary dictator, than to +the inherent temper of society. The prevailing taste was for an arrogant +display of rare and costly pageantry. At the coronation of Ptolemy +Philadelphus the brilliant city surfeited on a long-drawn golden pomp, +decked out in all the physical beauty the inheritance of Greek thought and +memories of Greek mythology could suggest, together with a wealth of +gorgeous mysticism and rapture of sensuous intoxication, which was the +fruit of its intercourse with the oriental world. The writers of +Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an +_Aeneid_, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a _Faery Queen_. What they +possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while +perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate +between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works of +Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. + +It is interesting to note that the literary _milieu_ in which Theocritus +moved at Alexandria must have abounded in all those temptations which +proved the bane of pastoral poetry at Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. There +were princes and patrons to be flattered, there were panegyrics to be sung +and ancestral feats of arms to be recorded; nor does Theocritus appear to +have stood aloof from the throng of court poetasters. In spite of the +doubtful authenticity of some of the pieces connected with his name, there +appears no sufficient reason to deprive him of the rather conventional +hymns and other poems composed with a view to court-favour. These have +little interest for us to-day: his fame rests on works which probably +gained him little advantage at the time. It was for his own solace, +forgetful for a moment of the intrigues of court life and the uncertain +sunshine of princes, that he wrote his Sicilian idyls. For him, as at a +magic touch, the walls of the heated city melted like a mirage into the +sands of the salt lagoon, and he wandered once more amid the green woods +and pastures of Trinacria, the noonday sun tempered by the shade of the +chestnuts and the babbling of the brook, and by the cool airs that glide +down from the white cliffs of Aetna. There once more he saw the shepherds +tend their flocks, singing or wrangling with one another, dreamily piping +on their wax-stopped reeds or plotting to annex their neighbours' gear; or +else there sounded in his ears the love-song or the dirge, or the +incantation of the forsaken girl rose amid the silence to the silver moon. +Once again he stood upon the shore and watched the fishers cast their +nets, while around him the goats browsed on the close herbage of the +cliff, and the crystal stream leapt down, and the waves broke upon the +rocks below, till he saw the breasts of the nymphs shine in the whiteness +of the foam and their hair spread wide in the weed, and the fair Galatea, +the enticing and the fickle, mocked the clumsy suit of the Cyclops, as she +tossed upward the bitter spray from off her shining limbs. All these +memories he recorded with a loving faithfulness of detail that it is even +now possible to verify from the folk-songs of the south. To this day in +the Isles of Greece ruined girls seek to lure back their lovers with +charms differing but little from that sung by the Syracusan to Lady +Selene, and the popular poetry alike of Italy and Greece is full of those +delicate touches of refined sentiment that in Theocritus appear so +incongruous with the rough coats and rougher banter of the shepherds. For +though the poet raised the pastoral life of Sicily into the realms of +ideal poetry, he was careful not to dissociate his version from reality, +and he allowed no imaginary conceptions to overmaster his art. He depicted +no age of innocence; his poetry reflects no philosophical illusion of +primitive simplicity; he elaborated no imaginary cult of mystical worship. +His art, however little it may tempt us to the use of the term realism, is +nevertheless based on an almost passionate sympathy with actual human +nature. This is the fount of his inspiration, the central theme of his +song. The literary genius of Greece showed little aptitude for landscape, +and seldom treated inanimate nature except as a background for human +action and emotion, or it may be in the guise of mythological allegory. +Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that Theocritus, so tenderly concerned +with the homely aspects of human life, was not likewise sensitive to the +beauties of nature. At least it is impossible to doubt his attachment to +the land of his childhood, and it is at worst a welcome dream when we +imagine him, as the evening of life drew on, leaving the formal gardens +and painted landscapes of Alexandria and returning to Syracuse and his +beloved Sicily once more.[5] + +The verse of Theocritus was echoed by his younger contemporaries, Bion +and Moschus.[6] The former is best known through the oriental passion of +his 'Woe, woe for Adonis,' probably written to be sung at the annual +festival of Syrian origin commemorated by Theocritus in his fifteenth +idyl.[7] The most important extant work of Moschus is the 'Lament for +Bion,' characterized by a certain delicate sentimentality alien to the +spirit of either of his predecessors. It is perhaps significant that +Theocritus appears to have been of Syracusan, Bion of Smyrnian, and +Moschus of Ausonian origin.[8] With the exception of this poem, which is +modelled on Theocritus' 'Lament for Daphnis,' there is little in the work +of either of the younger poets of a pastoral nature. Certain fragments, +however, if genuine, suggest that poems of the kind may have perished. +Among the remains of Moschus occurs the following: + + Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, + For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, + Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep;[9] + +lines in which we already take leave of the genuine love of the pastoral +life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and +see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the +imaginary swain. + +Once again, five centuries later,[10] the spirit of Greece shone for one +brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the +changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of _Daphnis and +Chloe_ is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the +idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the +purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and +expression, and yet in such manner as by its very _navet_ and innocence +to serve as a goad to satiated appetite. It has been suggested that the +work should properly be styled the _Lesbiaca_, a name which recalls the +_Aethiopica_ and _Babylonica_, and reminds us that the author, though a +student of Alexandrian literature, belonged to the school of the erotic +romanciers and traditional bishops, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Of his +life we know nothing, and even his name--Longus--has been called in +question. The story, unlike those of most later pastoral romances, is of +the simplest. The author, however, was no longer satisfied with the +natural refinement of popular love poetry; the central characters are +represented as foundlings nurtured by the shepherds of Lesbos, and are +ultimately identified, on much the same conventional evidence as Ion and +others had been before, as the children of certain rich and aristocratie +families.[11] The interest of the story lies in the growth of their +unconscious love, which constitutes the central theme of the work, though +relieved here and there by wholly colourless adventure. + +A Latin translation made the book popular after the introduction of +printing, and the renaissance saw the French version by Amyot, a work of +European reputation. This was translated into English under Elizabeth; an +Italian translation followed in the seventeenth century,[12] and a Spanish +is also extant. There is no doubt that it was widely read throughout the +sixteenth and following centuries, but it exercised little influence on +the development of pastoral literature. By the time it became generally +known the main features of renaissance pastoral were already fixed, and in +motive and treatment alike it was alien to the spirit that animated the +fashionable masterpieces. The modern pastoral romance had already evolved +itself from a blending of the eclogue with the mythological tale. The +drama was developing on independent lines. Thus although, like the other +romances of the late Greek school, it supplied many incidents and +descriptions to be found in later works, it played no vital part in the +history of pastoral, and left no mark either on the general form or on the +spirit that animated the kind. Longus' romance finds its true descendant, +as well as its closest imitation, in a work that achieved celebrity on the +eve of the French revolution, that masterpiece of unreal and sentimental +simplicity, Saint-Pierre's _Paul et Virginie_. + + + +III + + +A faithful reproduction of the main conditions of actual life was the +characteristic of Theocritus' poetry. It was subject to this ever-present +limitation that his graceful fancy exercised its power of idealization. He +took the singing match, the dirge, and the love-song or complaint as he +found them among the shepherd-folk of Sicily, and gave them that objective +setting which is as necessary to pastoral as to every other merely +accidental form of poetry; for the true subjective lyric is independent of +circumstances. The first of his great successors made the bucolic eclogue +what, with trifling variation, it was to remain for eighteen centuries, a +form based upon artificiality and convention. I have already pointed out +that the literary conditions at Alexandria did not differ materially from +those of Rome; it follows that the change must have been due to the +character of Vergil himself. That intense love of beauty for its own sake +which characterized the Greek mind had little hold over the Roman. Nor did +the latter understand the charm of untaught simplicity. It is true that to +the Roman poets of the Augustan period we owe the conception of the golden +age, but it remained with them rather a philosophical mythus than the +dream of an idyllic poet. To writers of the stamp of Ovid, Lucretius, and +Vergil the Idyls of the Syracusan poet can have possessed but little +meaning, and in his own Bucolics the last named seems never to have +regarded the pastoral form as anything but a cloak for matters of more +pith and moment. Although he followed Theocritus in his use of the several +types of song and stamped them to all future ages in pastoral convention, +though he may have begun with fairly close imitation of his model and only +gradually diverged into a more independant style, he at no time showed +himself content with the earlier poet's simplicity of motive.[13] The +eclogue in which he followed Theocritus most closely, the eighth, is +equally, perhaps, the most pleasing of the series. It combines the motives +of the love-lament and incantation, and the closeness with which it +follows while playing variations on its models is striking. One instance +will suffice. Take the passage in the second Idyl thus rendered by +Symonds:[14] + + Hail, Hecat, dread dame! to the end be thou my assistant, + Making my medicines work no less than the philtre of Circ, + Or Medea's charms, or yellow-haired Perimed's. + Wheel of the magic spells, draw thou that man to my dwelling. + +Corresponding to this we find the following passage in the Latin poem: + + Song hath power to draw from heaven the wandering huntress, + Song was the witch's spell transformed the mates of Ulysses.... + Home from the city to me, my song, lead home to me Daphnis. + +Vergil was the first to begin the dissociation of pastoral from the +conditions of actual life, and just as his shepherds cease to present the +features and characters of the homely keepers of the flock, so his +landscape becomes imaginary and undefined. This peculiarity has been +noticed by Professor Herford in some very suggestive remarks prefixed to +his edition of the _Shepherd's Calender_. 'The profiles of the Sicilian +uplands,' he writes, 'waver uncertainly amid traits drawn from the Mantuan +plain. In this confusion lay, perhaps, the germ of those debates between +highland and lowland shepherds which reverberate through the later +pastoral, and are still loud in Spenser.' The gulf that separated Vergil +from his predecessor, in so far as their treatment of shepherd-life is +concerned, may be measured by the manner in which they respectively deal +with the supernatural. In the Greek Idyls we find the simple faith or +superstition as it lived among the shepherd-folk; no Pan appears to sow +dismay in the breasts of the maidens, nor do we find aught of the mystical +worship that later gathered round him in the imaginary Arcadia. He is +mentioned only as the rugged patron of herds and song, the wild indweller +of the savage woods as he appeared to the minds of the simple swains, who +hushed their midday piping fearful lest they should disturb the sleep of +the god. It is true that Theocritus introduces mythological characters in +the tale of Galatea, but it should be noticed that this merely forms the +theme of a song or the subject of a poetical epistle to a friend. +Moreover, it is open to more than one rationalistic interpretation. +Symonds treats it as an allegory in harmony with the mythopoeic genius of +Greek poetry. It is equally possible to regard the Cyclops as emblematic +merely of the rough neatherd flouted by the more delicate +shepherd-maiden--the contrast is of constant occurrence in later +works--for, alike in one of his own fragments and in Moschus' lament, Bion +is represented as courting this same Galatea after she has rid herself of +the suit of Polyphemus. Vergil was content with no such simple mythology +as this. He must needs shake Silenus from a drunken sleep and bid him tell +of Chaos and old Time, of the infancy of the world and the birth of the +gods. This mixture of obsolescent theology and Epicurean philosophy +probably possessed little reality for Vergil himself, and would have +conveyed no meaning whatever to the Sicilian shepherds. Its introduction +stamps his eclogues with that unreality which has been the reproach of the +pastoral from his day to ours. The didactic homily was one fresh +convention introduced. Far more important was the tendency to make every +form subserve some ulterior purpose of allegory and panegyric.[15] For the +Roman its own beauty was no sufficient end of art. That the _Aeneid_ was +written for the glorification of Rome cannot be made a reproach to the +poet; the greatness of the end lent dignity to the means. That the +pastoral was forced to serve the menial part of a vehicle of sycophantic +praise is less easily pardoned. In Vergil's hands a conversation between +shepherds becomes an expression of gratitude to the emperor for the +restitution of his villa, a lament for Daphnis is interwoven with an +apotheosis of Julius Caesar, and in the complaint of the forsaken +shepherd, whom Apollo and Pan seek in vain to comfort, we may trace the +wounded vanity of his patron deserted by his mistress for the love of a +soldier. The fourth eclogue was written after the peace of Brundisium, and +describes the golden age to which Vergil looked forward as consequent upon +the birth of a marvellous infant, perhaps some offspring of the marriages +of Antonius and Octavianus, celebrated in solemnization of the treaty. The +poem achieved considerable fame, which lasted as late as the time of +Dryden, owing to the belief that it contained a prophecy of the birth of +Christ drawn from the Sibylline books, and won for Vergil throughout the +middle ages the title of prophet and magician. Whether this belief was +well founded or not may be left to those whom it may interest to inquire; +it is sufficient for our purpose to note that in the poem in question +Vergil first introduced the convention of the golden age into pastoral +verse. + +The first of the long line of imitators of whom we have any notice was a +certain Calpurnius. His diction is correct and his verse smooth, but the +suggestion that he belonged to the age of Augustus has not met with much +favour among those competent to judge. He followed Vergil closely, chiefly +developing the panegyric. His poems, however, include all the usual +conventions, singing matches, invocations, cosmologies, and the rest, in +the treatment of which originality never appears to have been his aim. +Some of his pieces deal with husbandry, and belong more strictly to the +school of the _Georgics_ and didactic poetry. The most interesting of his +eclogues is one in which he contrasts the life of the town with that of +the country, the direct comparison of which he appears to have been the +first to treat. The poem likewise possesses some antiquarian interest, +owing to a description of a wild-beast show in an amphitheatre in which +the animals were brought up in lifts through the floor of the arena. +Calpurnius is sometimes supposed, on account of a dedication to Nemesianus +found in some manuscripts, to have lived at the end of the third century, +but even supposing the dedication to be genuine, which is more than +doubtful, it does not follow that the person referred to is that +Nemesianus who contested the poetic crown with Prince Numerianus about the +year 283[16]. This Nemesianus was probably the author of some eclogues +which have been frequently ascribed to Calpurnius (numbers 8 to 11 in most +editions), but which must be discarded from the list of his authentic +works on a technical question of the employment of elision[17]. The +_editio princeps_ of these eclogues is not dated, but probably appeared in +1471, so that they were at any rate accessible to writers of the +_cinquecento_. It is not easy to trace any direct influence, unless, as +perhaps we should, we credit to Calpurnius the suggestion of those poems +in which a 'wise' shepherd describes to his less-travelled hearers the +manners of the town. + +A few pieces from the _Idyllia_ of Ausonius appear in some of the bucolic +collections, but they cannot strictly be regarded as coming within the +range of pastoral poetry. + + + +IV + + +Events conspired to make Vergil the model for later writers of eclogues. +The fame of the poet was a potent cause among many. Another reason why +Theocritus found no direct imitators may be sought in the respective +methods of the two poets. Work of the nature of the _Idyls_ has to depend +for its value and interest upon the artistic qualities of the poetry +alone. Such work may spring up spontaneously under almost any conditions; +it is seldom produced through imitation. On the other hand, any scholar +with a gift for easy versification could achieve a certain distinction as +a follower of Vergil. His verse depended for its interest not on its +poetic qualities but upon the importance of the themes it treated. +Accidental conditions, too, told in favour of the Roman poet. During the +middle ages Latin was a universal language among the lettered classes, +while the knowledge of Greek, though at no time so completely lost as is +sometimes supposed, was a far rarer accomplishment, and was restricted for +the most part to a few linguistic scholars. Thus before the revival of +learning had made Greek a possible source of literary inspiration, the +Vergilian tradition, through the instrumentality of Petrarch and +Boccaccio, had already made itself supreme in pastoral[18]. + +During the middle ages the stream of pastoral production, though it +nowhere actually disappears, is reduced to the merest trickle. Notices of +such isolated poems as survive have been carefully collected by +Macr-Leone in the introduction to his elaborate but as yet unfinished +work on the Latin eclogue in the Italian literature of the fourteenth +century. As early as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth +century we find a poem by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, variously entitled +'Carmen bucolicum de virtute signi crucis domini' or 'de mortibus boum.' +It is a hymn to the saint cross, and in it for the first time the pastoral +suffered violence from the tyranny of the religious idea. The 'Ecloga +Theoduli' alluded to by Chaucer in the _House of Fame_[19] appears to be +the work of an Athenian writer, and is ascribed to various dates ranging +from the fifth to the eighth centuries. While preserving as its main +characteristic a close subservience to its Vergilian model, the eclogue +participated in the general rise of allegory which marked the later middle +ages. Pastoral colouring of no very definite order had shown itself in the +elegies of Alcuin in the eighth century, as also in the 'Conflictus veris +et hiemis,' traditionally ascribed to the Venerable Bede, but more +probably the work of one Dodus, a disciple of Alcuin. Of the tenth century +we possess an allegorical religious lament entitled 'Ecloga duarum +sanctimonialium.' About 1160 a Benedictine monk named Metellus composed +twelve poems under the title of _Bucolica Quirinalium_, in honour of St. +Quirinus and in obvious imitation of Vergil. Reminiscences and paraphrases +of the Roman poet are scattered throughout the monk's own barbarous +hexameters, as in the opening verses: + + Tityre tu magni recubans in margine stagni + Silvestri tenuique fide pete iura peculi! + +It would hardly be worth recording these medieval clerks, the +undistinguished writers, 'de quibus,' Boccaccio said, 'nil curandum est,' +were it not that they show how the memory at least of the classical +pastoral survived amid the ruins of ancient learning, and so serve to lead +up to one last spasmodic manifestation of the kind in certain poems which +else appear to stand in a curiously isolated position. + +It was in 1319, during the bitter years of his exile at Ravenna, that +Dante received from one John of Bologna, known, on account of his fame as +a writer of Latin verse, as Giovanni del Virgilio, a poetical epistle +inviting him to visit the author in his native city. His correspondent, +while doing homage to his poetic genius, incidentally censured him for +composing his great work in the base tongue of the vulgar[20]. Dante +replied in a Vergilian eclogue, courteously declining Giovanni's +invitation to Bologna, on the ground that it was a place scarcely safe for +his person. As regarded the strictures of his correspondent, his +triumphant answer in the shape of the _Paradiso_ lay yet unfinished, so +the author of the _De Vulgari Eloquio_ trifled with the charge and +purported to compose the present poem in earnest of reform. There is a +tone of not unkindly irony about the whole. Was it an elaborate jest at +the expense of Giovanni, the writer of Vergilian verse? The Bolognese +replied, this time also in bucolic form, repeating his invitation and +holding out the special attraction of a meeting with Mussato, the most +regarded poet of his day in Europe. Dante's second eclogue, if indeed it +is correctly ascribed to his pen, introduces several historical +characters. It is said not to have reached Bologna till after his death. +These poems were not included in any of the early bucolic collections, and +first appeared in print in the eighteenth century. They seem, from their +purely occasional nature, their inconspicuous bulk, and lack of any +striking characteristics, to have attracted little notice in their own +day, and to have been ignored by later writers on pastoral as forming no +link in the chain of historical development. Given, indeed, the Bucolics +of Vergil, they are imitations such as might at any moment have appeared, +irrespective of date and surroundings, and independent of any living +literary tradition[21]. It is therefore impossible to regard them as in +any way belonging to, or foreshadowing, the great body of renaissance +pastoral, a division of literature endowed with remarkable vitality and +evolutionary force, which must in its growth and decay alike be studied in +close connexion with the ideas and temperament of the age, and in +relation to the general development of the history of letters[22]. + +The grandeur of the Roman Empire, the background against which in +historical retrospect we see the bucolic eclogues of Vergil and his +immediate followers, had vanished when Italian literature once more rose +out of chaos. The political organism had resolved itself into its +constituent elements, and fresh combinations had arisen. Nevertheless, +though the Empire was hardly now the shadow of its pristine greatness, men +still looked to Rome as the centre of the civilized world. As the seat of +the Church, it stood for the one force capable of supplying a permanent +element among the warring interests of European politics. Nothing was more +natural than that the poetic form that had reflected the glories of +imperial Rome should bow to the fascination of Rome, the visible emblem on +earth of the spiritual empire of Christ. To the medieval mind, so far from +there being any antagonism between the two ideas, the one seemed almost to +involve and necessitate the other. It saw in the splendeur of the Empire +the herald of a glory not of this world, a preparation as it were, a +decking of the chamber against the advent of the bride; and thus the +pastoral which sang of the greatness of pagan Rome appeared at the same +time a hymn prophetic of the glory of the Church[23]. + +Moreover, during the centuries that had elapsed since the days of Vergil +the term 'pastoral' had gained a new meaning and new associations. In the +days of Augustus Pan was a boorish anachronism; it was left to medieval +Christianity to create a god who was in fact a shepherd of men[24] and so +to render possible a pastoral allegory that should embody the dearest +hopes and aspirations of the human heart. That Christian pastoralists +availed themselves successfully of the possibilities of the theme it would +be difficult to maintain. It is a singular fact that, at a time when +allegory was the characteristic literary form, it was yet so impossible +even for the finer spirits to follow a train of thought clearly and +consistently, that it was only when a mind passed beyond the limitations +of its own age, and assumed a position _sub specie aeternitatis_, that it +was able to free itself from the prevalent confusion of the imaginary and +the real, the word and the idea, and to perceive that success in allegory +depends, not on the chaotic intermingling of the attributes of the type +and the thing typified, but on so representing the one as to suggest and +illuminate the other. + +In the early days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral +tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. It is +not without significance that the first modern eclogues were from the same +pen as the sonnet 'Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,' expressive of the +shame with which earnest sons of the Church contemplated the captivity of +the holy father at Avignon; for thus on the very threshold of Arcadia we +are met with those bitter denunciations of ecclesiastical corruption which +strike so characteristic a note in the works of the satirical Mantuan, and +seem so out of place in the songs of Spenser and Milton. In one eclogue +the poet mourns over the ruin and desolation of Rome, as a mother deserted +of her children; another is a dialogue between two shepherds, in which St. +Peter, under the pastoral disguise of Pamphilus, upbraids the licentious +Clement VI with the ignoble servitude in which he is content to abide; a +third shows us Clement wantoning with the shameless mistress of a line of +pontifical shepherds, a figure allegorical of the corruption of the +Church[25]; in yet a fourth Petrarch laments his estrangement from his +patron Giovanni Colonna, a cardinal in favour at the papal court, whom it +would appear his outspoken censures had offended. Petrarch's was not the +only voice that was raised urging the Pope to return from the 'Babylonian +captivity,' but the protest had peculiar significance from the mouth of +one who stood forth as the embodiment of the new age still struggling in +the throes of birth. When 'the first Italian' accepted the laurel crown at +the Capitol, he dreamed of Rome as once more the heart of the world, the +city which should embody that early Italian idea of nationality, the ideal +of the humanistic commonwealth. The course urged alike by Petrarch and by +St. Catherine was in the end followed, but the years of exile were yet to +bear their bitterest fruit of mortification and disgrace. In 1377 Gregory +XI transferred the seat of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, with the +resuit that the world was treated to the edifying spectacle of three +prelates each claiming to be the vicar of Christ and sole father of the +Church. + +These ecclesiastical eclogues form the most important contribution made by +Italy's greatest lyric poet to pastoral. Others, one in honour of Robert +of Sicily, another recording the defeat of Pan by Articus on the field of +Poitiers, follow already existing pastoral convention. Some few, again, of +less importance in literary history, are of greater personal or poetic +interest. In one we see Francesco and his brother Gherardo wandering in +the realm of shepherds, and there exchanging their views concerning +religious verse. A group of three, standing apart from the rest, connect +themselves with the subject of the _Canzoniere_. The first describes the +ravages of the plague at Avignon; the second mourns over the death of +poetry in the person of Laura, who fell a victim on April 6, 1348; the +third is a dirge sung by the shepherdesses over her grave. One, lastly, a +neo-classic companion to Theocritus' tale of Galatea, recounts the poet's +unrequited homage to Daphne of the Laurels, thus again suggesting the +idealized source of Petrarch's inspiration. This poem is not only the gem +of the series, but embodies the mythopoeic spirit of classical imagination +in a manner unknown in the later days of the renaissance. + +The, eclogues, twelve in number, appear to have been mostly composed +about the middle of the fourteenth century. In the days of Petrarch the +art of Latin verse was yet far from the perfection it attained in those of +Poliziano and Vida; it was a clumsy vehicle in comparison with the vulgar +tongue, which he affected to despise while setting therein the standard +for future ages. Nevertheless, Petrarch's Latin poems bear witness to the +natural genius for composition and expression to which we owe the +_Canzoniere_. The _editio princeps_ of the pastorals appeared in the form +of a beautifully printed folio at Cologne in 1473, ninety-nine years after +the poet's death. They were entitled _Eglogae_[26] (i.e. _aeglogae_), by +which, as Dr. Johnson remarked, Petrarch, finding no appropriate meaning +in the form _eclogae_, 'meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it +will only mean the talk of goats.' + +No two men ever won for themselves more diverse literary reputations than +Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio. The Latin eclogue is one of their few +points of literary contact. The bucolic collections contain no less than +sixteen such poems from the pen of the younger writer[27], which, though +not devoid of merit as poetical exercises, show that as a metrist +Boccaccio fell almost as far short of his friend in the learned as in the +vulgar tongue. They were composed at various dates, mostly, it would +appear, after 1360, though some are certainly earlier; and it would be +difficult to say whether to him or to Petrarch belonged the honour of +reviving the form, were it not that, both in the poems themselves and in +his correspondance, he explicitly mentions Petrarch as his master in the +kind[28]. In any case the dates of composition must cover a wide period, +for the poems reflect varions phases of his life. 'Le Egloghe del +Boccaccio,' says an Italian critic, 'rappresentano tutta la vita +psicologica del poeta, dalle febbri d'amore alle febbri ascetiche.' The +amorous eclogues, to which in later life Boccaccio attached little +importance, are early; several are historical in subject and are probably +of later date, though one may be as early as 1348; there are others of a +religions nature which belong to the author's later years. The allusions +in these poems are so obscure that it would in most cases be hopeless to +seek to unravel the meaning had not the author left us a key in a letter +to Martino da Signa, prior of the Augustinians. Many of the subjects are +purely conventional, such as those of the early poems on the loves of the +shepherds, the historical panegyrics and laments, and the satire on rich +misers. The same may be said of a dispute on the respective merits of +poetry and commerce, and of a poem in praise of poetry; although the +former has an obvious relation to the author's own circumstances, and the +latter appears to be inspired by genuine enthusiasm and love of art. The +forces of confusion that have dogged the pastoral in all ages show +themselves where the poet tells a Christian fable in pagan guise; the +antithesis of human and divine love, while suggesting Petrarch's influence +over his life, is a theme that runs throughout medieval philosophy and was +later embodied by Spenser in his _Hymns_. One poem stands out from the +rest somewhat after the manner of Petrarch's _Daphne_. In it Boccaccio +tells us, under the thinnest veil of pastoral, how his daughter Violante, +dead in childhood many years before, appeared to him bearing tidings of +the land beyond the grave. The theme is the same as that of the almost +contemporary _Pearl_; and in treating it Boccaccio achieves something of +the sweetness and pathos of the English poem. One eclogue, finally, the +_Valle tenebrosa (Vallis Opaca)_, which appears to owe something to +Dante's description of hell, is probably historical in its intention, but +the gloss explains _obscurum per obscurius_, and we can only suppose that +the author intended that the inner sense should remain a mystery. + +When Boccaccio wrote, the eclogue had not yet degenerated into the +literary convention it became in the following century; and, though he was +no doubt tempted to the use of the form by Vergilian tradition and the +example of Petrarch, he must also have followed therein a natural +inclination and no mere dictate of fashion. Even in these poems the +humanity of the writer's personality makes itself felt. While Laura tends +to fade into a personification of poetry, and Petrarch's strongest +convictions find expression through the mouth of St. Peter, we feel that +behind Boccaccio's humanistic exercise lies his own amorous passion, his +own religious enthusiasm, his own fatherly tenderness and love. His +eclogues, however, never attained the same reputation as Petrarch's, and +remained in manuscript till the appearance of Giunta's bucolic collection +of 1504. + + * * * * * + +As humanism advanced and the golden age of the renaissance approached, +Latin bucolic writers sprang up and multiplied. The fullest +collection--that printed by Oporinus at Basel in March, 1546--contains the +poems of thirty-eight authors, and even this makes no pretence of giving +those of the middle ages. The collection, however, ranges from Calpurnius +to Castalio (i.e. the French theologian Sbastien Chteillon), and +includes the work of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Spagnuoli, Urceo, Pontano, +Sannazzaro, Erasmus, Vida, and others. There is a strong family likeness +in the pastoral verse of these authors, and the majority are devoid of +individual interest. A few, however, merit separate notice. + +It was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that the renaissance +eclogue, abandoning its last claims to poetic inspiration, assumed its +definitive form in the works of Battista Spagnuoli, more commonly known +from the place of his birth by the name of Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in +number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral +composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any +inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author +proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. +Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth +century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it +in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note, +'What the author meant of all, the translater intends only of ill +women[29].' There follows the old complaint of the niggardliness of rich +patrons towards poor poets, and a satire on the luxury of city life. The +remaining poems are ecclesiastical. One is in praise of the religious +life, another describes the simple faith of the country folk and the joys +of conversion; finally, we have a satire on the abuses of Rome, and a +discussion on points of theological controversy. None of these subjects +possess the least novelty; the author's merit, if merit it can be called, +lies in having stamped them with their definitive form for the use of +subsequent ages. Combined with this lack of originality, however, it is +easy to trace a strong personal element in the bitterness of the satire +that pervades many of the themes, the orthodox eclogue on conversion +standing in curious contrast with that on ecclesiastical abuses. + +It is not easy to account for Spagnuoli's popularity, but the curiously +representative quality of his work was no doubt in part the cause. His +poems were what, through the changing fashions of centuries, men had come +to expect of bucolic verse. They crystallized into a standard mould +whatever in pastoral, whether classical or renaissance, was most obviously +and easily reducible to a type, and so attained the position of models +beyond which it was needless to go. They were first printed in 1498, and +went through a number of editions during the author's lifetime. As a young +man--and it is to his earlier years that the bulk of the eclogues must be +attributed--Spagnuoli was noted for the elegance of his Latin verse; but +his facility led him into over-production, and Tiraboschi reports his +later writings as absolutely unreadable. He was of Spanish extraction, as +his name implies, became a Carmelite, and rose to be general of the order, +but retired in 1515, the year before his death. + +Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished +humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a +Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling. His poems were first +published by Aldus in 1505, two years after his death. In one +characteristic composition he laments the loss of his wife, to whom he was +deeply attached; another introduces under a pastoral name his greater +disciple Sannazzaro[30]. + +Jacopo Sannazzaro, known to humanism as Actius Sincerus, disciple of the +'Accademia Pontana,' and editor of his master's works, the greatest +explorer, if not the greatest exponent, of the mysteries of Arcadia, was +born of parents of Spanish origin at Naples in 1458. His boyhood was spent +at San Cipriano, but he soon returned to Naples, where he fell in love +with Carmosina Bonifacia. His passion does not appear to have been +reciprocated, but the lady has her place in literature as the Phillis of +the eclogues. He attached himself to the court of Frederick of Aragon, +whom he followed into exile in France. Returning to Naples after his +patron's death in 1503, he again fell in love, this time with a certain +Cassandra Marchesa, to whom he continued to pay court, _more Platonico_, +till his death in 1530. He is said to have died at her house. + +To his Italian work I shall have to return later; here it is his five +Latin piscatory eclogues that demand notice. There is nothing in the +subject-matter to arrest attention--they consist of a lament for +Carmosina, a lover's complaint, a singing match, a panegyric, and a poem +in honour of Cassandra--but the form is interesting. Of course the claim +sometimes put forward for Sannazzaro, as the inventor of the piscatory +eclogue, ignores various passages in Theocritus, notably the twenty-first +Idyl, whence he presumably borrowed the idea. But it is certainly +refreshing, after wandering in an unreal Sicily and an imaginary Arcadia, +and listening to shepherds discourse of the abuses of the Roman Curia, to +dive into the waters of the bay of Naples, or wanton in fancy along its +sunlit shore from the low rocks of Baiae to the sheer cliffs of Sorrento, +and to feel that, even though Jacopo was no Neapolitan fisher-boy, and +Carmosina no nymph of Posilipo, yet the poet had at least before him the +blue water and the dark rocks, and in his heart the love that formed the +theme of his song[31]. + +Sannazzaro also wrote a mythological poem entitled _Salices_, in which +certain nymphs pursued by satyrs are changed by Diana into willows. The +tale was evidently suggested by Ovid, and cannot strictly be classed as +pastoral, though it may have helped to fix in pastoral convention the +character of the satyr; who, however, at no time enjoyed a very savoury +reputation. The Latin works were first published at Naples in 1536, and +though far from rivalling the popularity of the _Arcadia_, went through +several editions. + +The Latin eclogues of the renaissance are distinguished from all other +forms of allegory by the obscure and recondite allusions that they +affected. There were few among their authors for whom the narration of +simple loves and sorrows or the graces of untutored nature possessed any +attraction; we find them either making their shepherds openly discuss +contemporary affairs, or more often clothing their references to actual +events in a sort of pastoral allegory, fatuous as regards its form and +obscure as regards its content. Tityrus and Mopsus are alternately lovers, +courtiers and spiritual pastors; Pan, when he does not conceal under his +shaggy outside the costly robes of a prince, is a strange abortive +monster, drawing his attributes in part from pagan superstition, in part +from Christian piety; a libel upon both. The seed sown by Petrarch and +Boccaccio bore fruit only too freely. The writers of eclogues, either +debarred from or incapable of originality, sought distinction by ever more +and more elaborate and involved allusions; and their works, in their own +day held the more sublime the more incomprehensible they were, are now the +despair of those who would wring from them any semblance of meaning. + +The absurdities of the conventional pastoral did not, indeed, pass +altogether unnoticed in their own day, for early in the sixteenth century +Teofilo Folengo composed his _Zanitonella_ in macaronic verse. It consists +of eclogues and poems in hexameter and elegiac metre ridiculing polite +pastoralism through contrast with the crudities of actual rusticity. In +the same manner Berni travestied the courtly pastoral of vernacular +writers in his realistic pictures of village love. But though the satirist +might find ample scope for his wit in anatomizing the foible of the day, +fashionable society continued none the less to encourage the exquisite +inanity, and to be flattered by the elegant obscurity, of the allegorical +pastoral. + + + +V + + +In 1481 appeared an Italian translation of the Bucolics of Vergil from the +pen of Bernardo Pulci. The same volume also contained a collection of +eclogues in the vernacular by various authors, none of which have any +particular interest beyond what attaches to them as practically heading +the list of Italian pastorals[32]. It will be noticed that these poems +correspond in date with the later school of Latin bucolic writers, +represented by Mantuan; and the vernacular compositions developed +approximately parallel to, though usually in imitation of, those in the +learned tongue. But the fourteenth-century school of Petrarch had not been +entirely without its representative in Italian. At least one poem included +by Boccaccio in his _Ameto_ is a strict eclogue, composed throughout in +_terza rima_, which was destined to become the standard verse-form for +'pastoral,' as _ottava rima_ for 'rustic,' composition. The poem is a +contention between an upland and a lowland shepherd, and begins in genuine +pastoral fashion: + + Come Titan del seno dell' aurora + Esce, cos con le mie pecorelle + I monti cerco sema far dimora. + +It is chiefly differentiated from many similar compositions in Latin--and +the distinction is of some importance--in that the interest is purely +pastoral; no political or religious allusions being discernible under the +arguments of the somewhat quarrelsome swains[33]. This peculiarity is on +the whole characteristic of the later vernacular pastoral likewise, which, +after the appearance of the collection of 1481, soon became extremely +common, Siena and Urbino, Ferrara, Bologna and Padua, Florence and Naples, +all alike bearing practical witness to the popularity of the kind[34]. + +In 1506 Castiglione[35] and Cesare Gonzaga, in the disguise of shepherds, +recited an eclogue interspersed with songs before the court of Duke +Guidubaldo at Urbino. The Duchess Elizabeth was among the spectators. The +_Tirsi,_ as it is called, begins with the simple themes of pastoral +complaint, whence by swift transition it passes to a panegyric of the +court and the circle of the _Cortegiano_. It was not the first attempt at +bringing the pastoral upon the boards, since Poliziano's _Orfeo_ with its +purely bucolic opening had been performed as early as 1471; but +Castiglione's _ecloga rappresentativa_ was the first of any note to depend +purely on the pastoral form and to introduce on the stage the convention +of the allegorical pastoral. Some years later a further step was taken in +the dramatization of the eclogue by Luigi Tansillo in his _Due pelegrini_, +performed at Messina in 1538, though composed and probably originally +acted some ten years before. It is through these and similar poems that we +shall have to trace the gradual evolution of the pastoral drama in a later +section of this work. Tansillo was likewise the author, both of a poem +called _Il Vendemmiatore_, one of those obscene debauches of fancy which +throw a lurid light on the luxurious imagination of the age, and of a +didactic work, _Il Podere_, in which, as his editor somewhat navely +remarks, 'ci rende amabile la campagna e l'agricoltura[36].' + +The practice of eclogue-writing soon became no less general in the +vernacular than in Latin, and the band of pastoral poets included men so +different in temperament as Machiavelli, who left a 'Capitolo pastorale' +among his miscellaneous works, and Ariosto, whose eclogue on the +conspiracy contrived in 1506 against Alfonso d'Este was published from +manuscript in 1835. The fashion of the piscatory eclogue, set by +Sannazzaro in Latin, was followed in Italian by his fellow-citizen +Bernardino Rota, and later by Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, Abbot of +Guastalla, in whose poems we are able at times to detect a ring of simple +and refreshing sincerity. + +Though, as will be understood even from the brief summary given above, the +allusive element is not wholly absent from these poems, it is nevertheless +true, as already said, that it appears less persistently than in the Latin +works, the weighty matters of religion and politics being as a rule +avoided. The reason is perhaps not far to seek, since, being in the vulgar +tongue, they appealed to a wider and less learned audience, before whom it +might have been injudicious to utter too strong an opinion on questions of +church and state. + +So far the pastoral poetry of Italy had been composed exclusively in the +literary Tuscan of the day. To Florence and to Lorenzo de' Medici in +particular is due the honour of having first introduced the rustic speech +of the people. His two poems written in the language of the peasants about +Florence, _La Nencia da Barberino_ and a canzonet _In morte della Nencia_, +possess a grace to which the quaintness of the diction adds point and +flavour. A short extract must suffice to illustrate the style. + + Ben si potr tener avventurato + Chi sia marito di s bella moglie; + Ben si potr tener in buon d nato + Chi ar quel fioraliso senza foglie; + Ben si potr tenersi consolato + Che si contenti tutte le sue voglie + D' aver la Nencia, e tenersela in braccio + Morbida e bianca, che pare un sugnaccio. + + * * * * * + + Nenciozza mia, vuo' tu un poco fare + Meco a la neve per quel salicale?-- + S, volentier, ma non me la sodare + Troppo, ch tu non mi facessi male.-- + Nenciozza mia, deh non ti dubitare, + Ch l' amor ch' io ti porto s tale, + Che quando avessi mal, Nenciozza mia, + Con la mia lingua te lo leveria. + +This form of composition at once became fashionable. Luigi Pulci[37] +composed his _Beca di Dicomano_, which attained almost equal success and +passed for the work of Lorenzo. It is, however, a far inferior production, +in which the quaintness of the model is replaced by coarse caricature and +its delicate rusticity by a cruder realism. Other imitations followed, but +none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and +expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish +themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an +anonymous _Pescatoria amorosa_ printed about 1550. It is a Venetian +serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain grace +of language: + + Cortese donne, belle innamorae, + Donzelle, vedovette, e maridae, + Ascholte ste parole, che le no se cortelae, + Che intendere la causa del vegnir in ste contrae[39]. + +Symonds and D'Ancona alike remark, with perfect truth, that Lorenzo's +rustic style, in spite of its sympathetic grace, is not altogether +dissociated from burlesque. While free from the artificiality of court +pastoral, it is equally distinct from the natural simplicity of the +Theocritean idyl. Its flavour depends upon the half cynical, half kindly, +amusement afforded by the contrast between the _navet_ of the country +and the familiar and conventional polish of town life. This theme had +already caught the fancy of the song-writers of the fourteenth century, +who produced some of the most delightful examples of native and +unconventional pastoral anywhere to be found[40]. Franco Sacchetti the +novelist, for example, gives us a series of charming vignettes of country +life and scenery, but always from the point of view of the town observer. +One poem of his in particular gained wide popularity, and a modernized and +somewhat altered version was iater printed among the works of Poliziano. +It was originally a _ballata_, but I prefer to quote some stanzas from the +traditional version: + + Vaghe le montanine e pastorelle, + Donde venite s leggiadre e belle?-- + + Vegnam dall' alpe, presso ad un boschetto; + Picciola capannella il nostro sito; + Col padre e colla madre in picciol tetto, + Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito, + Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito + Ch' abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle.-- + + Ben si posson doler vostre bellezze, + Poich tra valli e monti le mostrate, + Ch non terra di s grandi altezze + Che voi non foste degne ed onorate. + Ora mi dite, se vi contentate + Di star nell' alpe cos poverelle?-- + + Pi si contenta ciascuna di noi + Gire alla mandria, dietro alla pastura, + Pi che non fate ciascuna di voi + Gire a danzare dentro a vostre mura; + Ricchezza non cerchiam, n pi ventura, + Se non be' fiori, e facciam ghirlandelle[41]. + +Other writers besides Sacchetti produced songs of the sort, but in all +alike the strictly pastoral element was accidental, and merged insensibly +into the more delicately romantic of the _novelle_ themes. The following +lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in +English ballad poetry. They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of +Sacchetti's. A nun sings: + + La dura corda e 'l vel bruno e la tonica + Gittar voglio e lo scapolo + Che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica; + Poi teco a guisa d'assetato giovane, + Non gi che si sobbarcoli, + Venir me n' voglio ove fortuna piovane: + + E son contenta star per serva e cuoca, + Ch men mi cocer ch' ora mi cuoca[42]. + +But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally +influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that +we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the +transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the _volutt idillica_ of +the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido._ This vein is strong in Lorenzo's +charming carnival songs, which at once recall Villon's burden, 'O sont +les neiges d'antan?' and anticipate Tasso's warning: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova. + +The 'triumph' of _Bacchus and Ariadne_, introduced with amorous nymphs and +satyrs, has the refrain: + + Quant' bella giovinezza, + Che si fugge tuttavia! + Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: + Di doman non c' certezza. + +The flower of lyric melancholy is already full blown. So, too, in another +carnival song of his: + + Or che val nostra bellezza? + Se si perde, poco vale. + Viva amore e gentilezza! + +_Gentilezza, morbidezza_--the yielding fancy in the disguise of pity, the +nerveless languor that passes for beauty--such is the dominant note of the +song upon men's lips in the troublous times of the renaissance[43]. + +Another of the outlying realms of pastoral is the mythological tale, more +or less directly imitated from Ovid. The first to introduce it in +vernacular literature was Boccaccio, who in his _Ninfale fiesolano_ uses +a pagan allegory to convey a favourite _novella_ theme. The shepherd +Affrico loves a nymph of Diana, and the tale ends by the goddess changing +her faithless votary into a fountain. It is written in somewhat cumbrous +_ottava rima_, and seldom shows any conspicuous power of narrative. +Belonging to the same class of composition, though of a very different +order of poetic merit, is Lorenzo's wonderfully graceful tale of _Ambra_. +The grace lies in the telling, for the plot was probably already stale +when Phoebus and Daphne were protagonists. The poem recounts how the +wood-nymph Ambra, beloved of Lauro, is pursued by the river-god Ombrone, +one of Arno's tributary divinities, and praying to Diana in her hour of +need, is by her transformed into a rock[44]. Lorenzo's _Selva d'amore_ and +_Caccia col falcone_ might also be mentioned in the same connexion. + +Less pastoral in motive and less connected in narrative, but of even +greater importance in the formation of pastoral taste, is the famous +_Giostra_ written in honour of the young Giuliano de' Medici. I have +already more than once had occasion to mention its author, Angelo +Ambrogini, better known from the place of his birth as Poliziano or +Politian[45], the contemporary, dependent, and fellow-littrateur of +Lorenzo il Magnifico, and the greatest scholar and learned writer of the +Italian renaissance. As the author of the _Orfeo_ he will occupy our +attention when we come to trace the evolution of the pastoral drama. +Though he left no poems belonging to the recognized forms of pastoral +composition, his work constantly borders upon the kind, and evinces a +genuine sympathy with rustic life which makes the ascription to him of the +already quoted modernization of Sacchetti not inappropriate. He left +several other pieces of a similar nature, some of which at least are known +to be adaptations of popular songs[46]. Such, for instance, is the +irregular _canzone_ beginning: + + La pastorella si leva per tempo + Menando le caprette a pascer fuora, + Di fuora, fuora: la traditora + Co' suoi begli occhi la m' innamora, + E fa di mezza notte apparir giorno. + +The _Giostra_ is composed, like its predecessors, in the octave stanza, +and presents a series of pictures drawn from classical mythology or from +the poet's own imagination, adorned with all the physical beauty the study +of antiquity could supply and a rich and refined taste crystallize into +chastest jewellery of verse[47]. This blending of luxuriance and delicacy +is the characteristic quality of Poliziano's and Lorenzo's poetry. It is +admirably expressed in the phrase of a recent critic, 'the decorum of +things exquisite.' After the lapse of another half-century, during which +the renaissance advanced from its graceful youth to the full bloom of its +maturity, appeared the _Ninfa tiberina_ of Francesco Maria Molza. 'The +_volutt idillica_[48],' writes Symonds, 'which opened like a rosebud in +the _Giostra_, expands full petals in the _Ninfa tiberina_; we dare not +shake them, lest they fall.' Like the earlier poem it possesses little +narrative unity--the taie of Eurydice introduced by way of illustration +occupies more than a third of the whole--but every point is made the +occasion of minute decoration of the richest beauty. It was written for +Faustina Mancina, a celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of +her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made +a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected +as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. +Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of +idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. +The _Driadeo d'amore_ earlier--a mythological medley variously ascribed in +different editions to Luca and to Luigi Pulci--and Marino's _Adone_ later, +were likewise among the works that went to form the courtly taste to which +the pastoral drama appealed. The detailed criticism, however, of such +compositions lies beyond the scope of this work. + + + +VI + + +We must now return to an earlier period in order to follow the development +of the pastoral romance. When dealing with _Daphnis and Chloe_ I pointed +out that the Greek work could claim no part in the formation of the later +prose pastoral. Between it and the work of Boccaccio and Sannazzaro there +exists no such continuity of tradition as between the bucolics of the +classical Mantuan and those of his renaissance follower. The Italian +pastoral romance, in spite of its almost pedantic endeavour after +classical and mythological colouring, was as essentially a product of its +age as the pastoral drama itself. So far as any influence on the evolution +of the subsequent Arcadia was concerned, Longus might as well never have +written of the pastures of Lesbos. Indeed, were we here concerned in +assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual +works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would +be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of +_Daphnis and Chloe _ in the _Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_ than in the _Ameto_ +or the _Arcadia_. + +In his pastoral romance, 'Ameto, ovvero Commedia delie ninfe fiorentine,' +Boccaccio set a fashion in literature, namely the intermingling for +purposes of narration of prose and verse[49], in which he was followed a +century and a half later by Pietro Bembo, the Socrates of Castiglione's +renaissance Symposium, in his dialogue on love entitled _Gli Asolani_, and +by Jacopo Sannazzaro in his still more famous _Arcadia_. The _Ameto_ is +one of Boccaccio's early compositions, written about 1341, after his +return from Naples, but before he had gained his later mastery of +language. It is not unfairly characterized by Symonds as 'a tissue of +pastoral tales, descriptions, and versified interludes, prolix in style +and affected with pedantic erudition.' It is, however, possible to +underrate its merits, and it would be easy to overlook its historical +importance. Ameto is a rude hunter of the neighbourhood of Florence. One +day, while in the woods, he discovers a company of nymphs resting by a +stream, and overhears the song of the beautiful Lia. His rough nature is +touched by the sweetness of the music and he falls in love with the +singer. Their meetings are interrupted by the advent of winter, but he +finds her again at the feast of Venus, when shepherds, fauns, and nymphs +forgather at the temple of the goddess. In this company Lia proposes that +each of the nymphs present, seven in number, shall narrate the story of +her love. This they in turn do, each ending with a song of praise to the +gods; and Ameto feels his love burn for each in turn as he listens to +their tales. When the last has ended a sudden brightness shines around and +'there descended with wondrous noise a column of pure flame, even such as +by night went before the Israelitish people in the desert places,' Out of +the brightness cornes the voice of Venus: + + Io son luce del cielo unica e trina, + Principio e fine di ciascuna cosa, + Del quai men f, n fia nulla vicina. + +Ameto, though half blinded by the heavenly effulgence, sees a new joy and +beauty shine upon the faces of the nymphs, and understands that the +flame-shrouded presence is that, not of the wanton _mater cupidinum_, but +of the goddess of divine fire who comes to reveal to him the mysteries of +love. Cleansed of his grosser nature by a baptismal rite, in which each of +the nymphs performs some symbolic ceremonial, he feels heavenly love +replacing human in his heart, and is able to bear undazzled the radiance +of the divine purity. He salutes the goddess with a song: + + O diva luce, quale in tre persone + Ed una essenza il ciel governi e 'l mondo + Con giusto amore ed eterna ragione, + Dando legge alle stelle, ed al ritondo + Moto del sole, principe di quelle, + Siccome discerniamo in questo fondo[50]. + +Various interpretations have been suggested for this work, with its +preposterous mixture of pagan and Christian motives. This peculiarity, +which we have already met with in Boccaccio's eclogues, and in his +_Ninfale fiesolano_, was indeed one of the most persistent as it was one +of the least admirable characteristics of pastoral composition. Francesco +Sansovino, who edited the _Ameto_ in 1545, discovered real personages +underlying the characters of the romance. Fiammetta is introduced by name, +and her lover Caleone can hardly be other than Boccaccio. More recent +commentators are probably right in detecting an allegorical intention. The +seven nymphs, according to them, represent the four cardinal and three +theological virtues, and their stories are to be interpreted symbolically. +This view derives support from the baptismal ceremony, in which after the +public lustration one of the nymphs removes the scales from Ameto's eyes, +while another, 'breathing between his lips, kindled within him a flame +such as he had never felt before.' In these ministrants it is not +difficult to recognize the virtues respectively of faith and love. Ameto +may be taken as typical of humanity, tamed of its savage nature by love, +and through the service of the virtues led to the knowledge of the divine +essence. The conception of love as a civilizing and humanizing power +already underlay the sensuous stanzas of the _Ninfale fiesolano_, while +the later part of the romance was not uninfluenced by recollections of the +_Divine Comedy_[51]. It is true that a modern mind will with difficulty be +able to reconcile the amorous confessions of the nymphs with the +characteristics of the virtues, but in Boccaccio's day the tradition of +the _Gesta Romanorum_ was still strong, and the age that mysticized +Vergil, and moralized Ovid, was capable of much in the way of allegorical +interpretation[52]. + +The point to which this allegorical interpretation can legitimately be +carried need not trouble us here. Having set himself to characterize the +virtues, it is moreover likely enough that Boccaccio sought at the same +time to connect his figures more or less definitely with actual persons. +It is sufficient for our present purpose if we recognize in the _Ameto_ +something of the same triple intention which, not to put too fine a +metaphysical point upon the parallel, we meet with in Dante and in the +_Faery Queen_. Having fashioned in accordance with these motives the +framework of his book, Boccaccio further concerned himself but little with +this philosophical intention, and the allegorical setting having served +its artistic purpose of linking them together into one connected whole, it +was upon the detail of the narratives themselves that the author's +attention was concentrated. It is, however, just in this artistic purpose +of the setting that one of the chief interests of the _Ameto_ lies; for if +in the mingling of verse and prose it is the forerunner of the _Arcadia_, +in the linking together of a series of isolated stories it anticipates +Boccaccio's own _Decameron_. + +While there is little that is distinctly bucolic about the _Ameto_, the +atmosphere is eminently pastoral in the wider sense. Nymphs and shepherds, +foresters and fauns meet at the temple of Venus; the limpid fountains and +shady laurels belong essentially to the conventional landscape, whether of +Sicily, of Arcadia, or of the hills overlooking the valley of the Arno. +The Italian imagination was not careful to differentiate between field and +forest: _favola boschereccia_ was used synonymously with _commedia +pastorale_; _drammi dei boschi_ is a term which covers the whole of the +pastoral drama. But what really gives the _Ameto_ its importance in the +history of pastoral literature is the manner in which, undisturbed by its +religions and allegorical machinery, it introduces us to a purely sensual +and pagan paradise, in which love with all its pains and raptures reigns +supreme. + +The narratives of the nymphs, and indeed the whole of the prose portions +of the work, are composed in a style of surcharged and voluptuous beauty, +congested with lengthy periods, and accumulated superlatives and relative +clauses, which, in its endeavour to maintain itself and its subject at the +highest possible pitch, only succeeds in being intensely and almost +uniformly monotonous and dull. It is perfectly true that the work +possesses some at least of the qualities of its defects. There are +passages which argue a feeling for beauty, none the less real for being of +a somewhat conventional order, while we not seldom detect a certain rich +luxuriance about the descriptions; but it must be admitted that on the +whole the style exhibits most of Boccaccio's faults and few of his merits. +The verse interspersed throughout is in _terza rima_, and offers small +attraction to the ordinary reader: 'meschinissima cosa' is a verdict +which, if somewhat severe, will probably find few to contradict it. + +In a certain passage, speaking of Poliziano's _Orfeo_, Symonds remarks +that 'while Arcady became the local dreamland of the new ideal, Orpheus +took the place of its hero.' Without inquiring too closely how far the +writers of the renaissance actually connected the hero of music, as a +power of civilization, with their newly discovered country, it is +interesting to note that the earliest work in the Italian language +containing in however amoebean a state the pastoral ideal opens with an +allusion to Orpheus. + + Quella vert, che gi l'ardito Orfeo + Mosse a cercar le case di Plutone, + Allor che forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione, + E dal suon vinto dell' arguto legno, + E dalla nota della sua canzone, + Per forza tira il mio debile ingegno + A cantar le tue Iode, o Citerea, + Insieme con le forze del tuo regno[53]. + +Orpheus, however, does not stand alone. Venus, Phoebus, Mars, Cupid, and +finally Jove, are each in turn invoked, to say nothing of the incidental +mention of Aeneas, Mirra, and Europa. This love of mythology in and out of +season is one of the most prominent features of the work. One of the +nymphs describes her youth in the following words: + + il padre mio .... visse eccellentissimo ne' beni pubblici tra' reggenti, + e de' beni degli iddii copioso: me a lui donata da loro, nomin Mopsa, e + vedentemi nella giovanetta et mostrante gi bella forma, ai servigi + dispose di Pallade, la quale me benivola ricevente nelle sante grotte + del cavallo Gorgoneo, tra le sapientissime Muse commise, l dov' io + gustai l'acque Castalie, e l'altezza di Cirra tentante, le stelle cercai + con ferma mano; e i pallidi visi, quelli luoghi colenti, sempre con + riverenza seguii; e molte volte sonando Apollo la cetera sua, lui nel + mezzo delle nove Muse ascoltai[54]. + +She continues for pages in the same strain with illustrative allusions to +Caius Julius, Claudius, and Britannicus. + +At the risk of devoting to the _Ameto_ an altogether disproportionate +amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to +give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all +the more so as it is little known except to students. With this object I +have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[55]. + + I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due + devotion, I began thus to pray: 'O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess + whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto + my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet + ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a + chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy + followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that + in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my + wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of + thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.' I know not + whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and + sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether, + indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is + that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming + chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below + I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers + thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind + the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I + beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by + the sound of Amphion's lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant + Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the + spotless birds. Whereon having alighted I went straying, alike uncertain + of the way and of the fortune that might await me, when, as to Aeneas + upon the Afric shore, so to me there amid the myrtles there appeared the + goddess I had invoked, and I was filled with wonder such as I had never + known before. She was disrobed except for the thinnest purple veil, + which hid but little of her form, falling in double curve with many + artful foldings over her left side; her face shone even as the sun, and + her head was adorned with great length of golden hair rippling down over + white shoulders; her eyes flashed with light never seen till then. Why + should I labour to tell the loveliness of her mouth and of her snowy + neck, of her marble breast and of her every part, since to do so lies so + far beyond my powers, and even where I able, hardly should my words gain + credence? But whereas she was now at hand I bowed my knees before her + godhead, and with such voice as I could command, repeated my petition in + her presence. She listened thereto, and approaching bade me rise, + saying, 'Follow me; thy prayer is heard, thy desire granted,' and + thereupon withdrew me to a somewhat loftier spot. There hidden amidst + the dense foliage she discovered to me her only son, upon whom gazing in + admiration, I found his beauty such that in all things did he appear + fashioned like unto her, except in so far as being he a god and she a + goddess. O how oft, remembering Psyche, I counted her happy and unhappy; + happy in the possession of such a husband, unhappy in his loss, most + happy in receiving him again from Jove. But even as I gazed, he, beating + the air with his sacred wings that gleamed with clearest gold, departed + with his load of newly fashioned arrows from those parts, and at the + bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper + his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters, + gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a + growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by + the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's + distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my + own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of + mud[56]. The goddess, for that the hour was already hot, had doffed her + transparent veil and plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded + me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet + disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and + gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and + shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred + water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should + behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to hide my + unwonted blushes. And in like manner at the sight of me he too changed + colour and was troubled; he stayed his steps and advanced no further. + Then at the pleasure of the goddess leaving the water we resumed our + apparel, and crowned with myrtle sought a neighbouring glade, full of + finest grass and diapered with many flowers, where in the freshness we + stretched our limbs to rest. Thereupon the goddess, having called the + youth to us, began to speak in these words: 'Agape, most dear to me, + this youth, Apyros by name, whom thou seest thus shy amid our glades, + shall satisfy thy longing; but see that with care thou preserve + inviolate our fires, which in thy heart thou shalt bear with thee + hence.' I was about to make answer when my tender breast was of a sudden + pierced by the flying arrow loosed by the strong hand of the son of her + who added these unto her former words: 'We give him thee as thy first + and only servant; he lacks nought but our fires, which, kindled even now + by thee in him, be it thy care to nourish, that the frost that bound him + like to Aglauros being driven from his heart, he may burn with the + divine fire no less than father Jove himself.' She ceased; and I, + trembling yet with fear, no sooner opened my lips to assent to her + command, than I found myself once more in prayer before her altars; + whereat marvelling not a little, and casting my eyes around in search of + Apyros, I became aware of the golden arrow in my breast, and near me the + pale youth, his intent gaze fixed upon me, and like me wounded by the + god; and so seeing him inflamed with a passion no other than that which + burned in me, I laughed, and filled with contentment and desire, made + sign to him to be of hopeful cheer. + +The advance in style that marks the transition from the _Ameto_ to the +_Arcadia_ must be largely accredited to Boccaccio himself. The language of +the _Decameron_ became the model of _cinquecento_ prose. Sannazzaro, +however, wrote in evident imitation not of the structural method only, but +of the actual style of the _Ameto_. Something, it is true, he added beyond +the greater mastery of literary form due to training. Even in his most +luxuriant descriptions and most sensuous images we find that grace and +clearness of vision which characterize the early poetry of the +Renaissance proper, and combine in literature the luminous purity of +Botticelli and the gem-like detail of Pinturicchio. The mythological +affectation of the elder work appears in the younger modified, refined, +subordinated; there is the same delight in detailed description, but +relieved by greater variety of imagination; while, even in the most +laboured passages, there is a poetical feeling as well as a more +subjective manner, which, combined with a remarkable power of +visualization, saves them from the danger of the catalogue. Again, there +is everywhere visible the same artificiality of style which characterizes +the _Ameto_, but purged of its more extravagant elements and less affected +and conceited than it became in the works of Lyly and Sidney. Like the +_Ameto_, lastly, but unlike its Spanish and English successors, the +_Arcadia_ is purely pastoral, free from any chivalric admixture. + +The narrative interest in the _Arcadia_ is of the slightest. It opens with +a description of the 'dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso,' +lying at the summit of Parthenium, 'non umile monte della pastorale +Arcadia,' which was henceforth to be the abode sacred to the +shepherd-folk. There, as in Vergil's Italy and in Browne's Devon, in +Chaucer's dreamland, and in the realm of the Faery Queen, 'son forse +dodici o quindici alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che +chiunque li vedesse, giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con +sommo diletto studiata in formarli.'[57] The shepherds, who are assembled +with their flocks, are about to seek their homes at the approach of night, +when they meet Montano playing upon his pipe, and a musical contest ensues +between him and Uranio. Next day is celebrated the feast of Pales, an +account of which is given at length, and is followed by a song in which +Galicio sings the praises of his mistress Amaranta, of whom the narrator +proceeds to give a minute description. After another singing-match between +Logisto and Elpino the company betake themselves to the tomb of Androgeo, +whose praises are set forth in prose and rime. There follows a song by the +old shepherd Opico, on the superiority of the 'former age'; after which +Carino asks the narrator, Sincero--the pseudonym under which Sannazzaro +travelled in the realm of shepherds--to recount his history, which he +does at length, ending with a lament in _sestina_ form. By way of +consoling him in his exile Carino, in return, tells the tale of his own +amorous adventures. Next the reverend Opico is induced to discourse of the +powers of magic as the shepherds proceed to the sacred grove of Pan, who +shares with Pales the honours of Arcadian worship, and to the games held +at the tomb of sibyllic Massilia--a name under which Sannazzaro is said to +have commemorated his own mother. At this point the narrator is troubled +by a dream portending death to the lady of his love. As, tormented by this +thought, he wanders lonely in the chill dawn he meets a nymph, who leads +him through a marvellous cavern into the depths of the earth, where he +beholds the springs of many famous rivers, and finally, following the +course of the Sabeto, arrives at his native city of Naples, where he +learns the truth of his sorrowful forebodings. + +The form has been systematized since Boccaccio wrote, the whole being +divided into twelve _Prose_, alternating with as many _Ecloghe_, preceded +by a _Proemio_ and followed by an address _Alla sampogna_, both in prose. +The verse is mediocre, and several of the eclogues are composed in the +unattractive _sestina_ form, while others affect the wearisome _rime +sdrucciole_.[58] The most pleasing is Ergasto's lament at Androgeo's tomb, +beginning: + + Alma beata e bella, + Che da' legami sciolta + Nuda salisti ne' superni chiostri, + Ove con la tua stella + Ti godi insieme accolta; + E lieta ivi schernendo i pensier' nostri, + Quasi un bel sol ti mostri + Tra li pi chiari spirti; + E coi vestigi santi + Calchi le stelle erranti; + E tra pure fontane e sacri mirti + Pasci celesti greggi; + E i tuoi cari pastori indi correggi. (_Ecloga_ V.) + +One would hardly turn to the artificiality of the _Arcadia_ for +representations of nature, and yet there is in the romance a genuine love +of the woods and the fields, and of the rustic sports of the season. +'Sogliono il pi delle volte gli alti e spaziosi alberi negli orridi monti +dalla natura prodotti, pi che le coltivate piante, da dotte mani +espurgate negli adorni giardini, a' riguardanti aggradare,' remarks +Sannazzaro at the outset. Elsewhere he furnishes us with an entertaining +description of the various ways in which birds may be trapped, introduced +possibly in pursuance of a hint from Longus.[59] Yet, in spite of his +professed love of savage scenery and his knowledge of pastoral sports, it +is after all in a very artificial and straitened form that nature filters +to us through Sannazzaro's pages. Rather do we turn to them for the sake +of the paintings on the temple walls, of Amaranta's lips, 'fresh as the +morning rose,' of her wild lapful of flowers, and of a hundred other +incidental pictures, one of the most charming of which, interesting on +another score also, I make no apology for here transcribing. + + Subito ordin i premi a coloro, che lottare volessero, offrendo di dare + al vincitore un bel vaso di legno di acero, ove per mano del Padoano + Mantegna, artefice sovra tutti gli altri accorto ed ingegnosissimo, eran + dipinte molte cose: ma tra l' altre una ninfa ignuda, con tutti i membri + bellissimi, dai piedi in fuori, che erano come quelli delle capre; la + quale, sovra un gonfiato otre sedendo, lattava un picciolo satirello, e + con tanta tenerezza il mirava, che parea che di amore e di carit tutta + si struggesse: e 'l fanciullo nell' una mammella poppava, nell' altra + tenea distesa la tenera mano, e con l' occhio la si guardava, quasi + temendo che tolta non gli fosse. Poco discosto da costoro si vedean due + fanciulli pur nudi, i quali avendosi posti due volti orribili di + maschere cacciavano per le bocche di quelli le picciole mani, per porre + spavento a duo altri, che davanti loro stavano; de' quali l' uno + fuggendo si volgea in dietro, e per paura gridava; l' altro caduto gi + in terra piangeva, e non possendosi altrimenti aitare, stendeva la mano + per graffiarlo. (_Prosa_ XI.) + +I shall make no attempt at translation. Some versions, really wonderful +in the success with which they reproduce the style of the original, will +be found in Symonds' _Italian Literature_[60]. It is probably unnecessary +to put in a warning that the _Arcadia_ is a work of which extracts are apt +to give a somewhat too favourable impression. In its long complaints, +speeches, and descriptions it is at whiles intolerably prolix and dull, +but it caught the taste of the age and went through a large number of +editions, many with learned annotations, between the appearance of the +first authorized edition and the end of the sixteenth century[61], There +were several imitations later, such as the _Accademia tusculana_ of +Benedetto Menzini; Firenzuola imitated the third _Prosa_ in his +_Sacrifizio pastorale_; while collections of tales and _facetiae_ such as +the _Arcadia in Brenta_ of Giovanni Sagredo equally sought the prestige of +the name. A French translation published in 1544 went through three +editions, and another appeared in 1737, while it was translated into +Spanish in 1547, and again in 1578. It may have been due to the existence +of Sidney's more ambitious work of the same name that no translation ever +appeared in English. + + * * * * * + +Our survey of Italian pastoralism, in spite of the fact that its most +important manifestation has been reserved for separate treatment later, +has of necessity been lengthy. It was at Italian breasts that the infant +ideal, reborn into a tumultuous world, was nursed. The other countries of +continental Europe borrowed that ideal from Italy, though each in turn +contributed characteristics of its own. It was to Italy that England too +was directly indebted, while at the same time it absorbed elements +peculiar to France and Spain. It will therefore be necessary briefly to +review the forms that flourished in those countries respectively, though +they need detain us but a brief space in comparison with the Italian +fountain-head. + +Before proceeding, however, it may be worth while to pause for a moment in +order to take a general survey of the nature of the ideal, we might almost +say the religion, of pastoralism, which reached its maturity in the work +of Sannazzaro. Its location in the uplands of Arcadia may be traced to +Vergil, who had the worship of Pan in mind, but the selection of the +barren mountain district of central Peloponnesus as the seat of pastoral +luxuriance and primitive culture is not without significance in respect of +the severance of the pastoral ideal from actuality.[62] In it the +world-weary age of the later renaissance sought escape from the +materialism that bound it. Italy had turned its back upon mysticism in +religion, and upon chivalry in love; its literature was the negation of +what the northern peoples understand by romance. Yet it needed some relief +from the very saneness of its rationalism, and it found the antidote to +its vicious court life in the crystal springs of Castaly. What the pietism +of Perugino's saints is to the feuds of the Baglioni, such is the Arcadian +dream to the intellectual cynicism of Italian politics. + +When children weave fancies of wonderland they use the resources of the +imagination with economy; uninterrupted sunshine soon cloys. So too with +these other children of the renaissance. Their wonderland is a place +whither they may escape from the pressure of the world that is too much +with them; they seek in it at least the virtue that its evils shall be the +opposite of those from which they fly. They could not, it is true, believe +in an Arcadia in which all the cares of this world should end--the golden +age is always a time to be sung and remembered, or else to be dreamed of, +in the years to come, it is never the present--but if they cannot escape +from the changes and chances of this mortal life, if death and unfaith +are still realities in their dreamland as on earth, they will at least +utter their grief melodiously, and water fair pastures with their tears. +Like the garden of the Rose which satisfied the middle age before it, the +Arcadian ideal of the renaissance degenerated, as every ideal must. The +decay of pastoral, however, was in this unique, that it tended less to +exaggerate than to negative the spirit that gave it birth. Theocritus +turned from polite society and sought solace in his no doubt idealized +recollections of actual shepherd life. On the other hand, to the +allegorical pastoralists from Vergil to Spagnuoli, the shepherd-realm +either reflects, or is made directly to contrast with, the interests and +vices of the actual world; in their work the note of longing for escape to +an ideal life is heard but faintly or not at all. In the songs of the late +fifteenth century and in Sannazzaro there is a genuine pastoral revival; +the desire of freedom from reality is strong upon men in that age of +strenuous living. It has been happily said that Mantuan's shepherds meet +to discuss society, Sannazzaro's to forget it. And yet, after all, these +men are too strongly bound by the affections of this world to be able +wholly to sacrifice themselves to the joys of the ideal. Fiammetta must +have her place in Boccaccio's strange apotheosis of love; the foreboding +of Carmosina's death has power to draw her lover from his newly discovered +kingdom along the untrodden paths of the waters of the earth. And so when +Arcadia ceased to be a necessity of sentiment and became one of fashion, +where poets were no longer content to wander with their mistresses in the +land of fancy, alone, 'at rest from their labour with the world gone by,' +there appeared a tendency to return to the allegorical style, and to make +Arcadia what Sicily had already become--the mirror of the polite society +of the Italian courts. Thus it is that in the crowning jewels of Italian +pastoralism, in the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_, we trace a yearning +towards a simpler, freer, and more genuine life, side by side with such +incompatible and antagonistic elements as the reproduction in pastoral +guise of the personages and surroundings of the circle of Ferrara. Not +content with the pure ideal, the poets endeavoured, like Faust at the +sight of Helena, to find in it a place for the earthly affections that +bound them, and at the touch of reality the vision dissolved in mist. + + + +VII + + +When we turn to the literature of the western peninsula during the early +years of the sixteenth century, we find it characterized by a temporary +but very complete subjection to Italian models. This phenomenon, which is +particularly marked in pastoral, is readily explained by the fact that the +similarity of the dialects made the transference of poetic forms from +Italian to Spanish an easy matter. Thus when among the nations of Europe +Italy awoke to her great task of recovering an old and discovering a new +world of arts and letters, it was upon Spanish verse that she was able to +exercise the most immediate and overpowering influence. Under these +circumstances it was impossible but that she should drag the literature of +that country, for a while at least, in her train, away from its own proper +genius and natural course of development. Other countries were saved from +servitude by the very failure of their attempts to imitate the new Italian +style; and Spain herself, it must be remembered, was not long in +recovering her individuality and in endowing Europe with one of the +richest national literatures of the world. + +It is important, however, to distinguish from the pastoral work produced +under this dominating Italian influence certain other work in the kind, +which, while to some extent dependent for its form upon foreign models, +bears at the same time strong marks of native inspiration. In this earlier +and more popular tradition the tendencies of the national literature, the +pastoral possibilites of which appear at times in the ballads, mingle more +or less with elements of convention and allegory drawn from Vergil or his +humanistic followers. Little influence of this popular tradition can as a +rule be traced in the later pastoral work, but it acquires a certain +incidental interest in connexion with another branch of literature. It is, +namely, the remarkable part it played in the evolution of the national +drama that makes it worth while mentioning a few of its more important +examples in this place.[63] + +An isolated composition, in which lay not so much the germ of the future +drama as the index of its possibility, is the _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, +the composition of an unknown author. It is an eclogue in which two +shepherds, representing respectively the upper and lower orders of Spanish +society, discourse together on the causes of national discontent and +political corruption prevalent about 1472, at the latter end of the weak +reign of Enrique IV. In this poem we find the king's infatuation for his +Portuguese mistress treated much as Petrarch had treated the relations of +Clement VI with the allegorical Epi, except for the striking difference +that the Latin of the Italian poet is replaced by straightforward and +vigorous vernacular. Of far greater importance in the history of +literature are certain poems--_clogas_ they are for the most part +styled--of Juan del Encina, which belong roughly to the closing years of +the fifteenth and opening years of the sixteenth century. Numbering about +a dozen, and composed with one exception in the short measures of popular +poetry, these dramatic eclogues, or amoebean plays, supply the connecting +link between the early popular and religious shows and the regular drama. +About half are religious in character; of the rest, three treat some +romantic episode, one is a study of unrequited passion ending in suicide, +and one is a market-day farce, the personae being in each case rude +herdsmen. Contemporary with, though a disciple of, Encina, is the +Portuguese Gil Vicente, who wrote in both dialects, and whose _Auto +pastoril castelhano_ may be cited as carrying on the tradition between his +master and Lope de Vega. + +With Lope's dramatic production as a whole we are not, of course, +concerned. He lies indeed somewhat off our track; the pastoral influence +in his work is capricious. It will be sufficient to note that the +influence, where it exists, is external; it is nowhere the outcome of +Christian allegory, nor does it arise out of the nature of the subject as +such titles as the _Pastores de Beln_ might suggest. It is found equally +in the religious or quasi-religious plays--such as the _Vuelta de Egypto_ +with its shepherds and gypsies, and the _Pastor lobo_, an allegorical +satire on the church Lope afterwards entered--and in such purely secular, +amorous, and on the whole less dramatic pieces as the _Arcadia_--not to be +confused with his romance of the same name--and the _Selva sin amor_, a +regular Italian pastoral in miniature, both of which were acted, besides +many others intended primarly for reading, though they may possibly have +been recited after the manner of Castiglione's _Tirsi_. + +While on the subject of the drama I may mention translations of the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_. Tasso's piece was rendered into Castilian by +Juan de Jauregui, and first printed at Rome in 1607, a revised edition +appearing among the author's poems in 1618. The _Pastor fido_ was +translated by Cristbal Surez de Figueroa, the best version being that +printed at Valentia in 1609, from which Ticknor quotes a passage as +typical as it is successful. It was to these two versions of the +masterpieces of Italian pastoral that Cervantes accorded the highest meed +of praise, declaring that 'they haply leave it doubtful which is the +translation or original.'[64] There likewise exists a poor adaptation of +Guarini's play, said to be the work of Solis, Coello, and Calderon[65]. +The pastoral appears, however, never to have gained a very firm footing +upon the mature Spanish stage, no doubt for the same reason that led to a +similar result in England, namely, that the vigorous national drama about +it overpowered and choked its delicate and exotic growth[66]. + +Apart from the dramatic or semi-dramatic work we have been reviewing, the +pastoral verse which possesses the most natural and national character, +though it may not be the earliest in date, is to be found in the poems of +Francisco de S de Miranda[67]. He appears to have begun writing +independently of the Italian school, and, even after he came under the +influence of Garcilaso, to have preserved much of his natural simplicity +and genuineness of feeling. He probably had some direct knowledge of the +Italians, for he writes: + + Liamos.... + .... os pastores italianos + Do bom velho Sanazarro. + +He may also have been influenced by Encina, most of whose work had already +appeared. + +The first and foremost of those who deliberately based their style on the +Italian was Garcilaso de la Vega, whose pastoral work dates from about +1526. To him, in conjunction with Boscn and Mendoza, the vogue was due. +At his best, when he really assimilates the foreign elements borrowed from +his models and makes their style his own, he writes with the true genius +of his nation. The first of his three eclogues, which was probably +composed at Naples and is regarded as his best work, introduces the +shepherds Salico and Nemoroso, of whom the first stands for the author, +while in the other it is not hard to recognize his friend Boscn. This +poem, a portion of which is translated by Ticknor, should of itself +suffice to place Garcilaso in the front rank of pastoral writers. Yet he +does not appear to occupy any isolated eminence among his fellows, and +Ticknor may be right in thinking that, throughout, the regular pastoral +showed fewer of its defects in Spain than elsewhere. It is also true that +it appears to have been endowed with less vital power of development. + +Garcilaso's followers were numerous. Among them mention may be made of +Francisco de Figueroa, the Tirsi of Cervantes' _Galatea_; Pedro de +Encinas, who attempted religious eclogues; Lope de Vega; Alonso de Ulloa, +the Venetian printer, who is credited with having foisted the Rodrigo +episode into Montemayor's _Diana_; Gaspar Gil Polo, one of the +continuators of that work; and Bernardo de Balbuenas, one of its many +imitators, who incorporated in his _Siglo de Oro_ a number of eclogues +which in their simple and rustic nature appear to be studied from +Theocritus rather than Vergil. + +In spite of the fashion of writing in Castilian which prevailed among +Portuguese poets, we are not without specimens of pastoral verse composed +in the less important dialect. S de Miranda has been mentioned above. +Ribeiro too, better known for his romance, left a series of five +autobiographical eclogues[68] dating from about 1516-24, and consequently +earlier than Garcilaso's. They are composed, like some of S de Miranda's, +in the short measures more natural to the language than the _terza rima_ +and intricate stanzas of the Italianizing poets. Later on Camoens wrote +fifteen eclogues, four of which are piscatorial, and in one, a dialogue +between a shepherd and a fisherman, refers in the following terms to +Sannazzaro: + + O pescador Sincero, que amansado + Tm o pgo de Prochyta co' o canto + Por as sonoras ondas compassado. + D'este seguindo o som, que pde tanto, + E misturando o antigo Mantuano, + Faamos novo estylo, novo espanto. + +Whereas in the case of the verse pastoral the Italian fashion passed from +Spain into Portugal, exactly the reverse process took place with regard to +the prose romance more or less directly founded upon Sannazzaro. The first +to imitate the _Arcadia_ was the Portuguese Bernardim Ribeiro, who during +a two-years' residence in Italy composed the 'beautiful fragment,' as +Ticknor styles it, entitled from the first words of the text _Menina e +moa_. This unfinished romance first appeared, in the form of an octavo +charmingly printed in gothic type, at Ferrara in 1554, though it must +have been written at least thirty years earlier. It differs considerably +from its model, the verse being purely incidental, and the intricacy of +the story anticipating later examples, as does likewise the admixture of +chivalric adventure. It is, indeed, to a large extent what might have +arisen spontaneously through the elaboration of the pastoral element +occasionally to be met with in the old chivalric romances themselves. On +the other hand it resembles the Italian pastoral in the introduction of +real characters, which, though their identity was concealed under anagrams +and all manner of obscurity, appear to have been traceable by the keen eye +of authority, for the book was placed on the Index. Such knowledge of +Sannazzaro's writings as Ribeiro possessed was of course direct, but +before his fragment saw the light there appeared, in 1547, a Spanish +translation of the _Arcadia_. It must be remembered that Sannazzaro was +himself of Spanish extraction, and that he may have had relations with the +land of his fathers of a nature to facilitate the diffusion of his works. + +The next and by far the most important contribution made by the peninsula +to pastoral literature was the work of an hispaniolized Portuguese, who +composed in Castilian dialect the famous _Diana_. 'Los siete libres de la +Diana de Jorge de Montemayor'--the Spanish form of Montemr's name and +that by which he became familiar to subsequent ages--appeared at Valencia, +without date, but about 1560.[69] As in the case of its Italian and +Portuguese predecessors, some at least of the characters of the romance +represent real persons. Sireno the hero, who stands for the author, is in +love with the nymph Diana, of whose identity Lope de Vega claimed to be +cognizant, though he withheld her name. The scene is laid in Spain, and +actual and ideal geography are intermixed in a bewildering fashion. Sireno +is obliged, for reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and +on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival +Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, +and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance +of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is +interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, +pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second +part, which however never came to be written, the author, as it appears, +being either murdered or killed in duel at Turin in 1561. + +Thanks probably to the combination in its pages of the popular chivalric +tradition with the fashionable Italian pastoral, and also to certain +graces of style which it possesses, the _Diana_ held the field until the +picaresque romance developed into a recognized _genre_, and exercised a +very considerable influence on pastoral writers even beyond the frontiers +of Spain. Googe imitated passages from it in his eclogues; Sidney +translated some of its songs, and took it as the model of his own romance; +Shakespeare borrowed from it the plot of the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. In +the land of its birth its popularity was shown by the number of +continuations and imitations to which it gave rise. Irresponsible +publishers swelled the bulk of their editions with matter purloined from +less popular authors. The year 1564 saw the appearance of two second +parts. One in eight books, by the physician Alonzo Prez, only got so far +as disposing of Delio, and appears to exaggerate all the faults of the +original in compensation for the lack of its merits. The other, from the +pen of Gaspar Gil Polo, is in five books, and narrates, in a style +scarcely inferior to its model, the faithlessness and death of Delio, and +Sireno's marriage with Diana. Both alike promise continuations which never +appeared. A third part was, however, published so late as 1627, as the +work of Jernimo de Texeda, but it is nothing more than a _rifacimento_ +of Gil Polo's continuation, altered apparently with a view to its forming +a sequel to Prez' work. Furthermore, in 1599 there appeared a religions +parody by Fra Bartolom Ponce, and there are said to be no less than six +French, two English, and two German translations, not to mention a Latin +one of Gil Polo's portion at least. + +Besides continuations, there are extant nearly a score of imitations of +varying interest and merit. In 1584 appeared the _Galatea_ of Cervantes, +imitated from Ribeiro and Montemayor; which in its turn is supposed to +have suggested the _Arcadia_, written a few years later at the instigation +of the Duke of Alva by Lope de Vega, and published in 1598. Each is more +or less autobiographic or else historical in outline: 'many of its +shepherds and shepherdesses are such in dress alone,' Cervantes confesses +of his romance, while Lope announces that 'the _Arcadia_ is a true +history.' Lastly may be mentioned the Portuguese _Primavera_ of Francisco +Rodrgues de Lobo, which appeared in three long parts between 1601 and +1614, and is pronounced by Ticknor to be 'among the best full-length +pastoral romances extant.' + +All these works resemble one another in their general features. The +characteristics of the _genre_ as found in Spain, in spite of a real +feeling for rural life traceable in the national character, are the +elements it borrows from the older chivalric tradition, combined with an +adherence to the circumstances of actual existence even closer than was +the case in Italy. Sannazzaro was content to transfer certain personages +from real life into his imaginary Arcadia, while in the Spanish romances +the whole _mise en scne_ consists of the actual surroundings of the +author disguised but little under the veil of pastoralism. Thus the ideal +element, the desire to escape from the world, is no less absent from these +works than from the Latin eclogues of the renaissance, and the chivalric +pastoral in Spain advances far along the road towards the fashionable +pastoral of France. Not only are knightly adventures freely introduced, +and the devices of disguise and recognition employed, but the hint of +magic in Sannazzaro is developed and made to play a prominent part in the +tales, while the nymphs and shepherds display throughout an alarming +knowledge of literature, metaphysics, and theology. The absurdities of the +style were patent, and did not escape uncomplimentary notice from the +writers of the day, for both Cervantes and Lope de Vega, in spite of their +own excursions into this kind, pilloried the fashion in their more serious +and enduring works. + + + +VIII + + +In France the interest of pastoralism, from our present point of view, is +summed up in the work of one man--Clment Marot. It is he who forms the +central figure on the stage of French poetry between the final collapse of +the medieval tradition and the ceasing of Villon's song earlier, and later +the full burst of the renaissance in the work of the Pliade. While +belonging ostensibly to the literary circle of Margaret of Navarre, Marot +appears to have combined in his own person a strange number of conflicting +tendencies. His patroness followed the pastoral tradition in her imitation +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_ and her lament on the death of her brother +Franois I, and rehandled an already favourite theme in her _comdie_ of +human and divine love. Marot, on the other hand, while equally interested +in pastoral, betrayed in his verse little direct influence of the +Italians, and invariably impressed his own individuality upon his subject. +In his early work he continued the tradition of the _Romance of the Rose_; +later he voiced, somewhat crudely may be, the ideals of the renaissance. +By nature an easy-going _bon vivant_, his only real affection appears to +have been for the faithless mistress of his early years, whom a not very +probable tradition identifies with Diane de Poitiers. He had no higher +ambition than to retain unmolested a comfortable post at the court of +Francis. Yet he was destined by a strange irony of fate to pass his days +as a wanderer on the face of the earth, the homeless pilgrim of a cause he +no wise had at heart. He was accused by the Sorbonne, and ultimately +driven into the profession, of the heresy of Calvinism. Expelled from the +bosom of the church, he sought an uncongenial refuge among the apostles of +the new faith, only to be thrust forth from the city, for no more heinous +offence apparently than that playing back-gammon with the Prisoner of +Chillon. He died at Turin in 1544. + +But, however fascinating Marot may be as an historical figure, he was in +no sense a great poet. His chief merit in literature, apart from his often +delicate epigrams, his _lgant badinage_ and his graceful if at times +facile verse, lies in the power he possesses, in common with Garcilaso and +Spenser, of treating the allegorical pastoral without entirely losing the +charm of nave simplicity and genuine feeling. In his _clogue au Roi_ he +addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the _Pastoureau +chrestien_ he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there +is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse +from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy. His chief claim to +notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death +of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than +any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby +acquired the importance he possesses for our present inquiry. + +Marot, however, whose inspiration, in so far as it was not born of his own +genius, appears to be chiefly derived from Vergil, whose first eclogue he +translated in his youth, was far from being the only poet who wrote +bucolic verse or bore other witness to pastoral influence. France was not +behind other nations in embracing the Italian models. Margaret, as I have +said, imitated Sannazzaro in her _Histoire des satyres et nymphes de +Diane_. The _Arcadia_ was translated in 1544. Du Bellay was familiar with +the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even +a respectful mention of it in his famous _Dfense_. Elsewhere he asks: + + Qui fera taire la musette + Du pasteur napolitain? + +The first part of Belleau's _Bergerie_ appeared in 1565, the complete +work, including a piscatory poem, in 1572. On the stage Nicolas Filleul +anticipated the regular Italian drama in a dramatized eclogue entitled +_Les Ombres_ in 1566. Later Nicolas de Montreux, better known under the +name of Ollenix du Mont-Sacr, a writer of a religious cast, and author +of a romantic comedy on the story of Potiphar's wife, composed three +pastoral plays, _Athlette_, _Diane_, and _Arimne_, which appeared in +1585, 1592, and 1597 respectively. They are conventional pastorals on the +Italian model, futile in plot and commonplace in style. He was also the +author of the _Bergerie de Juliette_, a romance published in 1592, which +Robert Tofte is credited with having translated in his _Honour's +Academy_,' or the Famous Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta,' which +appeared at London in 1610. Tofte's work, however, while purporting to be +'done into English,' makes no mention of the original author, and though +indebted for its form and title to Nicholas' romance does not appear to +bear much further resemblance to it. A far more important work in itself, +but one which does not much concern us here, is Honor d'Urf's _Astre_, +an autobiographic compilation in which the fashionable pastoral romance +found its most consummate example. The work was translated into English as +early as 1620, but the history of its influence in this country belongs +almost exclusively to the French vogue, which began about the middle of +the century, and formed such an important element in the literature of the +restoration. + +The comparatively small influence exerted by the French pastoral of the +renaissance on that of England must excuse the scanty summary given in the +preceding paragraphs. It remains to be said that there had existed at an +earlier period in France another and very different tradition, which +supplied one of the regular forms of composition in vogue among +_trouvres_ and _troubadours_ alike. The _pastourelle_ has sometimes been +described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine +wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is +easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is +scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. +Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention +on the part of the individual poet, the general type is rigidly fixed. The +narrator, who is a minstrel and usually a knight, while riding along meets +a shepherd-girl, to whom he pays his court with varying success. This is +the simple framework on which the majority are composed. A few, on the +other hand, depart from the type and depict purely rustic scenes. +Others--and the fact is at least significant--serve to convey allusions, +political, personal or didactic: a variety found as early as the twelfth +century in Provenal, and about the fourteenth in northern French. +Wandering scholars adopted the form from the knightly singers and produced +a plentiful crop of Latin _pastoralia_, usually of a somewhat burlesque +nature. An idea of the general style of these may be gathered from such +lines as the following, which contain the reply of a country girl +hesitating before the advances of a merry student: + + Si senserit meus pater + uel Martinus maior frater, + erit mihi dies ater; + uel si sciret mea mater, + cum sit angue peior quater: + uirgis sum tributa.[70] + +Appropriated, lastly, and refashioned by the hand of an original genius, +the _pastourelle_ gave to German poetry the crowning jewel of its +_Minnesang_ in Walther's 'Under der linden,' with its irrepressibly +roguish refrain: + + Kuster mich? wol tsentstunt: + tandaradei, + seht wie rt mir ist der munt! + +Connected with the _pastourelles_ of the _langue d'ol_ is an isolated +dramatic effort, of a primitive and nave sort, but of singular grace and +charm. _Li jus Robins et Marion_, the work of Adan le Bochu or de le Hale, +is in fact a dramatized _pastourelle_ of some eight hundred lines +beginning with the rejection by a shepherdess of the advances of a knight +and ending with the rustic sports of the shepherds on the green. +Unsophisticated nature and playful cunning unite in no ordinary degree to +lend delicacy and savour to the work, while the literary quality of Adan's +verse is evident in such incidental songs as Marion's often quoted: + + Robins m'aime, Robins m'a, + Robins m'a demandee, si m'ara. + +In spite, however, of the genuine _navet_ and natural realism of the +piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of +gentle raillery that sparkles in the graceful octaves of Lorenzo's +_Nencia_. + +A real and lively love of the country, rather than any idealization of the +actual shepherd class, is reflected in a poem written about 1460 by Ren +of Anjou, ex-king of Naples, describing in pastoral guise the rustic +retreat which he enjoyed in company with his wife, Jeanne de Laval, on the +banks of the Durance. The conventional pastoralism that veils the identity +of the shepherd and shepherdess is scarcely more than a pretence, for at +the end of the manuscript we find blazoned the arms of the royal pair, +with the inscription: + + Icy sont les armes, dessoubz ceste couronne, + Du bergier dessus dit et de la bergeronne. + +We have now completed the first section of our introductory survey of +pastoral literature. We have passed in review, in a necessarily rapid and +superficial, but, it is to be hoped, not altogether inadequate, manner, +the varions manifestations of the kind in the non-dramatic literature of +continental Europe. The Italian pastoral drama has been reserved for +separate and more detailed consideration in close connexion with that of +this country. It must, however, be borne in mind that in such a survey as +the present many of the byways and more or less obscure and devious +channels by which pastoral permeated the wide fields of literature have of +necessity been left unexplored. Nothing, for instance, has been said about +the pastoral interludes which occupy a not inconspicuous place in the +martial cantos both of the _Orlando_ and the _Gerusalemme_. Before passing +on, however, I should like to say a few words concerning one particular +department of renaissance literature, and that chiefly by way of +illustrating the limitations of the tradition of literary pastoral. I +refer to the _novelle_ or _nouvelles_, in which, although pastoral +subjects are occasionally introduced, the treatment is entirely +independent of conventional tradition. Without making any pretence at +covering the whole field of the _novellieri_, I may instance a tale of +Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, +of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are +represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own +business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their +literary fellows. More exclusively rustic in setting is an anecdote +concerning the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, told with broad +humour in the _Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ and elaborated with +characteristic gusto and extraordinarily graphic art by Pietro Fortini. +The crude obscenity of the subject alone serves to show how free the +writer was from any influence of the pastoral of polite literature.[71] +Numerous other stories concerning shepherds or _villani_ might be cited, +from Boccaccio to Bandello, the point of which, whether openly licentious +or ostensibly moral, is brought home with a brutal and physical directness +utterly foreign to the spirit of the regular pastoral. This is, on the +whole, what one would expect. The coarse realism that gave life and +vitality to the novel, that characteristic product of middle-class +cynicism and humour, finds no place in the pastoral of literary tradition. +The conventional grace of the pastoral could offer no material to the +novel. It is true that when we speak of the _bourgeois_ spirit of the +_novella_ on the one hand, and the 'ideal' pastoral on the other, it is +well to remember that the author of the _Decameron_ also wrote the first +modern pastoral romance; that the century and country which saw the +publication of the _Arcadia_, the _Aminta_, and the _Pastor fido_, also +welcomed the work of Fortini, Giraldi, and Bandello; and that to Margaret +of Navarre, the imitator of Sannazzaro and patroness of Marot, we are +likewise indebted for the _Heptameron_. Nevertheless the tendencies, +though sometimes united in the person of a single author, yet keep +distinct. Both alike had become a fashion, both alike followed a more or +less conventional type. The novel remained coarse and realistic; the +pastoral, whatever may be said of its morality, remained refined and at a +conscious remove from real life. To examine thoroughly the cause of this +disseverance from actuality which haunted the pastoral throughout its many +transformations would lead us beyond all possible bounds of this inquiry. +One important point may, however, here be noted. The pastoral, whatever +its form, always needed and assumed some external circumstance to give +point to its actual content. The interest seldom arises directly from the +narrative itself. In Theocritus and Sannazzaro this objective point is +supplied by the delight of escape from the over-civilization of the city; +in Petrarch and Mantuan, by their allegorical intention; in Sacchetti and +Lorenzo, by the contrast of town and country, with all its delicate +humour; in Boccaccio and Poliziano, by the opening it gave for golden +dreams of exquisite beauty or sensuous delight; in Tasso, by the desire of +that freedom in love and life which sentimental philosophers have always +associated with a return to nature. In all these cases the content _per +se_ may be said to be matter of indifference; it only receives meaning in +relation to some ulterior intention of the author. Realism under these +circumstances was impossible. Nor could satire call it forth, for no one +would be at pains to satirize actual rusticity. The only loophole left by +which a realistic treatment could find its way into pastoral was when, as +in Folengo's macaronics, it was not the actual rustic life but the +conventional representation of it that was the object of satire. But this +case was naturally a rare one. + + + + +Chapter II. + +Pastoral Poetry in England + + + +I + + +We have seen how there arose in the Italian songs of the fourteenth +century a spontaneous form of pastoral independent of the regular +tradition, and somewhat similar examples are furnished by the dramatic +eclogues of Spain. In the former case, however, pastoral was never more +than a passing note; while in the latter, the impulse, though possessing +some vitality, was early overwhelmed by the rising tide of Italian +influence. In England it was otherwise. On the one hand the spontaneous +and popular impulse towards a form of pastoralism appears to have been +stronger and more consistent than elsewhere; on the other the foreign and +literary influence never acquired the same supreme importance. As a resuit +the earlier native fashion affected in a noticeable degree later pastoral +work, colouring and blending with instead of being overpowered by the +regular tradition. Thus it is possible to trace two distinct though +mutually reacting tendencies far down the stream of English literature, +and to this double origin must be referred many of the peculiar phenomena +of English pastoral work. There was furthermore a constant struggle for +supremacy between the two traditions, in which now one now the other +appeared likely to go under. The greatest poets of their day, Spenser and +Milton, threw the weight of their authority on to the side of pastoral +orthodoxy. Spenser, however, was himself too much influenced by the +popular impulse for his example to be decisive in favour of the regular +tradition, while, by the time Milton wrote, a hybrid form had established +itself on a more or less secure basis and a _modus vivendi_ had already +been achieved. Meanwhile the bulk of pastofal poets affected a less +weighty and more spontaneous song, whether they wrote in the light +fanciful mood of Drayton or the more passionate and romantic spirit of +Browne. + +To this double origin may be ascribed a certain noticeable vitality that +characterizes English pastoral composition. Since this quality has been +habitually overlooked by literary historians, I may be excused for +dwelling on it somewhat in this place. The stigma which, not altogether +undeservedly, attaches to pastoral as a whole has tempted critics to +confine their attention to the more notable examples of the kind, and to +treat these as more or less sporadic manifestations. Thus they have +failed, on the whole, to appreciate the relation in which these works +stand to the general pastoral tradition, which was mainly carried on in +works of little individual interest. It is no blame to them if they +considered that these undistinguished productions were of small importance +in the general history of literature: any one who goes through them with +care will probably arrive at a not very dissimilar conclusion. +Nevertheless the fact remains that the neglect of them has obscured both +the relative positions of the greater and more enduring works, and also +the general nature of the pastoral tradition in this country. That +tradition I believe to have been of a far more noteworthy character than +has hitherto been realized. I am not, of course, prepared to maintain that +pastoral composition in England ever attained, as a whole, to the rank of +great literature, or that it formed such a remarkable body of work as we +find, for example, in the Arcadian drama of Italy. But when we come to +regard the pastoral production of this country in the light of a more or +less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the +originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as +a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it +evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other +countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of +the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in +this chapter. When I come to deal with the main subject of this inquiry it +will be necessary to determine how far similar considerations apply in the +case of the pastoral drama. + +In the first place we have to consider what was produced on the one hand +by the purely native impulse, and on the other under the sole inspiration +of foreign tradition, at a period when these two influences had not yet +begun to interact. As an argument in favour of the spontaneous and genuine +nature of the earlier fashion may be noticed its appearance in that +miscellaneous body of anonymous literature which, whatever may be its +origin--and it is impossible to enter on so controversial a subject in +this place--is at least 'popular' in the sense of having been long handed +down from generation to generation in the mouths of the people. The +acceptance of pastoral ballads into this great mass of traditional +literature is at least as good evidence of their popular character as that +of authorship could be. In such a body of literature it would indeed be +surprising had the _pastourelle_ motive not found entrance; but it is +noteworthy that whereas the French and Latin poems are habitually written +from the point of view of the lover, the English ballads adopt that of the +peasant maiden to whom the high-born suitor pays his court. At once the +simplest and most poetical of the ballads on this model is that printed by +Scott as _The Broom of Cowdenknows_, a title to which in all probability +it has little claim. It is a delightful example of the minor ballad +literature, and I am by no means inclined to regard it as a mere +amplification of the much shorter and rather abrupt _Bonny May_ of Herd's +collection, though the latter, so far as it goes, probably offers a less +sophisticated text. In either case a gentleman riding along meets a girl +milking, obtains her love, and ultimately returns and marries her. A +similar incident, in which, however, the seducer marries the girl under +compulsion and then discovers her to be of noble parentage, is told in a +ballad, of which a number of versions have been collected in Scotland +under the title of _Earl Richard_ or _Earl Lithgow_, and of which an +English version was current in the seventeenth century and was quoted more +than once by Beaumont and Fletcher.[72] This was printed by Percy in the +_Reliques_, and two broadsides of it dating from the restoration are +preserved in the Roxburghe collection. It is inferior to the northern +versions, but both are probably late, and contain stanzas belonging to or +copied from other ballads, notably the _Bonny Hynd_ of the Herd manuscript +and _Burd Helen_ (the Scotch version of _Child Waters_). The title of the +broadsides is interesting as betraying the influence of the regular +pastoral tradition: 'The beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia. A new +pastarell Song of a courteous young Knight, and a supposed Shepheards +Daughter.'[73] Again, apparently from the Aberdeen district, comes a +ballad on the marriage of a shepherd's daughter to the Laird of Drum. On +the other hand we find three somewhat similar ballads, _Lizie Lindsay_ or +_Donald of the Isles, Lizie Baillie_, and _Glasgow Peggie_, recording the +elopement of a town girl with a highland gentleman in the disguise of a +shepherd. These are obviously late, though a certain resemblance in style +with _Johnie Faa_ makes it possible that they are as old as the middle of +the seventeenth century. None of the pastoral ballads, indeed, can show +any credentials which would suggest an earlier date than the second half +of the sixteenth century, nor can any of them lay claim to first-rate +poetic merit.[74] + +Another example of native pastoral, earlier and far more genuine in +character, is to be found in the religious drama. The romantic +possibilities of peasant life were to some extent reflected in the +ballads; it is the burlesque aspect that is preserved to us in the +'shepherd' plays of the mystery cycles. We possess the plays on the +adoration of the shepherds belonging to the four extant series, a +duplicate in the Towneley plays, and one odd specimen, making six in all. +The rustic element varies in each case, but it assumed the form of +burlesque comedy in all except the purely didactic 'Coventry' cycle of the +Cotton manuscript. Here, indeed, the treatment of the situation is +decorously dull, but in the others we can trace a gradual advance in +humorous treatment leading up to the genuine comedy of the alternative +Towneley plays. Thus, like Noah and his wife, the shepherds of the +adoration early became recognized comic characters, and there can be +little doubt of the influence exercised by these scenes upon the later +interludes. With the general evolution of the drama we are of course in no +wise here concerned: what it imports us to notice is that just as it was +the picture of the young gallant riding along on the mirk evening by the +fail dyke of the 'bought i' the lirk o' the hill' that caught the +imagination of the north-country milkmaids, so it was the rough +representation of rustic manners, with which they must have been familiar +in actual life, that appealed to the villagers flocking to York, +Leicester, Beverley, or Wakefield to witness the annual representation of +the guild cycle.[75] + +It will be worth while to give some account of the form taken by this +genuine pastoral comedy, as we find it in its highest development in the +two Towneley plays. These belong to the latest additions to the cycle, and +were probably first incorporated when the repertory underwent revision in +the early years of the fifteenth century.[76] Each play falls into three +portions: first, a rustic farce; secondly, the apparition and announcement +of the angels; and thirdly, the adoration. The two latter do not +particularly concern us. Though in the Chester cycle the shepherds show +themselves amusingly ignorant of the meaning of the _Gloria_, in the +Towneley plays they are apt to fall out of character, and certainly +display a singular knowledge of the prophets,[77] for + + Abacuc and ely prophesyde so, + Elezabeth and zachare and many other mo, + And david as veraly is witnes thereto, + Iohn Bapyste sewrly and daniel also. + +More remarkable still is one shepherd's familiarity with the classics: + + Virgill in his poetre sayde in his verse, + Even thus by gramere as I shall reherse; + 'Iam nova progenies celo demittitur alto, + Iam rediet virgo, redeunt saturnia regna.'[78] + +It is perhaps no matter for surprise that one of his less learned fellows +should break out with more force than delicacy: + + Weme! tord! what speke ye here in myn eeres? + Tell us no clerge I hold you of the freres. + +It is one of the little ironies of literature that in the earliest picture +of pastoral life in England the greatest pastoral writer of Rome should be +quoted, not as a pastoralist, but as a magician. + +Before the appearance of the angels, however, there is nothing to lead one +to expect this strange display of learning. A rougher, simpler set of +countrymen it would have been hard to find in the England of Chaucer and +Langland. In the shepherd-play known as _prima pastorum_ the comic element +consists mostly in quarrels and feasting among the shepherds, but in the +_secunda pastorum_ it constitutes a regular little three-scene farce, +which at its date was absolutely unique in literature. It is thence only a +step, and a very short one, to John Heywood's interludes--though it is a +step that took more than a century to accomplish. + +The first shepherd comes in complaining of the hard weather; his fingers +are chapped, the storms blow from every quarter in turn. 'Sely shepardes,' +moreover, are put upon by any rich upstart and have no redress. A second +shepherd appears with another grumble: 'We sely wedmen dre mekyll wo.' +Some men, indeed, have been known to desire two wives or even three, but +most would sooner have none at all. Whereupon enters Daw, a third +shepherd, complaining of portents 'With mervels mo and mo.' 'Was never syn +noe floode sich floodys seyn'; even 'I se shrewys pepe'--apparently a +portentous omen. At this point Mak comes on the scene. He is a notorious +bad character of the neighbourhood, who boasts himself 'a yoman, I tell +you, of the king,' and complains that his wife eats him out of house and +home. The shepherds suspect him of designs upon their flocks, so when they +lie down to rest they place him the middle man of three. As soon, however, +as the shepherds are asleep--'that may ye all here'--Mak borrows a sheep +and makes off. Arrived at home he would like to eat the sheep at once, but +he is afraid of being followed, so the animal is put in the cradle and +wrapped up to resemble a baby, and Mak goes back to take his place among +the shepherds. Before long these awake and rouse Mak, who, pretending he +has dreamt that Gill his wife has been brought to bed of another child, +goes off home. The shepherds miss one of their sheep and, following him, +find Gill on the bed while Mak sings a lullaby at the cradle. They proceed +to search the house, Gill the while praying she may eat the child in the +cradle if ever she deceived them. They find nothing, and are about to +depart when Daw insists on kissing the new baby. Gill vows she saw the +child changed by an elf as the clock struck midnight, but Mak pleads +guilty and gets off with a blanketing. + +So far, intentionally in the case of the drama, and if not intentionally +at least practically in that of the ballads, the appeal of the native +pastoral impulse--tradition it could hardly yet be called--was to an +audience little if at all removed from the actual condition of life +depicted. This ensured at least essential reality, for though in the one +case there may be idealization in a romantic and in the other in a +burlesque direction, either implies that familiarity with the actual world +which appears to underlie all vital art.[79] It was not long, however, +before the pastoral began to address itself to a more cultivated society, +and in so doing sacrificed that wholesome corrective of a genuinely +critical audience which is needed in the long run to keep any literary +form from degeneration. The impulse is still, however, found in all its +freshness and genuineness in such a poem as the following +fifteenth-century nativity carol, which, in its blending of piety and +humorous rusticity, is strongly reminiscent of the dramatic productions we +have just been reviewing: + + The shepherd upon a hill he sat, + He had on him his tabard and his hat, + His tar-box, his pipe, and his flagat, + His name was called Jolly, Jolly Wat! + For he was a good herds-boy, + Ut hoy! + For in his pipe he made so much joy. + Can I not sing but hoy. + + * * * * * + + The shepherd on a hill he stood, + Round about him his sheep they yode, + He put his hand under his hood, + He saw a star as red as blood. + Ut hoy! &c. + + * * * * * + + Now must I go there Christ was born, + Farewell! I come again to-morn, + Dog, keep well my sheep fro the corn! + And warn well Warroke when I blow my horn! + Ut hoy! &c.[80] + +So, again, in the delightful poem that has won for Robert Henryson the +title of the first English pastoralist the warm blood of natural feeling +yet runs full. _Robene and Makyne_ stands on the threshold of the +sixteenth century, a modest and pastoral counterpart of the _Nut-Brown +Maid_, as evidence that there were poets of purely native inspiration +capable of writing verses every whit as perfect in form as anything +produced by the Italianizers of the next generation, and commonly far more +genuine in feeling. Even in the work of Surrey and Wyatt themselves we +find poems which, were it not for the general tradition to which they +belong, one would have no difficulty in regarding as a natural development +and conventionalization of the native tendency. Such is the _Harpelus' +Complaint_ of 'Tottel's Miscellany.' This was originally printed among +the poems of uncertain authors, but when it re-appeared in _England's +Helicon_, in 1600, it was subscribed with Surrey's name. The ascription +does not carry with it much authority, but is in no way inherently +improbable.[81] The opening stanzas may be quoted as conveying a fair idea +of the whole, which sustains its character of sprightly elegance for over +a hundred lines, ending with the luckless Harpelus' epitaph: + + Phylida was a fayer mayde, + And fresh as any flowre: + Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed + To be his paramour. + + Harpalus and eke Corin + Were herdmen both yfere: + And Phillida could twist and spin + And therto sing full clere. + + But Phillida was all to coy + For Harpelus to winne. + For Corin was her onely joye, + Who forst her not a pynne.[82] + +The relation of the early Italianizers to pastoral is rather strange. +Pastoral names, imagery and conventions are freely scattered throughout +their works, yet with the exception of the above there is scarcely a poem +to which the term pastoral can be properly applied. They borrowed from +their models a kind of pastoral diction merely, not their partiality for +the form: 'shepherd' is with them merely another word for lover or poet, +while almost any act of such may be described as 'folding his sheep' or +the like. Allegory has reduced itself to a few stock phrases. In this +fashion Surrey complains to his fair Geraldine, and a whole company of +unknown lovers celebrate the cruelty and beauty of their ladies. It is +rarely that we catch a note of fresher reminiscence or more spontaneous +song as in Wyatt's: + + Ah, Robin! + Joly Robin! + Tell me how thy leman doth! + +Happily the seed of Phillida's coyness bore fruit, and the amorous +pastoral ballad or picture, a true _idyllion_, became a recognized type in +English verse. It certainly owed something to foreign pastoral models, +and, like the bulk of Elizabethan lyrics, a good deal to Italian poetry in +general; but in its freshness and variety, as in its tendency to narrative +form, it asserts its independence of any rigid tradition, and justifies us +in regarding it as an outcome of that native impulse which we have already +noticed. Such a poem is Nicholas Breton's ever charming _Phyllida and +Corydon_, printed above his signature in _England's Helicon_.[83] Although +we are thereby anticipating, it may be quoted as a representative specimen +of its kind: + + In the merry month of May, + In a morn by break of day, + Forth I walk'd by a wood-side, + When as May was in his pride: + There I spid all alone, + Phyllida and Corydone. + Much ado there was, God wot! + He would love and she would not. + She said, never man was true; + He said, none was false to you. + He said, he had loved her long; + She said, Love should have no wrong. + Corydon would kiss her then; + She said, maids must kiss no men, + Till they did for good and all; + Then she made the shepherd call + All the heavens to witness truth + Never loved a truer youth. + Thus with many a pretty oath, + Yea and nay, and faith and troth, + Such as silly shepherds use + When they will not Love abuse, + Love which had been long deluded + Was with kisses sweet concluded; + And Phyllida, with garlands gay, + Was made the lady of the May. + +We must now turn to the beginnings of regular pastoral tradition in this +country, springing up under direct foreign influence and in conscious and +avowed imitation of specific foreign models. Passing over the Latin +eclogues of Buchanan and John Barclay, as belonging properly to the sphere +of humanistic rather than of English letters, we come to the pretty +thoroughly Latinized pastorals of Alexander Barclay and Barnabe Googe. +Their preoccupation with the humanistic poets is, in Barclay's case at any +rate, no less dominant a factor than in that of the regular translators, +from whom it is neither very easy nor clearly desirable to distinguish +them. Of the professed translators themselves it may be well to say a few +words in this place and allow them at once to resume their veil of +well-deserved oblivion. Their influence may be taken as non-existent, and +their only interest lies in the indication they afford of the trend of +literary fashion. The earliest was George Turberville, who in 1567 +translated the first nine of Mantuan's eclogues into English fourteeners. +The verse is fairly creditable, but the exaggeration of style, +endeavouring by sheer brutality of phrase to force the moral judgement it +lacks the art of more subtly stimulating, produces neither a very pleasing +nor a very edifying effect. This translation went through three editions +before the end of the century. The whole ten eclogues did not find a +translator till 1656, when Thomas Harvey published a version in +decasyllabic couplets. The next poet to appear in English dress was +Theocritus, of whose works 'Six Idillia, that is, Six Small, or Petty, +Poems, or Aeglogues,' were translated by an anonymous hand and dedicated +to E. D.--probably or possibly Sir Edward Dyer--in 1588. As before, the +verse, mostly fourteeners, is far from bad, but the selection is not very +much to our purpose. Three of the pieces, a singing match, a love +complaint, and one of the Galatea poems, are more or less pastoral; but +the rest--among which is the dainty conceit of Venus and the boar well +rendered in a three-footed measure--do not belong to bucolic verse at all. +Incidental mention may be also made of a 'dialogue betwixt two sea nymphs, +Doris and Galatea, concerning Polyphemus, briefly translated out of +Lucian,' by Giles Fletcher the elder, in his _Licia_ of 1593; and a +version of 'The First Eidillion of Moschus describing Love,' in Barnabe +Barnes' _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_, which probably appeared the same +year. Lastly we have the Bucolics and Georgics of Vergil, translated in +1589 by Abraham Fleming into rimeless fourteeners.[84] Besides these there +are a few odd translations from Vergil among the experiments of the +classical versifiers. Webbe, in his _Discourse of English Poetry_ (1586), +gives hexametrical translations of the first and second eclogues, while +another version of the second in the same metre appears first in Fraunce's +_Lawyer's Logic_ (1588), and again with corrections in his _Ivychurch_ +(1591).[85] Several further translations followed in the seventeenth +century. + +But one step, and that a short one, removed from these writers is +Alexander Barclay, translater of Brandt's _Stultifera Navis_, priest and +monk successively of Ottery St. Mary, Ely, and Canterbury. It seems to +have been about 1514, when at the second of these houses, that he composed +at least the earlier and larger portion of his eclogues. They appeared at +various dates, the first complete edition being appended, long after the +writer's death, to the _Ship of Fools_ of 1570.[86] They are there headed +'Certayne Egloges of Alexander Barclay Priest, Whereof the first three +conteyne the misereyes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in +generall, Gathered out of a booke named in Latin, Miseriae Curialium, +compiled by Eneas Silvius[87] Poet and Oratour.' This sufficiently +indicates what we are to expect of Barclay as of the Latin eclogists of +the previous century. The interlocutors in these three poems are Coridon, +a young shepherd anxious to seek his fortune at court, and the old Cornix, +for whom the great world has long lost its glamour. The fourth eclogue, +'treating of the behavour of Rich men against Poets,' is similarly 'taken +out of' Mantuan. In it Barclay is supposed to have directed a not very +individual but pretty lusty satire against Skelton.[88] He also +introduces, as recited by one of the characters, 'The description of the +Towre of vertue and honour, into which the noble Howarde contended to +enter by worthy actes of chivalry,' a stanzaic composition in honour of +Sir Edward Howard, who died in 1513. The fifth eclogue, 'of the +disputation of Citizens and men of the Countrey,' or the _Cytezen and +Uplondyshman_, as it was originally styled, again presents us with a +familiar theme treated in the conventional manner, and closes the series. +These poems are written in what would be decasyllabic couplets were they +reducible to metre--in other words, in the barbarous caesural jangle in +which many poets of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries +imagined that they reproduced the music of Chaucer, and which, refashioned +however almost beyond recognition by a born metrist, we shall meet again +in the _Shepherd's Calender_. The following lines from the fifth eclogue +may serve to illustrate Barclay's style: + + I shall not deny our payne and servitude, + I knowe that plowmen for the most part be rude, + Nowe shall I tell thee high matters true and olde, + Which curteous Candidus unto me once tolde, + Nought shall I forge nor of no leasing bable, + This is true history and no surmised fable. + +It is in justice due to Barclay to say that the fact of his composing this +eclogue in the vernacular should possibly be counted to him as an original +step. The step had, indeed, been taken in Italy before he was born, but of +this he may, in spite of his travels, have been ignorant. Such credit as +attaches to the innovation should be allowed him. + +A somewhat more independent writer is Barnabe Googe--writer, indeed, as +original, may be, as the lesser Latin pastoralists of the renaissance. The +fact of his altering the conventional forms to fit the mood of a sturdy +protestantism, of a protestantism still bitter from the Marian +persecutions, is scarcely to be regarded so much as evidence of his +invention as of the stability of literary tradition under the varying +forms imposed by external circumstances. The collection of his poems, +'imprinted at London' in 1563,[89] includes eight eclogues written in +fourteeners, the majority of which may fairly be said to represent Mantuan +adjusted to the conditions of contemporary life in reformation England. +Others show the influence of the author's visit to Spain in 1561-3. The +best that can be said for the verse and style is that they pursue their +'middle flight' on the whole modestly, and that the diction is at times +not without a touch of simple dignity. There are, moreover, moments of +genuine feeling when the author recalls the fires of Smithfield, and of +generous if nave appreciation when he speaks of his predecessors in +English song. A brief summary of contents will give some idea of the +nature of these poems. The first recounts the pains of love; in the second +Dametas rails on the blind boy and ends his song by dying. The third +treats of the vices of the city, not the least of them being religious +persecution. In the next Melibeus relates how Dametas, having as we now +learn killed himself for love, appeared to him amid hell-fire. Eclogue V +contains the pitiful tale of Faustus who courted Claudia through the +agency of Valerius. Claudia unfortunately fell in love with the messenger, +and finding him faithful to his master slew herself. This is imitated, in +part closely, from the tale of the shepherdess Felismena in the second +book of Montemayor's _Diana_, the identical story upon which Shakespeare +is supposed ultimately to have founded his _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, +though it is difficult at first sight to trace much resemblance between +the play and Googe's poem. In the sixth eclogue Faustus--the Don Felix of +the Spanish and the Proteus of Shakespeare--himself appears, for no better +reason it would seem than to give his interlocutor an opportunity of +enlarging on the delights of country life and introducing the remarks on +fowling borrowed from Sannazzaro by way of Garcilaso's second eclogue. The +next is a discussion somewhat after the manner of the _Nut-Brown Maid_, +again paraphrased from the _Diana_ (Book I); while the eighth, lastly, is +a homily on the superiority of Christianity over Roman polytheism, in +which under obsolete forms the author no doubt intended an allusion to +contemporary controversies. Thus it will be seen that Googe follows Latin +and Spanish traditions almost exclusively: the only point in which it is +possible to see any native inspiration is in his partiality for some sort +of narrative ballad motive as the subject of his poems. + +So far the literary quality to be registered has not been high among those +owing allegiance to the regular pastoral tradition. The next step to be +taken is a long one. The pastoral writings of Spenser not only themselves +belong to a very different order of work, but likewise brings us face to +face with literary problems of a most complex and interesting kind. + + + +II + + +In the _Shepherd's Calender_ we have the one pastoral composition in +English literature which can boast first-rate historical importance. There +are not a few later productions in the kind which may be reasonably held +to surpass it in poetic merit, but all alike sink into insignificance by +the side of Spenser's eclogues when the influence they exercised on the +history of English verse is taken into account. The present is not of +course the place to discuss this wider influence of Spenser's work: it is +with its relation to pastoral tradition and its influence upon subsequent +pastoral work that we are immediately concerned. This is an aspect of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ to which literary historians have naturally devoted +less attention. These two reasons--namely, the intrinsic importance of the +work and the neglect of its pastoral bearing--must excuse a somewhat +lengthy treatment of a theme that may possibly be regarded as already +sufficiently familiar. + +The _Shepherd's Calender_[90], which first appeared in 1579, was published +without author's name, but with an envoy signed 'Immerito.' It was +dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and contained a commentary by one E. K., +who also signed an epistle to Master Gabriel Harvey, fellow of Pembroke +College, Cambridge. 'Immerito' was a name used by Spenser in his familiar +correspondence with Harvey, and can in any case have presented no mystery +to his Cambridge friends. Among these must clearly be reckoned the +commentator E. K., who may be identified with one Edward Kirke with all +but absolute certainty.[91] Within certain well defined limits we may also +accept E. K. as a competent exponent of his friend's work, and his +identity, together with that of Rosalind and Menalcas, being matters of +but indirect literary interest, may be left to Spenser's editors and +biographers to fight over. It will be sufficient to add in this place that +however 'literary' may have been Spenser's attachment to Rosalind there is +no reason to suppose that she was not a real person, while however little +response his advances may have met with there _is_ reason to suppose that +his sorrow at their rejection was not wholly conventional. + +Spenser's design in turning his attention to the pastoral form would not +seem hard to apprehend. Less readily may we suppose that any deep +philosophical impulse directed his mind towards certain modes of +expression, than that in an age of catholic experiment he turned from the +penning of impossible iambic trimeters, 'minding,' as E. K. directly +informs us, 'to furnish our tongue with this kind, wherein it faulteth.' +He was qualified for the task by a wide knowledge of previous pastoral +writers from Theocritus and Bion down to Marot, and deliberately ranged +himself in line with the previous poets of the regular pastoral +tradition. Yet we find side by side in his work two distinct and +apparently antagonistic though equally conscious tendencies; the one +towards authority, leading him to borrow motives freely and even to resort +to direct paraphrase; the other towards individuality, nationality, +freedom, informing his general scheme and regulating the language of his +imaginary swains. It is this double nature of his pastoral work that +justifies us as regarding him, in spite of his alleged orthodoxy, as in +reality the first of a series of English writers who combined the +traditions of regular pastoral with the wayward graces of native +inspiration. It is true that in Spenser the natural pastoral impulse has +lost the spontaneity of the earlier examples, and has passed into the +realm of conscious and deliberate art; but it is none the less there, +modifying the conventional form. The individual debts owed by Spenser to +earlier writers have been collected with admirable learning and industry +by scholars such as Kluge and Reissert[92], but the investigation of his +originality presents at once a more interesting and more important field +of inquiry. So, indeed, Spenser himself appears to have thought, for the +only direct acknowledgement he makes in the work is to Chaucer, although, +as a writer to whom the humours of criticism are ever present has +remarked, 'it might almost seem that Spenser borrowed from Chaucer nothing +but his sly way of acknowledging indebtedness chiefly where it was not +due.' + +The chief point of originality in the _Calender_ is the attempt at linking +the separate eclogues into a connected series. We have already seen how +with Googe the same characters recur in a sort of shadowy story; but what +was in his case vague and almost unintentional becomes with Spenser a +central artistic motive of the piece. The eclogues are arranged with no +small skill and care on somewhat of an architectural design, or perhaps we +should rather say with somewhat of the symmetry of a geometrical pattern. +This will best be seen in a brief analysis of the several eclogues, +'proportionable,' as the title is careful to inform us, 'to the twelve +monethes.' + +In the 'January,' a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin +Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his +advances with scorn. He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is +introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol. The 'February' is a +disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and Thenot. It +introduces the fable of the oak and the briar, in which, since he ascribes +it to Tityrus, a name he transferred from Vergil to Chaucer, Spenser +presumably imagined he was imitating that poet, though it is really no +more in the style of Chaucer than is the roughly accentual measure in +which the eclogue is composed. For the 'March' Spenser recasts in English +surroundings Bion's fantasy of the fight with Cupid, without however +achieving any conspicuous success. In the April eclogue Hobbinol recites +to the admiring Thenot Colin's lay + + Of fayre Eliza, Queene of shepheardes all, + Which once he made as by a spring he laye, + And tuned it unto the Waters fall. + +This lay is in an intricate lyrical stanza which Spenser shows +considerable skill in handling. The following lines, for instance, already +show the musical modulation characteristic of much of his best work: + + See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, + (O seemely sight!) + Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene, + And ermines white: + Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, + With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: + Bay leaves betweene, + And primroses greene, + Embellish the sweete Violet. + +In the 'May' we return to the four-beat accentual measure, this time +applied to a discussion by the herdsmen Palinode and Piers of the +lawfulness of Sunday sports and the corruption of the clergy. Here we have +a common theme treated from an individual point of view. The eclogue is +interesting as showing that the author, whose opinions are placed in the +mouth of the precise Piers; belonged to what Ben Jonson later styled 'the +sourer sort of shepherds.' A fable is again introduced which is of a +pronounced Aesopic cast. In the 'June' we return to the love-motive of +Rosalind, which, though alluded to in the April eclogue, has played no +prominent part since January. It is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, +in which the former recounts his final defeat and the winning of Rosalind +by Menalcas. This eclogue contains Spenser's chief tribute to Chaucer: + + The God of shepheards, Tityrus, is dead, + Who taught me homely, as I can, to make; + He, whilst he lived, was the soveraigne head + Of shepheards all that bene with love ytake: + Well couth he wayle his Woes, and lightly slake + The flames which love within his heart had bredd, + And tell us mery tales to keepe us wake + The while our sheepe about us safely fedde. + +The July eclogue again leads us into the realm of ecclesiastical politics. +It is a disputation between upland and lowland shepherds, the descendant +therefore of Mantuan and Barclay, though the use of 'high places' as +typifying prelatical pride appears to be original. The confusion of things +Christian and things pagan, of classical mythology with homely English +scenery, nowhere reaches a more extravagant pitch than here. Morrell, the +advocate of the old religion, defends the hills with the ingeniously +wrong-headed argument: + + And wonned not the great God Pan + Upon mount Olivet, + Feeding the blessed flocke of Dan, + Which dyd himselfe beget? + +or else, gazing over the Kentish downs, he announces that + + Here han the holy Faunes recourse, + And Sylvanes haunten rathe; + Here has the salt Medway his source, + Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe. + +In the 'August' Spenser again handles a familiar theme with more or less +attempt at novelty. Willie and Peregot meeting on the green lay wagers in +orthodox fashion, and, appointing Cuddie judge, begin their singing +match. The 'roundel' that follows, a song inserted in the midst of +decasyllabic stanzas, is composed of alternate lines sung by the two +competitors. The verse is of the homeliest; indeed it is only a rollicking +indifference to its own inanity that saves it from sheer puerility and +gives it a careless and as it were impromptu charm of its own. Even in an +age of experiment it must have needed some self-confidence to write the +dialect of the _Calender_; it must have required nothing less than +assurance to put forth such verses as the following: + + It fell upon a holy eve, + Hey, ho, hollidaye! + When holy fathers wont to shrieve; + Now gynneth this roundelay. + Sitting upon a hill so hye, + Hey, ho, the high hyll! + The while my flocke did feede thereby; + The while the shepheard selfe did spill. + I saw the bouncing Bellibone, + Hey, ho, Bonibell! + Tripping over the dale alone, + She can trippe it very well. + +Many a reader of the anonymous quarto of 1579 must have joined in Cuddie's +exclamation: + + Sicker, sike a roundel never heard I none! + +Sidney, we know, was not altogether pleased with the homeliness of the +verses dedicated to him; and there must have been not a few among +Spenser's academic friends to feel a certain incongruity between the +polished tradition of the Theocritean singing match and the present poem. +Moreover, as if to force the incongruity upon the notice of the least +sensitive of his readers, Spenser followed up the ballad with a poem which +is not only practically free from obsolete or dialectal phrasing, but +which is composed in the wearisomely pedantic _sestina_ form. This song is +attributed to Colin, whose love for Rosalind is again mentioned. + +Passing to the 'September' we find an eclogue of the 'wise shepherd' type. +It is composed in the rough accentual metre, and opens with a couplet +which roused the ire of Dr. Johnson: + + Diggon Davie! I bidde her god day; + Or Diggon her is, or I missaye. + +Diggon is a shepherd, who, in hope of gain, drove his flock into a far +country, and coming home the poorer, relates to Hobbinol the evil ways of +foreign shepherds among whom, + + playnely to speake of shepheards most what, + Badde is the best. + +The 'October' eclogue belongs to the stanzaic group, and consists of a +dialogue on the subject of poetry between the shepherds Piers and Cuddie. +It is one of the most imaginative of the series, and in it Spenser has +refashioned time-honoured themes with more conspicuous taste than +elsewhere. The old complaint for the neglect of poetry acquires new life +through the dramatic contrast of the two characters in which opposite +sides of the poetic temperament are revealed. In Cuddie we have a poet for +whom the prize is more than the praise[93], whose inspiration is cramped +because of the indifference of a worldly court and society. Things were +not always so-- + + But ah! Mecaenas is yclad in claye, + And great Augustus long ygoe is dead, + And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, + That matter made for Poets on to play. + +And in the same strain he laments over what might have been his song: + + Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage, + O! if my temples were distaind with wine, + And girt with girlonds of wild Yvie twine, + How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, + And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, + With queint Bellona in her equipage! + +Reading these words to-day they may well seem to us the charter of the new +age of England's song; and the effect is rendered all the more striking +by the rhythm of the last line with its prophecy of Marlowe and mighty +music to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is +a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more +reverentially than his Bacchic comrade. When Cuddie, acknowledging his own +unworthiness, adds: + + For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne; + He, were he not with love so ill bedight, + Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne; + +Piers breaks out in words fitting the poet of the _Hymnes_: + + Ah, fon! for love doth teach him climbe so hie, + And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre. + +And throughout this high discourse the homely names of Piers and Cuddie +seem somehow more appropriate, or at least touch us more nearly, than +Mantuan's Sylvanus and Candidus, as if, in spite of all Spenser owes to +foreign models, he were yet conscious of a latent power of simple native +inspiration, capable, when once fully awakened, of standing up naked and +unshamed in the presence of Italy and Greece. One might well question +whether there is not more of the true spirit of prophecy in this poem of +Spenser's than ever went to the composition of Vergil's _Pollio_. + +The 'November,' like the 'April,' consists for the most part of a lay +composed in an elaborate stanza--there a panegyric, here an elegy. This +time it is sung by Colin himself, and we again find reference to the +Rosalind motive. The subject of the threnody is a nymph of the name of +Dido, whose identity can only be vaguely conjectured. The chief point of +external form in which Spenser has departed from his model, namely Marot's +dirge for Loyse de Savoye, and from other pastoral elegies, is in the use +of a different form of verse in the actual lament from that in which the +setting of the poem is composed. Otherwise he has followed tradition none +the less closely for having infused the conventional form with a poetry of +his own. The change by which the lament passes into the song of rejoicing +is traditional--and though borrowed by Spenser from Marot, is as old as +Vergil. Both Browne and Milton later made use of the same device. Spenser +writes: + + Why wayle we then? why weary we the Gods with playnts, + As if some evill were to her betight? + She raignes a goddesse now emong the saintes, + That whilome was the saynt of shepheards light, + And is enstalled nowe in heavens hight. + I see thee, blessed soule, I see + Walke in Elisian fieldes so free. + O happy herse! + Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!) + O joyfull verse! + +Although some critics, looking too exclusively to the poetic merit of the +_Calender_ as the cause of its importance, have perhaps overestimated the +beauty of this and the April lyrics, the skill with which the intricate +stanzas are handled must be apparent to any careful reader. As the +_Calender_ in poetry generally, so even more decidedly in their own +department, do these songs mark a distinct advance in formal evolution. +Just as they were themselves foreshadowed in the recurrent melody of +Wyatt's farewell to his lute-- + + My lute, awake! perform the last + Labour that thou and I shall waste, + And end that I have now begun; + For when this song is sung and past, + My lute, be still, for I have done-- + +so they in their turn heralded the full strophic sonority of the +_Epithalamium_. + +Lastly, in the 'December' we have the counterpart of the January eclogue, +a monologue in which Colin laments his wasted life and joyless, for + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + + Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; + Adieu, my deare, whose love I bought so deare; + Adieu, my little Lambes and loved sheepe; + Adieu, ye Woodes, that oft my witnesse were: + Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true, + Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu.[94] + +It will be seen from the above analysis that the architectonic basis of +Spenser's design consists of the three Colin eclogues standing +respectively at the beginning, in the middle, and at the close of the +year. These are symmetrically arranged: the 'January' and 'December' are +both alike monologues and agree in the stanza used, while the 'June' is a +dialogue and likewise differs in metrical form. This latter is supported +as it were by two subsidiary eclogues, those of April and August, in both +of which another shepherd sings one of Colin's lays and refers +incidentally to his passion for Rosalind. It is upon this framework that +are woven the various moral, polemical, and idyllic themes which Spenser +introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric +is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral +composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts +so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, +and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more +strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a +moment. The chief and most obvious device is that suggested by the +title--_The Shepherd's Calender_--'Conteyning twelve Aeglogues +proportionable to the twelve monethes.' This might, indeed, have been no +more than a fanciful name for any series of twelve poems;[95] with Spenser +it indicates a conscious principle of artistic construction. It suggests, +what is moreover apparent from the eclogues themselves, that the author +intended to represent the spring and fall of the year as typical of the +life of man. The moods of the various poems were to be made to correspond +with the seasons represented; or, conversely, outward nature in its cycle +through the year was to reflect and thereby unify the emotions, thoughts, +and passions of the shepherds. This was a perfectly legitimate artistic +device, and one based on a fundamental principle of our nature, since the +appearance of objective phenomena is ever largely modified and coloured by +subjective feeling. Nor can it reasonably be objected against the device +that in the hands of inferior craftsmen it degenerates but too readily +into the absurdities of the 'pathetic fallacy,' or that Spenser himself is +not wholly guiltless of the charge. + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + +These lines bear witness to Spenser's intention. But the conceit is not +fully or consistently carried out. In several of the eclogues not only +does the subject in no way reflect the mood of the season--the very nature +of the theme at times made this impossible--but the time of year is not so +much as mentioned. This is more especially the case in the summer months; +there is no joy of the 'hygh seysoun,' and when it is mentioned it is +rather by way of contrast than of sympathy. Thus in June Colin mourns for +other days: + + Tho couth I sing of love, and tune my pype + Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made: + Tho would I seeke for Queene-apples unrype, + To give my Rosalind; and in Sommer shade + Dight gaudy Girlonds was my common trade, + To crowne her golden locks: but yeeres more rype, + And losse of her, whose love as lyfe I wayd, + Those weary wanton toyes away dyd wype. + +In the same eclogue we may trace a deliberate contrast between various +descriptive passages. Thus Hobbinol feels the magie of the summer woods-- + + Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes, + Which thou were wont on wastfull hylls to singe, + I more delight then larke in Sommer dayes: + Whose Echo made the neyghbour groves to ring, + And taught the byrds, which in the lower spring + Did shroude in shady leaves from sonny rayes, + Frame to thy songe their chereful cheriping, + Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy swete layes. + +Closely following upon this stanza we have Colin's lament, 'The God of +shepheards, Tityrus, is dead,' containing the lines: + + But, if on me some little drops would flowe + Of that the spring was in his learned hedde, + I soone would learne these woods to wayle my woe, + And teache the trees their trickling teares to shedde. + +We have here a specifie inversion of the 'pathetic fallacy.' The moods of +nature are no longer represented as varying in sympathy with the passions +of man, but are deliberately used to heighten an effect by contrast. Even +this inverted correspondence, however, is for the most part lacking in the +subsequent eclogues, and it must be admitted that in so far as Spenser +depended on a cyclic correlation for the unifying of his design, he +achieved at best but partial effect. Another means by which he sought, +consciously or unconsciously, to produce unity of impression was by +consistently pitching his song in the minor key. This accounts for the +inverted correspondence just noted, and for the fact that even the +polemics have an undercurrent of regret in them. In this case the poet has +undoubtedly succeeded in carrying out the prevailing mood of the central +motive--the Rosalind drama--in the subsidiary scenes. Or should we not +rather say that he has extracted the general mood of the whole +composition, and infused it, in a kind of typical form, into the three +connected poems placed at critical points of the complex structure? The +unity, however, thus aimed at, and achieved, is very different from the +cyclic or architectonic unity described above, and of a much less definite +character. + +It remains to say a few words concerning the language of the _Calender_ +and the rough accentual metre in which parts of it are composed, since +both have a particular bearing upon Spenser's attitude towards pastoral in +general. + +Ben Jonson, in one of those utterances which have won for him the +reputation of churlishness, but which are often marked by acute critical +sense, asserted that Spenser 'in affecting the Ancients writ no +Language.'[96] The remark applies first and foremost, of course, to the +_Calender_, and opens up the whole question of archaism and provincialism +in literature. This is far too wide a question to receive adequate +treatment here, and yet it appears forced upon us by the nature of the +case. For Spenser's archaism, in his pastoral work at least, is no +unmeaning affectation as Jonson implies. He perceived that the language of +Chaucer bore a closer resemblance to actual rustic speech than did the +literary language of his own day, and he adopted it for his imaginary +shepherds as a fitting substitute for the actual folk-tongue with which he +had grown familiar, whether in the form of rugged Lancashire or +full-mouthed Kentish. And the homely dialect does undoubtedly naturalize +the characters of his eclogues, and disguise the time-honoured platitudes +that they repeat from their learned predecessors. With our wider +appreciation of literary effect, and our more historical and less +authoritative manner of judging works of art, we can no longer endorse +Sidney's famous criticism:[97] 'That same framing of his stile, to an old +rustick language, I dare not alowe, sith neyther Theocritus in Greeke, +Virgill in Latine, nor Sanazar in Italian, did affect it.'[98] If a writer +finds an effective and picturesque word in an old author or in a homely +dialect it is but pedantry that opposes its use, and it matters little +moreover from what quarter of the land it may hail, as Stevenson knew when +he claimed the right of mingling Ayrshire with his Lothian verse. Even +such archaisms as 'deemen' and 'thinken,' such colloquialisms as the +pronominal possessive, need not be too severely criticized. What goes far +towards justifying Jonson's acrimony is the wanton confusion of different +dialectal forms; the indiscriminate use for the mere sake of archaism of +such variants as 'gate' beside the usual 'goat,' of 'sike' and 'sich' +beside 'such'; the coining of words like 'stanck,' apparently from the +Italian _stanco_; and lastly, the introduction of forms which owe their +origin to mere etymological ignorance, for instance, 'yede' as an +infinitive, 'behight' in the same sense as the simple verb, 'betight,' +'gride,' and many others--all of which do not tend to produce the homely +effect of mother English, but reek of all that is pedantic and +unnatural.[99] + +The influence of Chaucer was not confined to the language: from him +Spenser borrowed the metre of a considerable portion of the _Calender_. It +may at first sight appear strange to attribute to imitation of Chaucer's +smooth, carefully ordered verse the rather rugged measure of, say, the +February eclogue, but a little consideration will, I fancy, leave no doubt +upon the subject. This measure is roughly reducible to four beats with a +varying number of syllables in the _theses_, being thus purely accentual +as distinguished from the more strictly syllabic measures of Chaucer +himself on the one hand and the English Petrarchists on the other. Take +the following example: + + The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine, + That, once sea-beate, will to sea againe: + So loytring live you little heardgroomes, + Keeping you beastes in the budded broomes: + And, when the shining sunne laugheth once, + You deemen the Spring is come attonce; + Tho gynne you, fond flyes! the cold to scorne, + And, crowing in pypes made of greene corn, + You thinken to be Lords of the yeare; + But eft, when ye count you freed from feare, + Cornes the breme Winter with chamfred browes, + Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes, + Drerily shooting his stormy darte, + Which cruddles the blood and pricks the harte: + Then is your carelesse corage accoied, + Your careful heards with cold bene annoied: + Then paye you the price of your surquedrie, + With weeping, and wailing, and misery.[100] + +The syllabic value of the final _e_, already weakening in the London of +Chaucer's later days, was more or less of an archaism even with his most +immediate followers, none of whom use it with his unvarying correctness, +and it soon became literally a dead letter. The change was a momentous +one for English prosody, and none of the fifteenth-century writers +possessed sufficient poetic genius to adapt their verse to the altered +conditions of the language. They lived from hand to mouth, as it were, +without arriving at any systematic tradition. Thus it was that at the +beginning of the sixteenth century Hawes could write such verse as: + + Of dame Astronomy I dyd take my lycence + For to travayle to the toure of Chyvalry; + For al my minde, wyth percyng influence, + Was sette upon the most fayre lady + La Bell Pucell, so muche ententyfly, + That every daye I dyd thinke fyftene, + Tyl I agayne had her swete person sene.[101] + +It is this prosody, dependent usually upon a strong caesural pause to +differentiate it from prose, which may account for the harshness of some +of Wyatt's verse, and which rendered possible the barbarous metre of +Barclay. It was obviously impossible for a poet with an ear like Spenser +to accept such a metrical scheme as this; but his own study of Chaucer +produced a somewhat strange result. The one point which the late +Chaucerians preserved of their master's metric was the five-stress +character of his decasyllabic line; but in Spenser's day all memory of the +syllabic _e_ had long since vanished, and the only rhythm to be extracted +from Chaucer's verse was of a four-stress type. Professor Herford quotes a +passage from the Prologue of the _Canterbury Tales_ as it appears in +Thynne's second edition (1542), which Spenser would inevitably have read +as follows: + + When zphirus ke wyth hs sote brth + Enspred hath very hlte and hth, + The tndre crppes, and the yng snne + Hth in the Rm halfe hys curse yrnne, + And smle foules mken mlode + That slpen al nght with pen ye, &c. + +This certainly bears on the face of it a close resemblance to Spenser's +measure. There are, moreover, occasional difficulties in this method of +scansion, some lines refusing to accommodate themselves to the Procrustean +methods of sixteenth-century editors, and exactly similar anomalies are to +be found in Spenser. Such, for instance, are the lines in the May eclogue: + + Tho opened he the dore, and in came + The false Foxe, as he were starke lame. + +Now these lines may be written in strict Chaucerian English thus: + + Tho opend he the dore, and inn came + The fals fox, as he were stark lam, + +and they at once become perfectly metrical. Under these circumstances +there can, I think, be little doubt as to the literary parentage of +Spenser's accentual measure.[102] + +Like the archaic dialect, this homely measure tends to bring Spenser's +shepherds closer to their actual English brethren. And hereby, it should +be frankly acknowledged, the incongruity of the speakers and their +discourse is emphasized and increased. That discourse, it is true, runs on +pastoral themes, but the disguise and allegory have worn thin with +centuries of use. We can no longer separate the words from the allusions, +and consequently we can no longer accept the speakers in their +unsophisticated shepherd's rle. Yet it was precisely the desire to give +reality to these transparent phantasms that led Spenser to endow them with +a rustic speech. Whether he failed or succeeded the paradox of the form +remains about equal.[103] + +The importance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ was early recognized, not +only by friendly critics, but by the general public likewise, and six +editions were called for in less than twenty years. Not long after its +appearance John Dove, a Christ Church man, who appears to have been +ignorant of the authorship, turned the whole into Latin verse, dedicating +the manuscript to the Dean.[104] Another Latin version is found in +manuscript in the British Museum copy of the edition of 1597, and after +undergoing careful revision finally appeared in print in 1653. This was +the work of one Bathurst, a fellow of Spenser's own college of Pembroke at +Cambridge.[105] + +The _Shepherd's Calender_ was Spenser's chief contribution to pastoral; +indeed it was by so much his most important contribution that it would +hardly be worth while examining the others did they not bear witness to a +certain change in his attitude towards the pastoral ideal. + +The first of these later works is the isolated but monumental eclogue +entitled _Colin Clouts come Home again_, of which the dedication to +Raleigh is dated 1591, though it was not published till four years later. +This, perhaps the longest and most elaborate eclogue ever written, +describes how the Shepherd of the Ocean, that is Raleigh, induced Colin +Clout, who as before represents Spenser, to leave his rustic retreat in + + the cooly shade + Of the greene alders by the Mallaes shore, + +and try his fortune at the court of the great shepherdess Cynthia, and how +he ultimately returned to Ireland. The verse marks, as might be expected, +a considerable advance in smoothness and command of rhythm over the +non-lyrical portions of the _Calender_, and the dialect, too, is much less +harsh, being far advanced towards that peculiar poetic diction which +Spenser adopted in his more ambitions work. On the other hand, in spite of +a certain _allegrezza_ in the handling, and in spite of the Rosalind wound +being at least partially healed, the same minor key prevails as in the +earlier poems. In the spring of the great age of English song Spenser's +note is like the voice of autumn, not the fruitful autumn of cornfield and +orchard, but a premature barrenness of wet and fallen leaves-- + + The woods decay, the woods decay and fall. + +Thus though time has purged the bitterness of his sorrow, the regret +remains; his early love is still the mistress of his thoughts, but years +have softened his reproaches, and he admits: + + who with blame can justly her upbrayd, + For loving not; for who can love compell?-- + +a petard, it may be incidentally remarked, which, sprung within the bounds +of pastoral, is of power to pulverize in an instant the whole artificial +system of amatory ethics. + +The most notable points in the poem are the loves of the rivers Bregog and +Mulla, the famous list of contemporary poets, and the presentation of the +seamy side of court life, recalling the more direct satire of the probably +contemporary _Mother Hubberd's Tale_. The first of these belongs to the +class of Ovidian myths already noticed in such works as Lorenzo's _Ambra_. +The subject, however, is treated in a more subtly allegorical manner than +by Ovid's direct imitators, and this mode of presentment likewise +characterizes Spenser's tale of Molanna in the fragment on +Mutability.[106] Browne returned to a more crudely metamorphical tradition +in the loves of Walla and Tavy, while a similarly mythological +_Naturanschauung_ may be traced in Drayton's chorographical epic. + +Of the miscellaneous _Astrophel_, edited and in part composed by Spenser, +which was appended to _Colin Clout_, and of the _Daphnada_ published in +1596, though, like the former volume, containing a dedication dated 1591, +a passing mention must suffice. The former is chiefly remarkable as +illustrating the uniformly commonplace character of the verse called forth +by the death of one who, while he lived, was held the glory of Elizabethan +chivalry. It contains, beside other verse, pastoral elegies from the pens, +certainly of Spenser, and probably of the Countess of Pembroke, Matthew +Roydon, and Lodowick Bryskett. The last-named, or at any rate a +contributor with the same initiais, also supplied a 'Pastorall Aeglogue' +on the same theme. _Daphnada_ is a long lament in pastoral form on the +death of Douglas Howard, daughter of the Earl of Northampton. + +Of far greater importance for our present purpose is the pastoral +interlude in the quest of Sir Calidore, which occupies the last four +cantos of the sixth book of the _Faery Queen_.[107] Here is told how Sir +Calidore, the knight of courtesy, in his quest of the Blatant Beast came +among the shepherd-folk and fell in love with the fair Pastorella, reputed +daughter of old Meliboee; how he won her love in return through his valour +and courtesy; how while he was away hunting she was carried off by a band +of robbers; how he followed and rescued her; and finally, how she was +discovered to be the daughter of the lord of Belgard--at which point the +poem breaks off abruptly. The story has points of resemblance with the +Dorastus and Fawnia, or Florizel and Perdita, legend; but it also has +another and more important claim upon our attention. For as Shakespeare in +_As You Like It_, so Spenser in this episode has, as it were, passed +judgement upon the pastoral ideal as a whole. He is acutely sensitive to +the charm of that ideal and the seductions it offers to his hero-- + + Ne, certes, mote he greatly blamed be, + +says the poet of the _Faery Queen_ recalling the days when he was plain +Colin Clout--but the + + perfect pleasures, which do grow + Amongst poore hyndes, in hils, in woods, in dales, + +are not allowed to afford more than a temporary solace to the knight; the +robbers break in upon the rustic quietude, rapine and murder succeed the +peaceful occupations of the shepherds, and Sir Calidore is driven once +again to resume his arduous quest. The same idea may be traced in the +knight's visit to the heaven-haunted hill where he meets Colin Clout. In +the + + hundred naked maidens lilly white + All raunged in a ring and dauncing in delight + +to the sound of Colin's bagpipe, and who, together with the Graces and +their sovereign lady, vanish at the knight's approach, it is surely not +fanciful to see the gracious shadows of the idyllic poet's vision trooping +reluctantly away at the call of a more lofty theme. With this sense of +regret at the vanishing of an ideal long cherished, but at last +deliberately abandoned for matters of deeper and more real import, we may +turn from the work of the most important figure in English pastoral poetry +to his less famous contemporaries. + + + +III + + +Besides its wider influence on English verse, and the stimulus it gave to +pastoral composition as a whole, the _Shepherd's Calender_ called forth a +series of direct imitations. Of these the majority are but of accidental +and ephemeral interest and of inconspicuous merit; and it is probable that +Spenser himself lived to see the end of this over-direct school of +discipleship. Several examples appeared in Francis Davison's famous +miscellany known as the _Poetical Rhapsody_, the first edition of which, +though it only appeared in 1602, contained the gleanings of the entire +sixteenth century.[108] Of these imitations, four in number, the first, +the work of the editor himself, is a very poor production. It is a love +lament, and the insertion of a song in a complicated lyrical measure in a +plain stanzaic setting is evidently copied from the _Calender_. The other +three poems are ascribed, either in the _Rhapsody_ itself or in Davison's +manuscript list, to a certain A. W., who so far remains unidentified, if, +indeed, the letters conceal any individuality and do not merely stand for +'Anonymous Writer,' as has been sometimes thought. The three eclogues at +any rate bear evidence of coming from the same pen, and the following +lines show that the writer was no incompetent imitator, and at the same +time argue some genuine feeling: + + Thou 'ginst as erst forget thy former state, + And range amid the busks thyself to feed: + Fair fall thee, little flock! both rathe and late; + Was never lover's sheep that well did speed. + Thou free, I bound; thou glad, I pine in pain; + I strive to die, and thou to live full fain. + +The first of these poems is a monologue 'entitled Cuddy,' modelled on the +January eclogue. The second is a lament 'made long since upon the death of +Sir Philip Sidney,' in which the writer wonders at Colin's silence, and +which consequently must, at least, date from before the appearance of +_Astrophel_ in 1595, and is probably some years earlier. It is in the form +of a dialogue between two shepherds, one of whom sings Cuddy's lament in +lyrical stanzas, thus recalling Spenser's 'November.' These stanzas do not +reveal any great metrical gift. The last poem is a fragment 'concerning +old age,' which connects itself by its theme with the February eclogue, +though the form is stanzaic.[109] Again we find mention of Cuddy, a name +evidently assumed by the author, though whether he can be identified with +the Cuddie of the _Calender_ it is impossible to say. Whoever he was, he +shows more disposition than most of his fellow imitators to preserve +Spenser's archaisms. + +But undoubtedly the greatest poet who was content to follow immediately +in Spenser's footsteps was Michael Drayton, who in 1593 published a volume +entitled 'Idea The Shepheards Garland, Fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands +Sacrifice to the nine Muses.' This connexion between the number of the +eclogues and the muses is purely fanciful; Rowland is Drayton's pastoral +name, and Idea, which re-appeared as the title of the 1594 volume of +sonnets, is that of his poetic mistress.[110] It can hardly be said that +the verse of these poems attains any very high order of merit, but the +imitation of Spenser is evident throughout. In the first eclogue Rowland +bewails, in the midst of spring, 'the winter of his grief.' In this and +the corresponding monologue at the end he clearly follows Spenser's +arrangement and likewise adopts his minor key-- + + Fayre Philomel, night-musicke of the spring, + Sweetly recordes her tunefull harmony, + And with deepe sobbes, and dolefull sorrowing, + Before fayre Cinthya actes her Tragedy. + +In Eclogue II a 'wise' shepherd warns a youth against love, and draws a +somewhat gruesome picture of human fate-- + + And when the bell is readie to be tol'd + To call the wormes to thine Anatomie, + Remember then, my boy, what once I said to thee! + +Even this, however, fails to shake the lover's faith in the gentle +passion, and his enthusiasm finds vent in an apostrophe borrowed from +Spenser: + + Oh divine love, which so aloft canst raise, + And lift the minde out of this earthly mire. + +The next eclogue, containing a panegyric on Elizabeth under the name of +Beta, is closely modelled on the 'April,' and abounds with such +reminiscences as the following: + + Make her a goodly Chapilet of azur'd Colombine, + And wreath about her Coronet with sweetest Eglantine: + Bedeck our Beta all with Lillies, + And the dayntie Daffadillies, + With Roses damask, white, and red, and fairest flower delice, + With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloves of Paradice. + +Here, however, Drayton shows himself more skilful in dealing with a +lyrical stanza than most of his fellow imitators. In the fourth eclogue +two shepherds sing a dirge made by Rowland on the death of Elphin, that is +Sidney. In the next Rowland himself sings the praises of Idea; and in the +sixth Perkin those of Pandora, doubtless the Countess of Pembroke. The +seventh is a singularly unentertaining dispute, in which typical +representatives of age and youth abuse one another by turns; the eighth is +a description of the golden age, a theme Spenser had omitted; and lastly, +in the ninth we return to the opening love-motive, this time, as in the +_Calender_, amid the frosts of winter. + +These eclogues were reprinted in a different order in the 'Poems Lyric and +Pastoral' (_c._ 1606) with one additional poem there numbered the ninth. +This describes a rustic gathering of shepherds and nymphs, and contains +several songs. The verse exhibits no small advance on the earlier work, +and one song at least is in the author's daintiest manner. He seldom +surpassed the graceful conceit of the lines: + + Through yonder vale as I did passe, + Descending from the hill, + I met a smerking bony lasse; + They call her Daffadill: + + Whose presence as along she went, + The prety flowers did greet, + As though their heads they downward bent + With homage to her feete. + +Spenser, in spite of the warning he addressed to his book-- + + Dare not to match thy pype with Tityrus his style, + Nor with the Pilgrim that the Ploughman playde awhyle-- + +could nevertheless assert in semi-burlesque rime: + + It shall continewe till the worlds dissolution; + +and his disciple is not to be outdone. Never was truer lover or sweeter +singer-- + + Oenon never upon Ida hill + So oft hath cald on Alexanders name, + As hath poore Rowland with an Angels quill + Erected trophies of Ideas fame: + Yet that false shepheard, Oenon, fled from thee; + I follow her that ever flies from me. + +Thus Drayton endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of a greater than he, +and small success befell him in his uncongenial task. He knew little and +cared less about the moral and philosophical rags that clung yet about the +pastoral tradition. He sang, in his lighter vein at least, for the mere +pleasure that his song could afford to himself and others: the Spenserian +and traditional garb fits him ill. His golden age is rather amorous than +philosophical; he is more concerned that love should be free and true than +that the earth should yield her fruits unwounded of the plough; and even +so he hastens away from that colourless age to troll the delightful ballad +of Dowsabel. The inspiration for this he found, not in Spenser and his +learned predecessors, but in the popular romances, and in it we hear for +the first time the voice of the real Michael Drayton, the accredited bard +to the court of Faery. So again in the barren dispute of the seventh +eclogue, he turns aside from his theme as the shadow of the winged god +flits across his path-- + + That pretie Cupid, little god of love, + Whose imped winges with speckled plumes been dight, + Who striketh men below and Gods above, + Roving at randon with his feathered flight, + When lovely Venus sits and gives the ayme, + And smiles to see her little Bantlings game. + +If these eclogues formed Drayton's only claim upon our attention as a +pastoral poet there would be no excuse for lingering over him. He left +other work, however, which, if but slightly pastoral in subject, is at +least thoroughly so in form and spirit. The _Muses Elizium_ did not appear +till 1630, and it is consequently not a little premature to speak of it in +this place. It is, however, so important as illustrating the freer and +more spontaneous vein traceable in many English pastoralists from Henryson +onwards, that it is worth while to place it for comparison side by side +with the more orthodox tradition as exemplified, in spite of his +originality, in the work of Spenser. + +The _Muses Elizium_ is in truth the culmination of a long sequence of +pastoral work. Of this I have already discussed the beginnings when +dealing with the native pastoral impulse; and however much it was +influenced at a later date by foreign models it never submitted to the +yoke of orthodox tradition, and to the end retained much of its freshness. +The early anthologies are full of this sort of verse, the song-books are +full of it, and so are the romances and the plays. To this lyrical +tradition belong Breton's songs, of which one has already been quoted; +there was hardly a poet of note at the end of the sixteenth century who +did not contribute his quota. We find it once more, intermingling with a +certain formal strain, in Drayton's _Shepherds' Sirena_ containing the +delightful song, with its subtle interchange of dactylic and iambic +rhythms, so admirably characteristic of the author of the _Agincourt_ +ballad: + + Neare to the Silver Trent + Sirena dwelleth, + Shee to whom Nature lent + All that excelleth; + By which the Muses late + And the neate Graces, + Have for their greater state + Taken their places: + Twisting an Anadem + Wherewith to Crowne her, + As it belong'd to them + Most to renowne her. + On thy Bancke, + In a Rancke + Let thy Swanes sing her + And with their Musick + along let them bring her. + +In this pervading impulse of pure and spontaneous pastoral the soul of +what is sweet and winning in things common and familiar as our household +fairies blends with the fresh glamour of early love and the dainty +delights of an ideal world, where despair is only less sweet than +fruition, and love only less divine than chastity, where, as Drayton +frankly tells us, + + The winter here a Summer is, + No waste is made by time, + Nor doth the Autumne ever misse + The blossomes of the Prime; + + The flower that July forth doth bring, + In Aprill here is seene, + The Primrose, that puts on the Spring, + In July decks each Greene, + +a world, in short, in which the nymphs may strew the laureate hearse, not +only with all the flowers and fruits of earth, but with the Amaranth of +paradise and the stars of heaven if the fancy takes them. Of a spirit +compounded of these elements and of its quintessence are the 'Nymphals' of +the _Muses Elizium_. There are portions of the work, it is true, in which +the more vulgar strains of the conventional pastoral make themselves +heard, as in the satires of the fourth and tenth Nymphals; but for the +most part we are allowed to wander undisturbed among the woods and +pastures of an earthly paradise, and revel in the fairy laureate's most +imaginative work. There we meet Lirope, of whom + + Some said a God did her beget, + But much deceiv'd were they, + Her Father was a Rivelet, + Her Mother was a Fay. + Her Lineaments so fine that were + She from the Fayrie tooke, + Her Beauties and Complection cleere + By nature from the Brooke. + +There Naiis sings, roguishly enough, in the martial metre of _Agincourt_: + + 'Cloe, I scorne my Rime + Should observe feet or time, + Now I fall, then I clime, + What is't I dare not?' + + 'Give thy Invention wing, + And let her flert and fling, + Till downe the Rocks she ding, + For that I care not'; + +the song then breaking off into gamesome anapaests: + + The gentle winds sally + Upon every Valley, + And many times dally + And wantonly sport, + About the fields tracing, + Each other in chasing, + And often imbracing, + In amorous sort. + +There, again, we listen to the litany of the Muses, with the response: + + Sweet Muse, perswade our Phoebus to inspire + Us for his Altars with his holiest fire, + And let his glorious, ever-shining Rayes + Give life and growth to our Elizian Bayes; + +or else hear the fairy prothalamium, most irrepressible and inimitable of +bridal songs-- + + For our Tita is this day + Married to a noble Fay. + +There, lastly, we behold the flutter of tender breasts half veiled when +Venus and her wayward archer are abroad, and listen as fair Lelipa reads +the decree: + + To all th' Elizian Nimphish Nation, + Thus we make our Proclamation + Against Venus and her Sonne, + For the mischeefe they have done: + After the next last of May, + The fixt and peremptory day, + If she or Cupid shall be found + Upon our Elizian ground, + Our Edict mere Rogues shall make them, + And as such, who ere shall take them, + Them shall into prison put; + Cupids wings shall then be cut, + His Bow broken, and his Arrowes + Given to Boyes to shoot at Sparrowes; + And this Vagabond be sent, + Having had due punishment, + To mount Cytheron, which first fed him, + Where his wanton Mother bred him, + And there, out of her protection, + Dayly to receive correction. + Then her Pasport shall be made, + And to Cyprus Isle convayd, + And at Paphos, in her Shryne, + Where she hath beene held divine, + For her offences found contrite, + There to live an Anchorite. + +We have here the very essence of whatever most delicately and quaintly +exquisite the half sincere and half playful ideal of pastoral had +generated since the days of Moschus. + +How is it then, we may pause a moment to inquire, that in spite of its +crudities of language and even of metre, in spite of its threadbare themes +but half repatched with homelier cloth, in spite of its tedious +theological controversies, its more or less conventional loves and more or +less exaggerated panegyrics--how is it that in spite of all this we still +regard the _Shepherd's Calender_ as serious literature; while with all its +exquisite justness, as of ivory carved and tinted by the hand of a master +and encrusted with the sparkle of a thousand gems, the _Muses' Elizium_ +remains a toy? It is not merely the prestige of the author's name: it is +not merely that we tend to accept the work of each at his own valuation. +We have to seek the explanation of the phenomenon in the fact that not +only has the _Shepherd's Calender_ behind it a vast tradition, reverend if +somewhat otiose--the devotion of men counts for something--but also that, +however stiffly laced in an unsuitable garb, it sought to deal with +matters of real import to man, or at any rate with what man has held as +such. It treated questions of religious policy which touched the majority +of men more nearly then than now; with moral problems calculated to +interest the mind of an age still tinged with medievalism; with +philosophical theories of human and divine love. In other words, the +_Shepherd's Calender_ lay in the main stream of literature, and reflected +the mind of the age, while the _Muses' Elizium_, in common with so much +pastoral work, did not. These considerations open up an interesting field +of speculation. Are we to suppose that there is indeed a line of +demarcation between great art and little art wholly independent of that +which divides good art from bad art? Are we to go further, and assume that +these two lines of division intersect, so that a work may be akin to +great art though it be not good art, while, however perfect a work of art +may be, it may remain little art for some wholly non-aesthetic reason? But +we digress. + + + +IV + + +It will be convenient, in dealing with the considerable volume of English +pastoral verse which has come down to us from the late sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, to divide it into two portions, according as it +tends to attach itself to orthodox foreign tradition on the one hand, or +to the more spontaneous native type on the other. To the former division +belong in the main the more ambitious set pieces and eclogue-cycles, to +the latter the lighter and more occasional verse, the pastoral ballads and +the lyrics. The division is necessarily somewhat arbitrary, for the two +traditions act and react on one another incessantly, and the types merge +almost imperceptibly the one into the other; but that does not prevent the +spirit that manifests itself in Drayton's eclogues being essentially +different from that which produced Breton's songs. I shall not, however, +try to draw any hard and fast line between the two, but shall rather deal +first with those writers whose most important work inclines to the more +formal tradition, and shall then endeavour to give some account of the +lighter pastoral verse of the time. + +After the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ some years elapsed +before English poetry again ventured upon the domain of pastoral, at least +in any serious composition. In 1589, however, appeared a small quarto +volume, with the title: 'An Eglogue. Gratulatorie. Entituled: To the right +honorable, and renowmed Shepheard of Albions Arcadia: Robert Earle of +Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from Portugall. Done by George +Peele. Maister of arts in Oxon.' Like the 'A. W.' of the _Rhapsody_, Peele +followed Spenser more closely than most of his fellow imitators in the use +of dialect, but his eclogue on the not particularly glorious return of +Essex has little interest. His importance as a pastoralist lies elsewhere. + +The following year the poet of the _Hecatompathia_, Thomas Watson, a +pastoralist of note according to the critics of his own age, but whose +work in this line is chiefly Latin, published his 'Ecloga in Obitum +Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami, Equitis aurati, Divae +Elizabethae a secretis, & sanctioribus consiliis,' entitled _Meliboeus_, +and also in the same year a translation of the piece into English. The +latter is considerably shorter than the original, but still of tedious +length. The usual transition from the dirge to the paean is managed with +more than the usual lack of effect. The eclogue contains a good deal +beyond its immediate subject; for instance, a lament for Astrophel, a +passage in praise of Spenser, and a panegyric on + + Diana, matchless Queene of Arcadie-- + +all subjects hardly possible for a poet to escape, writing _more +pastorali_ in 1590. Watson also left several other pastoral compositions +in the learned tongue, which, from their eponymous hero, won for him the +shepherd-name of Amyntas. Thus in 1585 he published a work in Latin +hexameter verse with the title 'Amyntas Thomae Watsoni Londinensis I. V. +studiosi,' divided into eleven 'Querelae,' which was 'paraphrastically +translated' by Abraham Fraunce into English hexameters, and published +under the title 'The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis' in +1587. This translation, 'somewhat altered' to serve as a sequel to an +English hexametrical version of Tasso's _Aminta_, was republished in 'The +Countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch' of 1591. Again in 1592 Watson produced +another work entitled _Amintae Gaudia_, part of which was translated under +the title _An Old-fashioned Love_, and published as by I. T. in 1594.[111] + +Next in order--passing over Drayton, with whom we have been already +sufficiently concerned--is a writer who, without the advantage of original +genius or brilliant imagination, succeeded by mere charm of poetic style +and love of natural beauty, in lifting his work above the barren level of +contemporary pastoral verse. Richard Barnfield's _Affectionate Shepherd_, +imitated, as he frankly confesses, from Vergil's _Alexis_, appeared in +1594. Appended to it was a poem similar in tone and spirit, entitled _The +Shepherd's Content_, containing a description of country life and scenery, +together with a lamentation for Sidney, a hymn to love, a praise of the +poets, and other similar matters. The easy if somewhat monotonous grace +which pervades both these pieces is seen to better advantage in the +delightful _Shepherd's Ode_, which appeared in his _Cynthia_ of 1595, and +begins: + + Nights were short and days were long, + Blossoms on the hawthorn hong, + Philomel, night-music's king, + Told the coming of the spring; + +or in the yet more perfect song: + + As it fell upon a day + In the merry month of May, + Sitting in a pleasant shade + Which a group of myrtles made, + Beasts did leap and birds did sing, + Trees did grow and plants did spring, + Everything did banish moan, + Save the nightingale alone; + She, poor bird, as all forlorn, + Lean'd her breast against a thorn, + And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, + That to hear it was great pity.... + Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, + None takes pity on thy pain. + Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee; + Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; + King Pandion he is dead, + All thy friends are lapp'd in lead[112]; + All thy fellow birds do sing, + Careless of thy sorrowing; + Even so, poor bird, like thee, + None alive will pity me[113]. + +No particular interest attaches to the four eclogues included in Thomas +Lodge's _Fig for Momus_, published in 1595, but they serve to throw light +on a kind of pastoral freemasonry that was springing up at this period. +Spenser and Sidney, under the names of Colin and Astrophel, or more rarely +Philisides, were firmly fixed in poetic tradition; Barnfield, by coupling +them with these, made Watson and Drayton free of the craft in his +complaint to Love in the _Shepherd's Content_: + + By thee great Collin lost his libertie, + By thee sweet Astrophel forwent his joy, + By thee Amyntas wept incessantly, + By thee good Rowland liv'd in great annoy. + +Now we find Lodge dedicating his four eclogues respectively to Colin, +Menalcus, Rowland, and Daniel. Who Menalcus was is uncertain; not, it +would seem, a poet. The themes are serious, even weighty according to the +estimation of the author, and befit the mood of the poet who first sought +to acclimatize the classical satire[114]. These eclogues do not, however, +testify to any high poetic gift, any more than do the couple in a lighter +vein found in the _Phillis_ of 1593. Lodge was happier in the lyric verses +with which he strewed his romances--such for instance as the lines to +Phoebe in _Rosalynde_, though these did certainly lay themselves open to +parody[115]. In the same romance Lodge rose for once to a perfection of +delicate conceit unsurpassed from his day to ours: + + Love in my bosom like a bee + Doth suck his sweet; + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet. + + Within mine eyes he makes his nest, + His bed amidst my tender breast; + My kisses are his daily feast, + And yet he robs me of my rest. + Ah, wanton, will ye? + +The year 1595 also saw the publication of Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_, +which contains, according to the not wholly accurate title-page, 'Three +Pastorall Eglogues, in English Hexameter.' These constituted the first +attempt in English at writing original eclogues in Vergilian metre, and +the injudicious experiment has not, I believe, been repeated. The subjects +present little novelty of theme, but the treatment illustrates the natural +tendency of English pastoral writers towards narrative and the influence +of the romantic ballad motives. The same volume contains another work of +Sabie's, namely, the _Fishermaris Tale_, a blank-verse rendering of +Greene's _Pandosto_[116]. + +The three pastoral elegies of William Basse, published in 1602, the last +work of the kind to appear in Elizabeth's reign, form in reality a short +pastoral romance. The court-bred Anander falls in love with the +shepherdess Muridella, and charges the sheep-boy Anetor to convey to her +the knowledge of his passion. His love proving unkind he turns shepherd, +and resolves to remain so until his suit obtains better grace. More than +half a century later, namely in 1653, Basse prepared for press a +manuscript containing a series of pastorals headed 'Clio, or The first +Muse in 9 Eglogues in honor of 9 vertues,' and arranged according to the +days of the week. The whole composition is singularly lacking alike in +interest and merit.[117] + +It is not surprising to find the eclogues of the early years of James' +reign reflecting current events. In 1603 appeared a curious compilation, +the work of Henry Chettle, bearing the title: 'Englandes Mourning Garment: +Worne here by plaine Shepheardes; in memorie of their sacred Mistresse, +Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue while shee lived, and Theame of Sorrow, being +dead. To which is added the true manner of her Emperiall Funerall. After +which foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for entertainement of King +James our most potent Soveraigne. Dedicated to all that loved the deceased +Queene, and honor the living King.' The book is a strange medley of verse +and prose, elegies on Elizabeth in the form of eclogues, and political +lectures written in the style of the pastoral romance. The most +interesting passage is an address to contemporary poets reproaching them +for their neglect of the praises of the late queen. The pastoral names +under which they are introduced appear to be merely nonce appellations, +but are worth recording as they refer to a set outside the usual pastoral +circle. Thus Corin is Chapman; Musaeus, of course Marlowe; English Horace, +no doubt Jonson; Melicert, Shakespeare; Coridon, Drayton; Anti-Horace, +most likely Dekker, and Moelibee, mentioned with him, possibly Marston. To +Musidore, 'Hewres last Musaeus' (no doubt corrupt), and the 'infant muse,' +it is more difficult to assign an identity.[118] Throughout Chettle +assumes to himself Spenser's pastoral title. + +To the same or the following year belong the twelve eclogues by Edward +Fairfax, the translater of Tasso's _Gerusalemme_, which are now for the +most part lost. One, the fourth, was printed in 1737 from the original +manuscript, another in 1883 from a later transcript in the Bodleian, while +a third is preserved in a fragmentary state in the British Museum.[119] +All three deal chiefly with contemporary affairs, the two former being +concerned with the abuses of the church, while the last is a panegyric of +the 'present age,' and especially of English maritime adventure. This is +certainly the most pleasing of the three, though the style is at times +pretentious and over-charged with far-fetched allusions. There are, +however, fine passages, as for instance the lines on Drake: + + And yet some say that from the Ocean maine, + He will returne when Arthur comes againe. + +More directly concerned with the political events of the day is the +curious eclogue [Greek: Da/phnis Polyste/phanos] by Sir George Buc, +published in 1605, in praise of the Genest crown, the royal right by +Apollo's divine decree of a long line of English kings, who are passed +in review by way of introduction to the praises of their latest +representative. The work was revised by an unknown hand for the accession +of Charles, and republished under the title of _The Great Plantagenet_ in +1635, as by 'Geo. Buck, Gent.' Sir George held the post of Master of the +Revels from 1608 to 1622, and died the following year. + +In 1607 appeared a poem 'Mirrha the Mother of Adonis,' by William +Barksted, to which were appended three eclogues by Lewes Machin.[120] Of +these, one describes the love of a shepherd and his nymph, while the other +two treat the theme of Apollo and Hyacinth. Composed in easy verse of no +particular distinction these poems belong to that borderland between the +idyllic and the salacious on which certain shepherd-poets loved to dally. + +The years 1614 and 1615 saw the appearance of works of considerably +greater interest from every point of view, among others from that of what +I have described as pastoral freemasonry. In the former year there +appeared a small octavo volume entitled _The Shepherd's Pipe_. The chief +contributor was William Browne of Tavistock, the first book of whose +pastoral epic, _Britannia's Pastorals_, had appeared the previous year. +Besides seven eclogues from his pen, the volume contained one by +Christopher Brooke, one by Sir John Davies, and two by George Wither. +These last two were republished in 1615, with three additional pieces, in +Wither's collection entitled _The Shepherd's Hunting_. With the exception +of one or two of Browne's, these fourteen eclogues all deal with the +personal relation of the friends who disguise themselves respectively, +Browne as Willy, Wither as Roget (a name later exchanged for that of +Philarete), Brooke as Cuddie, and Davies as Wernock. Wither's were +written, as we learn from the title-page of the 1615 volume, while the +author was in prison in the Marshalsea for hunting vice with a pack of +satires in full cry, that is, the _Abuses Stript and Whipt_ of 1611. The +verse seldom rises above an amiable mediocrity, the best that can be said +for it being that it carries on, in a not wholly unworthy manner, the +dainty tradition of the octosyllabic couplet between the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ and Milton's early poems. Browne's eclogues are chiefly +remarkable for the introduction into the first of a long and rather +tedious tale derived from a manuscript of Thomas Occleve's. The last of +the series, an elegy on the death of Thomas, son of Sir Peter Manwood, has +been quoted as the model of _Lycidas_, but the resemblance begins and ends +with the fact that in either case the subject of the poem met his death by +drowning--a resemblance which will scarcely support a charge of +plagiarism[121]. + +In 1621 appeared six eclogues under the title of _The Shepherd's Tales_ by +the prolific miscellaneous writer Richard Brathwaite. Each in its turn +recounts the amorous misfortunes of some swain, which usually arise out of +the inconstancy of his sweetheart, and the prize of infelicity having been +adjudged, the author, not perhaps without a touch of malice, sends the +whole company off to a wedding. The _Tales_ are noteworthy for the very +pronounced dramatic gift they reveal, being in this respect quite unique +in their kind. The same year saw the publication of the not very +successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative +in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.' Brathwaite +had already in 1614 published the _Poet's Willow_, containing a +'Pastorall' which recounts the unsuccessful love of Berillus, an Arcadian +shepherd, for the nymph Eliza[122]. + +Pursuing the chronological order we come next to Phineas Fletcher's +'Piscatorie Eclogs' appended to his _Purple Island_ in 1633. Except that +the scene is laid on the banks of a river instead of in the pastures, and +that the characters spend their time looking after boats and nets instead +of tending flocks, they differ in nought from the strictly pastoral +compositions. They are seven in number, and deal either with personal +subjects or with conventional themes. As an imitation of the _Shepherd's +Calender_, without its uncouthness whether of subject or language, and +equally without its originality or higher poetic value, the work is not +wanting in merit, but it is most decidedly wanting in all power to arrest +the reader's attention. + +The last collection that will claim our notice is that of Francis Quarles, +which appeared posthumously in 1646 under the title of 'The Shepheards +Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues[123]. The interest of the volume +lies not so much in its poetic merit, which however is considerable, as in +the fact that it deals with almost every form of religious controversy at +a critical point in English history. Quarles was a stanch Anglican, and he +lashes Romanists and Precisians with impartial severity. One of the +eclogues opens with a panegyric on Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of +which a messenger enters bearing the news of his death, thus fixing the +date of the poem in all probability in the winter of 1632-3. In the +eleventh and last the Puritan party is mercilessly satirized in the person +of Anarchus, in allusion to the supposed socialistic tendency of its +teaching. He is thus described in a dialogue between Philarchus and +Philorthus (the lovers of order and justice presumably): + + _Philor._ How like a Meteor made of zeal and flame + The man appears! + + _Philar._ Or like a blazing Star + Portending change of State, or some sad War, + Or death of some good Prince. + + _Philor._ He is the trouble + Of three sad Kingdoms. + + _Philar._ Even the very Bubble, + The froth of troubled waters. + + _Philor._ Hee's a Page + Fill'd with Errata's of the present Age. + + _Philar._ The Churches Scourge-- + + _Philor._ The devils _Enchiridion_-- + + _Philar._ The Squib, the _Ignis fatuus_ of Religion. + +To their address Anarchus replies in a song which it would be easy to +illustrate from the dramatic literature of the time, and which well +indicates the estimation in which the faction was popularly held. Here is +one verse: + + Wee'l down with all the Varsities, + Where Learning is profest, + Because they practise and maintain + The Language of the Beast: + Wee'l drive the Doctors out of doores, + And Arts what ere they be, + Wee'l cry both Arts, and Learning down, + And, hey! then up goe we. + +The whole song for sheer rollicking hypocrisy is without parallel in the +language. The date of the poem is doubtful, but Quarles lived till 1644, +and after two years of civil strife the terms which the interlocutors in +the above passage apply to the Puritan party can hardly be regarded as +prophetic. + +Besides the works we have examined above, several others are known to have +existed, though they are not now traceable. Thus 'The sweete sobbes, and +amorous Complaintes of Shepardes and Nymphes in a fancye confusde by An +Munday' was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company on August 19, +1583. Two years earlier, on August 3, 1581, had been entered 'A Shadowe of +Sannazar.' Again we know, alike from Wood's _Athenae_ and Meres' _Palladis +Tamia_, that Stephen Gosson left works of the kind of which we have now no +trace; while Puttenham in his _Art of English Poesy_ mentions an eclogue +of his own, addressed to Edward VI, and entitled _Elpine_. Puttenham and +Meres in dealing with pastoral writers also mention one Challener, no +doubt the Thomas Chaloner who contributed to the _Mirror for Magistrates_, +and Nashe in his preface to _Menaphon_ adds Thomas Atchelow, who may be +plausibly identified with the Thomas Achelly who contributed verses to +Watson's _Hecatompathia_ and various sententious fragments to _England's +Parnassus_, among them a not very happy rendering of those lines of +Catullus which might almost be taken as a motto to pastoral poetry as a +whole: + + The sun doth set, and brings again the day, + But when our light is gone, we sleep for aye. + + + +V + + +It is not easy to arrange the mass of occasional lyric verse of a pastoral +nature in a manner to facilitate a general survey. We may perhaps divide +it roughly into general groups which possess certain points in common and +can be treated more or less independently. Little would be gained by +following a strictly chronological order, even were it possible to do so. + +We occasionally meet with translations, though from the nature of the case +these, as well as evidences of direct foreign influence, are less +prominent here than in the more formal type of pastoral verse. We have +already seen that Googe, besides borrowing from Garcilaso's version of a +portion of the _Arcadia_, himself paraphrased passages of the _Diana_ in +his eclogues, and the latter work also supplied material for the pen of +Sir Philip Sidney. His debt consists in translations of two songs from +Montemayor's romance, printed among his miscellaneous poems[124]. About a +dozen translations from the same source appeared in _England's Helicon_, +the work of Bartholomew Yong. They are for the most part very inferior to +the general average of the collection, but the opening of one at least is +worth quoting: + + 'Guardami las vaccas, + Carillo, por tu f.-- + Besami primero, + Yo te las guardar.' + + I prithee keep my kine for me, + Carillo, wilt thou? tell.-- + First let me have a kiss of thee, + And I will keep them well. + +Another translation is the poem headed 'A Pastorall' in Daniel's _Delia_ +of 1592, a rendering of the famous chorus to the first act of Tasso's +_Aminta_. + +When we turn to original verse, the first group of poets to arrest our +attention is the court circle which gathered round Sir Philip Sidney. +There is a poem by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, preserved in +Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_, and there headed 'A Dialogue between two +Shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astrea.' It was composed for the +entertainment of the queen, and was no doubt sung or recited in character. +Such was likewise the mode of production of Sir Philip's 'Dialogue between +two Shepherds, uttered in a pastoral show at Wilton,'[125] which is more +rustic in character. _Astrophel and Stella_ supplies a graceful 'complaint +to his flock' against the cruelty of + + Stella, fiercest shepherdess, + Fiercest, but yet fairest ever; + Stella, whom the heavens still bless, + Though against me she persever. + Though I bliss inherit never. + +The _Poetical Rhapsody_ again preserves two others, the outcome of +Sidney's friendship with Greville and Dyer. The first is a song of +welcome; the second, headed 'Dispraise of a Courtly Life,' ends with the +prayer: + + Only for my two loves' sake, + In whose love I pleasure take; + Only two do me delight + With the ever-pleasing sight; + Of all men to thee retaining, + Grant me with these two remaining. + +Of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the loyal admirer and biographer of +Sidney, who desired on his tomb no better passport to posterity than that +he had been Sir Philip's friend, we have among other works published in +1633 a series of so-called sonnets recording his love for the fair +Caelica. There is a thin veil of pastoralism over the whole, with here and +there a more definite note as in 'Sonnet' 75, a poem of over two hundred +lines lamenting his lady's cruelty-- + + Shepheardesses, yet marke well + The Martyrdome of Philocell. + +Of Sir Edward Dyer's works no early edition was published. Such isolated +poems as have survived were collected by Grosart in 1872 from a variety of +sources. If the piece entitled _Cynthia_ is authentic, it gives him a +respectable place beside Greville among the minor pastoralists of his day. +Lastly, in connexion with Sidney we may note a curious poem which appeared +in the first edition of the _Arcadia_ only.[126] It is a 'bantering' +eclogue, in which the shepherds Nico and Pas first abuse one another and +then fall to a comic singing match. It is evidently suggested by the fifth +Idyl of Theocritus, and is a fair specimen of a very uncommon class in +English. Akin to this is the burlesque variety, of which we have already +met with examples in Lorenzo's _Nencia_ and Pulci's _Beca_, and which is +almost equally rare with us. A specimen will be found in the not very +successful eclogue in Greene's _Menaphon_. The following is as near as the +author was able to approach to Lorenzo's delicately playful tone: + + Carmela deare, even as the golden ball + That Venus got, such are thy goodly eyes: + When cherries juice is jumbled therewithall, + Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies. + +It would, of course, be grossly unfair to judge Robert Greene, the +ever-sinning and ever-repentant, by the above injudicious experiment. His +lyrical powers appear in a very different light, for instance, in the +'Palmer's Ode' in _Never Too Late_ (1590), one of the most charming of his +many confessions: + + As I lay and kept my sheepe, + Came the God that hateth sleepe, + Clad in armour all of fire, + Hand in hand with Queene Desire, + And with a dart that wounded nie, + Pearst my heart as I did lie, + That, when I wooke, I gan sweare + Phillis beautie palme did beare. + +From the same romance I must do Greene the justice of quoting the +delightful, though but remotely pastoral, song of every loving nymph to her +bashful swain: + + Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Upon thy Venus that must die? + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + + See how sad thy Venus lies-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Love in heart and tears in eyes; + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + +It is hard to refrain from quoting half a dozen other pieces. There is the +courting of Phillis in _Perimedes the Blacksmith_ (1588), with its purely +idyllic close; or again the famous 'Shepherd's Wife's Song' from the +_Mourning Garment_ (1590): + + Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing, + As sweet unto a shepherd as a king; + And sweeter too, + For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, + And cares can make the sweetest love to frown: + Ah then, ah then, + If country loves such sweet desires do gain, + What lady would not love a shepherd swain? + +No one not utterly callous to the pathos of human life, or warped by some +ethical twist beyond the semblance of a man, has ever been able to pass +unmoved by the figure of Robert Greene. We see him, the poet of all that +is truest and tenderest in human affection, abandoning his young wife and +child, drawn by the power of some fatal fascination into the whirlpool of +low life in London, and then, as if inspired by a sudden revelation of +objective vision, penning the throbbing lines of the forsaken mother's +song: + + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. + +We see him again amid the despair and squalor of his death-bed, warning +his friends against his own example, and addressing to the wife he had not +seen for years those words endorsed on a bill for ten pounds, words ever +memorable in the history of English letters: 'Doll, I charge thee by the +love of our youth, and by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man +paid; for if he and his wife had not succoured me I had died in the +streets.' Such are the scenes of sordid misery which underlie some of the +choicest of English songs. It is best to return to the surface. + +The lyric 'sequences' published towards the close of the sixteenth +century frequently contain more or less pastoral matter. Barnabe Barnes +appended some poems of this sort to his _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_ (c. +1593), among others a version of Moschus' idyl of runaway love, a theme +which had long been a favourite one with pastoral writers. Poliziano's +Latin translation of Moschus[127] was commended by E. K. in his notes to +the _Shepherd's Calender_, and the same original supplied Tasso with the +subject of his _Amore fuggitivo_, which served as epilogue to the +_Aminta_. William Smith's _Chloris_ (1596), except for plentiful swearing +by pastoral deities, is less bucolic in spite of its dedication to Colin +Clout. The most important of the sequences from our present point of view +is Nicholas Breton's _Passionate Shepherd,_ which was not published till +1604. It contains five pastorals in praise of Aglaia: + + Had I got a kingly grace, + I would leave my kingly place + And in heart be truly glad + To become a country lad, + Hard to lie and go full bare, + And to feed on hungry fare, + So I might but live to be + Where I might but sit to see, + Once a day, or all day long, + The sweet subject of my song; + In Aglaia's only eyes + All my worldly paradise. + +This is a fair specimen of Breton's dainty muse, but his choicest work +appeared in that wonderful anthology published in 1600 under the title of +_England's Helicon_. To this collection Breton contributed such verses as +the following: + + On a hill there grows a flower-- + Fair befall the dainty sweet!-- + By that flower there is a bower, + Where the heavenly muses meet. + + In that bower there is a chair, + Fringd all about with gold; + Where doth sit the fairest fair, + That ever eye did yet behold. + + It is Phyllis fair and bright, + She that is the shepherd's joy; + She that Venus did despite, + And did bind her little boy. + +Or again: + + Good Muse, rock me asleep + With some sweet harmony; + The weary eye is not to keep + Thy wary company. + + Sweet Love, begone awhile, + Thou knowest my heaviness; + Beauty is born but to beguile + My heart of happiness. + +Another poem no less perfect has been already quoted at length. In its own +line, the delicate carving of fair images as in crystal or some precious +stone, Breton's work is unsurpassed. We cannot do better than take, as +examples of a very large class, some of the poems printed, in most cases +for the first time, in _England's Helicon_. Of Henry Constable, the poet +indicated doubtless by the initiais H. C., we have a charming song between +Phillis and Amaryllis, the counterpart and imitation of Spenser's +'Bonibell' ballad: + + _P._ Fie on the sleights that men devise-- + (Heigho, silly sleights!) + When simple maids they would entice. + (Maids are young men's chief delights.) + _A._ Nay, women they witch with their eyes-- + (Eyes like beams of burning sun!) + And men once caught they do despise; + So are shepherds oft undone. + + * * * * * + + _P._ If every maid were like to me-- + (Heigho, hard of heart!) + Both love and lovers scorn'd should be. + (Scorners shall be sure of smart.) + _A._ If every maid were of my mind-- + (Heigho, heigho, lovely sweet!) + They to their lovers should prove kind; + Kindness is for maidens meet[128]. + +Of Sir John Wotton, the short-lived half-brother of the more famous Sir +Henry, there is a spirited song, betraying unusual command over a +complicated rhythm: + + Jolly shepherd, shepherd on a hill, + On a hill so merrily, + On a hill so cheerily, + Fear not, shepherd, there to pipe thy fill; + Fill every dale, fill every plain; + Both sing and say, 'Love feels no pain.' + +Another graceful poet of _England's Helicon_ is the 'Shepherd Tony,' whose +identity with Anthony Munday was finally established by Mr. Bullen. He +contributed, among other verses, a not very interesting reply to Harpelus' +complaint in 'Tottel's Miscellany,' and the well-known and exquisite: + + Beauty sat bathing by a spring + Where fairest shades did hide her, + +which reappears in his translation of the Castilian romance _Primelion_. + +In Marlowe's 'Passionate Shepherd to his Love,' of which _England's +Helicon_ supplies one of three texts[129], we come to what is, with the +possible exception of _Lycidas_ alone, the most subtly modulated specimen +of pastoral verse in English. So far as internal evidence is concerned the +poem has absolutely nothing but its own perfection to connect it with the +name of Marlowe; it is utterly unlike all other verse, dramatic, +narrative, or lyric, ascribed to him. An admirable eclectic text, which +exhibits to the full the delicacy of the rhythm, has been prepared by Mr. +Bullen in his edition of Marlowe's works. It would be impossible not to +quote the piece in full: + + Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and vallies, dales and fields, + Woods or steepy mountain yields. + + And we will sit upon the rocks, + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals. + + And I will make thee beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies, + A cap of flowers and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-lined[130] slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold. + + A belt of straw and ivy-buds, + With coral clasps and amber studs; + And if these pleasures may thee move, + Come live with me, and be my love. + + The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing + For thy delight each May-morning: + If these delights thy mind may move, + Then live with me, and be my love. + +The popularity of this poem was testified by its widespread influence on +the poets of the day. _England's Helicon_ contains 'the Nymphs reply,' +commonly attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also a long imitation; +Donne wrote a piscatory version, and Herrick paid it the sincerest form of +flattery, while less distinct reminiscences are common in the poetry of +the time. Yet Kit Marlowe's verses stand unrivalled. + +The pastoral influence in Shakespeare's verse, both lyric and dramatic, is +too obvious to need more than passing notice. Every reader will recall +'Who is Sylvia,' from the _Two Gentlemen_, and 'It was a lover and his +lass,' the song of which, in Touchstone's opinion, 'though there was no +great matter in the ditty, yet the tune was very untuneable,' or again the +famous speech of the chidden king: + + O God! methinks it were a happy life, + To be no better than a homely swain; + (3 _Henry VI_, II. v. 21.) + +and Arthur's exclamation: + + By my christendom + So I were out of prison and kept sheep, + I should be as merry as the day is long. + (_K. John_, IV. i. 16.) + +One poem, bearing a certain resemblance to verses of Barnfield's already +discussed, may be quoted here. It was originally printed in the fourth +act of _Love's Labour's Lost_ in 1598, reappeared in the _Passionate +Pilgrim_ in 1599, and again in _England's Helicon_ in 1600. + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May, + Spied a blossom passing fair + Playing in the wanton air. + Through the velvet leaves the wind + All unseen gan passage find, + That the shepherd, sick to death, + Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. + Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; + Air, would I might triumph so! + But, alas, my hand hath sworn + Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; + Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, + Youth is apt to pluck a sweet. + [Do not call it sin in me + That I am forsworn for thee;] + Thou for whom Jove would swear + Juno but an Ethiope were, + And deny himself for Jove, + Turning mortal for thy love.[131] + +Lastly, _England's Helicon_ preserves two otherwise unknown poems of +Drayton's, one probably an early work, having little to recommend it +beyond the pretty though not original conceit: + + See where little Cupid lies + Looking babies in her eyes! + +the other similar in style to the eclogue first published in the +collection of c. 1606. About contemporary possibly is the anonymous ballad +'Phillida flouts me,' which in command alike of rhythm and language is +remarkably reminiscent of some, and that some of the best, of Drayton's +work. + + Oh, what a plague is love! + How shall I bear it? + She will unconstant prove, + I greatly fear it. + + It so torments my mind + That my strength faileth; + She wavers with the wind, + As the ship saileth. + Please her the best you may, + She looks another way; + Alas and well-a-day! + Phillida flouts me[132]. + +I have already had occasion to mention the mysterious A. W. in Davison's +_Poetical Rhapsody_, but I cannot refrain from calling attention to one +other poem of his. It is headed 'A fiction, how Cupid made a nymph wound +herself with his arrows,' and is perhaps the nearest thing in English to a +Greek _idyllion_, though in the manner of Moschus rather than of +Theocritus. The opening scene will give an idea of the style: + + It chanced of late a shepherd's swain, + That went to seek a strayd sheep, + Within a thicket on the plain, + Espied a dainty nymph asleep. + + Her golden hair o'erspread her face, + Her careless arms abroad were cast, + Her quiver had her pillow's place, + Her breast lay bare to every blast. + + The shepherd stood, and gazed his fill; + Nought durst he do, nought durst he say; + When chance, or else perhaps his will, + Did guide the god of love that way. + +And so the long pageant troops by, not without its passages of dullness, +its moments of pedestrian gait, for it must be borne in mind that the +poems quoted above are for the most part the choice of what has survived +in a few volumes, and that this in its turn represents the gleanings from +a far larger body of verse that once existed. In spite of its perennial +freshness the charge of want of originality has not unreasonably been +brought even against the best compositions of the kind. It could hardly be +otherwise. Except in the rarest cases originality was impossible. The +impulse was to write a certain kind of amatory verse, for which the +fashionable medium was pastoral; not to write pastoral for its own sake. +The demand was for convention, the familiar, the expected; never for +originality or truth. The fault was in the poetic requirements of the age, +and must not be laid to the charge of those admirable craftsmen who gave +the age what it wanted; especially when in so doing they enriched English +poetry with some of its choicest gems. + +The pastoral lyric of the next two reigns is far too wide a subject to be +entered upon here. Grave or gay, satirical or idyllic, coy or wanton, +there is scarcely a poet of note or obscurity who did not contribute his +share. Nowhere is a rarer note of pastoral to be found than in +_L'Allegro_, with its + + every shepherd tells his tale + Under the hawthorn in the vale. + +Before, however, saying farewell to this, the lighter side of English +pastoral verse, I would call attention to a poem which perhaps more than +any other illustrates the spirit of _volutt idillica_, characteristic of +so much that possesses abiding value in pastoral. Unfortunately Carew's +_Rapture_ is almost throughout of a nature that forbids reproduction +except in a scientific edition, or an admittedly erotic collection. Though +its licence is coterminous with the bounds of natural desire, the candour +of its appeal to unvitiated nature saves it from reproach, and the +perfection of its form makes it an object of never-failing beauty. The +idea with which the poem opens, the escape to a land where all +conventional restrictions cease to have a meaning, was of course suggested +by the first chorus of the _Aminta_: + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno; + Quel che dal volgo insano + Onor poscia fu detto-- + Che di nostra natura 'l feo tiranno. + +I can only extract one short passage out of Tom Carew's poem, that which +describes how + + Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot + Which th' angry Gods had fast'ned with a root + To the fix'd earth, doth now unfetter'd run + To meet th' embraces of the youthful Sun. + She hangs upon him, like his Delphic Lyre; + Her kisses blow the old, and breath new, fire; + Full of her God, she sings inspired lays, + Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the Bays, + Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies + In Petrarch's learned arms, drying those eyes + That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow, + As made the world enamoured of his woe. + +This is not itself pastoral, but it belongs to that idyllic borderland +which we previously noticed in dealing with Italian verse. And again, as +in Italy, so in England, we find the same spirit infusing the mythological +tales. Did time and space allow it would be an interesting diversion to +trace how the pastoral spirit evinced itself in such works as Peele's +_Tale of Troy_, Lodge's _Scilla's Metamorphosis_, Drayton's _Man in the +Moon_, Brathwaite's _Narcissus Change_ (in the _Golden Fleece_), and found +articulate utterance in the voluptuous cadences of _Venus and Adonis_. + + + +VI + + +There are two specimens of English pastoral verse which I have reserved +for separate discussion in this place, namely, _Lycidas_ and _Britannia's +Pastorals_. The one is probably the most perfect example of the +allegorical pastoral produced since first the form was invented by Vergil, +the other the longest and most ambitious poem ever composed on a pastoral +theme.[133] + +Milton's poem was written on the occasion of the death of Edward King, +fellow of Christ's College, who was drowned on his way to Ireland during +the long vacation of 1637, and first appeared in a collection of memorial +verses by his Cambridge friends published in 1638. It gathers together +within its narrow compass as it were whole centuries of pastoral +tradition, fusing them into an organic whole, and inspiring the form with +a poetic life of its own. + + Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more + Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sear, + I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, + And with forc'd fingers rude, + Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. + +For Lycidas is dead and claims his meed of song. + + Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, + That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; + Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string. + +Sing first their friendship, nursed upon the self-same hill, their youth +spent together. But oh! the heavy change; now the very caves and woods +mourn his loss. Where then were the Muses, that their loved poet should +die? And yet what could they do for Lycidas, who had no power to shield +Orpheus himself, + + When by the rout that made the hideous roar, + His goary visage down the stream was sent, + Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore. + +What then avails the poet's toil? Were it not better to taste the sweets +of love as they offer themselves since none can count on reward in this +life? The prize, however, lies elsewhere-- + + Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. + +But such thoughts are too lofty for the swains of Arethusa and Mincius. +Listen rather as the herald of the sea questions the god of winds about +the fatal wreck. It was no storm drove the ill-starred boat to +destruction: + + The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine, + Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd, + +sounds the reply. Next, footing slow, comes the tutelary deity of Alma +Mater, and in one sad cry mourns the promise of a life so soon cut short. +Lastly, 'The Pilot of the Galilean lake,' with denunciation of the +corrupt hirelings of a venal age, laments the loss of the church in the +death of Lycidas. As his solemn figure passes by, the gracious fantasies +of pastoral landscape shrink away: now + + Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past, + That shrunk thy streams, + +bid the nymphs bring flowers of every hue, + + To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies-- + +and yet indeed even this comfort is denied, we dally with false +imaginings, + + Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas + Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurld, + Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, + Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide + Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world, + +or on the Cornish coast, + + Where the great vision of the guarded Mount + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. + +But enough! + + Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more, + For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar, + So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, + And yet anon repairs his drooping head, + And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore, + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. + +On this note the elegy ends, and there follow eight lines in which the +poet glances at his own pastoral self that has been singing, and realizes +that the world will go on even though Lycidas be no more, and that there +are other calls in life than that of piping on an oaten reed. These lines +correspond to the plain stanzaic frames in which Spenser set his lyrics in +the _Shepherd's Calender_: + + Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th' Okes and rills, + While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, + He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, + With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: + And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the Western bay; + At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: + To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. + +The poem, in common with the whole class of allegorical pastorals, is +undoubtedly open to the charge of artificiality, since, in truth, the +pastoral garb can never illustrate, but only distort and obscure subjects +drawn from other orders of civilization. Yet none but a great master +could, to produce a desired effect, have utilized every association which +tradition afforded with the consummate skill observable in Milton's poem. +He has been blamed for the introduction of St. Peter, on the ground of +incongruity; but he has tradition on his side. St. Peter, as we have +already seen, figures, under the name of Pamphilus, in the eclogues of +Petrarch, and his introduction by Milton is in nicest keeping with the +spirit of the kind. The whole poem, and indeed a great deal more, must +stand or fall with the Pilot of the Galilean Lake, for to censure his +introduction here is to condemn the whole pastoral tradition of three +centuries, a judgement which may or may not be just, but which is not a +criticism on Milton's poem. So again with the flowers that are to be +strewn on the laureate hearse. Three kinds of berries and eleven kinds of +flowers are mentioned, and it has been pointed out with painful accuracy +that nine of the latter would have been over, and none of the former ripe +on August 11, when King was drowned; while all the flowers, with the +exception of the amaranth, if it were of the true breed, would have been +dead and rotten in November, when the poem was presumably written. It +would be foolish to quarrel with Milton on this point, since where all is +imaginary such licence is as natural as the strictest botany; yet it must +not be forgotten that it is just this disseverance from actuality that has +made the eclogue the type of all that is frigid and artificial in +literature. The dissatisfaction felt by many with _Lycidas_ was voiced by +Dr. Johnson, when he wrote: 'It is not to be considered the effusion of +real passion, for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions.... Where there is leisure for fiction there is little +grief[134].' This is so absolutely true, with regard to the present poem +at all events, that it would appear hardly worth saying were it not that +there have always been found persons to maintain the contrary. There is no +reason whatever to suppose that Milton felt any keen personal grief at the +death of Edward King. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing, one might +almost say, genuine in the lament. This is indeed strictly irrelevant to +the question of its artistic merit, but it must nevertheless be admitted +that there is thus much justice in the censure, that the poem purports to +be the expression of an intimate sorrow, of the reality of which the +reader is never wholly convinced. In so far as it lacks this +'soul-compelling power,' it may be said, not unfairly, to fail of its own +artistic purpose. + +One further question, however, inevitably presents itself when we have to +consider such a work as _Lycidas_, a work, that is, in which art has +attained the highest perfection in one particular kind. Although the +objections urged against the individual poem may be shown to miss their +mark as criticisms on that poem, may they not have force as criticisms on +the class? The allegorical pastoral, though in one sense, as I have said, +created by Vergil, was yet, in another, a plant of slow growth, and +represents a tradition gradually evolved to meet the needs of a long line +of poets. Petrarch, Mantuan, Marot, Spenser were more than mere imitators +of Vergil or of one another; they wrote in a particular form because it +answered to particular requirements, and they fashioned it in the using. +Nevertheless it may be urged with undoubted force, that the requirements +were not primarily of an artistic nature, being ever governed by some +alien purpose, and that consequently the form which evolved itself in +answer to those requirements and to fulfil that purpose, was not by nature +calculated to yield the highest artistic results. And thus, though any +attempt to question the perfection of the art which Milton brought to the +composition of his elegy must needs be foredoomed to failure, the question +of the propriety of the form as an artistic medium remains open; and in so +far as critical opinion tends to give an unfavourable answer, in so far +does the form of pastoral instituted by Vergil and handed down without +break from the fourteenth century to Milton's own time stand condemned in +its most perfect flower. + +Few things could be less like _Lycidas_ than the work which next claims +our attention. Unique of its kind, and, in spite of its shortcomings, +possessed of no small poetic interest, William Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ may be regarded at pleasure either as a pastoral epic or as a +versified romance. It resembles the prose romances in being by nature +discursive, episodic and inconsequent, and like not a few it remained +unfinished. Little would be gained by giving any detailed analysis of the +plot developed through the leisurely amplitude of its 10,000 lines, while +any attempt to deal, however slightly, with the sources and literary +analogues of the work would lead us far beyond the scope of the present +chapter[135]. With regard to the latter, it must suffice to note that +among the works to which incidents can be directly traced are Tasso's +_Gerusalemme_, Montemayor's _Diana_, and Fletcher's _Faithful +Shepherdess_, while a more general indebtedness may in particular be +observed to Chaucer, _Piers Plowman_, and the _Faery Queen_. The plot +involves two more or less connected threads of action, the one dealing +with the adventures of the swains and shepherdesses, the other concerned +with the progress of Thetis and her court. This latter recalls the poetic +geography of Drayton's _Polyolbion_. The principal episodes in the former +are the loves of Celandine and Marina, and the allegorical story of Fida +and Aletheia, each of which leads to numerous ramifications. Indeed, so +far as the pastoral action is concerned, the whole is one string of barely +connected episodes. + +Celandine loves the shepherdess Marina, who is readily brought to return +his affection. To the love thus easily won he soon becomes indifferent, +and Marina in despair seeks to end her sorrows in a stream. Saved by the +god of the fountain, she is carried off to Mona, and there imprisoned in a +cave by the monster Limos (hunger). With her loss, Celandine's love +revives, and in his search for her he is led to visit the faery realm, +where he finds Spenser lying asleep. The poem ends abruptly in the midst +of his adventures. The story of Fida centres round the slaughter of her +pet hind by the monster Riot. From the mangled remains of the animal rises +the beautiful form of Aletheia (truth). The new-transformed nymph is the +daughter of Chronos (time), born, Pallas-like, without a mother. The +narrative of her rejection by the world gives occasion for some biting +satire on the ill-living of the religious orders, the vanity of the court, +and the dishonesty of the crafts. Meanwhile Riot, who from this point +ceases to be an embodiment of cruelty, and comes to typify fallen +humanity--the _Humanum Genus_ of the moralities--passing successively by +Remembrance, Remorse, and Repentance, is purged of his foul shape, and +appears as the shepherd Amyntas, finally to be united in marriage with +Aletheia. With these adventures is interwoven the progress of Thetis, who +comes to view her dominions. From the Euxine and the Hellespont her train +sweeps on by Adriatic and Atlantic shores, past lands which call up the +names of a long line of poets--Vergil, Ovid, Ariosto, Petrarch, Tasso, Du +Bartas, Marot, Ronsard--till ultimately she arrives off the coast of +Devon--the Devon of Browne and Drake. Here the shepherds assemble to do +her honour, from Colin Clout down to Browne's immediate circle, Brooke, +Davies, and Wither, and here the poet entertains her with the tale of +Walla and Tavy, which forms a charming incidental piece. The nymph Walla +loved the river-god Tavy, and while gathering flowers to weave a garland +for him was surprised by a satyr, who pursued her into a wood. She sought +refuge in a cave, where, being overtaken by her pursuer, she prayed to +Diana, and in the last resort to Ina, by whom she was transformed into a +spring, which, after drowning the venturesome satyr, ran on to join its +waters with those of her beloved Tavy. Thus Browne wove the common names +of his familiar home into a romance of pastoral invention. The +metamorphosis of Arethusa pursued by Alpheus, of Ambra by Ombrone, of the +nymphs by the satyrs of the _Salices_, or as frescoed on the temple of +Pales in the _Arcadia_, the loves of Mulla and Mollana in Spenser, and the +mythological impersonations of the _Polyolbion_, find, as it were, a +meeting-place in Browne's lay of Walla. + +The three parts of _Britannia's Pastorals_ did not appear together. Book +I was published during the winter of 1613-14, Book II in 1616, each +containing five songs; while the fragment of Book III, containing two +songs only, remained in manuscript till 1853, when it was discovered in +the Cathedral Library at Salisbury, and printed for the Percy +Society[136]. + +The narrative, as may have been inferred from what has already been said, +is sufficiently fantastic. In the introduction of allegorical characters +Browne was probably influenced by Spenser, and in a lesser degree by the +masque literature of his day and by the study of Langland. Since the work +is unfinished, we may in charity suppose that had Browne completed his +design the whole would have presented a somewhat less incongruous +appearance; there is, however, a marked tendency towards the accumulation +of unexplained incidents, which may most plausibly be referred to the +influence of the Spanish romances, especially of the _Diana_, which was +already accessible in Yong's translation, and one incident of which Browne +did undoubtedly borrow. + +In style and poetic merit Browne's work is most astonishingly unequal, +though the general level of _Britannia's Pastorals_ is distinctly higher +than that of the _Shepherd's Pipe_. The author passes at times abruptly +from careful and loving realism to the most stilted conventionality, and +from passages of impassioned eloquence to others grotesquely banal. In +some of his peculiarities, as in the perpetuai use of elaborate similes +and in the indulgence in inflated paraphrases, he anticipates some of the +worst faults of style cultivated by writers of the next century. There are +portions of the poem where the narrative is literally carried on through a +succession of highly wrought comparisons, each paragraph beginning with an +'As' followed by a correlative 'So' half a page further on. No such series +of pictures, however fairly wrought--and Browne's too often end in +bathos--can possibly convey the impression of continuons action. It is the +same with periphrasis. Used with discretion it may be one of the subtlest +ornaments of style, and even when fulfilling no particular purpose is +capable of imparting a luxuriant and somewhat rococo richness to the +verse. The effect, however, is frequently one of unrelieved frigidity, as +in the lines: + + And now Hyperion from his glitt'ring throne + Sev'n times his quick'ning rays had bravely shown + Unto the other world, since Walla last + Had on her Tavy's head the garland plac'd; + And this day, as of right, she wends abroad + To ease the meadows of their willing load. + (II. iii. 855.) + +At times it was Browne's moral preoccupation that curbed his muse, as in +his description of the golden age where, for the sensuous glow of Tasso +and for Carew's pagan paradise, he substitutes the insipid convention of a +philosophical age of innocence[137]. In his genuine mood as a loving +observer of country life he is a very different poet. His feeling is +delicate in tone and his observation keen; he was familiar with every tree +that grew in the woods, every fish that swam in the waters of his beloved +Devon; he entered tenderly into the homely life of the farm-- + + By this had chanticleer, the village clock, + Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock, + And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stay'd, + That he might till those lands were fallow laid; + The hills and vailles here and there resound + With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound; + Each shepherd's daughter, with her cleanly peal,[138] + Was come afield to milk the morning's meal. + (I. iv. 483.) + +When, however, naturalism of this kind is introduced into pastoral it is +already on the high road toward ceasing to be pastoral at all. Nor are +touches of higher poetic imagination wanting, as when Time is described as + + a lusty aged swain, + That cuts the green tufts off th' enamell'd plain, + And with his scythe hath many a summer shorn + The plough'd-lands lab'ring with a crop of corn. + (I. iv. 307.) + +The love of his country is, however, the altar at which Browne's poetic +genius takes fire: + + Hail, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot, + Whose equal all the world affordeth not! + Show me who can so many crystal rills, + Such sweet-cloth'd valleys or aspiring hills,.... + And if the earth can show the like again, + Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. + Time never can produce men to o'ertake + The fames of Grenville, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, + Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more + That by their power made the Devonian shore + Mock the proud Tagus, for whose richest spoil + The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil + Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost + By winning this, though all the rest were lost. + (II. iii. 601.) + +It is after all in such a passage as this that we see the true William +Browne, with all his high-handedness and worthy enthusiasm, the poet who +not only loves his country with a lover's passion and cannot tolerate that +any should be compared to her in fairness of feature, in stateliness of +stature, or in virtue of mind; but who, first perhaps among English poets, +has that more local patriotism, narrower and more intimate, for his own +home, for its moors, its streams, its associations, all the actual or +imagined surroundings of his beloved Tavistock, and carries in his heart +for ever the cry of the wild west-- + + Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain! + + + +VII + + +Approaching the romance, as we do, from the point of view rather of the +development of the pastoral ideal than of the history of prose narrative +or of the novel, we may spare ourselves any detailed consideration of the +famous work of John Lyly. Although in the novel which has made 'Euphuism' +a word and a bye-word in the language he supplied the literary medium for +the work of subsequent pastoral writers such as Greene and Lodge, his +own compositions in this kind are confined entirely to the drama. + +The translations in this department are for the most part negligible. +There is, however, one notable exception, namely, the rendering by +Bartholomew Yong or Young of Montemayor's _Diana_, together with the +continuations of Ferez and Gil Polo. Completed as early as May, 1583, the +work remained in manuscript until 1598, when it was published in the form +of a handsome folio. Although, as we have already had occasion to notice, +the verse portions were not for the most part of a nature to add lustre to +an anthology such as _England's Helicon_, the whole forms a not unworthy +Tudor translation. We learn from Yong's preface that portions of the +romance had already been Englished by Edward Paston, a descendant of the +famous Norfolk letter-writers, who had family relations with Spain and +possessed an intimate knowledge of the language. Of this work nothing +further is known. Some two years, however, before Yong's version issued +from the press, the first book of Montemayor's portion was again +translated by Thomas Wilson, and of this a manuscript yet survives[139]. +Passing mention may also be made of Angel Day's translation of _Daphnis +and Chloe_ containing the original insertion of the _Shepherd's Holiday_ +with the praises of Elizabeth in verse, and of Robert Tofte's _Honours +Academy_ (1610), distantly following Ollenix du Mont-Sacr's _Bergerie de +Juliette_, but which, as also John Pyper's version of d'Urf's _Astre_ +(1620), have received sufficient notice in being recorded in connexion +with their originals. + +Earlier in date of publication and belonging to an elder tradition than +the _Arcadia_, though later in date of composition, and it may be at times +betraying a familiarity with Sidney's manuscript, the romances of the +Bohemian Robert Greene, and the buccaneer-physician Thomas Lodge, are +naturally the first to claim our attention. + +With the exception of _Menaphon_, Greene's romances offer little that is +important in pastoral, apart from the more notable works which they +inspired. And even _Menaphon_, in so far as the general conception is +concerned, can hardly be said necessarily to involve the existence of any +antecedent pastoral tradition. Greene's novel is, indeed, far from being +purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney's, to use Professor Herford's +happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta. In +this it undoubtedly resembles the Spanish romances, but the resemblance +does not appear to go much further; it is on the whole warlike without +being chivalric, the tone Greek, or what Greene considered such, rather +than medieval--indeed it might be argued that in its martial incidents it +rather recalls _Daphnis and Chloe_ than the _Diana_. There is certainly +nothing chivalric about King Democles, who, when some ten score shepherds +are besieging a castle, sends to the 'General of his Forces,' and not only +has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days' +notice--in itself a notable piece of strategy--but when they arrive on the +scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush! No wonder that when +the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, +they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain +masters of the situation. + +The plot might perhaps be considered improbable as well as intricate for +anything but a pastoral or chivalric romance: judged by the standards +prevailing in these species it is neither. Democles, king of Arcadia, has +a daughter Sephistia, who contrary to his wishes has contracted a secret +marriage with Maximus. When the birth of a son leads to discovery, +Democles has them placed in an oarless boat and so cast adrift. A storm +arising they are not unnaturally wrecked, and ultimately husband and wife +are cast upon different points of the Arcadian coast(!), where, either +supposing the other to have perished, they adopt the pastoral life, +assuming the names respectively of Melicertus and Samela. The young mother +has with her child Pleusidippus, but while still in early boyhood he is +carried off by pirates and presented as a gift to the King of Thessaly. In +the meantime Menaphon, 'the king's shepherd of Arcadia,' has fallen in +love with Samela, but while accepting his hospitality she meets her +husband in his shepherd's guise, and without recognizing one another +husband and wife again fall in love. Years pass on and Pleusidippus, who +has risen to fame at court, hears of the beauty of the shepherdess of +Arcadia, and must needs go to test the truth of the report himself. He +does so, and promptly falls in love with his own mother. Nor is this all, +for Democles equally hears of Samela's fame, and disguising himself as a +shepherd falls in love with his own daughter. He endeavours to command +Samela's affection by revealing to her his own identity, but Pleusidippus +is beforehand with more drastic measures, and with the help of a few +associates carries Samela off to a neighbouring castle, to which Democles +and the shepherds, headed by Melicertus, proceed to lay siege. A duel +between father and son is unceremoniously interrupted by the inroad of +Democles' soldiery. Upon this the identity of Samela is revealed by a +convenient prophetess, and all ends happily. + +In the relation of verse and prose Greene's work differs from that of +Sannazzaro and Sidney, the former being of considerably greater merit than +the latter. The style adopted exhibits a very marked Euphuism, and the +whole form of narrative is characterized by that fondness for petty +conceit which not seldom gives an air of puerility to the lighter +Elizabethan prose. Puerile in a sense it had every right to be, for modern +prose narration was then in its very infancy in this country. No artistic +form destined to contribute to the main current of literature is born +perfect into the world; the early efforts appear not only tentative, +uncouth, at times rugged, but often childish and futile, unworthy the +consideration of serions men. The substance of the _Gesta Romanorum_ and +the style of the _Novellino_ appear so, considered in relation to the +_Decameron_; the mystery plays are an obvious instance, not to be +explained by any general immaturity of medieval ideas. Traces of the +tendency may even be noticed where revival or acclimatization, rather than +original invention, is the aim; we find it in the _Shepherd's Calender_, +nor was it absent in the days of the romantic revival, either from the +German _Lenores_ or the English _Otrantos_. And so it is with the +novelists of the Elizabethan age. Renouncing the traditions of the older +romance, which was adult and perfect a hundred years before in Malory, but +had now fallen into a second childhood, and determined on the creation of +a new and genuine form of literary expression, they paid the price of +originality in the vein of childishness that runs through their writings. + +If, however, Greene was content in the main to adopt the style of the new +novel, he, as indeed Lyly too, could at times snatch a straightforward +thought or a vigorous phrase from current speech or controversial +literature, and invest it with all the greater effectiveness by +contrasting it with its surroundings. Here, as an example of euphuistic +composition, is Democles' address to the champions about to engage in +single combat: + + Worthy mirrors of resolved magnanimitie, whose thoughts are above your + fortunes, and your valour more than your revenewes, know that Bitches + that puppie in hast bring forth blind whelpes; that there is no herbe + sooner sprung up than the Spattarmia nor sooner fadeth; the fruits too + soone ripe are quickly rotten; that deedes done in hast are repented at + leisure: then, brave men in so weightie a cause,... deferre it some + three daies, and then in solemn manner end the combat[140]. + +With this we may contrast the closing sentence of the work: + + And lest there should be left any thing imperfect in this pastorall + accident, Doron smudged himselfe up, and jumped a marriage with his old + friend Carmela. + +This is, of course, intentionally cast in a homely style in contrast to +the courtliness of the main plot; but Greene, as some of his later works +attest, knew the value of strong racy English no less than his friend +Nashe, who, in the preface he prefixed to this very work, pushed +colloquialism and idiom to the verge of affectation and beyond. + +The incidental verse, on the other hand, though very unequal, is of +decidedly higher merit. Sephistia's famous song should alone suffice to +save any book from oblivion, while there are other verses which are not +unworthy of a place beside it. I may instance the opening of the +'roundelay' sung by Menaphon, the only character strictly belonging to +pastoral tradition, with its picture of approaching night: + + When tender ewes brought home with evening Sunne + Wend to their foldes, + And to their holdes + The shepheards trudge when light of day is done. + +Such as it was, _Menaphon_ appealed in no small degree to the taste of the +moment. We know how great was Greene's reputation as an author, how +publishers were ready to outbid one another for the very dregs of his wit. +Thomas Brabine was but voicing the general opinion when, in some verses +prefixed to _Menaphon_, he wrote, condescending to an inevitable pun, but +also to a less excusable mixed metaphor: + + Be thou still Greene, whiles others glorie waine. + +Of his other romances it is sufficient in this place to mention that +_Pandosto_, which contains the pastoral loves of Dorastus and Fawnia, and +supplied Shakespeare with the outlines of the _Winter's Tale_, appeared +the year before _Menaphon_, while the year after saw his _Never Too Late_, +which is likewise of a generally pastoral character, but does not appear +to have suggested or influenced any subsequent work. + +The remarks that have been made concerning Greene apply in a large +measure also to his fellow euphuist Thomas Lodge. His earliest romance, +_Forbonius and Prisceria_, published in 1584, is partly pastoral in plot, +a faithful lover being driven by the opposition of his lady's father into +assuming the pastoral habit; but it is chiefly the connexion of his +_Rosalynde_ of 1590 with Shakespeare's _As You Like It_ that gives him a +claim upon our attention. _Rosalynde_ is not only on this account the +best-known, but is also intrinsically the most interesting of his +romances. The story is too familiar to need detailing. Its origin, as is +also well known, is the _Tale of Gamelyn_, the story which Chaucer +intended putting into the mouth either of the cook, or more probably of +the yeoman, and the hero of which apparently belongs to the Robin Hood +cycle. The interest centres round the three sons of Sir John of Bordeaux, +who retains his name with Lodge and is Shakespeare's Sir Roland de Bois, +and whose youngest son, Lodge's Rosader and Shakespeare's Orlando, is +named Gamelyn, and the outlaw king, Lodge's king of France and +Shakespeare's Duke senior[141]. The entire pastoral element, as well as +the courtly scenes of the earlier portion of the novel, are Lodge's own +invention. His shepherds, whether genuine, as Coridon and Phoebe, or +assumed, as Rosalynde and Rosader, are all alike Italian Arcadians, +equally polished and poetical. Montanus, a shepherd corresponding to +Shakespeare's Silvius, is a dainty rimester, and is not only well posted +in the loves of Polyphemus and Galatea, but can rail on blind boy Cupid in +good French, and on his mistress too-- + + Son cuer ne doit estre de glace, + Bien que elle ait de Neige le sein. + +Thus Lodge added to the original story the figures of the usurper, +Rosalynde, Alinda (Celia), and the shepherds Montanus (Silvius), Coridon +(Corin) and Phoebe, while to Shakespeare we owe Amiens, Jacques, +Touchstone, Audre, and a few minor characters; whence it appears that +Lodge's contribution forms the mainstay of the plot as familiar to modern +readers. Moreover, in spite of the stiltedness of the style where the +author yet remembers to be euphuistic, in spite of the long 'orations,' +'passions,' 'meditations' and the like, each carefully labelled and giving +to the whole the air of a series of rhetorical exercises, in spite of the +mediocre quality of most of the verses, if we except its one perfect gem, +the romance yet retains not a little of its silvan and idyllic sweetness. + +Before leaving the school of Lyly, which included a number of more or less +famous writers, I may take the opportunity of mentioning two authors +usually reckoned among them. One, John Dickenson, left two works of a +pastoral nature. His short romance entitled _Arisbas_ appeared in 1594, +and may have supplied Daniel with a hint for the kidnapping of Silvia in +_Hymen's Triumph_. Another yet shorter work, entitled the _Shepherd's +Complaint_, which is undated, but was probably printed in the same year, +is remarkable for being composed more than half in verse, largely +hexameters. In it the author falls asleep and is transported in his dreams +to Arcady, where he listens to the lament of a shepherd for the love of +Amaryllis. The cruel nymph is, however, soon punished, for, challenging +Diana in beauty, she falls a victim to the shafts of the angry goddess, +and is buried with full bucolic honours, whereupon the author awakes. The +other writer is William Warner, well known from his _Albion's England_, +published in 1586, who left a work entitled _Pan his Syrinx_, which +appeared in 1584; but in this pastoralism does not penetrate beyond the +title-page. + +Of the books which everybody knows and nobody reads, _The Countess of +Pembroke's Arcadia_ is perhaps the most famous[142]. Yet though an account +of the romance may be found in the pages of every literary textbook, the +history of how the work came to be printed has never been fully cleared +up[143]. The _Arcadia_, as it remained at Sidney's death, was +fragmentary. Two books and a portion of a third were all that had +undergone revision, and possibly represented the portion which Sidney +compiled while living with his sister at Wilton, after his retirement from +court in 1581--the portion for the most part actually written in his +sister's presence. Even of this trustworthy manuscripts were rare, most of +those that circulated being copies of the unrevised text. Sidney died on +October 17, 1586, and even before the end of the year we find his friend +Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, writing to Sidney's father-in-law, +Sir Francis Walsingham, to the effect that the bookseller, William +Ponsonby, had informed him that some one was about to print the _Arcadia_, +and that if they were acting without authority a notification of the fact +should be lodged with the archbishop. Greville proceeds to say that he had +sent to Walsingham's daughter, that is, Lady Sidney, the corrected +manuscript of the work 'don 4 or 5 years sinse, which he left in trust +with me; wherof there is no more copies, and fitter to be reprinted then +the first, which is so common[144].' A complaint was evidently lodged, and +the publication stayed, and we may assume that Ponsonby was rewarded for +his notification by being entrusted with the publication of the revised +manuscript mentioned by Greville, for it was from his house that issued +the quarto edition of 1590. Evidence that it was Greville who was +responsible for the publication of the _Arcadia_ is found in the +dedication of Thomas Wilson's manuscript translation from the _Diana_, +where, addressing Greville, the translater speaks of Sir Philip's +_Arcadia_, 'w^{ch} by yo^{r} noble vertue the world so hapily enjoyes.' In +this edition, containing the first two and a half books only, the division +into chapters and the arrangement of the incidental verse were the work of +the 'over-seer of the print.' The text, however, was not considered +satisfactory, and when the romance was reprinted in 1593 the division into +chapters was discarded, certain alterations were made in the arrangement +of the verse, and there was added another portion of the third book, +together with a fourth and fifth, compiled by the Countess of Pembroke +from the loose sheets sent her from time to time by her brother. This +edition has been commonly regarded as the first published with due +authority, and the term 'surreptitious' has been quite unjustly applied to +the original quarto. The charge, indeed, receives colour from the preface, +signed H. S., to the second edition; but, whoever H. S. may have been, +there is nothing to make one suppose that he was speaking with authority. +The quarto of 1590 having been duly licensed on August 23, 1588, the +rights of the work were in Ponsonby's hands, and to him the publication of +the revised edition had to be entrusted. In 1598 a third edition, to which +other remains of the author were for the first time added, was also +published by Ponsonby. There still remained, however, a lacuna in Book +III, which was not remedied till 1621, when a supplement was added from +the pen of Sir William Alexander. In the edition of 1627 a sixth book was +appended, the work of one Richard Beling, whose initials alone, however, +appear. The early editors seem to have assumed that the unfinished state +of the work, or rather the unrevised state of the later portions, was due +to the author's early death, but most of it must have been written between +the years 1581 and 1583, and it may well be questioned whether in any case +Sidney would have bestowed any further attention upon it. Jonson, indeed, +has preserved the tradition that it had been Sir Philip's intention 'to +have transform'd all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthure[145],' +though how the transformation was to be accomplished he forbore to hint; +but the more familiar tradition of Sidney's having expressed on his +death-bed a desire that the romance should be destroyed assorts better +with what else we know of his regard for his 'idle worke.' + +For the name of his romance Sidney was no doubt indebted to Sannazzaro, +whom he twice mentions as an authority in his _Defence of Poesy_, but +there in all probability his direct obligation ends, since even the _rime +sdrucciole_, which he occasionally affected, may with equal probability be +referred to the influence of the _Diana_. It was, undoubtedly, +Montemayor's romance which served as a model for, or rather suggested the +character of, Sidney's work[146]. Thus the chivalric element, unknown to +Sannazzaro, is with Sidney even more prominent than with Montemayor and +his followers. It is, however, true that, like Greene's, his heroes are +rather of a classical than a medieval stamp, and he also chose to lay the +scene of the action in Greece rather than in his native land, as was the +habit of Spanish writers. The source upon which Sidney chiefly drew for +incidents was the once famous _Amadis of Gaul_, but a diligent reading of +the other French and Spanish romances of chivalry would probably lengthen +the list of recorded creditors. Heliodorus supplies several episodes, and +an acquaintance at least can be traced with both Achilles Tatius and +Chariton. + +The intricate plot, with its innumerable digressions, episodes, and +interruptions, need not here be followed in detail, especially as we shall +have ample opportunity of becoming familiar with its general features when +we come to discuss the plays founded upon it. Here it will be sufficient +to note one or two points. In the first place the romance contains no +really pastoral characters, the personae being all either shepherds in +their disguise only, or else, like Greene's Doron and Carmela, burlesque +characters of the rustic tradition. Secondly, it may be observed that the +amorous confusion is even greater than in _Menaphon_, Pyrocles disguising +himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved +Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in +his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, +while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected +his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part +innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion[147]. + +In general the _Arcadia_ is no more than it purports to be, the 'many +fancies' of Sidney's fertile imagination poured forth in courtly guise for +the entertainment of his sister, though his own more serious thoughts +occasionally find expression in its pages, and he even introduces himself +under the imperfect anagram of Philisides, and shadows forth his +friendship with the French humanist Languet. More than this it would be +rash to assert, and Greville did his friend an equivocal service when he +sought to find a deep philosophy underlying the rather formal characters +of the romance[148]. These characters, as we have seen, are for the most +part essentially courtly; the pastoral guise is a mere veil shielding them +from the crude uncompromising light of actuality, with its prejudice in +favour of the probable; while the few rustic personages merely supply a +not very successful comic antimasque. + +To the popularity of the _Arcadia_ it is hardly necessary to advert. It +has been repeatedly printed, added to, imitated, abbreviated, modernized, +popularized; four editions appeared during the last decade of the +sixteenth century, nine between the beginning of the seventeenth and the +outbreak of the civil wars[149]. It was first published at a moment when +the public was beginning to tire of Euphuism, and when the heroic death of +the author had recently set a seal upon the brilliance of his fame. +Looking back in after years, writers who, like Drayton, had lived through +the movement from its very birth, could speak of Sidney as of the author +who + + did first reduce + Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use, + +and could praise his style as a model of pure English. In spite of the +generous, if misguided, efforts of occasional critics, posterity has not +seen fit to endorse this view. While finding in Sidney's style the same +historical importance as in Lyly's, we cannot but recognize that in itself +Arcadianism was little if at all better than Euphuism. It is just as +formal, just as much a trick, just as stilted and unpliable, just as +painful an illustration of the fact that a figure of rhetoric may be an +occasional ornament, but cannot by any degree of ingenuity be made to +serve as a basis of composition. In the same way as Euphuism is founded +upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the +use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and +metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural +history'; so Sidney's style in the _Arcadia_ is based on a balance usually +obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, +together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the +pathetic fallacy. These last have been dangers in all periods of stylistic +experiment; the former, figures duly noted as ornaments by contemporary +rhetoricians, Sidney no doubt borrowed from Spain. There in one famous +example they were shortly to excite the enthusiasm of the knight of La +Mancha--'The reason of the unreason which is done to my reason in such +manner enfeebles my reason that with reason I lament your beauty'--a +sentence which one is sometimes tempted to imagine Sidney must have set +before him as a model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential +elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their +models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost +any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the +balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which +inclines perhaps towards Euphuism: + + I am no herald to enquire of mens pedegrees, it sufficeth me if I know + their vertues, which, if this young mans face be not a false witnes, doe + better apparrell his minde, then you have done his body. (1590, fol. + 8v.) + +Or again, as an instance of the jingle of words, take the following from +the steward's narration: + + I thinke you thinke, that these perfections meeting, could not choose + but find one another, and delight in that they found, for likenes of + manners is likely in reason to drawe liking with affection; mens actions + doo not alwaies crosse with reason: to be short, it did so in deed. (ib. + fol. 20.) + +Of Sidney's power of description the stock example is his account of the +Arcadian landscape (fol. 7), and it is perhaps the best and at the same +time the most characteristic that could be found; the author's peculiar +tricks are at once obvious. There are 'the humble valleis, whose base +estate semed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers,' and the +'thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so +to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds'; there are the +pastures where 'the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams +comfort,' where sat the young shepherdess knitting, whose 'voice comforted +her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices musick,' a +country where the scattered houses made 'a shew, as it were, of an +accompanable solitarines, and of a civil wildnes,' where lastly--_si sic +omnia_!--was the 'shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be +old.' It must not be supposed that these are occasional embroideries; they +are the very cloth of which the whole pastoral habit is made. The above +examples all occur within a few pages, and might even have been gathered +from a yet smaller plot. It is, however, on the prose, such as it is, that +the reputation of the _Arcadia_ rests; a good deal of occasional verse is +introduced, but it has often been subject of remark how wholly unworthy of +its author most of it is. + +Given the widespread popularity of the work, the influence exercised by +the story on English letters is hardly a matter for wonder. Of its general +influence on the drama it will be my business to speak later; at present +we may note that while yet in manuscript it probably supplied Lodge with +certain hints for his _Rosalynde_, and so indirectly influenced _As You +Like It_. One of the best-known episodes, again, that of Argalus and +Parthenia, was versified by Quarles in 1632, and, adorned with a series of +cuts, went through a large number of editions before the end of the +century, besides being dramatized by Glapthorne. The incident of Pyrocles +heading the Zelots has been thought to have suggested the scene in the +_Two Gentlemen of Verona_ in which Valentine consents to lead the robber +band, while to Sidney Shakespeare was likewise indebted, not only for the +cowards' fight in _Twelfth Night_, but in the 'story of the Paphlagonian +unkinde king,' for the original of the Gloster episode in _King Lear_. A +certain prayer out of the later portion of the romance was, as is well +known, a favourite with Charles I in the days of his misfortune, but the +controversial use made of the fact by Milton it is happily possible to +pass over in silence. + +Finally, it is worth mentioning as illustrating the vogue of Sidney's +romance, that it not only had the very singular honour of being translated +into French in the first half of the seventeenth century, but that two +translations actually appeared, the rivalry between which gave rise to a +literary controversy of some asperity[150]. + +Thus we take leave of the pastoral novel or romance, a kind which never +attained to the weighty tradition of the eclogue, or the grace of the +lyric, nor was subjected to the rigorous artistic form of the drama[151]. +It remained throughout nerveless and diffuse, and, in spite of much +incidental beauty, was habitually wanting in interest, except in so far as +it renounced its pastoral nature. As Professor Raleigh has put it: 'To +devise a set of artificial conditions that shall leave the author to work +out the sentimental inter-relations of his characters undisturbed by the +intrusion of probability or accident is the problem; love _in vacuo_ is +the beginning and end of the pastoral romance proper.' A similar attempt +is noticeable in the drama, but the conditions soon came to be recognized +as impossible for artistic use. The operation of human affection under +utterly imaginary and impossible conditions is not a matter of human +interest; the resuit was a purely fictitious amatory code, as absurd as it +was unhealthy, and, when sustained by no extrinsic interest of allegory or +the like, the kind soon disappeared. As it is, in the pastoral novel, it +is only when the enchanted circle is broken by the rough and tumble of +vulgar earthly existence that on the featureless surface of the waters +something of the light and shade of true romance replaces the steady +pitiless glare ot a philosophical or sentimental ideal. + + + + +Chapter III. + +Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +We have now passed in review the main classes of non-dramatic pastoral +both abroad and in this country. Such preliminary survey was necessary in +order to obtain an idea of the history and nature of pastoral composition +in general. It was further rendered imperative by more particular +considerations which will appear in the course of the present chapter, for +we shall find that the pastoral drama comes into being, not through the +infusion of the Arcadian ideal into pre-existing dramatic forms, but +through the actual evolution of a new dramatic form from the pre-existing +non-dramatic pastoral. + +It is time to retrace our steps and to pick up the thread which we dropped +in a former chapter, the development, namely, of the vernacular eclogue in +Italy. If in so doing we are forced to enter at greater length upon the +discussion of individual works, we shall find ample excuse, not only in +their intrinsic merit, but likewise in their more direct bearing upon what +is after all the main subject of this volume. The pastoral drama of Italy +is the immediate progenitor of that of England. Further, it might be +pleaded that special interest attaches to the Arcadian pastoral as the +only dramatic form of conspicuous vitality for which Italy is the crediter +of European letters. + +The history of the rise of the pastoral drama in Italy is a complicated +subject, and one not altogether free from obscurity. Many forces were at +work determining the development of the form, and these it is difficult so +to present as at once to leave a clear impression and yet not to allow any +one element to usurp an importance it does not in reality possess. Any +account which gives a specious appearance of simplicity to the case +should be mistrusted. That I have been altogether successful in my +treatment I can hardly hope, but at least the method followed has not been +hastily adopted. I propose to consider, first of all and apart from the +rest, the early mythological drama, which while exercising a marked +influence over the spirit of the later pastoral can in no way be regarded +as its origin. Next, I shall trace the evolution of the pastoral drama +proper from its germ in the non-dramatic eclogue, by way of the _ecloghe +rappresentative_, and treat incidentally the allied rustic shows, which +form a class apart from the main line of development. Lastly, I shall have +to say a few words concerning the early pastoral plays by Beccari and +others before turning to the masterpieces of Tasso and Guarini, the +consideration of which will occupy the chief part of this chapter[152]. + +The class of productions known as mythological plays, which powerfully +influenced the character of the pastoral drama, sprang from the union of +classical tradition with the machinery of native religious +representations, in Poliziano's _Favola d' Orfeo_. This was the first +non-religious play in the vernacular, and its dependence on the earlier +religious drama is striking. Indeed, the blending of medieval and +classical forms and conventions may be traced throughout the early secular +drama of Italy. Boiardo's _Timone_, a play written at some unknown date +previous to 1494, preserves, in spite of its classical models, much of the +allegorical character of the morality, and was undoubtedly acted on a +stage comprising two levels, the upper representing heaven in which Jove +sat enthroned on the seat of Adonai. The same scenic arrangement may well +have been used in the _Orfeo_, the lower stage representing Hades[153]; +while Niccol da Correggio's _Cefalo_ was evidently acted on a polyscenic +stage, the actors passing in view of the audience from one part to +another[154]. At a yet earlier period Italian writers in the learned +tongue had taken as the subjects of their plays stories from classical +legend and myth, and among these we find not only recognized tragedy +themes such as the rape of Polyxena dramatized by Lionardo Bruni, but +tales such as that of Progne put on the stage by Gregorio Corrado, both of +which preceded by many years the work of Politian and Correggio. + +The earliest secular play in Italian is, then, nothing but a _sacra +rappresentazione_ on a pagan theme, a fact which was probably clearly +recognized when, in the early editions from 1494 onwards, the piece was +described as the 'festa di Orpheo[155].' It was written in 1471, when +Poliziano was about seventeen, and we learn from the author's epistle +prefixed to the printed edition that t was composed in the short space of +two days for representation before Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. +From the same epistle we learn that the author desired, or at least +assumed the attitude of desiring, that his composition should share the +fate of the ill-fashioned Lacedaemonian children; 'Cognoscendo questa mia +figliuola essere di qualit da fare pi tosto al suo padre vergogna che +onore; e pi tosto atta a dargli malinconia che allegrezza.' The _favola_ +as originally put forth continued to be reprinted without alteration, till +1776, when Ireneo Aff published the _Orphei Tragoedia_ from a collation +of two manuscripts. This differs in various respects from the printed +version, among others in being divided, short as it is, into five acts, +headed respectively 'Pastorale,' 'Ninfale,' 'Eroico,' 'Negromantico,' and +'Baccanale.' It is now known to represent a revision of the piece made, +probably by Antonio Tebaldeo, for representation at Ferrara, and in it +much of the popular and topical element has been eliminated. The action +of the piece is based in a general manner upon the story given by Ovid in +the tenth book of the _Metamorphoses_. + +The performance begins with a prologue by Mercury which is nothing but a +short argument of the whole plot. 'Mercurio annunzia la festa' is the +superscription in the original, evidently suggested by the appearance of +'un messo di Dio' with which the religious _rappresentazioni_ usually +open. At the end of this prologue a shepherd appears and finishes the +second octave with the couplet: + + State attenti, brigata; buono augurio; + Poi che di cielo in terra vien Mercurio. + +In the Ferrarese revision these stanzas appear as 'Argomento' without +mention of Mercury, while for the above lines are substituted the +astonishing doggerel: + + Or stia ciascuno a tutti gli atti intento, + Che cinque sono; e questo l' argomento. + +Thereupon (beginning Act I of the revision) enters Mopso, an old shepherd, +meeting Aristeo, a youthful one, with his herdsman Tirsi. Mopso asks +whether his white calf has been seen, and Aristeo, who fancies he has +heard a lowing from beyond the hill, sends his boy to see. In the +meanwhile he detains Mopso with an account of his love for a nymph he met +the day before, and sings a _canzona_: + + Ch' i' so che la mia ninfa il canto agogna[156]. + +It runs on the familiar themes of love: 'Di doman non c' certezza.' + + Digli, zampogna mia, come via fugge + Con gli anni insieme la bellezza snella; + E digli come il tempo ne distrugge, + Ne l' et persa mai si rinovella; + Digli che sappi usar sua forma bella, + Che sempre mai non son rose e viole... + Udite, selve, mie dolci parole, + Poi che la ninfa mia udir non vole. + +The boy Tirsi now returns, having with much trouble driven the strayed +calf back to the herd, and narrates how he saw an unknown nymph of +wondrous beauty gathering flowers about the hill. Aristeo recognizes from +this description the object of his love, and, leaving Mopso and Tirsi to +shake their heads over his midsummer madness, goes off to find her. + +So far we might be reading one of the _ecloghe rappresentative_ which we +shall have to consider shortly, but of which the earliest known examples +cannot well be less than ten or twelve years later than Poliziano's play. +With the exception, indeed, of one or two in Boccaccio's _Ameto_, it is +doubtful whether any vernacular eclogues had appeared at the time. The +character of Tirsi belongs to rustic tradition, and must be an experiment +contemporary with, if not prior to, Lorenzo's _Nencia_. The portion before +the _canzone_ is in _terza rima_; that after it, like the prologue, in +octaves. + +The original proceeds without break to the song of Aristeo as he pursues +the flying Euridice (Act II in the revision): + + Poi che 'l pregar non vale, + E tu via ti dilegui, + El convien ch' io ti segui. + Porgimi, Amor, porgimi or le tue ale. + +While Aristeo is following Euridice, Orfeo enters upon the scene with a +Latin ode in Sapphic metre in honour of Cardinal Gonzaga. A note informs +us that this was originally sung by 'Messer Braccio Ugolino, attore di +detta persona d' Orfeo.' In place of this ode the revised text contains a +long 'Coro delle Driadi,' with two speeches in _terza rima_ by the +choragus, announcing and lamenting the death of Euridice, who as she fled +from Aristeo has been stung in the foot by a serpent. After this the news +of her death is reported to Orfeo--by a shepherd in the original, by a +dryad in the revised version. That the substitution of the chorus for the +Sapphic ode is an improvement from the poetic point of view will hardly be +denied, yet this improvement has been attained at the cost of some +dramatic sacrifice. In the original Orfeo is introduced naturally enough +in his character of supreme poet and musician to do honour to the +occasion, and it is only after he has been on the stage some time that the +news of Euridice's death is brought. In the revision he is merely +introduced for the purpose of being informed of his wife's death--he has +hardly been so much as mentioned before. He thus loses the slight +opportunity previously afforded him of presenting a dramatic individuality +apart from the very essence of his tragedy. + +The announcement to Orfeo of Euridice's death begins the third act of the +revised text, which is amplified at this point by the introduction of a +satyr Mnesillo, who acts as chorus to Orfeo's lament. The character of a +friendly satyr is interesting in view of the role commonly assigned to his +species in pastoral. + +After this we have in the original the direction 'Orfeo cantando giugne +all' Inferno,' while in the revision there is again a new act, the fourth. +Symonds pointed out that the merits of the piece are less dramatic than +lyrical, and that fortunately the central scene was one in which the +situation was capable of lyrical expression. The pleading of Orfeo before +the gates of Hades and at the throne of Pluto forms the lyrical kernel of +the play, and gives it its poetic value. The bard appears before the +iron-bound portals of the nether world, and the pains of hell surcease. +'Who is he?' asks Pluto-- + + Chi costui che con s dolce nota + Muove l' abisso, e con l' ornata cetra? + Io veggo ferma d' Ission la rota,... + N pi P acqua di Tantalo s' arretra; + E veggo Cerber con tre bocche intente, + E le furie acquietar il suo lamento. + +At length he stands before Pluto's throne, the seat of the God of the +_sacre rappresentazioni_, the rugged rock-seat surrounded by the monstrous +demons of Signorelli's _tondo_[157]. Here in presence of the grim ravisher +and of his pale consort, in whom the passionate pleading of the Thracian +bard stirs long-forgotten memories of spring and of the plains of Enna, +Orfeo's song receives adequate expression. It is closely imitated from the +corresponding passage in Ovid, but the lyrical perfection and passionate +crescendo of the stanzas are Poliziano's own. Addressing Pluto, Orfeo +discovers the object of his quest: + + Non per Cerber legar fo questa via, + Ma solamente per la donna mia. + +May not love penetrate even the forbidden bounds of hell?-- + + se memoria alcuna in voi si serba + Del vostro celebrato antico amore, + Se la vecchia rapina a mente avete, + Euridice mia bella mi rendete. + +Why should death grudge the few years at most which complete the span of +human life?-- + + Ogni cosa nel fine a voi ritorna; + Ogni vita mortal quaggi ricade: + Quanto cerchia la luna con sue corna + Convien che arrivi alle vostre contrade-- + +or why reap amid the unmellowed corn?-- + + Cos la ninfa mia per voi si serba, + Quando sua morte gli dar natura. + Or la tenera vite e l' uva acerba + Tagliata avete con la falce dura. + + Chi che mieta la sementa in erba + E non aspetti ch' ella sia matura? + Dunque rendete a me la mia speranza: + Io non vel chieggio in don, questa prestanza. + +Next he invokes the pity of the stern god by the name of Chaos whence the +world had birth, and by the dread rivers of the nether world, by Styx and +Acheron: 'E pel sonante ardor di Flegetonte'; and lastly, turning to 'the +faery-queen Proserpina,' + + Pel pome che a te gi, Regina, piacque, + Quando lasciasti pria nostro orizzonte. + E se pur me la niega iniqua sorte, + Io no vo' su tornar, ma chieggio morte![158] + +Hell itself relents, and, as Boccaccio had written, + + forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione-- + +the condition being that he shall not turn to behold her before attaining +once again to the land of the living. The condition, of course, is not +fulfilled. Orfeo seeks to clasp 'his half regain'd Eurydice,' with the +triumphant cry of Ovid holding the conquered Corinna in his arms: + + Ite triumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus: Eurydice reddita vita mihi est. + Haec est praecipuo Victoria digna triumpho. + Hue ades, o cura parte triumphe mea[159]. + +He turns, and his unsubstantial love sinks back into the realm of shadows +with the cry: + + Oim che 'I troppo amore + Ci ha disfatti ambe dua. + Ecco ch' io ti son tolta a gran furore, + N sono ormai pi tua. + + Ben tendo a te le braccia; ma non vale, + Che indietro son tirata. Orfeo mio, _vale_. + +As he would follow her once more a fury bars the road. + +Desperate of his love, the bard now forswears for ever the company of +women (Act V of the revised text). + + Da qui innanzi vo corre i fior novelli ... + Ouesto pi dolce e pi soave amore; + Non sia chi mai di donna mi favelli, + Poi che morta colei ch' ebbe il mio core. + +Now that she is dead, what faith abides in woman?-- + + Quanto misero l' uom che cangia voglia + Per donna, o mai per lei s' allegra, o duole!... + Che sempre pi leggier ch' al vento foglia, + E mille volte il di vuole e disvuole. + Segue chi fugge; a chi la vuol, s' asconde, + E vanne e vien come alla riva l' onde. + +The cry wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of +later pastorals. Upon this the scene is invaded by 'The riot of the tipsy +Bacchanals,' eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[160]. They +drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his 'gory +visage,' break out into the celebrated chorus 'full of the swift fierce +spirit of the god.' This gained considerably by revision, and in the later +text runs as follows: + + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, o o. + Di corimbi e di verd' edere + Cinto il capo abbiam cos + Per servirti a tuo richiedere + Festeggiando notte e d. + Ognun beva: Bacco qu; + E lasciate here a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io ho vuoto gi il mio corno: + Porgi quel cantaro in qua. + Questo monte gira intorno, + O 'l cervello a cerchio va: + Ognun corra in qua o in l, + Come vede fare a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io mi moro gi di sonno: + Sono io ebra o s o no? + Pi star dritti i pi non ponno. + Voi siet' ebri, ch' io lo so; + Ognun faccia com' io fo; + Ognun succe come me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Ognun gridi Bacco, Bacco, + E poi cacci del vin gi; + Poi col sonno farem fiacco, + Bevi tu e tu e tu. + Io non posso ballar pi; + Ognun gridi Evo.[161] + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, o o. + +Lyrical beauty rather than dramatic power was, it has already been +remarked, Poliziano's aim and achievement. The want of characterization in +the hero, the insignificance of the part allotted to Euridice, the total +inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author's power as a +dramatist. It is the lyrical passages--Aristeo's song, Orfeo's impassioned +pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus--that supply the firm supports of +art upon which rests the slight fabric of the play. + +The same simplicity of construction, a simplicity in nature rather +narrative than dramatic, characterizes Niccol da Correggio's _Cefalo_. +The play was represented in state in the great courtyard of the ducal +palace at Ferrara, on the occasion of the marriage of Lucrezia d' Este +with Annibale Bentivogli, on January 21, 1487[162]. Like the _Orfeo_, the +piece exhibits traces of its origin in the religious shows, though, unlike +the original draft of Poliziano's play, it is divided into five acts each +of some length, and is provided with regular choruses on the classical +model. In spite of its inferiority to the _Orfeo_ in lyric power and its +possibly even greater deficiency from a dramatic point of view, it will be +worth while giving some account of the piece in order to get as clear an +idea as possible of the nature and limitations of the mythological drama, +and also because it has never, I believe, been reprinted in modern times, +and is in consequence practically unknown to English readers. + +The author, a descendant of the princely house of Correggio, was born +about 1450, and married the daughter of the famous _condottiere_ +Bartolommeo Colleoni. He lived for some years at Milan at the court of +Lodovico Sforza; later he migrated to that of the Estensi. In 1493 he sent +an allegorical eclogue to Isabella Gonzaga at Mantua, which may possibly +have been represented, though we have no note of the fact, and the poem +itself has perished[163]. He died in 1508. + +After a prologue which resembles that of the _Orfeo_ in giving an argument +of the whole piece, the first act opens with a scene in which Aurora seeks +the love of Cefalo. Offended at finding her advances repulsed, the goddess +hints that the wife to whom Cefalo is so careful of his faith is, for her +part, more free of her favours; and upon Cefalo indignantly refusing +credence to the slander, suggests that he should himself in disguise make +trial of her fidelity. This the unfortunate youth resolves to do. He +approaches Procri in the habit of a merchant, with goods for sale, and +takes the opportunity thus afforded of declaring his love. She turns to +fly, but the pretended passion of his suit stays her, and she is brought +to lend an ear to his cunning. He retails the commonplaces of the +despairing lover: + + Deh, non fuggire, e non si altiera in vista; + Odime alquanto, e scolta i preghi mei. + Che fama mai per crudelt se acquista? + Bellissima sei pur, cruda non dei. + Non sai che Amor non vol che se resista + A colpi soi? cos vinto mi dei + Subito ch' io ti viddi; eh, non fuggire, + Forza non ti far; deh, stammi audire. + +Not Jove or Phoebus he to assume strange shapes for her love; he is but +her slave, and can but offer his pedlar's pack; but he knows of hidden +treasure in the earth, and hers, too, shall be vesture of the fairest. +After gold and soft raiment comes the trump card of the seducer--secrecy: + + Cosa secreta mai non se riprende; + El tempo che si perde mai non torna; + Qui non serai veduta, or che se attende + Quel se ha a dolere, che al suo ben sogiorna. + Secreto il loco, el sol pur non vi splende; + Bella sei tu, sol manca che sii adorna + Di veste come io intendo ultra il tesoro. + Deh, non mi tener pi; vedi ch' io moro. + +She is almost won; one last assault, and her defences fall. Why, indeed, +should she hesitate-- + + Poi ch' Amor dice, ogni secreta casta? + +This stroke of cynicism is put forward as it were but half intentionally, +and with no appreciation of its intense irony in the mouth of the husband. +Throughout the scene indeed he appears merely as a common seducer, and the +author seems wholly to have failed to grasp the real dramatic value of the +situation. On the other hand, the lesser art of the stage has been +mastered with some success, and there is an adaptation of language to +action which at least argues that the author had a vivid picture of the +staging of his play in his mind when he wrote. + +The moment Procri has consented to barter her honour, Cefalo discovers +himself, and the unhappy girl flies in terror. Seeing now, too late, the +resuit of his foolish mistrust, Cefalo follows with prayers and +self-reproaches-- + + Son ben certo + Che tu mi cognoscesti ancor coperto-- + +but in vain. The act ends with a song in which Aurora glories in the +success of her revenge-- + + Festegiam con tutto il core; + Biastemate hor meco Amore! + +In the second act Procri, having recovered from her fright, is bent on +avenging herself for the deceit practised by Cefalo, upon whose supposed +love for Aurora she throws the blame in the matter. She seeks the grove of +Diana, where she is enrolled among the followers of the goddess. Cefalo, +who has followed her flight, rejoins her in the wood, and there renews his +prayers. She refuses to recognize him, denies being his wife, and is about +to renew her flight, when an old shepherd, attracted by Cefalo's +lamentation, stays her and forces her to hear her husband's pleading. +Other shepherds appear on the scene, and the act ends with an eclogue. In +the next we find her reconciled to Cefalo, to whom she gives the +wind-swift dog and the unerring spear which she had received as a nymph of +Diana. Cefalo at once sets the hound upon the traces of a boar, and goes +off in pursuit, while his wife returns home. He shortly reappears, having +lost boar and hound alike, and, tired with the chase, falls asleep. +Meanwhile a faun, finding Procri alone, tells her that he had seen Cefalo +meeting with his love Aurora in the wood--a piece of news in return for +which he seeks her love. She, however, resolves to go and surprise the +supposed lovers, and setting fire to the wood, herself to perish with them +in the flames. On Cefalo's return he is met with bitter reproaches, and +the act ends with a chorus of fauns and satyrs. The fourth contains the +catastrophe. Procri hides in the wood in hope of surprising her husband +with his paramour. Cefalo enters ready for the chase, and, seeing what he +takes to be a wild beast among bushes, throws the fatal spear, which +pierces Procri's breast. A reconciliation precedes her death, and the +close of the act is rendered effective by the successive summoning of the +Muses and nymphs in some graceful stanzas. With a little polishing, such +as Poliziano's bacchanalian chorus received in revision, the scene would +not be unworthy of the time and place of its production. + + Oim sorelle, o Galatea, presto! + Donate al cervo ormai un poco pace; + Soccorrete al pianger quel caso mesto. + Oim sorelle, Procri morta giace, + L' alma spirata, e il ciel guardando tace. + +At Cefalo's desire Calliope summons her sister Muses, Phillis the nymphs, +after which all join in a choral ode calling upon the divinities of +mountain, wood, and stream to join in a universal lament: + + Weep, spirits of the woods and of the hills, + Weep, each pure nymph beside her fountain-head, + And weep, ye mountains, in a thousand rills, + For the fair child who here below lies dead: + Mourn, all ye gods, the last of human ills, + Your sacred foreheads all ungarlanded. + +Here the traditional story of Cephalus and Procris, as founded on the +rather inferior version in the seventh book of the _Metamorphoses_, ends. +There remains, however, a fifth act, in which Diana appears, raises +Procri, and restores her to her husband. + +The play, composed for the most part in octaves with choruses in _terza +rima_, is, from the dramatic point of view, open to obvious and fatal +objections. The preposterous _dea ex machina_ of the last act; the +inconsequence of motive and inconsistency of character, partly, it is +true, inherent in the original story, but by no means made less obvious by +the dramatist; the insufficiency of the action to fill the necessary +space, and the inability of the author to make the most of his materials, +are all alike patent. On the other hand, we have already noticed a certain +theatrical ability displayed in the writing of the first act, and we may +further attribute the alteration by which Procri is represented as jealous +of Cefalo's original lover, Aurora, instead of the wholly imaginary Aura, +as in Ovid, to a desire for dramatic unity of motive. + +The extent to which either the _Orfeo_ or _Cefalo_ can be regarded as +pastoral will now be clear, and it must be confessed that they do not +carry us very far. The two fifteenth-century plays constitute a distinct +species which has attained to a high degree of differentiation if not of +dramatic evolution, and critics who would see in them the origin of the +later pastoral drama have to explain the strange phenomenon of the species +lying dormant for nearly three-quarters of a century, and then suddenly +developing into an equally individualized but very dissimilar form[164]. +It should, moreover, be borne in mind that contemporary critics never +regarded the Arcadian pastoral as in any way connected with the +mythological drama, and that the writers of pastoral themselves claimed no +kinship with Poliziano or Correggio, but always ranked themselves as the +followers of Beccari alone in the line of dramatic development. On the +other hand, there can be no reasonable doubt that such performances went +to accustom spectators to that mixture of mythology and idealism which +forms the atmosphere, so to speak, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +This must be my excuse for lingering over these early works. + + + +II + + +When dealing with the Italian eclogue we saw how, at a certain point, it +began to assume a distinctly dramatic character, and in so doing took the +first step towards the possible evolution of a real pastoral drama. It +will be my task in the ensuing pages to follow up this clue, and to show +how the pastoral drama arose through a process of natural development from +the recited eclogue. + +The dramatic tendency was indeed inherent in the eclogue from the very +first. Throughout there is a steady growth in the use of dialogue: of the +Idyls of Theocritus only about a third contain more than one character; of +Vergil's Bucolics at least half; of Calpurnius' all but one; of the +eclogues of Petrarch and Boccaccio all without exception. This tendency +did not escape Guarini, who, when not led into puerilities by his love of +self-laudation, often shows considerable insight. 'The eclogue,' he says, +'is nothing but a short discussion between shepherds, differing in no +other manner from that sort of scene which the Latins call dialogue, +except in so far as being whole and independent, possessing within itself +both beginning and end[165].' + +Having thus gradually altered the literary form of the eclogue, this +tendency towards dramatic expression next showed itself in the manner in +which the poem was presented to the world. For circulation in print or +manuscript, or for informal reading, came to be substituted recitation in +character. The dialogue was divided between two persons who spoke +alternately, and it is evident from the somewhat meagre texts that survive +that, in the earliest examples, these _ecloghe rappresentative_, or +dramatic eclogues as I shall call them, differed in no way from the purely +literary productions which we considered in an earlier section. Evidence +of actual representation is often wanting, and the exact date in most +cases is uncertain; but, since there is no doubt that such performances +actually did take place, we are not only justified in assuming that +several poems of the period belong to this class, but we can also, on +internai evidence, arrange them more or less in a natural sequence of +dramatic development. One such eclogue has come down to us from the pen of +Baldassare Taccone, a Genoese who also wrote mythological plays on the +subjects of Dana and Actaeon. Another, interesting as dealing with the +corruption of the Curia at a moment when its scandalous traffic was +carried on in the light of day with more than usually cynical +indifference, was actually presented at Rome under the patronage of +Cardinal Giovanni Colonna at the carnival of 1490, during the pontificate +of Innocent VIII. Gradually a more complex form was evolved, the number of +speakers was increased, and some of these made their entrance during the +progress of the recitation. So too in the matter of metrical form, the +strict _terza rima_ of the earlier examples came to be diversified with +_rime sdrucciole_, and by being intermingled with verses with internal +rime, with _ottava rima, settenar_ couplets, and lyrical measures. +Castiglione's representation at Urbino has been noticed previously. Among +similar productions may be mentioned two poems by a certain Caperano of +Faenza, printed in 1508, while others are found at Siena in 1517 and 1523. +Besides the texts that are extant we also have record of a good many which +have perished. In 1493 the representation of eclogues formed part of the +revels prepared by Alexander VI for the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with +Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, and this was again the case when, having +been divorced from Giovanni, and her second husband having perished by the +assassin's dagger, she finally in 1502 became the wife of Alfonso d'Este, +heir to the duchy of Ferrara. Eclogues were again represented at Ferrara +in 1508, and received specific mention among the dramatic performances +dealt with by the laws of Venice. + +We thus see that the eclogue had every opportunity of developing into a +regular dramatic form. At this point a variety of external influences made +themselves felt, which facilitated or modified its growth. Perhaps +foremost among these should be reckoned that of the 'regular' drama--that +is of the drama based upon an imitation of the classics, chiefly of the +Latin authors. The conception of dramatic art which was in men's minds at +the time naturally and inevitably influenced the development of a form of +poem which was daily becoming more sensibly dramatic. Next there was the +influence of the mythological drama embodying the romantic and ideal +elements of classical myth, but in form representing the tradition of the +old religious plays. This led to the occasional introduction of +supernatural characters, counteracted the rationalizing influence of the +Roman dramatists, and supplied the pastoral with its peculiar imaginative +atmosphere. Lastly, there was the 'rustic' influence, which was at no time +very strong, and left no mark upon the form as finally evolved, but which +has nevertheless to be taken into account in tracing the process of +development. The influence exercised by burlesque and realistic scenes +from real life cannot have been brought to bear on the eclogue until it +had already attained to a dramatic character of some complexity. The +earliest text of the kind we possess dates from 1508, and it is doubtful +whether or not it was acted. In 1513 we have record of a rustic +performance at the Capitol, and a satyrical and allegorical piece of like +nature, and belonging to the same year, is actually preserved, as is also +one in Bellunese dialect. These shows became the special characteristic of +the Rozzi society at Siena, in whose hands they soon developed into short +realistic farces of low life, composed in dialectal verse and acted by +members of the society at many of the courts of Italy. The fashion, +though never widely spread, survived for many years, the most famous +author of such pieces being Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger at the +beginning of the next century. + +These _drammi rusticali_, as they were called, may not improbably have +owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' +Medici in his _Nencia_, and may thus in their origin have been related to +the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at most +parallel to that of the pastoral drama, and should not be regarded either +as the origin or as a subdivision of this latter. Nor did the rustic +compositions exercise any permanent influence on the pastoral drama; the +most that can be said is that an occasional text shows signs of being +affected by the low vulgarity of the kind. + +Returning to the polite eclogues, we soon find an increase in the dramatic +complexity of the form. Tansillo's _Due pellegrini_, which cannot be later +than 1528, contains the rudiments of a plot, two lovers bent on suicide +being persuaded by a miraculous voice to become reconciled with the world +and life. Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di +Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love +the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the +devotion of Orindio. + +We now come to what may almost be regarded as the first conscious attempt +to write a pastoral play--an attempt, however, which met with but partial +success. This is the _Amaranta_, a 'Comedia nuova pastorale' by +Giambattista Casalio of Faenza, which most probably belongs to a date +somewhat before 1538. In it the mutual love of Partenio and Amaranta is +thwarted by the girl's mother Celia, who destines her for a goatherd. +Partenio is led to believe that his love has played him false, while in +her turn Amaranta supposes herself forsaken. The two meet, however, at the +hut of a wise nymph Lucina, through whose intervention they are reconciled +and their union effected. The piece, which attains to some proportions, is +divided into five acts, and, while owing a certain debt to the _Orfeo_, is +itself pastoral in character with occasional coarse touches borrowed from +the rustic shows. It is in the _Amaranta_ that we first meet with an +attempt to introduce a real plot of some human interest into a purely +pastoral composition; we are no longer dealing with a merely occasional +piece written in celebration of some special person or festivity, no +longer with a mythological masque or pageant, nor with an amorous +allegory, but with a piece the interest of which, slight as it is, lies in +the fate of the characters involved. + +The fifteen years or so which separate the work of Casalio from that of +Beccari saw the production of a succession of more or less pastoral works +which serve, to some extent at least, to bridge over the gap which +separates even the most elaborate of the above compositions from the +recognized appearance of the fully-developed pastoral drama in the +_Sacrifizio_. The chief characteristic which marks the work of these years +is a tendency to deliberate experiment. The writers appear to have been +conscious that their work was striving towards a form which had not yet +been achieved, though they were themselves vague as to what that form +might be. Epicuro's _Mirzia_ tends towards the mythological drama; the +_Silvia_ written by one Fileno, which, like the _Amaranta_, turns on the +temporary estrangement of two lovers, introduces considerable elements +from the rustic performances; in Cazza's _Erbusto_ the amorous skein is +cut by the discovery of consanguinity and an [Greek: a)nagn/risis] after +the manner of the Latin comedy. Similar in plot to this last is a +fragmentary pastoral of Giraldi Cintio's published from manuscript by +Signor Carducci. Another curious but isolated experiment is Cintio's +_Egle_, in intent a revival of the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, in +substance a dramatization of the motive of Sannazzaro's _Salices_. In one +sense these experiments ended in failure; it was not through the +elaboration of mythological or superhuman elements, nor through the humour +of burlesque or realistic rusticity, nor yet through the violence of +unexpected discoveries, that the destined form of the pastoral drama was +to be attained. On the other hand, they undoubtedly served to introduce an +elaboration of plot and complexity of dramatic structure which is +altogether lacking in the earlier eclogues and masques, but without which +the work of Tasso and Guarini could never have occupied the commanding +position that it does in the history of literature. They carry us forward +to the point at which the pastoral drama took its shape and being. + +Of the elements compounded of pastoral idealism and the graceful purity of +classical myth, and combining the scenic attractions of the masque with +the reasoned action and human interest of the regular drama, the Arcadian +pastoral first achieved definite form in the work of Agostino Beccari. His +_Sacrifizio_, styled 'favola pastorale' on the title-page of the first +impression, was acted at the palace of Francesco d' Este at Ferrara in the +presence of Ercole II and his son Luigi, and of the Duchess Renata and her +daughters Lucrezia and Leonora, on two occasions in February and March +1554. The piece was revived more than thirty years later, namely in 1587, +when the courtly world was already familiar with Tasso's masterpiece, and +was ringing with the prospective fame of the _Pastor fido_, and +represented both at Sassuolo and Ferrara. + +The action involves three pairs of lovers. Turico loves Stellinia in spite +of the fact that she has transferred her affections to Erasto. Erasto in +his turn pays his homage to Callinome, the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, a nymph vowed to the service of Diana. There remains +Carpalio, whose love for Melidia is secretly returned; its consummation +being prevented by the girl's brother Pimonio, who refuses to countenance +the match, and keeps dragon guard over his sister. In the meanwhile +shepherds and shepherdesses assemble to honour the festival and sacrifice +of Pan, which proves the occasion for the unravelling of the amorous +tangle. Stellinia, wishing to rid herself of her rival in Erasto's love, +induces Callinome so far to break her vestal vow as to be present at the +forbidden feast. Here she is promptly detected by the offended goddess and +sentenced to do battle against one of the fiercest of the Erymanthian +boars. Erasto comes to her aid with a magic ointment, which has the power +of rendering the user invisible, and with the help of which she achieves +her task unharmed. Out of gratitude she rewards her preserver with her +love. Not only is Stellinia thus condemned to witness the failure of her +plot, but she is herself carried off by a satyr, who endeavours to deceive +each of the nymphs in turn. Being rescued from his power by the faithful +Turico, she too capitulates to love. Lastly, in the absence of Pimonio, +who has gone to be present at the games held at the festival, Carpalio and +Melidia pluck the fruit of love, and are saved from the anger of the +brother through his conveniently falling into an enchanted lake whence he +emerges in the shape of a boar. + +In the prologue the author boldly announces the novelty of his work-- + + Una favola nova pastorale + ............nova in tanto + Ch' altra non fu giammai forse pi udita + Di questa sorte recitarsi in scena. + +Guarini, who is said to have supplied a prologue for the revival of the +piece, bore out Beccari's claim when he wrote in his essay on +tragi-comedy: 'First among the moderns to possess the happy boldness to +make in this kind, namely the pastoral dramatic tale, of which there is no +trace among the ancients, was Agostin de' Beccari, a worthy citizen of +Ferrara, to whom alone does the world owe the fair creation of this sort +of poem[166].' + +Several pieces of no great interest or importance serve to fill the decade +or so following on the production of Beccari's play. Groto, known as the +Cieco d' Adria, combined the mythological motive with much of the vulgar +obscenity of the Latin comedy. Lollio also produced a hybrid of an earlier +type in his _Aretusa_. In 1567 a return was made to the pastoral tradition +of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_. Among the +spectators who witnessed the first performance of this piece before Duke +Alfonso and his court at Ferrara was a youth of twenty-two, lately +attached to the household of the Cardinal Luigi d' Este. In all +probability this was Tasso's first introduction to a style of composition +which not many years later he was to make famous throughout Europe. The +play he witnessed on that occasion, however, was no work of surpassing +genius. It cannot, indeed, be said to mark any decided advance on +Beccari's work except in so far, perhaps, as it at times foreshadows the +somewhat sickly sentiment of later pastorals, including Tasso's own. The +shepherd Sfortunato loves Dafne, Dafne loves Iacinto, who in his turn +pursues Flaminia, while she loves only Silvio, who loves himself. Nothing +particular happens till the fourth scene of Act III. Then Silvio, tired of +being the last link in the chain of love, devises a plan for placing +Flaminia and Dafne in the power of their respective lovers. Flaminia, +assailed by Iacinto, makes up her mind to bow to fate, and accepts with a +good grace the love it is no longer in her power to fly. Sfortunato, on +the other hand, rather than offend his mistress, allows her to depart +unharmed, and since he thereby forgoes his only chance of enjoying the +object of his passion, determines to die. His vow is overheard by Dafne, +who, seeing that her love for Iacinto may no more avail, at last relents. +A third nymph, introduced to make the numbers even, takes the veil among +the followers of Diana, and so lives the object of Silvio's chaste regard. +It will be readily seen how in the character of Sfortunato we have the +forerunner of Tasso's Aminta; but it will also appear what poor use has +been made of the situation. The truth is that we have up to now been +dealing merely with origins, with productions which are of interest only +in the reflected light of later work; whatever there is of real beauty and +of permanent value in the pastoral drama of Italy is due to the breath of +life inspired into the phantasms of earlier writers by the genius of Tasso +and Guarini. + + + +III + + +We have now followed the dramatic pastoral from its obscure origin in the +eclogue to the eve of its assuming a recognized and abiding position in +the literature of Europe[167]. But if it is in a measure easy thus to +trace back the Arcadian drama to its historical sources, and to show how +the _Aminta_ came to be possible, it is not so easy to show how it came to +be actual. All creative work is the outcome of three fashioning forces, +the historical position, the personal circumstances of the artist, and his +individual genius. The pastoral drama had reached what I may perhaps be +allowed to call the 'psychological point' in its development. At the same +moment it happened that Tasso, having returned from a fruitless and +uncongenial mission to the Valois court, enjoyed a brief period of calm +and prosperity in the congenial society of Leonora d' Este, before the +critical bickerings to which he exposed himself in connexion with the +_Gerusalemme_ wrought havoc with an already over-sensitive and +overstrained temperament. Furthermore it happened that he brought to the +spontaneous composition of his courtly toy just that touch of languorous +beauty, that soft vein of sentiment, which formed perhaps his most +characteristic contribution to the artistic tone of his age, veiling a +novel mood in his favourite phrase, _un non so che_[168]. Had all this not +been, had not the fortune of a suitable genius and the chance of personal +surroundings jumped with the historical possibility, we might indeed have +had any number of lifeless 'Sacrifices' and 'Unhappy Ones,' but Italy +would have added no new kind to the forms of dramatic art. Had it not been +for the _Aminta_, the pastoral drama must almost necessarily have been +stillborn, for Guarini was too much of a pedant to do more than to imitate +and enlarge, while other writers belong to the decline. + +The _Aminta_, while possessing a delicate dramatic structure of its own, +yet retains not a little of the simplicity of the _ecloga +rappresentativa_. Indeed, it is worth noting, alike on account of this +quality in the poem itself as also of its literary ancestry, that, in a +letter written within a year of its original production, Tiburio Almerici +speaks of it by the old name of eclogue[169]. Referring to its +representation at Urbino, he writes: 'Il terzo spettacolo, che si +goduto questo carnovale, stato un' egloga del Tasso, che fu recitata +questo gioved passato da alcuni gioveni d' Urbino nella sala, che fu +fatta per la venuta delia Principessa.' The princess in question was none +other than Lucrezia d' Este, who had lately become the wife of Tasso's +former companion Francesco Maria della Rovere, now Duke of Urbino, and who +with her sister Leonora, the heroine of the Tasso legend, had, it will be +remembered, stood sponsor to Beccari's play nearly twenty years before. +The representation at Urbino to which Almerici alludes was not of course +the first. Written in the winter of 1572-3 during the absence of Duke +Alfonso, the piece was acted after his return from Rome in the summer of +the latter year. Ferrara, as we have seen, had become and was long +destined to remain the special home of the pastoral drama in Italy. Here +on July 31, in the palace of Belvedere, built on an island in the Po, the +court of the Estensi assembled to witness the production of Tasso's +play[170]. The staging, both on this and on subsequent occasions, was no +doubt answerable to the nature of the piece, and added the splendour of +the masque to the classic grace of the fable. Almerici remarks on the +special attractions for spectators and auditors alike of what he calls 'la +novit del coro fra ciascuno atto,' by which he clearly meant the +spectacular interludes known as _intermed_, the verses for which are +commonly printed at the end of the play[171]. But the representation which +struck the imagination of contemporaries was that before the Grand Duke +Ferdinand at Florence. This took place in 1590[172]. Guarini's play had in +its turn won renown far beyond the frontiers of Italy, while the author +of the _Aminta_, a yet attractive but impossible madman, was destined for +the few remaining years of his life to drag his tale of woes and but too +often his rags from one Italian court to another, ere he sank at last +exhausted where S. Onofrio overlooks St. Peter's dome. + +The structure of the play is not free from a good deal of stiffness and +artificiality, which it bequeathed to its successors. It borrowed from the +classical drama a chorus, on the whole less Greek than Latin, the use of +confidants, and the introduction of messengers and descriptive passages. +These last, it may be noted, are deliberately and wantonly classical, not +merely necessitated by the exigencies of the action, difficult of +representation as in the attempted suicide of Aminta, impossible as in the +rescue of Silvia from the satyr, but resorted to in order to veil the +dramatic weakness of the author's imagination, as is plain from the +description of the final meeting of the lovers. Yet it may be freely +admitted that to this device, the substitution namely of narrative for +action, we owe most of the finest poetic passages of the play: the +description of the youthful loves of Aminta and Silvia and the former's +ruse to win a kiss, the picture of Silvia bound to the tree by the pool, +Tirsi's account of the court, the description of Silvia at the spring--one +of the most elaborate in the piece--the account of her escape from the +wolves, last but not least that description of Silvia finding the +unconscious Aminta, so full of subtle and effeminate seduction, prophetic +of a later age of morals and of taste: + + Ma come Silvia il riconobbe, e vide + Le belle guance tenere d' Aminta + Iscolorite in s leggiadri modi, + Che viola non che impallidisca + Si dolcemente, e lui languir s fatto, + Che parea gi negli ultimi sospiri + Esalar l'alma; in guisa di Baccante + Gridando, e percotendosi il bel petto, + Lasci cadersi in sul giacente corpo, + E giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. (V. i.) + +So too the chorus, though awkward enough from a dramatic point of view +and in so far as it fulfils any dramatic purpose, offers a sufficient +justification for its existence in the magnificent ode on 'honour,' that +rapturous song of the golden age of love, the poetic supremacy of which +has never been questioned, whatever may have been thought of its ethical +significance. To that aspect we shall return later. At present it will be +well to give some more or less detailed account of the action of the piece +itself. + +The shepherd Aminta loves Silvia, formerly as a child his playmate and +companion, now a huntress devoted to the service of Diana, proud in her +virginity and unfettered state. The play opens in a sufficiently +conventional manner, but wrought with sparkling verse, with two companion +scenes. In the first of these Silvia brushes aside the importunities of +her confidant Dafne who seeks to allure her to the blandishments of love +with sententious natural examples and modern instances. + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei, + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +such is the burden of her song, or yet again, recalling the golden days of +love she too of yore had wasted: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +Words of profound melancholy these, uttered in the days of the burnt-out +fires of the renaissance. But all this moves not Silvia, nymph of the +woods and of the chase, and, if she is indeed as fancy-free as she would +have us believe, her lover may even console himself with the reflection +that + + If of herself she will not love, + Nothing will make her-- + The devil take her! + +She has, after all, every right to the position. The next scene introduces +Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history +of his love. Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great +interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches +that lie scattered throughout the play. + + All' ombra d' un bel faggio Silvia e Filli + Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme; + Quando un' ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo + Sen giva il mel per que' prati fioriti, + Alle guance di Fillide volando, + Alle guance vermiglie come rosa, + Le morse e le rimorse avidamente; + Ch' alla similitudine ingannata + Forse un fior le credette. + +Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole +description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Tasso's +which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality. Aminta feigns +to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt. + + La semplicetta Silvia, + Pietosa del mio male, + S' offr di dar aita + Alla finta ferita, ahi lasso! e fece + Pi cupa e pi mortale + La mia piaga verace, + Quando le labbra sue + Giunse alle labbra mie. + +It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though +they kissed from now to doomsday. But only the reader who cannot feel its +beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Tasso's style. + +The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, +type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly +shepherds. He inherits no savoury character from his literary +predecessors, and he is content to play to the rle. His monologue may be +passed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical +indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts. It is a +quality wholly different from the mere coarseness exhibited in the English +drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one +who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes +of the _Mandragola_. The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants +Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an +understanding between Aminta and Silvia. The scene is characterized by +those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant +iciness of the 'careless' nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral +drama. + + Or, non sai tu com' fatta la donna? + Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch' altri la giunga; + Niega, e negando vuol ch' altri si toglia; + Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch' altri la vinca. + +Listening to the deliberations of these two, it cannot but strike us that +in spite of their polished speech the straightforward London stage would +have hesitated but little to bestow on them the names they deserve, and +which it were yet scarce honest to have here set down. We pass on, and, +whatever may be said regarding the moral atmosphere of the rest of the +play, we shall not again have to make complaint of the corruption of +manners assumed in the situation. In the following scene Tirsi undertakes +the difficult task of inducing Aminta to intrude upon Silvia, where she is +said to be alone at the spring preparing for the chase. It is only by +hinting that Silvia has secretly instructed Dafne to arrange the tryst +that he in the end succeeds in persuading the bashful lover to risk the +displeasure of his mistress. + +At the opening of Act III Tirsi enters lamenting in bitter terms the +cruelty of Silvia. Interrogated by the chorus, he relates how, as he and +Aminta approached the spring where Silvia was bathing, they heard a cry +and, hastening to the spot, found the nymph bound hand and foot to a tree, +and confronting her the satyr. At their approach the monster fled, and +Aminta released the nymph, who _ignuda come nacque_ at once took flight, +leaving her lover in despair. In the meanwhile Aminta has sought to kill +himself with his own spear, but has been prevented by Dafne, and the two +now enter. At this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the +piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in +the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having +prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the +recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock +pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her +escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses +her fear that the false report of Silvia's death may indeed prove the +death of Aminta. The nymph at first shows herself incredulous, but on +learning that he had already once sought death on her account she wavers +and owns to pity if not to love-- + + Oh potess' io + Con l' amor mio comprar la vita sua, + Anzi pur con la mia la vita sua, + S' egli pur morto! + +Hereupon Ergasto enters with the news that Aminta has thrown himself from +a cliff, and Silvia, now completely overcome, goes off with the intention +of dying on the body of her dead lover. + +The shortness, as well as the dramatic weakness, of the fifth act is +conspicuous even in proportion to the modest limits of the whole. It runs +to less than one hundred and fifty lines, and merely relates how Aminta's +fall was broken, how Silvia's love awoke, and all ended happily. The most +significant passage, that namely which describes Aminta being called back +to life in Silvia's arms, has been already quoted. He revives unharmed, +and the lovers, + + Alike in age, in generous birth alike + And mutual desires, + +gather in love the fruits which they have sown in weeping. + +It is worth while quoting the final chorus in witness of the spirit of +half bantering humour in which the whole was conceived even by the serious +Tasso, a spirit we unfortunately too often seek in vain among his +followers. + + Non so se il molto amaro + Che provato ha costui servendo, amando, + Piangendo e disperando, + Raddolcito esser puote pienamente + D' alcun dolce presente: + Ma, se pi caro viene + E pi si gusta dopo 'l male il bene, + Io non ti chieggio, Amore, + Questa beatitudine maggiore: + Bea pur gli altri in tal guisa; + Me la mia ninfa accoglia + Dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: + E siano i condimenti + Delle nostre dolcezze + Non s gravi tormenti, + Ma soavi disdegni, + E soavi ripulse, + Risse e guerre a cui segua, + Reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua. + +It is with these words that the author leaves his graceful fantasy; and +such, we have perhaps the right to assume, was the spirit in which the +whole was composed. Were any one to object to our seeking to analyse the +quality of the piece, arguing that to do so were to break a butterfly upon +the wheel, much might reasonably be said in support of his view. +Nevertheless, when a work of art, however delicate and slender, has +received the homage of generations, and influenced cultivated taste for +centuries, and in widely different countries, we have a right to inquire +whereon its supremacy is based, and what the nature of its influence has +been. + +With the sources from which Tasso drew the various elements of his plot we +need have little to do. The child-love of Silvia and Aminta is of the +stuff of _Daphnis and Chloe_; the ruse by which the kiss is obtained is +borrowed from Achilles Tatius; the compliment to the court of the Estensi +is after the manner of Vergil, or of Castiglione, or of Ariosto, or of any +other of the allegorical eclogists of whom Vergil was the first; the germ +of the golden-age chorus is to be found in the elegies of Tibullus (II. +iii); the character of the satyr belongs to tradition; the rent veil of +Silvia reminds us of that of Ovid's Thisbe (_Met._ IV. 55). The language +too is reminiscent. The finest lines in the play-- + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--(_Coro_ I.) + +belong to Catullus: + + Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus;... + soles occidere et redire possunt; + nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux, + nox est perpetua una dormienda. (_Carm._ V.) + + +The words in which Amore describes himself in the prologue-- + + non mica un dio + Selvaggio, o della plebe degli dei, + Ma tra' grandi celesti il pi possente-- + +recall Ovid's lines: + + nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna + sceptra manu teneo. (_Met._ I. 595.) + +Again, the line: + + Dove la costa face di s grembo; + +which occurs alike in the play (V. i.) and in the _Purgatorio_ (VII. 68), +supplies evidence, as do similar borrowings in the _Gerusalemme_, of +Tasso's study of Dante. + +The prologue introduces Amore in pastoral disguise, escaped from the care +of his mother, who would confine his activity to the Courts, and intent on +loosing his shafts among the nymphs and shepherds of Arcadia. In the form +of this prologue, which became the model for subsequent pastoral writers +in Italy[173], and in the heavenly descent of the principal characters, we +may see the influence of the mythological play; while the substance both +of the prologue and of the epilogue, or _Amore fuggitivo_, in which Venus +comes to seek her runaway among the ladies and gallants of the court, is +of course borrowed from the famous first idyl of Moschus. Again the +topical element is not absent, though it is less prominent than some of +the earlier work might lead us to expect. In the poet Tirsi-- + + allor ch' ardendo + Forsennato egli err per le foreste + S, ch' insieme movea pietate e riso + Nelle vezzose ninfe e ne' pastori; + N gi cose scrivea digne di riso, + Sebben cose facea digne di riso--(I. i.) + +we may, of course, see the poet himself. In Batto too, mentioned together +with Tirsi, it is not unreasonable to recognize Battisto Guarini, whom at +that time Tasso might still regard as his friend. Again, it is usual to +identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the +Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was +yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little +fulsome: + + Or non rammenti + Ci che l' altrieri Elpino raccontava, + Il saggio Elpino a la bella Licori, + Licori che in Elpin puote cogli occhi + Quel ch' ei potere in lei dovria col canto, + Se 'l dovere in amor si ritrovasse; + E 'l raccontava udendo Batto e Tirsi, + Gran maestri d' amore; e 'l raccontava + Nell' antro dell' Aurora, ove sull' uscio + scritto: _Lungi, ah lungi ite, profani_? + Diceva egli, e diceva che gliel disse + Quel grande che cant l' armi e gli amori, + Ch' a lui lasci la fistola morendo; + Che laggi nello 'nferno un nero speco, + L dove esala un fumo pien di puzza + Dalle tristi fornaci d' Acheronte; + E che quivi punite eternamente + In tormenti di tenebre e di pianto + Son le femmine ingrate e sconoscenti. (I. i.) + +He who sang of arms and love is of course Ariosto-- + + Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori, + Le cortesie, l' audaci imprese io canto-- + +from whom Tasso borrows the above description of the reward awaiting +ungrateful women, as also the fiction of the tell-tale walls and chairs in +Mopso's account of the court (I. ii). And this Elpino, whose pipe +elsewhere + + correr fa di puro latte i fiumi + E stillar melle dalle dure scorze, (III. i.) + +later becomes the Alete of the _Gerusalemme_, + + Gran fabbro di calunnie adorne in modi + Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi. (II. 58.) + +His flattery had not shielded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of +the minister[174]. + +Again, the picture drawn by Tirsi of the ideal court (I. ii.) is a glowing +compliment to that of the Estensi and to Duke Alfonso himself. It is +contrasted with the usual pastoral denunciation of court and city put into +the mouth of the pretended augur Mopso. In this character it has been +customary to see Sperone Speroni, who later accused Tasso of plagiarizing +him in the _Gerusalemme_, and was the first to apply the ominous word +'madman' to the unfortunate poet. To Speroni's play _Canace_ Tasso may +have been indebted for the free measures with which he diversified his +blank verse, as likewise for the line: + + Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede;[175] + +though it must not be supposed that there is any resemblance in style +between the _Aminta_ and Speroni's revolting and frigid declamation of +butchery and lust. Nor did the debt pass unnoticed. In 1585 Guarini, who +had long since parted with the sinking ship of the younger poet's +friendship, was ready to flatter Speroni with the declaration 'che tanto +di leggiadria sempre paruto a me, che abbia nell' Aminta suo conseguito +Torquato Tasso, quant' egli f imitatore della Canace[176].' + +Lastly, in the hopeless suit of Aminta to Silvia, criticism has not failed +to see a reference to the supposed relation between Tasso and Leonora d' +Este. That Tasso, who in his overwrought imagination no doubt harboured a +sentimental regard for the princess, was conscious of the parallel is in +some degree probable; that he should have identified his creation with +himself is, in view of the solution of the dramatic situation, utterly +impossible. Indeed, it would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose that +his care to identify himself with Aminta's confidant may have been an +unusual but not untimely piece of caution on his part, to prevent poisoned +gossip connecting him too closely with his hero. + +The question of the influence of the _Aminta_ on later works and on +European thought generally opens up large and difficult issues. It is one +of those works which we are not justified in treating from the purely +literary point of view. If we wish to see it in its relation to +contemporary society, and to estimate its influence upon subsequent +literature, we cannot afford to neglect its ethical bearings. This inquiry +must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, +but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of +pastoral literature has no right to shirk. + +The central motive of the piece is the struggle between the feverish +passion of Aminta and the virginal coldness of Silvia. Of this motive and +of the manner in which it is treated it is not altogether easy to speak, +and this less from any inherent element in the subject or from the +difficulty of accurately apprehending the peculiarities of sentiment +proper to former ages, than from the readiness of all ages alike to accept +in such matters the counterfeit coin of conventional protestation for the +sterling reticence of natural delicacy. No doubt this tendency has been +aided by the fact that the secrets of a girl's heart, whatever may be +their true dramatic value, form an unsuitable and ineffective subject for +declamation. The difficulties must not, however, be allowed to weigh +against the importance of coming to a clear understanding as to the true +nature of this _non so che_ of false sentiment, of which it would hardly +be too much to affirm that it made the fortune of the pastoral in +aristocratic Italy on the one hand, and proved its ruin in middle-class +London on the other. + +To Tasso is due that assumption of extravagant and conventional _pudor_ +which forms one of the most abiding features of the pastoral drama. To +censure an exaggeration of the charm of modesty on the threshold of the +_seicento_, or to object a strained sense of chastity against the author +of the golden-age chorus, may indeed seem strange; but, as with Fletcher +at a later date, the very extravagance of the paradox may supply us with +the key to its solution. + +The falsity of Tasso's position is evinced partly in the main action of +the drama, partly in the commentary supplied by the minor personages. The +character of Aminta himself is unimportant in this respect; when we have +described him as effeminate, sickly, and over-refined, we have said all +that is necessary in view of the position he occupies with regard to +Silvia. She, we are given to understand, is the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, the unspotted nymph of Diana[177], rejoicing in the chase +alone, and importuned by the love of Aminta, which she neither +reciprocates nor understands, and of the genuineness of which she shows +herself, indeed, not a little sceptical. If, however, she is as careless +as she appears, her conversion is certainly most sudden. The picture, +moreover, drawn by Dafne of Silvia coquetting with her shadow in the pool, +though possibly coloured by malice, supplies a sufficient hint of the +true state of the girl's fancy. She is in truth such a Chloe of innocence +as might spring up in the rank soil of a petty Italian court infected with +post-Tridentine morality. Were she indeed careless of Aminta's devotion we +could easily sympathize with her when she brushes aside Dafne's +importunity with the words: + + Faccia Aminta di s e de' suoi amori + Quel ch' a lui piace; a me nulla ne cale. (I. i.) + +It is altogether different with her attitude of arrogant pudicity when she +announces: + + Odio il suo amore + Ch' odia la mia onestate; (Ib.) + +and again: + + In questa guisa gradirei ciascuno + Insidiator di mia virginitate, + Che tu dimandi amante, ed io nemico. (Ib.) + +Silvia here conjoins the unwholesome medieval ideal of virginity with the +corrupt spectre of renaissance 'honour'-- + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno[178], (_Coro_ I.) + +as Tasso himself styled it--that conventional mask so bitterly contrasted +with the natural goodness of the age of gold[179]. + +The general conception of love and its attendant emotions that permeates +the work and vitiates so many of its descendants appears yet more +glaringly characterized in some of the minor personages. On these it is +not my intention to dwell. Of Dafne and Tirsi, that is, be it remembered, +Tasso's self, I have spoken, however briefly, yet at sufficient length +already. Suffice it to add here that Dafne's suggestion, that modesty is +commonly but a veil for lust, is nothing more than the cynical expression +of the attitude adopted throughout the play. Love is no ideal and +idealizing emotion, but a mere gratification of the senses--a _luxuria_ +scarcely distinguishable from _gula_. Ignorance can alone explain an +attitude of indifference towards its pleasures. The girl who does not care +to embrace opportunity is no better than a child--'Fanciulla tanto +sciocca, quanto bella,' as Dafne says. So, again, there is nothing +ennobling in the devotion of the hero, nothing elevating in his fidelity. +All the mysticism, all the ideality, of the early days of the renaissance +have long since disappeared, and chivalrous feeling, that last lingering +glory of the middle age, is dead. + +We are, indeed, justified in regarding what I may term the degeneration of +sexual feeling in the _Aminta_ as to a great extent the negation of +chivalrous love, for, even apart from the allegorizing mysticism of Dante, +that love contained its ennobling elements. And yet, strangely enough, not +a little of the convention at least of chivalrous love survives in the +debased Arcadian love of the sentimental pastoral. Both alike are +primarily of an animal nature, and this in a sense other than that in +which physical love may be said to form an element in all natural relation +between man and woman. Again, in both we find the rational machinery by +which love shall be rewarded. The lover serves his apprenticeship, either +with deeds of arms or with sighs and sonnets, and the credit of the +mistress is light who refuses to reward him for his service. The System +assumes neither choice, nor passion, nor pleasure on her part. Her act is +regarded in the cold light of a calculated payment, undisguised by any joy +of passionate surrender. But whereas in the outgrowth of feudalism, in the +chivalry of the middle ages, this system formed the great incentive to +martial daring, whereas when idealized in Beatrice it became almost +undistinguishable from the ferveurs of religion, we find it with Tasso +sinking into a weak and mawkish sensuality. More than any other +sentimentalist Tasso justified his title by 'fiddling harmonics on the +strings of sensualism,' and it may be added that the ear is constantly +catching the fundamental note. + +The foregoing remarks appeared necessary in order to understand the +subsequent history of the dramatic pastoral as well as the conditions +under which it took form and being, but they have led us far beyond the +limits of literary criticism proper. The next characteristic of the play +to be considered is one which, while possessing an important ethical +bearing, is also closely connected with the aesthetic composition. I refer +to the peculiar, not sensual but sensuous, nature of the beauty. The +effect produced by the descriptions, by the suggestions, by the general +tone, by the subtle modulations of the verse in adaptation to its theme, +is less one of literary and intellectual than of direct emotional +perception, producing the immediate physical impression of an actual +presence. The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and +voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect +produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same +impression remains with us afterwards. Smooth limbs, soft and white, that +shine through the waters of the spring and amid the jewelled spray, or +half revealed among the thickets of lustrous green, a slant ray of +sunlight athwart the loosened gold of the hair--the vision floats before +us as if conjured up by the strains of music rather than by actual words. +This kinship with another art did not escape so acute a critic as Symonds +as a characteristic of Tasso's style. But the kinship on another side with +the art of painting is equally close; a thousand pictures rise before us +as we follow the perfect melody of the irregular lyric measures. The white +veil fluttering and the swift feet flashing amid the brambles and the +trailing creepers of the wood, bright crimson staining the spotless purity +of the flying skirts as the huntress bursts through the clinging tangles +that seek to hold her as if jealous of a human love, the lusty strength of +the bronzed and hairy satyr in contrast with the tender limbs of the +captive nymph, the dark cliff, and the still mirror of the lake reflecting +the rosebuds pressed artfully against the girl's soft neck as she crouches +by its brink, + + Backed by the forest, circled by the flowers, + Bathed in the sunshine of the golden hours, + +the armed huntress, the grey-coated wolves, and the white-robed +chorus--here are a series of pictures of seductive beauty for the brush of +a painter to realize upon the walls of some palace of pleasure. + +The _Aminta_ attained a wide popularity even before the appearance of the +first edition from the Aldine house at Venice early in 1581--the epistle +is dated 1580. The printer of the Ferrarese edition of the same year +remarks: 'Tosto che la Fama ... mi rapport, che in Venetia si stampava l' +Aminta, ... cos subito pensai, che quella sola Impressione dovesse essere +ben poca per sodisfattione di tanti virtuosi, che sono desiderosi di +vederla alla luce.' A critical edition was prepared at Paris in the middle +of the following century by Egidio Menagio of the Accademia della Crusca, +and dedicated to Maria della Vergna, better known, under her married name +of Madame de la Fayette, as the author of the _Princesse de Clves_[180]. +In 1693 the play was attacked by Bartolomeo Ceva Grimaldi, Duke of Telese, +in an address read before the Accademia degli Uniti at Naples[181]. He was +answered before the same society by Francesco Baldassare Paglia, and in +1700 appeared Giusto Fontanini's elaborate defence[182]. To each chapter +of this work is prefixed a passage from Grimaldi's address, which is then +laboriously refuted. The Duke's attack is puerile cavil, and in spite of +the reputed ability of its author the defence must be admitted to be much +on the same level. + + + +IV + + +The attention which we have bestowed upon the _Aminta_ will allow us to +pass more rapidly than would otherwise have been possible over its +successor and rival, the _Pastor fido_. This is due to the fact that the +moral and artistic environment of the two pieces is much the same, and +further, that it is this environment which to a great extent determined, +not only the individual character of the poems, but likewise the nature of +their subsequent influence. + +Recent research has had the effect of dispelling not a few of the +traditional ideas respecting Guarini's play. Among them is the fable that +it took twenty years to write, which would carry back its inception to +days before the composition of the _Aminta_. It is now recognized that +nine years is the utmost that can be assigned, letters being extant which +fix the genesis of the play in 1581, or at the earliest in 1580 a year or +so previous to Guarini's departure from Ferrara[183]. Again, it has been +usual to assume that the play was performed as early as 1585, whereas +there is in truth no evidence of any representation previous to the +appearance of the first edition dated 1590[184]. The early fortunes of the +play are indeed typical of the ill-success that dogged the author +throughout life. Though untouched by the tragic misfortunes which lend +interest to Tasso's career, his lot was at times a hard one and we may +excuse him if, at the last, he was no less embittered than his younger +rival. He was not cursed, it is true, with Tasso's incurable idealism; +but, if in consequence he exposed himself less to the buffets of +disillusionment, he likewise lacked its sustaining and ennobling power. +Tasso used the pastoral machinery to idealize the court; Guarini accepted +the pastoral convention of the superiority of the 'natural' life of the +country, and used it as a means of pouring out his bitterness of soul. The +_Aminta_, it should be remembered, was written during a few weeks, months +at most, at a time when Tasso was comparatively fortunate and happy; the +_Pastor fido_ was the ten years' labour of a retired and disappointed +courtier, whose later days were further embittered by domestic +misfortunes. In the same way as it was characteristic of Tasso's rosy view +that no law should be allowed to curb the purity of natural love in his +dream of the ideal age, so it was characteristic of the spirit of his +imitator to seek the ideal in the prudent love that strives towards no +distant star beyond the bounds of law. And the fact that Guarini saw fit +seriously to oppose a scholastic's moral figment to the poet's age of gold +may serve as a sufficient measure of the soul of the pedant. + +When Battista Guarini[185] entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara in +1567 he was already married and had attained the age of thirty, being +seven years older than Tasso. His duties at court were political, and he +was employed on several missions of a diplomatic character. There was no +reason whatever, beyond his own perverse ambition, why he should have come +into rivalry with Tasso, yet he did so both as a writer of verses and as a +hanger-on of court beauties. It is impossible to acquit him of bad taste +in the manner in which he and some at least of his fellow courtiers +treated the unfortunate poet, and there was certainly bad blood between +the two soon after the production of the _Aminta_, owing, probably, to the +ungenerous remarks passed by Guarini upon the author's indebtedness to +previous writers. After Tasso's confinement to S. Anna in 1579, Guarini +became court poet, and the luckless prisoner was condemned to see his own +poems entrusted to the editorial care of his rival. + +Guarini, however, was not satisfied with the court of Ferrara. His estate +was reduced by the expenses entailed by his missions as ambassador, for +which, like Machiavelli, he appears never to have received adequate +supplies, and by the continuous litigation in which he involved himself. +His political imagination, too, had been fired during a stay at Turin with +the possibilities inherent for Italy in the house of Savoy--an enthusiasm +which possibly did not tend to smooth his relations with his own master. +In 1582 he left Ferrara and the service of Alfonso and retired to his +ancestral estates of S. Bellino. Here he devoted himself to the +composition of the play he had lately taken in hand, which, in spite of +spasmodic returns to political life not only at the court of the Estensi +but also at Turin and Florence, forms thenceforward with its many +vicissitudes the central interest of his biography. He survived till 1612, +dying at the age of seventy-four. + +To do justice to the _Pastor fido_ it would be best to give the story in +the form of a continuous narrative rather than an analysis of the actual +scenes, since the author's constructive power lay almost wholly in the +invention of an intricate plot and his weakness in the scenic rendering of +it. His dramatic methods, however, so far elaborated from the simplicity +of Tasso's, had a vast influence over subsequent work, and it is highly +important to obtain a clear idea of their nature. We shall, therefore, be +condemned to follow Guarini, part-way at least, through the stiff +artificiality of his interminable scenes. + +A complicated story which is narrated at length in the course of the play +explains the peculiar laws of Arcadia on which the plot hinges[186]. These +comprise an edict of Diana to the effect that any nymph found guilty of a +breach of faith shall suffer death at the altar unless some one offers to +die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and +twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought +to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: + + Non avr prima fin quel che v' offende, + Che duo semi del ciel congiunga amore; + E di donna infedel l' antico errore + L' alta piet d' un pastor fido ammende. + +The only two in Arcadia who fulfil the conditions of the oracle are +Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano, and Amarilli, daughter of +Titiro, who have in their veins the blood of Hercules and Pan. These two +have consequently been betrothed and, being now arrived at marriageable +age, their final union is imminent. + +At this point the play opens. Silvio cares for nothing but the chase, +regardless alike of his destined bride and of the love borne him by the +nymph Dorinda; Amarilli is seemingly heart-whole, but secretly loves her +suitor Mirtillo, a stranger in Arcadia, whom, however, she persists in +treating with coldness in view of the penalty involved by a breach of +faith. Mirtillo in his turn is loved by Corisca, a wanton nymph who has +learned the arts of the city, and who is pursued both by Coridone, to whom +she is formally engaged, but whom she neglects, and by a satyr. Almost +every character is provided with a confidant: Silvio has Linco; Mirtillo, +Ergasto; Dorinda, Lupino; Carino[187], the supposed father of Mirtillo, +has Uranio; Montano and Titiro act as confidants to one another. The only +case arguing any dramatic feeling is that in which Amarilli makes a +confidant of her rival Corisca; while Corisca and the satyr alone among +the more important characters are left to address the audience directly. +Even the confidants sometimes need confidants in their turn, these being +supplied by a conveniently ubiquitous chorus. + +In the first scene of Act I, after the prologue, in which Alfeo rises to +pay compliments to Carlo Emanuele and his bride, we are introduced to +Silvio and Linco, who are about to start in pursuit of a savage boar which +has been devastating the country. Linco taxes his companion with his +neglect of the softer joys of love, to which Silvio replies with +long-drawn praise of the free life of the woods. The scene is parallel to +the first of the _Aminta_, and the author has sought here and elsewhere to +point the contrast. Thus where Tasso wrote: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +Guarini has: + + Lascia, lascia le selve, + Folle garzon, lascia le fere, ed ama. + +In the next scene, again modelled on the corresponding one in Tasso's +play, we find Ergasto comforting Mirtillo in his despair at Amarilli's +'cruelty.' Mirtillo has but recently arrived in Arcadia, and is ignorant +of its history and customs, which Ergasto explains at length. The third +scene is devoted to a long monologue by Corisca; the fourth to a +conversation between Montano and Titiro, who discuss the oracles +concerning the approaching marriage and recount portentous dreams. A +monologue by the satyr relating his ill-usage at the hands of Corisca, +followed by a chorus, ends the first act. The next scene contains the +history of Mirtillo's passion as narrated to his confidant. Ergasto has +enlisted the services of Corisca, and the whole paraphernalia of love lead +in the next act to an interview between Mirtillo and Amarilli. The +author's dramatic method whereby he presents us with alternate scenes from +the various threads of the plot will by now be evident to the reader, and +the remainder may for clearness' sake be thrown into narrative form. + +Corisca, well knowing that it is impossible for Amarilli to show favour to +Mirtillo, and hoping to ingratiate herself with him, prevails upon the +nymph to grant her lover a hearing, provided the interview be secret and +short. During a game of blind man's buff the players suddenly retire, +leaving Mirtillo and Amarilli alone. The interview of course comes to +nothing, but as soon as Mirtillo has left her Amarilli relieves her +feelings in a monologue confessing her love, which is overheard by +Corisca[188]. Charged with her weakness, she confesses her dislike of the +marriage with Silvio. Hereupon Corisca conceives a plan for ridding +herself at once of her rival in Mirtillo's affections and of her own +affianced lover. She leads Amarilli to suppose that Silvio is faithless +to his betrothal vow. If Amarilli can prove Silvio guilty she will +herself be free, and she agrees to hide in a recess in a cave where +Corisca alleges that Silvio has an assignation. Next Corisca makes an +appointment to meet her lover Coridone in the same cave, intending that he +and Amarilli shall be surprised together. Finally, in order to obtain a +witness, she accuses Amarilli to Mirtillo of being faithless, and bids him +watch the mouth of the cave in which she alleges the nymph has an +assignation with Coridone. This ingenious plan would have succeeded to +perfection but for Mirtillo's precipitancy, for, seeing Amarilli enter the +cave, he at once concludes her guilt and follows her forthwith to wreak +revenge. At that moment the satyr appears and, misunderstanding some words +of Mirtillo's, proceeds to bar the entrance to the cave with a huge rock, +thinking he is imprisoning Mirtillo and Corisca. He then goes off to +inform the priests of the pollution committed so near their temple. These +enter the cave and apprehend the lovers. Amarilli is at once condemned to +death, but Mirtillo thereupon offers himself in her place and, being +accepted by the priests, is kept as a sacrifice, Amarilli being at the +same time closely guarded lest she should lay violent hands upon herself. + +In the meantime Silvio has been successful in his hunting of the boar, +whose head he brings home in triumph. There follows an echo-scene, one of +those toys which, as old as the Greek Anthology, and cultivated in Latin +by Tebaldeo, and in Italian by Poliziano, owed, not indeed their +introduction, but certainly their great popularity in pastoral, to +Guarini. His example is fairly successful. The echo predicts that the end +of Silvio's 'carelessness' is at hand, when he shall himself break his bow +and follow her who now follows him. The prophecy is quick of fulfilment. +With a jest he turns to go, when his eye falls on a grey object crouching +among the bushes. He supposes it to be a wolf, and looses an arrow at it. +It proves, however, to be Dorinda, who has throughout followed his chase +disguised in the rough wolf-skin coat of a herdsman, and who is now led +fainting on to the scene by Lupino. Silvio is overcome with remorse, and, +careless alike of his troth to Amarilli and of the fate of Arcadia, +declares that thenceforth he will love none but Dorinda, and will die +with her should his arrow prove fatal. They leave the stage for good--to +get healed and married. + +To return to the main plot. At sundown Mirtillo is led out to die, and the +sacrifice is about to be performed when his supposed father, an Arcadian +by birth, though he has long lived at Elis, and has just arrived in search +of his foster child, interposes. Explanations ensue, and it gradually +appears that Mirtillo is the eldest son of Montano, washed away in his +cradle by the floods of the Alpheus twenty years before. Thus in the love +between him and Amarilli, and in his voluntary sacrifice of himself in her +place, the oracle is fulfilled, and Arcadia freed from its maiden tribute. +This seems obvious enough, though it takes the inspiration of a blind +prophet to drive it into the heads of the assembled Arcadians. A final +difficulty remains--the broken troth. But it so happens that Mirtillo was +originally named Silvio, so that to 'Silvio' no faith is broken. A +casuistical reason indeed; but good enough for the purpose. No attempt is +made to clear Amarilli of the compromising evidence on which she had been +condemned, but the pair have the favour of the gods, and the chorus makes +no difficulty of chanting the virtue of the bride. + +Such is Guarini's play; a plot constructed with consummate ingenuity, but +presented with an almost entire lack of dramatic feeling. Almost the whole +of the action takes place off the stage. Silvio and Dorinda leave the +scene apparently for a tragic catastrophe; their subsequent union is only +reported; so is the surprisal of Mirtillo and Amarilli, the scene in which +the former offers himself as a sacrifice in her place, and their meeting +after the cloud of death has passed. The solitary scene revealing any real +dramatic power is that between Amarilli and the priest Nicandro, in which +the girl maintains her innocence. Her terror when confronted with death is +drawn with some delicacy and pathos, though we sadly miss those poignant +touches that the English playwrights seem always to have had at command on +similar occasions. Her fear of death, however, stands in powerful dramatic +contrast with the sudden courage she displays when her lover seeks to die +in her place. Guarini was perfectly aware of the value of this contrast, +for he placed the following lines in the mouth of the _messo_ who reports +the scene: + + Or odi maraviglia. + Quella che fu pur dianzi + S dalla tema del morire oppressa, + Fatta allor di repente + A le parole di Mirtillo invitta, + Con intrepido cor cos rispose: + 'Pensi dunque, Mirtillo, + Di dar col tuo morire + Vita a chi di te vive? + O miracolo ingiusto! Su, ministri; + Su, che si tarda? omai + Menatemi agli altari.' (V. ii.) + +And yet this dramatic contrast has been wantonly thrown away by the +substitution of narrative for representation, less for the sake of a blind +adherence to classical convention, as on account of the author's inability +honestly to face a powerful situation. The same dramatic incapacity shows +itself in his use of borrowings. It will be sufficient to mention the +sententious words from Ovid (_Amores_, I. viii. 43) placed in the mouth of +the chorus: + + Dunque non si dir donna pudica + Se non quella che mai + Non fu sollecitata; (IV. in.) + +in order to compare them with the use made of the same by Webster when he +made Vittoria at her trial exclaim: + + Casta est quam nemo rogavit!-- + +a comparison which at once reveals the gulf fixed between the clairvoyant +dramatist and the mere pedantic scholar. + +And yet the subsequent history of pastoral reminds us that it is quite +possible to underestimate Guarini's merits as a playwright. In the +construction of a complicated plot, apart from the dramatic presentation +thereof, he achieved a success not to be paralleled by any previous work +in Italy, for the difference in the titles of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, the one styled _favola_ and the other _tragi-commedia_, indicates a +real distinction; and Guarini's proud claim to have invented a new +dramatic kind was not wholly unfounded[189]. It was this that caused +Symonds to speak of his play as 'sculptured in pure forms of classic +grace,' while describing the _Aminta_ as 'perfumed and delicate like +flowers of spring.' And lastly, it was this more elaborately dramatic +quality that was responsible for the far greater influence exercised by +Guarini than by Tasso, both on the subsequent drama of Italy and still +more on the fortunes of the pastoral in England. + +Moreover, in Amarilli, Guarini created one really dramatic character and +devoted to it one really dramatic scene. His heroine is probably the best +character to be found in the whole of the pastoral drama, and this simply +because there is a reason for her coldness towards the lover, upon her +love to whom the plot depends. Unless love is to be mutual the motive +force of the drama fails, and consequently, when nymphs insist on parading +their inhuman superiority to the dictates of natural affection, they are +simply refusing to fulfil their dramatic _raison d'tre_. With Amarilli it +is otherwise. She has the right to say: + + Ama l' onest mia, s' amante sei; (III. iii.) + +and there is a pathos in the words which the author may not have himself +fully understood; whereas the similar expression of Tasso's Silvia quoted +on a previous page is insufferable in its smug self-conceit. + +Of this quality of extravagant virginity noticed as a characteristic of +Tasso's play there is on the whole less in the _Pastor fido_. It is also +freer from the tone of cynical corruption and from improper suggestion. +These merits are, however, more than counterbalanced in the ethical scale +by the elaboration of the spirit of sentimental sensualism, which becomes +as it were an enveloping atmosphere, and lends an enervating seduction to +the piece. This spirit, already present in the _Aminta_, reappeared in an +emphasized form in the _Pastor fido_, and attained its height in the +following century in Marino's epic of _Adone_. We find it infusing the +scene of Mirtillo's first meeting with Amarilli, which may be said to set +the tone of the rest of the poem. Happening to see the nymph at the +Olympian games, Mirtillo at once fell in love and contrived to introduce +himself in female attire into the company of maidens to which she +belonged. Here, the proposal being made to hold a kissing match among +themselves, Amarilli was unanimously chosen judge, and, the contest over, +she awarded the prize to the disguised youth. The incident owes its +origin, as Guarini's notes point out, to the twelfth Idyl of Theocritus, +and the suggestion of the kissing match is aptly put into the mouth of a +girl from Megara, where an annual contest of kisses among the Greek youths +was actually held. Guarini, however, most probably borrowed the episode +from the fifth canto of Tasso's _Rinaldo_. + +The sentimental seductiveness of this and other scenes did not escape +sharp comment in some quarters within a few years of the publication of +the play. In 1605 Cardinal Bellarmino, meeting Guarini at Rome, told him +plainly that he had done as much harm to morals by his _Pastor fido_ as by +their heresies Luther and Calvin had done to religion. Later Janus Nicius +Erythraeus, that is Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, in his _Pinacoteca_, compared +the play to a rock-infested sea full of seductive sirens, in which no +small number of girls and wives were said to have made shipwreck. It is at +first sight ratifier a severe indictment to bring against Guarini's play, +especially when we remember that a work of art is more often an index than +a cause of social corruption. After what has been said, however, of the +nature of the sentiment both in the _Pastor fido_ and the _Aminta_, the +charge can hardly be dismissed as altogether unfounded. It is only fair to +add that very different views have been held with regard to the moral +aspect of the play, the theory of its essential healthiness finding an +eloquent advocate in Ugo Angelo Canello[190]. + +Little as it became him, Guarini chose to adopt the attitude of a +guardian of morals, and Bellarmino's words clearly possessed a special +sting. This pose was in truth but a part of the general attitude he +assumed towards the author of the _Aminta_. His superficial propriety +authorized him, in his own eyes, to utter a formal censure upon the +amorous dream of the ideal poet. He paid the price of his unwarranted +conceit. Those passages in which he was at most pains to contrast his +ethical philosophy with Tasso's imaginative Utopia are those in which he +most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in +his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid +declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay +beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the _Pastor +fido_ with Tasso's great ode; his sententious 'Piaccia se lice' with +Tasso's 'S' ei piace, ei lice'; his utterly banal + + Speriam: che 'l sol cadente anco rinasce; + E 'l ciel, quando men luce, + L' aspettato seren spesso n' adduce, + +with Tasso's superb, even though borrowed, paganism: + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce-- + +when we make this comparison we have the spiritual measure of the man. A +similar comparison will give us his measure as a poet. Take the graceful +but over-elaborated picture: + + Quell' augellin che canta + S dolcemente, e lascivetto vola + Or dall' abete al faggio, + Ed or dal faggio al mirto, + S' avesse umano spirto + Direbbe: 'Ardo d' amore, ardo d' amore!' + +Compare with this the spontaneous sketch of Tasso: + + Odi quell' usignuolo + Che va di ramo in ramo + Cantando: 'Io amo, io amo!'[191] + +Or again, with the irresistible slyness of the final chorus of the +_Aminta_ already quoted compare the sententious lines with which Guarini +closed his play: + + O fortunata coppia, + Che pianto ha seminato, e riso accoglie! + Con quante amare doglie + Hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi! + Quinci imparate voi, + O ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, + I sinceri diletti, e i veri mali. + Non sana ogni gioia, + N mal ci che v' annoia. + Quello vero gioire, + Che nasce da virt dopo il soffrire. + +It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that we are listening in +the one case to a genuine poet of no common order, in the other to a +poetaster of considerable learning and great ingenuity, who elected to don +the outward habit of a somewhat hypocritical morality. The effect of the +contrast is further heightened when we remember that Guarini never for a +moment doubted that he had far surpassed the work of his predecessor. + +Guarini's comment on the _Aminta_ in his letter to Speroni has been +already quoted: it does little credit to the writer. Manso, the companion +and biographer of Tasso, records that, the poet being asked by some +friends what he thought of the _Pastor fido_, a copy of which had lately +found its way to him at Naples: + + Et egli, 'Mi piace sopramodo, ma confesso di non saper la cagione perch + mi piaccia.' Onde io rispondendogli, 'Vi piacer per avventura,' + soggiunsi, 'quel che vi riconoscete del vostro.' Et egli replic, 'Ne + pu piacere il vedere il suo in man d' altri.'[192] + +Guarini would hardly have acknowledged his indebtedness to Tasso in the +way of art, but he drew on all sources for the incidents of his plot, and, +since he appears to have valued a reputation for scholarship above one for +originality, he recorded a fair proportion of his borrowings in his notes. + + * * * * * + +The _Pastor fido_ was the talk of the Italian Courts even before it was +completed. Early in 1584 the heir to the duchy of Mantua, Vincenzo +Gonzaga, to whose intercession Tasso later owed his liberty, entreated +Guarini to let him have his already famous pastoral for the occasion of +his marriage with Eleonora de' Medici. The poet, however, found it +impossible to complete the work in time, and sent the _Idropica_ instead. +In the autumn a projected representation of the now completed play came to +naught. The following year Guarini presented his play to the Duke of +Savoy, and received a gold chain as an acknowledgement. The occasion was +the entry into Turin of Carlo Emanuele and his bride, Catharine of +Austria, the marriage having taken place at Saragossa some time +previously. The dedication is recorded on the title-page of the first +edition in words that have not unnaturally been held to imply that the +play was performed on that occasion.[193] It is clear, however, from +contemporary documents that this is an error, and, though preparations +were made in view of a performance at the following carnival, these too +were abandoned. After this we find mention of preparations made at a +variety of places, but they never came to anything, and there is reason to +believe that some at least were abandoned owing to the opposition of +Alfonso d' Este, who never forgave a courtier who transferred his +allegiance to another prince. In 1591 Vincenzo Gonzaga, now duke, summoned +Guarini to Mantua, and matters advanced as far as a _prova generale_ or +dress rehearsal. The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing +to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome. We possess the +scheme for the four _intermezzi_ designed for this occasion, representing +the _Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell' Aria_, and _Celeste_. They were +scenic and musical only, without words. About this time too, that is after +the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of +preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which +is uncertain. The first representation of which there is definite +evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in +Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[194]. After this +performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the +play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua. On +all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were substituted +for that addressed to _gran Caterina_ and _magnanimo Carlo_[195]. + +In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the +publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism +of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a +member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the _Gerusalemme_. +Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and +recommendations of these two men. The work finally appeared, as we learn +from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589. It is a handsome +quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the +following year[196]. In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the title-page +to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti. This +represents Guarini's final revision of the text, and contains, besides a +portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on +tragi-comedy[197]. + +The _Pastor fido_ was the object of a violent attack while as yet it +circulated in manuscript only. As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores +or Denores, a Cypriot noble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the +university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing +between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in +which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced +tragi-comedies and pastorals as 'monstrous and disproportionate +compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil +philosophy.' Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving +to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the +reference was palpable. He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast +which he named _Il Verato_ (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the +time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ in 1567. In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor's +propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism: 'As in compounds the +hot accords with the cold, its mortal enemy, as the dry humour with the +moist, so the elements of tragedy and comedy, though separately +antagonistic, yet when united in a third form,' _et cetera et cetera_. De +Nores replied in an _Apologia_ (1590), disclaiming all personal allusion, +and the poet finally answered back in a _Verato secondo_, first published +in 1593, after his antagonist's death, restating his arguments and +seasoning them with a good deal of unmannerly abuse. These two treatises +of Guarini's were reprinted with alterations as the _Compendio della +poesia tragicommica_, in the 1602 edition of the play, and together with +the notes to the same edition form Guarini's own share of the +controversy[198]. But in 1600, before these had appeared, a Paduan, +Faustino Summo, published a set attack on and dissection of the play; +while a certain Giovan Pietro Malacreta of Vicenza illustrated the +attitude of the age with regard to literature by putting forward a series +of critical _dubb_, that is, doubts as to the 'authority' of the form +employed. Both works are distinguished by a spirit of puerile cavil, which +would of itself almost suffice to reconcile us to the worst faults of the +poet. Thus Malacreta is not even content to let the author choose his own +title, arguing that Mirtillo was faithful not in his quality of shepherd +but of lover[199]. He goes on to complain of the tangle of laws and +oracles which Guarini invents in order to motive the action of his play; +and here, though taken individually his objections may be hypercritical, +he has laid his finger on a very real weakness of the author's ingenious +plot. It is, moreover, a weakness common to almost the whole tribe of the +Arcadian, or rather Utopian, pastorals. Apologists soon appeared, and had +little difficulty in disposing of most of the adverse criticisms. A +specific _Risposta_ to Malacreta appeared at Padua in 1600 from the pen of +Paolo Beni. Defences by Giovanni Savio and Orlando Pescetti were printed +at Venice and Verona respectively in 1601, while one at least, written by +Gauges de Gozze of Pesaro, under the pseudonym of Fileno di Isauro, +circulated in manuscript. These writings, however, are marked either by +futile endeavours to reconcile the _Pastor fido_ with the supposed +teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as +that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, +it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of +Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles[200]. Finally, Summo returned to the +charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in +1601[201]. But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the +popularity of the _Pastor fido_ and its successors. Moreover, the critical +position of the combatants on both sides was essentially false. It would +be an easy task to fill a volume with strictures on the play touching its +sentimental tone, its affected manners, its stiff development, its +undramatic construction, the weak drawing of character, the lack of motive +force to move the complex machinery, and many other points--strictures +that should be unanswerable. But those who wish to understand the +influence exercised by the play over subsequent literature in Europe will +find their time better spent in analysing those qualities, whether +emotional or artistic, which won for it the enthusiastic worship of the +civilized world. + +Numerous translations bear witness to its popularity far beyond the shores +of Italy. The earliest of these was into French, and appeared in 1595; it +was followed by several others. The Spanish versions have already been +mentioned, and the English will occupy our attention shortly. Besides +these there are versions, often more than one, in German, Greek, Swedish, +Dutch, and Polish. There are likewise versions in the Bergamasc and +Neapolitan dialects, while the manuscript of a Latin translation is +preserved in the University Library at Cambridge. + + + +V + + +There were obvious advantages in treating the two masterpieces of pastoral +drama in Italy in close connexion with one another. It must not, however, +be supposed that they stood alone in the field of pastoral composition. +Both between the years 1573 when the _Aminta_ was composed and 1590 when +the _Pastor fido_ was printed, and also after the latter year, the stream +of plays continued unchecked, though, apart from a general tendency +towards greater regularity of dramatic construction, they do not form any +organic link in the chain of artistic development. Few deserve more than +passing notice. In the earlier ones, at least, we still find a tendency to +introduce extraneous elements. Thus _Gl' Intricati_, printed in 1581, and +acted a few years before at Zara, the work of Count Alvise, or, it would +appear, more correctly Luigi, Pasqualigo, contains a farcical and magical +part combined with some rather coarse jesting between two rogues, one +Spanish and one Bolognese, who speak in their respective dialects. Another +play in which a comic element appears is Bartolommeo Rossi's _Fiammella_ +(1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical +characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another +piece belonging to this period is the _Pentimento amoroso_ by Luigi Groto, +which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and +intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in +_sdrucciolo_ verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, +Gabriele Zinano's _Caride_, surreptitiously printed in 1582, and included +in an authorized publication in 1590, has the peculiarity of placing the +prologue in the mouth of Vergil. Lastly, I may mention Angelo Ingegneri's +_Danza di Venere_, acted at Parma in 1583, and printed the following year. +It contains the incident of a mad shepherd's regaining his wits through +gazing on the beauty of a sleeping nymph, thus borrowing the motive of +Boccaccio's tale of Cymon and Iphigenia. Its chief interest for us, +however, lies in the episode of the hero employing a gang of satyrs to +carry off his beloved during a solemn dance in honour of Venus. This looks +like a reminiscence of Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_, and through it of the old +satyric drama[202]. + +These plays all belong to the period between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_. Tasso's and Guarini's masterpieces mark the point of furthest +development attained by the pastoral drama in Italy, or indeed in Europe. +With them the vitality which rendered evolution possible was spent, though +the power of reproduction remained unimpaired for close on a century. +Signor Rossi, in the monograph of which I have already made such free use, +mentions a number of plays, whose dependence on the _Pastor fido_ is +evident from their titles, though Guarini's influence is, of course, far +more widely spread than such eclectic treatment reveals. The most curious, +perhaps, is a play, _I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed +Amarilli_, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children +of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a +genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance +that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of +supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso +and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding +proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that +influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino +possessed no less than eighty pastoral plays; while by 1700, the year of +Fontanini's work on the _Aminta_, Giannantonio Moraldi is said to hsve +brought together in Rome a collection of over two hundred.[203] Every +device was resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo +Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find +her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's _Finta +Fiammetta_ (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courtship of +Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's +_Fida Armilla_ (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous +serpent--all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and +romance. Two plays only call for closer attention, and this rather on +account of a certain reputation they have gained than of any intrinsic +merit. One of these, Antonio Ongaro's _Alceo_, which was printed in 1582 +and is therefore earlier than the _Pastor fido_, has been happily +nicknamed _Aminta bagnato_. It is a piscatorial adaptation of Tasso's +play, which it follows almost scene for scene. The satyr becomes a triton +with as little change of character as the nymphs and shepherds undergo in +their metamorphosis to fisher girls and boys. Alceo shows less +resourcefulness than his prototype in that he twice tries to commit +suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The last act is spun out to +three scenes in accordance with the demand for greater regularity of +dramatic construction, but gains nothing but tedium thereby. The other +play to be considered connects itself in plot rather with the _Pastor +fido_. It is the _Filli di Sciro_, the work of Guidubaldo Bonarelli della +Rovere. The poet's father enjoyed the protection of the Duke Guidubaldo II +of Urbino, but in after days he removed to the court of the Estensi at +Ferrara. It was here that the play appeared in 1607, though it is +dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, who had by that time succeeded +his father in the duchy of Urbino. The plot of the play is highly +intricate, and shows a tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous +element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the +island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is +replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract +two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely +wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with +both her rescuers at once, and it is only when one of them proves to be +her long-lost brother that she is able to make up her mind between +them[204]. This brother had been carried off as a child by the Thracians +together with his betrothed Filli, and having escaped was lately returned +to his native land. From a dramatic point of view the _dnoment_ is even +more preposterous than usual. The principal characters leave the stage at +the end of the fourth act, under sentence of death, and do not reappear, +the whole of the last act being occupied with narratives of their +subsequent fortunes. A point which is possibly worth notice is the +introduction of that affected talk on the technicalities of sheepcraft +which adds so greatly to the already intolerable artificiality of the +later pastoral drama, but which is happily absent from the work of Tasso +and Guarini. + + * * * * * + +We have now reached the end of our survey of the Italian pastoral drama. +In spite of the space it has been necessary to devote to the subject, it +must be borne in mind that we have treated it from one point of view only. +Besides the interest which it possesses in connexion with the development +of pastoral tradition, it also plays a very important part in the history +of dramatic art, not in Italy alone, but over the whole of Europe. On this +aspect of the subject we have hardly so much as touched. Nor is this all. +If it is true, as is commonly assumed, that the opera had its birth in the +_Orfeo_ of Angelo Poliziano, it is not less true that it found its cradle +in the Arcadian drama. A few isolated pieces may still be able to charm us +by their poetic beauty. In dealing with the rest it must never be +forgotten that without the costly scenery and elaborate musical setting +that lent body and soul to them in their day, we have what is little +better than the dry bones of these _ephemeridae_ of courtly art. + + + + +Chapter IV. + +Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of +this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the +growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the +seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a +connected web the loose threads of my discourse. + +Taking birth among the upland meadows of Sicily, the pastoral tradition +first assumed its conventional garb in imperial Rome, and this it +preserved among learned writers after its revival in the dawn of the +Italian renaissance. With Arcadia for its local habitation it underwent a +rebirth in the opening years of the sixteenth century in Sannazzaro's +romance, and again towards the close in the drama of Tasso. It became +chivalric in Spain and courtly in France, and finally reached this country +in three main streams, the eclogue borrowed by Spenser from Marot, the +romance suggested to Sidney by Montemayor, and the drama imitated by +Daniel from Tasso and Guarini. Once here, it blended variously with other +influences and with native tradition to produce a body of dramatic work, +which, ill-defined, spasmodic and occasional, nevertheless reveals on +inspection a certain character of its own, and one moreover not precisely +to be paralleled from the literary annals of any other European nation. + +The indications of a native pastoral impulse, manifesting itself in the +burlesque of the religions drama and the romance of the popular ballads, +we have already considered. The connexion which it is possible to trace +between this undefined impulse and the later pastoral tradition is in no +wise literary; in so far as it exists at all and is one of temperament +alone, a bent of national character. In tracing the rise of the form in +Italy upon the one hand, and in England upon the other, we are struck by +certain curious contrasts and also by certain curious parallelisms. The +closest analogy to the ballad themes to be discovered in the literature of +Italy is in certain of the songs of Sacchetti and his contemporaries, but +it would be unwise to insist on the resemblance. The more suggestive +parallel of the _novelle_ has to be ruled out on the score of form, and is +further differentiated by the notable lack in them of romantic spirit. +Again, in the _sacre rappresentazioni_, the burlesque interpolations from +actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through +it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the +rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a +direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, +a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct +imitation,[205] must be taken to indicate a real parallelism in the +evolution of the tradition in the two countries, that in England as in +Italy the way was paved for pastoral by the appearance of mythological +plays, introducing incidentally pastoral scenes and characters, and +anticipating to some extent at any rate the peculiar atmosphere of the +Arcadian drama. + + * * * * * + +The earliest of these English mythological plays, alike in date of +production and of publication, was George Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_, +'A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Majestie, by the children of +her Chappell,' no doubt in 1581, and printed three years later.[206] It +partakes of the nature of the masque in that the whole composition centres +round a compliment to the Queen, Eliza or Zabeta--a name which, as Dr. +Ward notes, Peele probably borrowed along with one or two other hints from +Gascoigne's Kenilworth entertainment of 1575. The title sufficiently +expresses its mythological character, and the precise value of the term +'pastoral' on the title-page is difficult to determine. The characters are +for the most part either mythological or rustic; the only truly pastoral +ones being Paris and Oenone, whose parts, however, in so far as they are +pastoral, are also of the slightest. It is of course impossible to say +exactly to what extent the fame of the Italian pastoral drama may have +penetrated to England--the _Aminta_ was first printed the year of the +production of Peele's play, and waited a decade before the first English +translation and the first English edition appeared[207]--but no influence +of Tasso's masterpiece can be detected in the _Arraignment_; still less is +it possible to trace any acquaintance with Poliziano's work. + +After a prologue, in which At foretells in staid and measured but not +unpleasing blank verse the fall of Troy, the silvan deities, Pan, Faunus, +Silvanus, Pomona, Flora, enter to welcome the three goddesses who are on +their way to visit 'Ida hills,' and who after a while enter, led by Rhanis +and accompanied by the Muses, whose processional chant heralds their +approach. They are greeted by Pan, who sings: + + The God of Shepherds, and his mates, + With country cheer salutes your states, + Fair, wise, and worthy as you be, + And thank the gracions ladies three + For honour done to Ida. + +When these have retired from the stage there follows a charming idyllic +scene between the lovers Paris and Oenone, which contains the delightful +old song, one of the lyric pearls of the Elizabethan drama: + + _Oenone._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + The fairest shepherd on our green, + A love for any lady. + + _Paris._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + Thy love is fair for thee alone, + And for no other lady. + + _Oenone._ My love is fair, my love is gay, + As fresh as bin the flowers in May, + And of my love my roundelay, + My merry, merry, merry roundelay, + Concludes with Cupid's curse-- + They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + + _Both._ They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + +The second act presents us the three goddesses who have come to Ida on a +party of pleasure with no very definite object in view, and are now +engaged in exercising their tongues at one another's expense. The scene +consists of a cross-fire of feminine amenities, not of the most delicate, +it is true, and therefore not here to be reproduced, yet of a keenness of +temper and a ringing mastery in the rimed verse little less than brilliant +in themselves, and little less than a portent at the date of their +appearance. Then a storm arises, during which, the goddesses having sought +refuge in Diana's bower, At rolls the fatal ball upon the stage. On the +return of the three the inscription _Detur pulcherrimae_ breeds fresh +strife, until they agree to submit the case for judgement to the next man +they meet. Paris arriving upon the scene at this point is at once called +upon to decide the rival claims of the contending goddesses. First Juno +promises wealth and empery, and presents a tree hung as with fruit with +crowns and diadems, all which shall be the meed of the partial judge. +Pallas next seeks to allure the swain with the pomp and circumstance of +war, and conjures up a show in which nine knights, no doubt the nine +worthies, tread a 'warlike almain.' Last Venus speaks: + + Come, shepherd, come, sweet shepherd, look on me, + These bene too hot alarums these for thee: + But if thou wilt give me the golden ball, + Cupid my boy shall ha't to play withal, + That whenso'er this apple he shall see, + The God of Love himself shall think on thee, + And bid thee look and choose, and he will wound + Whereso thy fancy's object shall be found. + +Whereupon 'Helen entereth in her bravery' attended by four Cupids, and +singing an Italian song which has, however, little merit. As at a later +day Faustus, so now Paris bows before the sovereignty of her beauty, and +then wanders off through Ida glades in the company of the victorious queen +of love, leaving her outraged rivals to plot a common revenge. Act III +introduces the slight rustic element. Hobbinol, Diggon, and Thenot enter +to Colin, who is lamenting the cruelty of his love Thestylis. The names +are obviously borrowed from the _Shepherd's Calender_, but while Colin is +still the type of the hopeless lover, there is no necessity to suspect any +personal identification. The _Arraignment_ was probably produced less than +two years after the publication of Spenser's eclogues, and Peele, who was +an Oxford man, may even have been ignorant of their authorship[208]. Still +more unnecessary are certain other identifications between characters in +the play and persons at court which have been propounded. Such +identifications, at any rate, have no importance for our present task, +which is to ascertain in what measure and in what manner Peele's work +paved the way for the advent of the Italian pastoral; and we note, with +regard to the present scene, that the more polished and more homely +elements alike--both Colin on the one hand, and Diggon, Hobbinol, and the +rest on the other--are inspired by Spenser's work, and by his alone. +Meanwhile Oenone enters, lamenting her desertion by Paris. There is +delicate pathos in the reminiscence of her former song which haunts the +outpouring of her grief-- + + False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one, + To range and change old loves for new; but now those days be gone. + +She is less happy in a set lament, beginning: + + Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs, + +in which we may perhaps catch a distant echo of Spenser's: + + Melpomene, the mournfull'st Muse of nine. + +As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris +to appear at Juno's suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of +partiality in judgement. A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, +in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the +unsuspecting nymph--it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the +lover's duet. + + _Mercury._ Is love to blame? + + _Oenone._ The queen of love hath made him false his troth. + + _Mer._ Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love? + + _Oen._ Even wanton Cupid's dame. + + _Mer._ Why, was thy love so lovely, then? + + _Oen._ His beauty height his shame; + The fairest shepherd on our green. + + _Mer._ Is he a shepherd, than? + + _Oen._ And sometime kept a bleating flock. + + _Mer._ Enough, this is the man. + +In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together. First the goddess +directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, 'The love whom +Thestylis hath slain,' as the epitaph of the now dead Colin. When these +have left the stage she turns to Paris: + + Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love? + + _Paris._ Lady, a little once. + +She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which +is a good example of Peele's use of the old rimed versification, and as +such deserves quotation. + + My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry, + That haply erst thou hast not heard: in hell there is a tree, + Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers, + With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers + Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat + Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat. + This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell + T'impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well: + And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee, + Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee; + For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start, + Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart. + + _Paris._ Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity? + + _Venus._ Pity it were that love should not be linkd with indifferency.[209] + +Then follow Colin's funeral, the punishment of the hard-hearted Thestylis, +condemned to love a 'foul crooked churl' who 'crabbedly refuseth her,' +and the scene in which Mercury summons Paris before the Olympian tribunal. +Here we find him in the next act. The gods being seated in the bower of +Diana, Juno and Pallas, and Venus and Paris appear 'on sides' before the +throne of Jove, and in answer to his indictment the shepherd of Ida +delivers a spirited speech. Again the verse is of no small merit. +Defending himself from the charge of partiality in the bestowal of the +prize, he argues: + + Had it been destind to majesty-- + Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace-- + Then stately Juno might have borne the ball. + Had it to wisdom been intituld, + My human wit had given it Pallas then. + But sith unto the fairest of the three + That power, that threw it for my farther ill, + Did dedicate this ball--and safest durst + My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought, + To judge of form and beauty rather than + Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness--... + Behold, to Venus Paris gave the fruit, + A daysman[210] chosen there by full consent, + And heavenly powers should not repent their deeds. + +After consultation the gods decide to dismiss the prisoner, though we +gather that he is not wholly acquitted. + + _Jupiter._ Shepherd, thou hast been heard with equity and law, + And for thy stars do thee to other calling draw, + We here dismiss thee hence, by order of our senate; + Go take thy way to Troy, and there abide thy fate. + + _Venus._ Sweet shepherd, with such luck in love, while thou dost live, + As may the Queen of Love to any lover give. + + _Paris._ My luck is loss, howe'er my love do speed: + I fear me Paris shall but rue his deed. + + _Apollo._ From Ida woods now wends the shepherd's boy, + That in his bosom carries fire to Troy. + +This, however, does not settle the case, and the final adjudication of the +apple of beauty is entrusted by the gods to Diana, since it was in her +grove that it was found. Parting company with classical legend in the +incident which gives its title to the play, Peele further adds a fifth +act, in which he contrives to make the world-famous history subserve the +courtly ends of the masque. When the rival claimants have solemnly sworn +to abide by the decision of their compeer, Diana begins: + + It is enough; and, goddesses, attend. + There wons within these pleasaunt shady woods, + Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature + Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold, ... + Far from disturbance of our country gods, + Amid the cypress springs[211], a gracions nymph, + That honours Dian for her chastity, + And likes the labours well of Phoebe's groves; + The place Elizium hight, and of the place + Her name that governs there Eliza is, + A kingdom that may well compare with mine, + An auncient seat of kings, a second Troy, + Y-compass'd round with a commodious sea. + +The rest may be easily imagined. The contending divinities resign their +claims: + + _Venus._ To this fair nymph, not earthly, but divine, + Contents it me my honour to resign. + + _Pallas._ To this fair queen, so beautiful and wise, + Pallas bequeaths her title in the prize. + + _Juno._ To her whom Juno's looks so well become, + The Queen of Heaven yields at Phoebe's doom. + +The three Fates now enter, and singing a Latin song lay their 'properties' +at the feet of the queen. Then each in turn delivers a speech appropriate +to her character, and finally Diana 'delivereth the ball of gold into the +Queen's own hands,' and the play ends with a couple of doggerel hexameters +chanted by way of epilogue by the assembled actors: + + Vive diu felix votis hominumque deumque, + Corpore, mente, libro, doctissima, candida, casta. + +The jingle of these lines would alone suffice to prove that Peele's ear +was none of the most delicate, and he particularly sins in disregarding +the accent in the rime-word, a peculiarity which may have been noticed +even in the short passages quoted above. Nevertheless, even apart from its +lyrics, one of which is in its way unsurpassed, the play contains passages +of real grace in the versification. The greater part is written either in +fourteeners or in decasyllabic couplets with occasional alexandrines, in +both of which the author displays an ease and mastery which, to say the +least, were uncommon in the dramatic work of the early eighties; while the +passages of blank verse introduced at important dramatic points, notably +in Paris' defence and in Diana's speech, are the best of their kind +between Surrey and Marlowe. The style, though now and again clumsy, is in +general free from affectation except for an occasional weakness in the +shape of a play upon words. Such is the connexion of Eliza with Elizium, +in a passage already quoted, and the time-honoured _non Angli sed +angeli_-- + + Her people are y-clepd Angeli, + Or, if I miss, a letter is the most-- + +occurring a few lines later; also the words of Lachesis: + + Et tibi, non aliis, didicerunt parcere Parcae. + +With regard to the general construction of the piece it is hardly too much +to say that the skill with which the author has enlarged a masque-subject +into a regular drama, altered a classical legend to subserve a particular +aim, and conducted throughout the multiple perhaps rather than complex +threads of his plot, mark him out as pre-eminent among his contemporaries. +We must not, it is true, look for perfect balance of construction, for +adequacy of dramatic climax, or for subtle characterization; but what has +been achieved was, in the stage of development at which the drama had then +arrived, no mean achievement. The dramatic effects are carefully prepared +for and led up to, reminding us almost at times of the recurrence of a +musical motive. Thus the song between Paris and Oenone, just before the +shepherd goes off to cross Dame Venus' path, is a fine piece of dramatic +irony as well as a charming lyric; while the effect of the reminiscences +of the song scattered through the later pastoral scenes has been already +noticed. Another instance is Venus' warning of the pains in store for +faithless lovers, which fittingly anticipates the words with which Paris +leaves the assembly of the gods. Again, we find a conscious preparation +for the contention between the goddesses in their previous bickerings, and +a conscious juxtaposition of the forsaken Oenone and the love-lorn Colin. +Lastly, there are scattered throughout the play not a few graphic touches, +as when Mercury at sight of Oenone exclaims: + + Dare wage my wings the lass doth love, she looks so bleak and thin! + +Such then is Peele's mythological play, presented in all the state of a +court revel before her majesty by the children of the Chapel Royal, a play +which it is more correct to say prepared the ground for than, as is +usually asserted, itself contained the germ of the later pastoral drama. +In spite of the care bestowed upon its composition, the _Arraignment of +Paris_ remains a slight and occasional production; but it nevertheless +claims its place as one of the most graceful pieces of its kind, and the +ascription of the play to Shakespeare, current in the later seventeenth +century, is perhaps more of an honour to the elder than of an insult to +the younger poet. Nor, at a more recent date, was Lamb uncritically +enthusiastic when he said of Peele's play that 'had it been in all parts +equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in +this sort of Writing.' + +Before leaving Peele, mention must be made of one other play from his pen, +namely the _Hunting of Cupid_, known to us unfortunately from a few +fragments only. This is the more tantalizing on account of the freshness +of the passages preserved in _England's Helicon_ and _England's +Parnassus_, and in a commonplace-book belonging to Drummond of +Hawthornden, and also from the fact that there is good reason to suppose +that the work was actually printed[212]. So far as can be judged from the +extracts we possess, and from Drummond's jottings, it appears to have been +a tissue of mythological conceits, much after the manner of the +_Arraignment_, though possibly somewhat more distinctly pastoral in +tone[213]. + +About contemporary with the _Arraignment of Paris_ are the earliest plays +of John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of these are of a mythological character, +while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their +pastoral tendency, namely, _Gallathea, Love's Metamorphosis_, and the +_Woman in the Moon_[214]. + +Although Lyly's romance itself lay outside the scope of this inquiry, we +have already had, in the pastoral work of his imitators, ample +opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of the style +he rendered fashionable. Its laborious affectation is all the more +irritating when we remember that its author, on turning his attention to +the more or less unseemly brawling of the Martin Mar-prelate pasquilade, +revealed a command of effective vernacular hardly, if at all, inferior to +that of his friend Nashe; and its complex artificiality becomes but more +apparent when applied to dramatic work. Nevertheless in an age when prose +style was in an even more chaotic state than prosody, Euphuism could claim +qualities of no small value and importance, while as an experiment it was +no more absurd, and vastly more popular, than those in classical +versification. Its qualities, when we consider the general state of +contemporary literature, may well account for the popularity of Lyly's +attempt at novel-writing, but the style was radically unsuited for +dramatic composition, and the result is for the most part hardly to be +tolerated, and can only have met with such court-favour as fell to its +lot, owing to the general fashion for which its success in the romance was +responsible. It is indeed noteworthy that Lyly is the only writer who ever +ventured to apply his literary invention _in toto_ to the uses of the +stage, while even in the romance he lived to see Euphuism as a fashionable +style pale before the growing popularity of Arcadianism[215]. The opening +of _Gallathea_ may supply a specimen of the style as it appears in the +dramas; the scene is laid in Lincolnshire, and Tyterus is addressing his +daughter who gives her name to the piece: + + In tymes past, where thou seest a heape of small pyble, stoode a stately + Temple of white Marble, which was dedicated to the God of the Sea, (and + in right being so neere the Sea): hether came all such as eyther + ventured by long travell to see Countries, or by great traffique to use + merchandise, offering Sacrifice by fire, to gette safety by water; + yeelding thanks for perrils past, and making prayers for good successe + to come: but Fortune, constant in nothing but inconstancie, did change + her copie, as the people their custome; for the Land being oppressed by + Danes, who in steed of sacrifice, committed sacrilidge, in steede of + religion, rebellion, and made a pray of that in which they should have + made theyr prayers, tearing downe the Temple even with the earth, being + almost equall with the skyes, enraged so the God who bindes the windes + in the hollowes of the earth, that he caused the Seas to breake their + bounds, sith men had broke their vowes, and to swell as farre above + theyr reach, as men had swarved beyond theyr reason: then might you see + shippes sayle where sheepe fedde, ankers cast where ploughes goe, + fishermen throw theyr nets, where husbandmen sowe their Corne, and + fishes throw their scales where fowles doe breede theyr quils: then + might you gather froth where nowe is dewe, rotten weedes for sweete + roses, and take viewe of monstrous Maremaides, in steed of passing faire + Maydes. + +The unsuitability of the style for dramatic purposes will by this be +somewhat painfully evident, and, as may be imagined, the effect is even +less happy in the case of dialogue. To pursue: the offended deity consents +to withdraw his waters on the condition of a lustral sacrifice of the +fairest virgin of the land, who is to be exposed bound to a tree by the +shore, whence she is carried off by the monster Agar, in whom we may no +doubt see a personification of the 'eagre' or tidal wave of the Humber. At +the opening of the play we find the two fairest virgins of the land +disguised as boys by their respective fathers, in order that they may +escape the penalty of beauty. While they wander the fields and graves, +another maiden is exposed as the sacrifice, but Neptune, offended by the +deceit, rejects the proffered victim, and no monster appears to claim its +prey. In the meanwhile, Cupid has eluded the maternal vigilance, and, +disguised as a nymph, is beginning to display his powers among the +followers of Diana. Here is an example of a euphuistic dialogue. Cupid +accosts one of the nymphs: + + Faire Nimphe, are you strayed from your companie by chaunce, or love + you to wander solitarily on purpose? + + _Nymph._ Faire boy, or god, or what ever you bee, I would you knew + these woods are to me so wel known, that I cannot stray though I would, + and my minde so free, that to be melancholy I have no cause. There is + none of Dianaes trayne that any can traine, either out of their waie, + or out of their wits. + + _Cupid._ What is that Diana? a goddesse? what her Nimphes? + virgins? what her pastimes? hunting? + + _Nym._ A goddesse? who knowes it not? Virgins? who thinkes it not? + Hunting? who loves it not? + + _Cup._ I pray thee, sweete wench, amongst all your sweete troope, is + there not one that followeth the sweetest thing, sweet love? + + _Nym._ Love, good sir, what meane you by it? or what doe you call it? + + _Cup._ A heate full of coldnesse, a sweet full of bitternesse, a paine + ful of pleasantnesse; which maketh thoughts have eyes, and harts eares; + bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jelousie, kild by + dissembling, buried by ingratitude; and this is love! fayre Lady, + wil you any? + + _Nym._ If it be nothing else, it is but a foolish thing. + + _Cup._ Try, and you shall find it a prettie thing. + + _Nym._ I have neither will nor leysure, but I will followe Diana in the + Chace, whose virgins are all chast, delighting in the bowe that wounds + the swift Hart in the Forrest, not fearing the bowe that strikes the + softe hart in the Chamber. + +The nymphs are soon in love with the two girls in disguise, and what is +more, each of these, supposing the other to be what her apparel betokens, +falls in love with her. After a while, however, Diana becomes suspicious +of the stranger nymph, and her followers make a capture of the boy-god, +whom they identify by the burn on his shoulder caused by Psyche's lamp, +and set him to untie love-knots. There follows one of those charming songs +for which Lyly is justly, or unjustly, famous[216]. + + O Yes, O yes, if any Maid, + Whom lering Cupid has betraid + To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne, + And would in madnes now see torne + The Boy in Pieces--Let her come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + O yes, O yes, has any lost + A Heart, which many a sigh hath cost; + Is any cozened of a teare, + Which (as a Pearle) disdaine does weare?-- + Here stands the Thiefe, let her but come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + Is any one undone by fire, + And Turn'd to ashes through desire? + Did ever any Lady weepe, + Being cheated of her golden sleepe, + Stolne by sicke thoughts?--The pirats found, + And in her teares hee shalbe drownd. + Reade his Inditement, let him heare + What hees to trust to: Boy, give eare! + +This is the position of affairs when Venus appears in search of her +wanton, and is shortly followed by the irate Neptune. After some +disputing, Neptune, to quiet the strife between the goddesses, proposes +that Diana shall restore the runaway to his mother, in return for which he +will release the land for ever from its virgin tribute. This happily +agreed upon, the only difficulty remaining is the strange passion between +the two girls. Venus, however, proves equal to the occasion, and solves +the situation by transforming one of them into a man. An allusion to the +story of Iphis and Ianthe told in the ninth book of the _Metamorphoses_ +suggests the source of the incident[217]. Otherwise the play appears to be +in the main original. The exposing of a maiden to the rage of a +sea-monster has been, of course, no novelty since the days of Andromeda, +but it is unnecessary to seek a more immediate source[218]; while the +intrusion of Cupid in disguise among the nymphs was doubtless suggested by +the well-known idyl of Moschus, and probably owes to this community of +source such resemblance as it possesses to the prologue of the _Aminta_. +A comic element is supplied by a sort of young rascals, and a mariner, an +alchemist, and an astrologer, who are totally unconnected with the rest of +the play. The supposed allusions to real characters need not be taken +seriously. Lyly's rascals are generally recognized as the direct ancestors +of some of Shakespeare's comic characters, and we not seldom find in them +the germ at least of the later poet's irresistible fun. Take such a speech +as Robin's: 'Why be they deade that be drownd? I had thought they had +beene with the fish, and so by chance beene caught up with them in a Nette +againe. It were a shame a little cold water should kill a man of reason, +when you shall see a poore Mynow lie in it, that hath no understanding.' +As regards the euphuistic style, the passages already quoted will suffice, +but it may be remarked that the marvellous natural history is also put +under requisition. 'Virgins harts, I perceive,' remarks one of Diana's +nymphs, 'are not unlike Cotton trees, whose fruite is so hard in the +budde, that it soundeth like steele, and beeing rype, poureth forth +nothing but wooll, and theyr thoughts, like the leaves of Lunary, which +the further they growe from the Sunne, the sooner they are scorched with +his beames.' At times one is almost tempted to imagine that Lyly is +laughing in his sleeve, but as soon as he feels an eye upon him, his face +would again do credit to a judge. The following is from a scene between +the two disguised maidens: + + _Phillida._ It is pitty that Nature framed you not a woman, having + a face so faire, so lovely a countenaunce, so modest a behaviour. + + _Gallathea._ There is a Tree in Tylos, whose nuttes have shels like + fire, and being cracked, the karnell is but water. + + _Phil._ What a toy is it to tell mee of that tree, beeing nothing + to the purpose: + I say it is pity you are not a woman. + + _Gall._ I would not wish to be a woman, unless it were because thou art + a man. (III. ii.) + +_Gallathea_ may be plausibly enough assigned to the year 1584[219]. The +date of the next play we have to deal with, _Love's Metamorphosis_, is +less certain, though Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1588-9 seems reasonable. +All that can be said with confidence is that it was later than +_Gallathea_, to which it contains allusions, that it is an inferior work, +and that it has the appearance at least of having been botched up in a +hurry[220]. The story is as follows. Three shepherds, or rather woodmen, +are in love with three of the nymphs of Ceres, but meet with little +success, one of the maidens proving obdurate, another proud, and the third +fickle. The lovers make complaint to Cupid, who consents at their request +to transform the disdainful fair ones into a rock, a rose, and a bird +respectively. Hereupon Ceres in her turn complains to the God of Love, who +promises that the three shall regain their proper shapes if Ceres will +undertake that they shall thereupon consent to the love of the swains. She +does so, and her nymphs are duly restored to their own forms, but at first +flatly refuse to comply with the conditions. After a while they yield: + + _Nisa._ I am content, so as Ramis, when hee finds me cold in love, or + hard in beliefe, hee attribute it to his owne folly; in that I retaine + some nature of the Rocke he chaunged me into.... + + _Celia._ I consent, so as Montanus, when in the midst of his sweete + delight, shall find some bitter overthwarts, impute it to his folly, + in that he suffered me to be a Rose, that hath prickles with her + pleasantnes, as hee is like to have with my love shrewdnes.... + + _Niobe._ I yeelded first in mind though it bee my course last to + speake: but if Silvestris find me not ever at home, let him curse + himselfe that gave me wings to flie abroad, whose feathers if his + jealousie shall breake, my policie shall imp.[221] (V. iv.) + +This plot, at once elementary and violent, is combined with the fantastic +story of Erisichthon, 'a churlish husband-man,' who in the nymphs' despite +cuts down the sacred tree of Ceres, into which the chaste Fidelia had +been transformed. For this offence the goddess dooms him to the plague of +hunger. The ghastly description of this monster, who may be compared with +Browne's Limos, was probably suggested by some similar descriptions in the +_Faery Queen_ (I. iv. and III. xii). Erisichthon is put to all manner of +shifts to satisfy the hunger with which he is ever consumed, and is at +last forced to sell his daughter Protea to a merchant, in order to keep +himself alive. Protea, it appears, was at one time the paramour of +Neptune, who now in answer to her prayer comes to her aid in such a way +that, when about to embark on the vessel of her purchaser, she justifies +her name by changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded +merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart +without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being +tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and +comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore--the scene being +laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her +disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time to warn her lover of his +danger. Finally, at Cupid's intercession her father is relieved of his +affliction by the now appeased goddess. This plot is even more crudely +distinct from the principal action of the play than is usual with +Lyly[222]. + +It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the +nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in +_Gallathea_; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical +conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the +_Woman in the Moon_. It would almost seem as though his experience of the +inconstancy of the royal sunshine had made Lyly a less enthusiastic +devotee of womanhood in general and of virginity in particular, and that +with an unadvised frankness which may well account for his disappointments +at court, he failed to conceal his feelings. The play is likewise +distinguished from the other dramatic works of its author by being +composed almost entirely in blank verse. Certain lines of the prologue-- + + Remember all is but a Poets dreame, + The first he had in Phoebus holy bowre, + But not the last, unlesse the first displease-- + +have not unnaturally been taken to mean that the piece was the first +venture of the author; but on investigation this will be seen to be +impossible, since the constant reminiscence of Marlowe in the construction +of the verse points to 1588 or at earliest to 1587 as the date. Mr. +Fleay's suggestion of 1589-90 may be accepted as the earliest likely +date[223]. To my mind it would need external proof of an unusually cogent +description to render plausible the theory that the year, say, of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ saw the appearance of such lines as: + + What lack I now but an imperiall throne[224], + And Ariadnaes star-lyght Diadem? (II. i.) + +or: + + O Stesias, what a heavenly love hast thou! + A love as chaste as is Apolloes tree, + As modest as a vestall Virgins eye, + And yet as bright as Glow wormes in the night, + With which the morning decks her lovers hayre; (IV. i.) + +or yet again: + + When will the sun go downe? flye Phoebus flye! + O, that thy steeds were wingd with my swift thoughts: + Now shouldst thou fall in Thetis azure armes[225], + And now would I fall in Pandoraes lap. (IV. i.) + +Nor are these isolated passages; from the opening lines of the prologue to +the final speech of Nature the verse has the appearance of being the work +of a graceful if not very strong hand writing in imitation of Marlowe's +early style. We must, therefore, it seems to me, take the words of the +prologue as signifying not that the play was the first work of the author, +but that it was his earliest adventure in verse. + +The plan of the work is as follows. The shepherds of Utopia come to dame +Nature and beg her to make a woman for them. She consents and fashions +Pandora, whom she dowers with the virtues of the several Planets. These, +however, are offended at not being consulted in the matter, and determine +to use their influence to the bane of the newly created woman. Under the +reign of Saturn she turns sullen; when Jupiter is in the ascendant he +falls in love with her, but she has grown proud and scorns him; under Mars +she becomes a vixen; under Sol she in her turn falls in love, and turns +wanton under Venus; she learns deceit of Mercury when he is dominant, and +runs mad under the influence of Luna. At length, since the shepherds will +no longer have anything to do with the lady, Nature determines to place +her in the heavens. Her beauty makes each planet desire her as companion. +Nature gives her the choice: + + Speake, my Pandora; where wilt thou be? + _Pandora._ Not with old Saturne for he lookes like death; + Nor yet with Jupiter, lest Juno storme; + Nor with thee Mars, for Venus is thy love; + Nor with thee Sol, thou hast two Parramours, + The sea borne Thetis and the rudy morne; + Nor with thee Venus, lest I be in love + With blindfold Cupid or young Joculus; + Nor with thee Hermes, thou art full of sleightes, + And when I need thee Jove will send thee foorth. + Say Cynthia, shall Pandora rule thy starre, + And wilt thou play Diana in the woods, + Or Hecate in Plutos regiment? + _Luna._ I, Pandora. + _Pand._ Fayre Nature let thy hand mayd dwell with her, + For know that change is my felicity, + And ficklenesse Pandoraes proper forme. + Thou madst me sullen first, and thou Jove, proud; + Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan: + Thou Venus madst me love all that I saw, + And Hermes to deceive all that I love; + But Cynthia made me idle, mutable, + Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde; + These be the humors that content me best, + And therefore will I stay with Cynthia.... + _Nat._ Now rule, Pandora, in fayre Cynthias steede, + And make the moone inconstant like thy selfe; + Raigne thou at womens nuptials, and their birth; + Let them be mutable in all their loves, + Fantastical, childish, and foolish, in their desires, + Demaunding toyes: + And stark madde when they cannot have their will. + Now follow me ye wandring lightes of heaven, + And grieve not, that she is not plast with you; + Ail you shall glaunce at her in your aspects, + And in conjunction dwell with her a space. (V. i.) + +And so Pandora becomes the 'Woman in the Moon.' The play, in its topical +and satiric purpose, and above all, in its utilization of mythological +material, bears a distinct relationship to the masque. The shepherds are +in their origin philosophical, standing for the race of mankind in +general, rather than pastoral; Utopian, in fact, rather than Arcadian. +These early mythological plays stand alone, in that the pastoral scenes +they contain are apparently uninfluenced by the Italian drama. The kind +attained some popularity as a subject of courtly presentation, but it did +not long preserve its original character. The later examples, with which +we shall be concerned hereafter, always exhibit some characteristics which +may be immediately or ultimately traced to the influence of Tasso and +Guarini. This influence we must now turn to consider in some detail, as +evidenced as well in translations and imitations as in the general tone +and machinery of an appreciable portion of the Elizabethan drama.[226] + + + +II + + +In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature +it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of +translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, +as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position +unjustified by its intrinsic importance. In most cases, probably, the +energy devoted to the task of rendering the foreign models directly into +the language they influenced is rather useful as supplying us with a rough +measure of their popularity than itself significant as a step in the +operation of that influence. We may safely assume that, in the case of the +English pastoral drama, the influence exercised directly by the Italian +masterpieces was beyond comparison greater than that which made itself +indirectly felt through the labours of translators. + +Having thus anticipated a possible misapprehension it will be worth our +while to devote some little attention to the history of the attempts at +translation in this line. The first English writer to venture upon the +task of turning the choice music of Tasso into his native language was the +eccentric satellite of the Sidneyan circle, Abraham Fraunce, fellow of St. +John's College in Cambridge. It so happened that he was at the time +pursuing that elusive phantasm, the application of the laws of classical +versification to English poetry. The resuit was at least unique, in +English, at any rate, namely a drama in hexameter verse. It also occurred +to him that Watson's _Lamentations of Amyntas_, a translation of which he +had himself published in 1587, might be made to serve as an appendix to +Tasso's play. With this object in view he changed the name of the heroine +from Silvia to Phillis. This appears to have been the exact extent to +which he 'altered S. Tassoes Italian' in order to connect it with 'M. +Watsons Latine Amyntas' and 'to make them both one English.'[227] Certain +other changes were, however, introduced upon other considerations. Various +unessential points were omitted, notably in connexion with Tirsi, whose +topical character disappears; the name Nerina is altered to Fulvia; +frequent allusions are introduced to the nymph Pembrokiana, to whom among +other things is ascribed the rescue of the heroine from the bear which +takes the place of the wolf in Tasso. Lastly, we have the addition of a +whole scene immediately before the final chorus. Phillis and Amyntas +reappear and carry on a conversation, not unamiably, in a sort of +hexametrical stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the +amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between +the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[228] Of this literary curiosity +Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted: + + Sweete face, why be the hev'ns soe to the bountifull, + Making that radiant bewty of all the starrs + Bright-burning, to be fayre Phillis her ornament? + And yet seeme to be soe spytefuly partial, + As not for to aford Argus his eyes to mee, + Eyes too feawe to behould Phillis her ornament? + +It is, perhaps, not a little strange that the pedant who made the +preposterous experiment of turning the _Aminta_ into English hexameters +should nevertheless have been capable of clearly perceiving, however +incapable he was of adequately rectifying, the hopelessly undramatic +character of the last act of Tasso's play. As an example of the style of +the translation we may take the following rendering of the delicate _Chi +crederia_, with which the original prologue opens: + + Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake, + Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? + And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, + But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: + Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing + His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire + Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving, + And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant, + His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon. + +This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to +be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic +pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate +artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a 'God that gads +by the mountaines' is a pithy enough paraphrase of _dio selvaggio_, if +hardly an accurate translation. The unsatisfactory nature of the verse, +however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid +dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas' +resolve to die. + + _Phillis._ As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee + Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased. + + _Daphne._ Phillis alas is alive, but an other's gone to be dying[229]. + + _Ph._ And what mean's this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded, + That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred? + + _Da._ Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other. + + _Ph._ Whose death? + + _Da._ Death of Amyntas. + + _Ph._ Alas how dyed Amyntas? + + _Da._ How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe: + But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe. + + _Ph._ What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas? + + _Da._ Thy death. + + _Ph._ And I alive? + + _Da._ Thy death was lately reported, + And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death. + + _Ph._ Feare of Phillis death prov'd vayne, and feare of Amyntas Death + will proove vayne too: life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.) + +Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which +somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are +not wholly wanting. Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek +her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks: + + Oh tardi saggia, e tardi + Pietosa, quando ci nulla rileva; + +a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a +homely proverb, and writes: + + When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable. + +It may, at first sight, appear strange that at a time when the Italian +pastoral was exercising its greatest influence over the English drama this +translation by Fraunce of Tasso's play should have satisfied the demand +for more than thirty years. The explanation, of course, is that the +widespread knowledge of Italian among the reading public in England +rendered translation more or less superfluous[230], while at the same time +it should be remembered that in this country Tasso was far surpassed in +popularity by Guarini. So far as we can tell no further translation of the +_Aminta_ was attempted till 1628, when there appeared an anonymous version +which bibliographers have followed one another in ascribing to one John +Reynolds, but which was more probably the work of a certain Henry +Reynolds[231]. However that may be, the translation is of no +inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from +the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of +appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the +higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian +into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. +Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the +general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating +than is the case with translations which many times reveal far higher +qualities. The following is a characteristic specimen chosen from the +story of Aminta's early love for Silvia. + + Being but a Lad, so young as yet scarce able + To reach the fruit from the low-hanging boughes + Of new-growne trees; Inward I grew to bee + With a young mayde, fullest of love and sweetnesse, + That ere display'd pure gold tresse to the winde;... + Neere our abodes, and neerer were our hearts; + Well did our yeares agree, better our thoughts; + Together wove we netts t' intrapp the fish + In flouds and sedgy fleetes[232]; together sett + Pitfalls for birds; together the pye'd Buck + And flying Doe over the plaines we chac'de; + And in the quarry', as in the pleasure shar'de: + But as I made the beasts my pray, I found + My heart was lost, and made a pray to other. (I. ii.) + +Many a translator, moreover, has failed to instil into his verse the swing +and flow of the following stanzas from the golden age chorus, which, +nevertheless follow the metrical form of the original with reasonable +fidelity[233]: + + O happy Age of Gould; happy' houres; + Not for with milke the rivers ranne, + And hunny dropt from ev'ry tree; + Nor that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres, + Without the toyle or care of Man, + And Serpents were from poyson free;... + But therefore only happy Dayes, + Because that vaine and ydle name, + That couz'ning Idoll of unrest, + Whom the madd vulgar first did raize, + And call'd it Honour, whence it came + To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest, + Was not then suffred to molest + Poore lovers hearts with new debate; + More happy they, by these his hard + And cruell lawes, were not debar'd + Their innate freedome; happy state; + The goulden lawes of Nature, they + Found in their brests; and them they did obey. (Ch. I.) + +Before leaving the _Aminta_ it will be worth while straying beyond the +strict chronological limits of this inquiry to glance for a moment at the +version produced by John Dancer in 1660, for the sake of noting the change +which had come over literary hack-work of the kind in the course of some +thirty years. Comparing it with Reynolds' translation we are at first +struck by the change which long drilling of the language to a variety of +uses has accomplished in the work of uninspired poetasters; secondly, by +the fact that the conventional respectability of production, which has +replaced the halting crudities of an earlier date, is far more inimical +to any real touch of poetic inspiration. Equally evident is that spirit of +tyranny, happily at no time native to our literature, which seeks to +reduce the works of other ages into accordance with the taste of its own +day. Thus, having 'improved' Tasso's apostrophe to the _bella et dell' +oro_ almost beyond recognition, Dancer complacently closes the chorus with +the following parody: + + We'l hope, since there's no joy, when once one dies + We'l hope, that as we have seen with our eies + The Sun to set, so we may see it rise. (Ch. I.) + +Again, while all the spontaneity and reverential labour of an age of more +avowed adolescence has disappeared, there is yet lacking the justness of +phrase and certainty of grammar and rime, which later supply, however +inadequately, the place of poetic enthusiasm. The defects of the style, +with its commonplace exaggeration of conceits, the thumbed token-currency +of the certified poetaster, are well seen in such a passage as the +following: + + Weak love is held by shame, but love grows bold + As strong, what is it then can it with-hold: + She as though in her ey's she did contain + Fountains of tears, did with such plenty rain + Them on his cheeks, and they such vertue had, + That it reviv'd again the breathlesse lad;... + Aminta thought 'twas more then heav'nly charms, + That thus enclasp'd him in his Silvia's armes; + He that loves servant is, perhaps may guesse + Their blisse; but none there is can it expresse[234]. (V. i.) + +As was to be expected, the attention of translators was early directed to +the _Pastor fido_. The original was printed in England, together with the +_Aminta_, the year after its first appearance in Italy, that is in 1591, +and bore the imprint of John Wolfe, 'a spese di Giacopo Castelvetri'; the +first translation saw the light in 1602. This version was published +anonymously, and in spite of the confident assertions and ingenious +conjectures of certain bibliographers, anonymous it must for the present +remain; all that can with certainty be affirmed is that it claims to be +the work of a kinsman of Sir Edward Dymocke[235]. Most modern writers who +have had occasion to mention it have shown a praiseworthy deference to the +authority of one of the most venerable figures of English criticism by +each in turn repeating that the translation, 'in spite of Daniel's +commendatory sonnet, is a very bad one.' And indeed, when we have stated +the very simple facts concerning the authorship as distinct from the very +elaborate conjectures, there remains little to add to Dyce's words. With +the exception of the omission of the prologue the version keeps pretty +faithfully to its original, but it does no more than emphasize the tedious +artificiality of the Italian, while whatever charm and perhaps +over-elaborated grace of language Guarini infused into his verse has +entirely evaporated in the process of translation. No less a poet and +critic than Daniel, regarding the work doubtless with the undiscriminating +eye of friendship, asserted that it might even to Guarini himself have +vindicated the poetic laurels of England, and yet from the whole long poem +it is hardly possible to extract any passage which would do credit to the +pen of an average schoolboy. We turn in vain to the contest of kisses +among the Megarean maidens, to the game of blind man's buff, to Amarillis' +secret confession of love, and to her trembling appeal when confronted by +a death of shame, for any evidence of poetie feeling. The girl's speech in +the last-mentioned scene, 'Se la miseria mia fosse mia colpa,' is thus +rendered: + + If that my fault did cause my wretchednesse, + Or that my thoughts were wicked, as thou thinkst + My deed, lesse grievous would my death be then: + For it were just my blood should wash the spots + Of my defiled soule, heavens rage appease, + And humane justice justly satisfie, + Then could I quiet my afflicted sprights, + And with a just remorse of well-deserved death, + My senses mortifie, and come to death: + And with a quiet blow pass forth perhaps + Unto a life of more tranquilitie: + But too too much, Nicander, too much griev'd + I am, in so young years, Fortune so hie, + An Innocent, I should be doom'd to die. (IV. v.) + +The next translation we meet with never got into print. It is preserved in +a manuscript at the British Museum[236], and bears the heading: 'Il Pastor +Fido, or The Faithfull Sheapheard. An Excellent Pastorall Written In +Italian by Battista Guarinj And translated into English By Jonathan Sidnam +Esq, Anno 1630.' The prologue is again omitted, and the translation is +distinguished from its contemporaries by an endeavour to reproduce to some +extent the freer metrical structure of the Italian. This was not a +particularly happy experiment, since it ignored the fact that the +character of a metre may differ considerably in different languages. The +Italian _endecasillabi sciolti_ are far less flexible than our own blank +verse, and it is only when freely interspersed with the shorter +_settinar_ that they can attempt to rival the range of effect possible to +the English metre in the hands of a skilful artist. Thus the imitation of +the irregular measures of Guarini was a confession of the translator's +inability adequately to handle the dramatic verse of his own tongue. As a +specimen we may take the rendering of Amarillis' speech already quoted +from the 'Dymocke' version: + + If my mischance had come by mine own fault, + Nicander, or had beene as thou beleevst + The foule effect of base and wicked thoughts, + Or, as it now appeares, a deed of Sinn, + It had beene then lesse greevous to endure + Death as a punishment for such a fault, + And just it had beene with my blood to wash + My impure Soule, to mitigate the wrath + And angar of the Godds, and satisfie + The right of humane justice, + Then could I quiett my afflicted Soule + And with an inward feeling of my just + Deserved death, subdue my outward Sence, + And fawne uppon my end, and happelie + With a more settled countenance passe from hence + Into a better world: + But now, Nicander, ah! tis too much greefe + In soe yong yeares, in such a happie state, + To die so suddenlie, and which is more, + Die innocent. (IV. v.) + +It was not until the civil war was at its height, namely in 1647, that +English literature was enriched with a translation in any way worthy of +Guarini's masterpiece. It is easy to strain the interpretation of such +facts, but there is certainly a strong temptation to see in the occasion +and circumstances of the composition of the piece an illustration of a +critical law already noticed, namely the constant tendency of literature +to negative as well as to reproduce the life of actuality, and furthermore +of the special liability of pastoral to take birth from a desire to escape +from the imminence and pressure of surrounding circumstance. Like +Reynolds' _Aminta_, Richard Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ is better appreciated +as a whole than in quotation, though, thanks partly to its own greater +maturity of poetic attainment, partly to the less ethereal perfection of +the original, it suffers far less than the earlier work by comparison with +the Italian. For the same reasons it is by far the most satisfactory of +any of the early translations of the Italian pastoral drama. One +noticeable feature is the constant reminiscence of Shakespeare, whole +lines from his works being sometimes introduced with no small skill. For +instance, where Guarini, describing how love wins entrance to a maiden's +heart, writes: + + E se vergogna il cela, + O temenza l' affrena, + La misera tacendo + Per soverchio deso tutta si strugge; (I. iv.) + +Fanshawe renders the last two lines by: + + Poor soul! Concealment like a worm i' th' bud, + Lies in her Damask cheek sucking the bloud. + +A few illustrative passages will suffice to give an idea of Fanshawe's +style. He stands alone in having succeeded in recrystallizing in his own +tongue some at least of the charm of the kissing match, and is even fairly +successful in the following dangerous conceit: + + With one voice + Of peerlesse Amarillis they made choice. + She sweetly bending her fair eyes. + Her cheeks in modest blushes dyes, + To shew through her transparent skin + That she is no lesse fair within + Then shee's without; or else her countenance + Envying the honour done her mouth perchance, + Puts on her scarlet robes as who + Should say: 'And am not I fair too?' (II. i.) + +So again he alone among the translators has infused any semblance of +passion into Amarillis' confession of love: + + Mirtillo, O Mirtillo! couldst thou see + That heart which thou condemn'st of cruelty, + Soul of my soul, thou unto it wouldst show + That pity which thou begg'st from it I know. + O ill starr'd Lovers! what avails it me + To have thy love? T' have mine, what boots it thee? + (III. iv.) + +In a lighter vein the following variation on the theme of fading beauty by +Corisca also does justice to its original: + + Let us use it whilst wee may; + Snatch those joyes that haste away. + Earth her winter-coat may cast, + And renew her beauty past; + But, our winter come, in vain + We sollicite spring again: + And when our furrows snow shall cover, + Love may return, but never Lover. (III. v.) + +When it is borne in mind that not only is the rendering graceful in +itself, but that as a rule it represents its original if not literally at +any rate adequately, it will be realized that Fanshawe's qualifications as +a translator are not small. His version, which is considerably the best in +the language, is happily easily accessible owing to its early popularity. +It first appeared in 1647 in the form of a handsomely printed quarto with +portrait and frontispiece engraved after the Ciotti edition of 1602, the +remaining copies being re-issued with additional matter the following +year; it went through two editions between the restoration and the end of +the century, and was again reprinted together with the original, and with +alterations in 1736[237]. In the meantime, however, the translation had +been adapted to the stage by Elkanah Settle. In a dedication to Lady +Elizabeth Delaval, the adapter ingenuously disclaims all knowledge of +Italian, and when he speaks of 'the Translated _Pastor Fido_' every reader +would no doubt be expected to know that he was referring to Fanshawe's +work. He left his readers, however, to discover for themselves that, +while he considerably altered, and of course condensed, the original, for +whatever poetic merit his scenes possess he is entirely indebted to his +predecessor. The adaptation was licensed by L'Estrange in 1676, and +printed the following year, while reprints dated 1689 and 1694 seem to +indicate that it achieved some success at the Duke's Theatre. It was +presumably of this version that Pepys notices a performance on February +25, 1668.[238] + +Besides these English translations there is also extant one in Latin, a +manuscript of which is preserved in the University Library at +Cambridge.[239] The name of the translater does not appear, but the +heading runs: 'Il pastor fido, di signor Guarini ... recitata in Collegio +Regali Cantabrigiae.' The title is so scrawled over that it would be +impossible to say for certain whether the note of performance referred to +the present play, were it not for an allusion casually dropped by the +anonymous recorder of a royal visit to Oxford, which not only +substantiates the inference to be drawn from the manuscript, but also +supplies us with a downward limit of August, 1605.[240] In this +translation a dialogue between the characters 'Prologus' and 'Argumentum' +takes the place of Guarini's long topical prologue, and a short +conventional 'Epilogus' is added at the end. + + * * * * * + +It was not till 1655 that _the Filli di Sciro_ of Bonarelli, which has +usually been thought to hold the third place among Italian pastorals, +appeared in English dress. The translation published in that year is +ascribed on the title-page to 'J. S. Gent.,' an ascription which has given +rise to a good deal of conjecture. And yet a very little investigation +might have settled the matter. Prefixed to the translation are some +commendatory verses signed 'I. H.', in a marginal note to which we read: +'This Comedy was Translated long ago by M. _I. S._ and layd by, as also +was _Pastor Fido_, which was since Translated and set forth by Mr. Rich. +Fanshaw.' Another note,[241] to some verses to the reader, tells us that +both translations were made 'neer twenty years agone,' and, as we should +expect, the _Pastor fido_ first; and further, that the latter remained in +manuscript owing to the appearance of Fanshawe's version, which is spoken +of in terms of warm admiration. Now the only manuscript translation of +Guarini's play extant in English is that of Jonathan Sidnam, whose name +gives us the very initials which appear upon the title-page of the printed +play.[242] Since the preliminary verses may have been written any time +between 1647 and 1655, the vague allusion to the date of composition will +quite well fit 1630, the year given in the manuscript. When, furthermore, +we find J. S.'s work characterized by precisely the same use of short +lines as we noted above in the case of Sidnam's, the identification +becomes a practical certainty. The version, though, as the author was +himself aware, it will not stand comparison with Fanshawe's work, is not +without merit, and is perhaps as good as the rather tedious original +deserves. As a specimen we may take a passage in which the author +deliberately followed Tasso, Celia's narration of her adventure with the +centaur: + + There, to a sturdy Oak, he bound me fast + And re-enforct his base inhumane bonds + With the then danglinst Tresses of my hair; + Ingrateful hair, ill-nurtur'd wicked Locks! + The cruel wretch then took up from the foot + Both my loose tender garments, and at once + Rent them from end to end: Imagine then + Whether my crimson red, through shame was chang'd + Into a pale wan tincture, yea or no. + I that was looking toward Heaven then, + And with my cries imploring ayd from thence, + Upon a suddain to the Earth let fall + My shamefac'd eyes, and shut them close, as if + Under mine eye-lids, I could cover all + My naked Members. (I. iii.) + +Of the various unfounded conjectures as to the author of this version, +among which Shirley's name has of course not failed to appear, certainly +the most ingenious is that which has seen in it the work of Sir Edward +Sherburne. The suggestion appears to have been originally made by Coxeter, +on what grounds I do not know. 'There is no doubt of the authorship of +this play,' writes Professer Gollancz in his notes to Lamb's _Specimens_, +'"J. S." is certainly an error for "E. S." I have found in a MS. in the +British Museum Sir E. Sherburne's preface to this play.' Professer +Gollancz deserves credit for having unearthed the interesting document +referred to,[243] but an examination of it at once destroys his theory. It +is a preface 'To the Reader' intended for a translation of the _Filli_, +and another copy also is extant,[244] both being found among the papers of +Sir Edward Sherburne, though in neither does his name actually occur. In +the course of the preface the writer quotes 'the Censure of my sometime +highly valued, and most Ingenious friend S'r. John Denham, to whom (some +years before the happy Restauration of King Charles the 2^{d} being then +at Paris) I communicated Some Part of this my Translation. Who was not +only pleasd to encourage my undertaking, but gave me likewise this +Character of the Original. "I will not say It is a Better Poem then Pastor +Fido, but to speak my Mind freely, I think it a Better Drama."' From this +it is clear that the preface was penned after 1660, and we may furthermore +infer that the version was as yet unfinished when the writer was in Paris, +apparently at some time during the Commonwealth. It is therefore +impossible that the preface should be intended for a translation which was +printed in 1655, and which was then distinctly stated to have been +composed not later than 1635. Furthermore, I question whether either the +preface or the version mentioned therein were by Sherburne at all. There +is a translation extant in a British Museum manuscript[245] purporting to +be the work of Sir George Talbot, who is said to have been a friend of Sir +Edward's, into whose hands some of his papers may have come. The +translation is headed: 'Fillis of Scirus, a Pastorall Written in Italian, +by Count Guidubaldo de' Bonarelli, and Translated into English by S'r. G: +Talbot,' and there follows 'The Epistle Dedicatory To his sacred Ma'ty. +Charles 2'd. &c. prophetically written at Paris, an: 57.' The opening is +not wanting in grace: + + The dawning light breaks forth; I heare, aloofe, + The whistling ayre, the Saints bell of the Heav'n, + Wherewith each morne it call's the drowsy Birds + To offer up theyre Hymnes to th' new-borne day. + But who ere saw, from night's dark bosome, spring + A morne soe fayre and beautifull? Observe + With what imperceptible hand, it steales + The starres from Heav'n, and deck's the earth with flow'rs: + Haile, lovely fields, your flow'rs in this array + Fournish a kind of star-light to the day. + +Or take again Celia's encounter with the centaur. And in this connexion it +is worth while mentioning that, when revising his translation and +introducing a number of verbal changes, in most cases distinctly for the +better, Sir George appears to have been struck by the absurdity of this +machinery, and throughout replaced the centaur by a 'wild man.' After +telling how she was seized and carried to 'the middle of a desart wood,' +Celia proceeds: + + There, to a sturdy oake, he bound me fast, + Doubling my bonds with knots of mine own hayre; + Ungratefull hayre, thou ill returnst my care. + The Tyrant then my mantle took in hand + And with one rash tore it from head to foote. + Consider whether shame my trembling pale + Did now convert into Vermillion: up + I cast my eyes to Heav'n, and with lowd cryes + Implor'd it's ayd; then lookt downe tow'rd the earth, + And phancy'd my dejected eyebrows hung + Like a chast mantle ore my naked limbs. (I. iii.) + +A comparison of this and the preceding renderings with the original will +show that while Talbot's is by far the more fiowing and imaginative, +Sidnam's is on the whole rather more literal, except where he appears to +have misunderstood the original. No other English translation, I believe, +exists. + +Lastly, as in the case of the _Pastor fido_, record has to be made of a +Latin version acted at Cambridge. It was the work of a Dr. Brooke of +Trinity[246], and purports to have been performed, no doubt at that +College, before Prince Charles and the Count Palatine, on March 30, +1612[247]. The title is 'Scyros, Fabula Pastoralis,' which has hitherto +prevented its being identified as a translation of Bonarelli's play, and +it is preserved in manuscripts at the University Library[248], Trinity and +Emmanuel. At the beginning is a note to the effect that in the place of +the prologue--Marino's _Notte_--was to be presented a triumph over the +death of the centaur. The cast is given, and includes three +undergraduates, five bachelors, and five masters. + + + +III + + +After translation the next process in logical sequence is direct +imitation. Although it is true that the influence of Tasso and Guarini may +be traced either directly or indirectly in the great majority of the +English pastorals composed during the first half of the seventeenth +century, there are nevertheless two plays only in which that influence can +be regarded as completely paramount, and to which the term 'imitation' can +be with full justification applied. These are the two pastorals by Samuel +Daniel, historian and court-laureate, namely the _Queen's Arcadia_, 'A +Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Majestie and her Ladies, by the +Universitie of Oxford in Christs Church, in August last. 1605[249],' and +_Hymen's Triumph_, which formed part of the Queen's 'magnificent +intertainement of the Kings most excellent Majestie' on the occasion of +the marriage in 1614 of Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburgh, and Mistress Jean +Drummond, sister of the Earl of Perth[250]. + +The earlier of these pieces displays alike the greater dependence on +Italian models and the less intrinsic merit, whether from a poetic or +dramatic point of view. It is, indeed, in its apparent carelessness of the +most elementary necessities of dramatic construction, distinctly +retrograde as compared with these models themselves. In the first scene we +are introduced to two old Arcadians who hold long discourse concerning the +degeneracy of the age. The simple manners of earlier times are forsaken, +constant quarrels occur, faith is no longer untarnished nor modesty +secure. In the hope of probing to the root of the evil the two determine +to hide close at hand and so overhear the conversations of the younger +swains and shepherdesses. The fact is that Arcadia has recently been +invaded by a gang of rascally adventurers from Corinth and elsewhere: +Techne, 'a subtle wench,' who under pretence of introducing the latest +fashions of the towns corrupts the nymphs; Colax, whose courtier-airs find +an easy prey in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, +who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of the shepherds; Lincus, +'a petty-fogger,' who breeds litigation among the simple folk; and lastly +Pistophanax, who seeks to undermine the worship of Pan. Colax has, it +appears, already abused the love of Daphne, and won that of Dorinda from +her swain Mirtillus; Techne has sown jealousy between the lovers Palaemon +and Silvia; while Lincus has set Montanus and Acrysius by the ears over +the possession of a bit of land. Ail the plotting is overheard by the two +concealed shepherds, who when the crisis is reached come forward, call +together the Arcadians, expose the machinations of the evil-doers, and +procure their banishment from the country. Such an automatic solution is +obviously incompatible with the smallest dramatic interest in the plot; it +is not a _dnoment_ at all, properly speaking, but a severing of the +skein after Alexander's manner, and it is impossible to feel any emotion +at the tragic complications when all the while the sword lies ready for +the operation. + +The main amorous action centres round Cloris, beloved of Amyntas and +Carinus, the latter of whom is in his turn loved by Amarillis. Carinus' +hopes are founded on the fact that, in imitation of Tasso's Aminta, he has +rescued Cloris from the hands of a satyr, while Amyntas bases his upon +certain signs of favour shown him. Colax, however, also falls in love with +the nymph, and induces Techne to give her tryst in a cave, where he may +then have an opportunity of finding her alone. Techne, hereupon, in the +hope of winning Amyntas' affection for herself if she can make him think +Cloris unworthy, directs him to the spot where she has promised to meet +the unsuspecting maiden. This is obviously borrowed from the _Pastor +fido_; indeed, Techne is none other than Corisca under a new name, and it +was no doubt she who suggested to Daniel the introduction of the other +agents of civilization. Amyntas, on seeing Cloris emerge from the cave in +company with Colax, at once concludes her guilt, and in spite of all +Techne's efforts to restrain him rushes off with the intention of putting +an end to his life. Techne, perceiving the ill-success of her plot, tells +Cloris of Amyntas' resolve. We here return to the imitation of Tasso: +Cloris, like that poet's Silvia, begins by pretending incredulity and +indifference, but being at length convinced agrees to accompany Techne in +search of the desperate swain. Daniel has produced what is little better +than a parody of the scene in his model. Not content with placing in the +girl's mouth the preposterous excuse: + + If it be done my help will come too late, + And I may stay, and save that labour here, (IV. iv.[251]) + +he has spun out the dialogue, already over-long in the original, to an +altogether inordinate and ludicrous extent. When the pair at last come +upon the unhappy lover they find him lying insensible, a horn of poison by +him. The necessary sequel is reported by Mirtillus: + + For we perceiv'd how Love and Modestie + With sev'rall Ensignes, strove within her cheekes + Which should be Lord that day, and charged hard + Upon each other, with their fresh supplies + Of different colours, that still came, and went, + And much disturb'd her, but at length dissolv'd + Into affection, downe she casts her selfe + Upon his senselesse body, where she saw + The mercy she had brought was come too late: + And to him calls: 'O deare Amyntas, speake, + Look on me, sweete Amyntas, it is I + That calles thee, I it is, that holds thee here, + Within those armes thou haste esteem'd so deare.' (V. ii.) + +Amyntas' subsequent recovery is reported in the same strain. The reader +will remember the lines in which Tasso described a similar scene. And yet, +in spite of the identity of the situations and even of the close +similarity of the language, the tone and atmosphere of the two passages +are essentially different; for if Daniel's treatment of the scene, which +is typical of a good deal of his work, has the power to call a tear to the +eye of sensibility, his sentiment, divested as it is of the Italian's +subtle sensuousness, appears perfectly innocuous and at times not a little +ridiculous. + +Cloris and Amyntas are now safe enough, and Carinus has the despised but +faithful Amarillis to console him. The other pairs of lovers need not +detain us further than to note that their adventures are equally borrowed +from Tasso and Guarini. Silvia relates how, wounded by her 'cruelty,' +Palaemon sought to imitate Aminta by throwing himself from a cliff, but +was prevented by her timely relenting. Amarillis fondles Carinus's dog, +and is roughly upbraided by its master in the same manner as her prototype +Dorinda in the _Pastor fido_. + +Amid much that is commonplace in the verse occur not a few graceful +passages, while Daniel is at times rather happy in the introduction of +certain sententious utterances in keeping with the conventionality of the +pastoral form. Thus a caustic swain remarks of a girl's gift: + + Poore withred favours, they might teach thee know, + That shee esteemes thee, and thy love as light + As those dead flowers, shee wore but for a show, + The day before, and cast away at night; + +and to a lover: + + When such as you, poore, credulous, devout, + And humble soules, make all things miracles + Your faith conceives, and vainely doe convert + All shadowes to the figure of your hopes. (I. ii.) + +Colax is a subtle connoisseur in love: + + Some thing there is peculiar and alone + To every beauty that doth give an edge + To our desires, and more we still conceive + In that we have not, then in that we have. + And I have heard abroad where best experience + And wit is learnd, that all the fairest choyce + Of woemen in the world serve but to make + One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. (I. iii.) + +The historical importance of the _Queen's Arcadia_, as the first play to +exhibit on the English stage the direct and unequivocal influence of the +Italian pastoral drama, is evident to the critic in retrospect, and it is +not impossible that it may have lent some extraneous interest to the +performance even in the eyes of contemporaries; but the zest of the play +for a court audience in the early years of the reign of James I was very +possibly the satirical element. The shadowy fiction of Arcadia and its age +of gold quickly vanished when the actual or fancied evils of the day were +exposed to the lash. The abuse of the practice of taking tobacco flattered +the prejudices of the king; the quack and the dishonest lawyer were stock +butts of contemporary satire; Colax and Techne, the he and she +coney-catchers, have maintained their fascination for all ages. +Pistophanax, the disseminator of false doctrine, who had actually presumed +to reason with the priests concerning the mysteries of Pan, was perhaps +the favourite object of contemporary invective. The term 'atheist' covered +a multitude of sins. This character appears in the final scene only, and +even there he is a mute but for one speech. He is indeed treated in a +somewhat different manner from the other subjects of satire in the play. +Thus the discovery that he is wearing a mask to hide the natural ugliness +of his features passes altogether the bounds of dramatic satire, and +carries us back to the allegorical manner of the middle ages. Apart from +these figures, who bear upon them the form and pressure of the time, and +who are, it must be remembered, the main-spring of the action, there is +little of note to fix the attention in this first fruit of the Arcadian +spirit in the English drama. + +In every way superior to its predecessor is the second venture in the kind +made by Daniel after an interval of nearly a decade. Instead of being a +patchwork of motives and situations borrowed from the Italian, and pieced +together with more or less ingenuity, _Hymen's Triumph_ is as a whole an +original composition. The play is preceded by a prologue in which Daniel +departs from his models in employing the dialogue form, the speakers being +Hymen, Avarice, Envy, and Jealousy[252]. In the opening scene we find +Thirsis lamenting the loss of his love Silvia, who is supposed to have +been devoured by wild beasts while wandering alone upon the shore--we are +once again on the sea-board of Arcadia--her rent veil and a lock of her +hair being all that remains to her disconsolate lover. Their vows had been +in secret owing to the match proposed by Silvia's father between her and +Alexis, the son of a wealthy neighbour[253]. In reality she has been +seized by pirates[254] and carried off to Alexandria, where she has lived +as a slave in boy's attire for some two years. Recently an opportunity for +escape having presented itself, she has returned, still disguised, to her +native country, where she has entered the service of the shepherdess +Cloris, waiting till the approaching marriage of Alexis with another nymph +shall have made impossible the renewal of her father's former schemes. +Complications now arise, for it appears that Cloris has fallen in love +with Thirsis, but fears ill success in her suit, supposing him in his turn +to be pining for the love of Amarillis. She employs the supposed boy to +move her suit to Thirsis, and Silvia goes on her errand to court her lover +for her mistress, fearing to find him already faithless to his love for +her[255]. On her mission she is waylaid by the nymph Phillis, who has +fallen in love with her in her male attire, careless of the love borne her +by the honest but rude forester Montanus. The varying fortune of Silvia's +suit on behalf of Cloris, Thirsis' faith to the memory of Silvia, +Montanus' jealousy, and Phillis' shame when she finds her proffered love +rejected by the boy for whom she has sacrificed her modesty, are presented +in a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially advance the +business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach +the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now +imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some +spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she +does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As +Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the +favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs Silvia, and +carries off the garland she is wearing, believing it to be one woven by +the hand of Phillis. This naturally leads to the discovery of Silvia's sex +and identity, and supposing her dead, Thirsis falls in a swoon at her +side. The last act is, as usual, little more than an epilogue, in which we +are entertained with a long account of the recovery of the faithful +lovers, thanks to the care of the wise Lamia, an elaborate passage again +modelled on Tasso, but again falling far short of the poetical beauty of +the original. + +Taken as a whole, and partly through being unencumbered with the satyric +machinery of the _Queen's Arcadia, Hymen's Triumph_ is a distinctly +lighter and more pleasing composition. At least so it appears by +comparison, for Daniel everywhere takes himself and his subject with a +distressing seriousness wholly unsuited to the style; we look in vain for +a gleam of humour such as that which in the final chorus of the _Aminta_ +casts a reflex light over the whole play[257]. Again an advance may be +observed, not only in the conduct of the plot, which moves artistically on +an altogether different level, and even succeeds in arousing some dramatic +interest, but likewise in the verse, which has a freer movement, and is on +the whole less marred by the over-emphatic repetition of words and phrases +in consecutive lines, a particularly irritating trick of the author's +pastoral style, or by the monotonous cadence and painful padding of the +blank verse. Daniel was emphatically one of those poets, neither few nor +inconsiderable, the natural nervelessness of whose poetic diction +imperatively demands the bracing restraint of rime. It is noteworthy that +this applies to his verse alone; such a work as the famous _Defence of +Rime_ serves to place him once for all among the greatest masters of 'the +other harmony of prose.' + +_Hymen's Triumph_ contains many more passages of notable merit than its +predecessor. There is, indeed, one passage in the _Queen's Arcadia_ which +will bear comparison with anything Daniel ever wrote, but it stands in +somewhat striking contrast with its surroundings. This is the opening of +the speech in which Melibaeus addresses the assembled Arcadians, and well +deserves quotation. + + You gentle Shepheards and Inhabitors + Of these remote and solitary parts + Of Mountaynous Arcadia, shut up here + Within these Rockes, these unfrequented Clifts, + The walles and bulwarkes of our libertie, + From out the noyse of tumult, and the throng + Of sweating toyle, ratling concurrencie, + And have continued still the same and one + In all successions from antiquitie; + Whil'st all the states on earth besides have made + A thousand revolutions, and have rowl'd + From change to change, and never yet found rest, + Nor ever bettered their estates by change; + You I invoke this day in generall, + To doe a worke that now concernes us all, + Lest that we leave not to posteritie, + Th' Arcadia that we found continued thus + By our fore-fathers care who left it us. (V. iii.) + +Such passages are more frequent in _Hymen's Triumph_. Take the description +of the early love of Thirsis and Silvia, instinct with a delicacy and +freshness that even Tasso might have envied[258]: + + Then would we kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus + In that first garden of our simplenesse + We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began + To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then + Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, + Check my presumption and my forwardnes; + Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew + What she would have me, yet not have me, know. (I. i.) + +Thirsis, who is the typical 'constant lover' of pastoral convention, and +does + + Hold it to be a most heroicke thing + To act one man, and do that part exact, + +thus addresses his friend Palaemon in defence of love: + + Ah, know that when you mention love, you name + A sacred mistery, a Deity, + Not understood of creatures built of mudde, + But of the purest and refined clay + Whereto th' eternall fires their spirits convey. + And for a woman, which you prize so low, + Like men that doe forget whence they are men, + Know her to be th' especiall creature, made + By the Creator as the complement + Of this great Architect[259] the world, to hold + The same together, which would otherwise + Fall all asunder; and is natures chiefe + Vicegerent upon earth, supplies her state. + And doe you hold it weakenesse then to love, + And love so excellent a miracle + As is a worthy woman? (III. iv.) + +The sententious passages, the occurrence of which we previously noted in +the _Queen's Arcadia_, likewise appear. Thus of dreams: + + Alas, Medorus, dreames are vapours, which, + Ingendred with day thoughts, fall in the night, + And vanish with the morning;[260] (III. ii.) + +and of thoughts: + + They are the smallest peeces of the minde + That passe this narrow organ of the voyce; + The great remaine behinde in that vast orbe + Of th' apprehension, and are never borne. (III. iv.) + +At times these utterances even possess a dramatic value, as where, +bending over the seemingly lifeless form of his beloved Silvia, Thirsis +exclaims: + + And sure the gods but onely sent thee thus + To fetch me, and to take me hence with thee. (IV. v.) + +The two plays we have been considering are after all very much what we +should expect from their author. A poet of considerable taste, of great +sweetness and some real feeling, but deficient in passion, in power of +conception and strength of execution, writing for the court in the +recognized rle of court-laureate, and unexposed to the bracing influence +of a really critical audience--such is Samuel Daniel as seen in his +experiments in the pastoral drama. We learn from his commendatory sonnet +on the 'Dymocke' _Pastor fido_ that he had known Guarini personally in +Italy, an accident which supplies an interesting link between the dramas +of the two countries, and might suggest a specific incentive to the +composition of his pastorals, were any such needed. So far, however, from +that being the case, the only wonder is that the adventure was not made at +an earlier date, a problem the most promising explanation of which may +perhaps be sought in the rather conservative taste of the officiai court +circle, which tended to lag behind in the general advance during the +closing years of Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James new life +as well as a new spirit entered the court, and is quickly found reflected +in the literary fashions in vogue. It was in 1605 that Jonson wrote in +_Volpone_: + + Here's Pastor Fido ... + ... All our English writers, + I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, + Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; + Almost as much, as from Montagnie: + He has so moderne, and facile a veine, + Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare. (1616, III. iv.) + +On the whole, perhaps, Daniel's merits as a pastoral writer have been +exaggerated. His dependence on Italian models, particularly in his earlier +play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually +lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand +examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the _Queen's Arcadia,_ +of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion--a point in +which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of +narrative as compensation--and of his failure to do justice to such scenes +when forced upon him.[261] If the atmosphere of certain scenes is purer +than is the case with his models, it is in large measure due to his +failure to master the style; if his conception of virtue is more +wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his +sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little +tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly +trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into +penning passages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often +stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[262] On the other +hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is +true, may be said to be rather the _qualits de ses dfauts_. The verse is +at least smooth; it is courtly and scholarly, and sometimes graceful; the +language is pure and refined, and habitually simple. The sentiment, if at +times finicking, is always that of a gentleman and a courtier. Moreover, +in reckoning his qualifications as a dramatist, we must not forget to +credit him with the plot of _Hymen's Triumph_, which is on the whole +original, and is happily conceived, firmly constructed, and executed with +considerable ability. + +With Daniel begins and ends in English literature the dominant influence +of the Italian pastoral drama. No doubt the imitation of Tasso and Guarini +is an important element in the subsequent history of pastoralism in this +country, and to trace and define that influence will be not the least +important task of the ensuing chapters. No doubt it supplied the incentive +that induced a man like Fletcher to bid for a hopeless success in such a +play as the _Faithful Shepherdess_, and placed a heavy debt to the account +of Thomas Randolph when he composed his _Amyntas_. But in these cases, as +in others, wherever the author availed himself of the tradition imported +from the Ferrarese court, he approached it as it were from without, +seeking to rival, to acclimatize, rather than to reproduce. Nowhere else +do we find the tone and atmosphere, the structure, situations, and +characters imitated with that fidelity, or attempt at fidelity, which +makes Daniel's plays almost indistinguishable, except for language, from +much of the work of the later Italians.[263] To minimize with many critics +Daniel's dependence on his models, or to emphasize with some that of +Fletcher, is, it seems to me, wholly to misapprehend the positions they +occupy in the history of literature, and to obscure the actual development +of the pastoral ideal in this country. + + + + +Chapter V. + +The Three Masterpieces + + + +I + + +Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be +said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The +first of these is, of course, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_. In the +case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in +the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it +reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ has +prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic +literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism +be classed Thomas Randolph's _Amyntas_, which, however inferior to the +others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of +intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, +well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English +examples of the kind. + +These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, +and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or +less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three +plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain +direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to +the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the +absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the +mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore +gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall +lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence. + +When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it +proved a complete failure.[264] An edition appeared without date, but +before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, +Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had +at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception +accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may +have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no +reason to believe that the _Sad Shepherd_ was taken in hand for another +quarter of a century almost. The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was revived long +after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by +comparison with Montagu's _Shepherds Paradise_ acted the year before. It +was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it +met with some measure of success. + +The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was the earliest, and long remained the only, +deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a +pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of +Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no +mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but +a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its +author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of +his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he +must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of +stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He +further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a +lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, +howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That +he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he +did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco +of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the +spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a +scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained +by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral +stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of +the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the +attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously +to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to +show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to +suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure. + +In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to +Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been +held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable +doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, +that the _Faithful Shepherdess_ may more properly be regarded as written +in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_, the _Faithful Shepherdess_ would never have +come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor +literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian +pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, +on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, +little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, +whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A +certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca +and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the +comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some +traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. +Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, +wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and +deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the +embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference +between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the +respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern +drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, +the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly +superfluous seer in the _dnoment_ make up the whole sum so far as the +_Pastor fido_ is concerned, while the _Aminta_ cannot even show as much as +this. In the _Faithful Shepherdess_ we find not only the potent herbs, +holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well +and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly +compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265]. +Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the +Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning +ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by +imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known +it, that of Contarini's _Fida ninfa_[266]. + +A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry +which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which +Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph +vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; +in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning +a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so +Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser +flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids +modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its +attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is +the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the +traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into +the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of +Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is +at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a +shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, +hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the +priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside +the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae. + +The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as +forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped +a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly +too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, +leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. +Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at +the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and +damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range +themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the +first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. +Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love +unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for +Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when +he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers +from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis +are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' +innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in +the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is +banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no +more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night. + +The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to +neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in +favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, +is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and +needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage +representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the +movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far +towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece. + +It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain +distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of +love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too +colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained +desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to +find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither +as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn +a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory +recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory +illustrative of certain aspects of love[267]. So regarded much of the +absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to +disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that +abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as +ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass +unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start +into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the _Faithful Shepherdess_ was +among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be +contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art +of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the +popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a +craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the +already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in +reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer +solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing +abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of +every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have +known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover +their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the +absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent. + +What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best +explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place +endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three +centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the +composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the +piece will be necessary. + +The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's +pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he +prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed +two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind +approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some +allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, +and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment +itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: +'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, +and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and +most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for +certaine sometimes are[268]. In his preface to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the +_Queen's Arcadia_, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that +piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted passage writes: +'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and +shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may +agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and +vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such +improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and +poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and +fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such +like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic +representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable +propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and +state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at +above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in +the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of +mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make +it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no +comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind +of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as +in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have +supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in +1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a +very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular +gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a +pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray +cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and +sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is +concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is +obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and +bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his +play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's _Pastor fido_, it is perhaps not +fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same +author's _Compendio della poesia tragicomica_. What is important to note +is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory. + +Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to +individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was +familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his +eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional +characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types +of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human +desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and +the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and +the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, +indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely +careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more +tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to +regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the +cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many +changes of garment-- + + Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso. + +Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and +refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no +plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to +have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a +pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but +because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the +characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his +characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for +themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a +certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the +characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic +business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their +origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that +Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological +conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and +abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later +plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other +fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to +illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of +the present play he had to fashion characters _in vacuo_ and then weave +them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other +words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to +make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual +example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea. + +So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as +to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, +having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every +form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it +necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of +cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal +sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition +of the middle age. Again comparing the _Faithful Shepherdess_ with +Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and +women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the +moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly +conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he +comes to create _in vacuo_ he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory +regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be +with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and +undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument +of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for +this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take +exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the +author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to +honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. +Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he +intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His +cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but +constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The +falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality +of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the +characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous +except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure +who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being +carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion +and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the +profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, +with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his +altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most +sacred in woman. + +In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set +before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one +other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as +an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly +surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false +notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we +have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to +pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must +nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with +regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of +the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or, +non sai tu com' fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca +describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the +close of the _Orfeo_. In English poetry we find Daniel writing: + + Light are their waving vailes, light their attires, + Light are their heads, and lighter their desires; + (_Queen's Arcadia_, II. iii.) + +while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, +contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed + + that such virtue can + Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,) + +or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of +caprice + + And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.) + +Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn: + + Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity + Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.) + +The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret: + + Thou wert not meant, + Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.) + +and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words: + + Women love only opportunity + And not the man. (ib. 127.) + +So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age +exclaimed: + + ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake! + +But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have +been considering to be justly chargeable against the _Faithful +Shepherdess_, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of +the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its +author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and +again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered +the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of +easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of +phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been +surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of +power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious +criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. +The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty +which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and +flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and +glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for +an instant on the gaze of the rider[269]. + +Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar +to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages +as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his +critics. It is in truth no lame one[270]. + +In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity +at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in +worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the +entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer +sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin: + + By that heavenly form of thine, + Brightest fair, thou art divine, + Sprung from great immortal race + Of the gods, for in thy face + Shines more awful majesty + Than dull weak mortality + Dare with misty eyes behold + And live. Therefore on this mould + Lowly do I bend my knee + In worship of thy deity.[271] (I. i. 58.) + +The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the +conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the +assembled people and purging them with holy water[272], after which they +disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging +her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her: + + Oh you are fairer far + Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star + That guides the wandering seaman through the deep, + Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep + Head of an agd mountain, and more white + Than the new milk we strip before day-light + From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks, + Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks + Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.) + +They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their +love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where + + 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-lovd shepherd + With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung + Lays of his love and dear captivity. (I. ii. 99.) + +Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol: + + Come, shepherds, come! + Come away + Without delay, + Whilst the gentle time doth stay. + Green woods are dumb, + And will never tell to any + Those dear kisses, and those many + Sweet embraces, that are given; + Dainty pleasures, that would even + Raise in coldest age a fire + And give virgin blood desire + + Then if ever, + Now or never, + Come and have it; + Think not I + Dare deny + If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.) + +Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just +lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her +with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty: + + lend me all thy red, + Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed + Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.) + +The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest: + + Shepherds all and maidens fair, + Fold your flocks up, for the air + 'Gins to thicken, and the sun + Already his great course hath run. + See the dew-drops how they kiss + Every little flower that is, + Hanging on their velvet heads + Like a rope of crystal beads; + See the heavy clouds low falling, + And bright Hesperus down calling + The dead night from under ground, + At whose rising mists unsound, + Damps and vapours fly apace, + Hovering o'er the wanton face + Of these pastures, where they come + Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.) + +In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, +founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can +plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain: + + 'Tis not the white or red + Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed + My mind to adoration, nor your eye, + Though it be full and fair, your forehead high + And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile + Lies watching in those dimples to beguile + The easy soul, your hands and fingers long + With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue, + Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp; + Your hair woven in many a curious warp, + Able in endless error to enfold + The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould + Of all your body, which as pure doth shew + In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow: + All these, were but your constancy away, + Would please me less than the black stormy day + The wretched seaman toiling through the deep. + But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep, + Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were + In the great womb of air were settled here, + In opposition, I would, like the tree, + Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free + Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.) + +The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in +the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of +Chapman's outburst: + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, + Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water and her keel plows air. + (_Byron's Conspiracy_, III. i.) + +Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to +enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, +which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of +the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his +mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, +mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly +reminiscent of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The wild-wood minister thus +describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a +characteristic of the play: + + Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky, + And the stars, whose feeble light + Give a pale shadow to the night, + Are up, great Pan commanded me + To walk this grove about, whilst he, + In a corner of the wood + Where never mortal foot hath stood, + Keeps dancing, music and a feast + To entertain a lovely guest; + Where he gives her many a rose + Sweeter than the breath that blows + The leaves, grapes, berries of the best; + I never saw so great a feast. + But to my charge. Here must I stay + To see what mortals lose their way, + And by a false fire, seeming-bright, + Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.) + +Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the +transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her: + + What art thou dare + Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care + Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.) + +while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had + + lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that + Which we esteem our honour, virgin state; + Dearer than swallows love the early morn, + Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn; + Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast + Another, and far dearer than the last; + Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all + The self-love were within thee that did fall + With that coy swain that now is made a flower, + For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!... + Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head, + And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.) + +Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn: + + See, the day begins to break, + And the light shoots like a streak + Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold + Whilst the morning doth unfold. + Now the birds begin to rouse, + And the squirrel from the boughs + Leaps to get him nuts and fruit; + The early lark, that erst was mute, + Carols to the rising day + Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.) + +The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action +as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking +in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as +she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. +However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in +itself unsurpassed: + + If there be + Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree, + Receive my body, close me up from lust + That follows at my heels! Be ever just, + Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake + That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake + In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit; + Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute, + Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast + Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste! + (V. iii. 79.) + +Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin: + + Thou divinest, fairest, brightest, + Thou most powerful maid and whitest, + Thou most virtuous and most blessd, + Eyes of stars, and golden-tressd + Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest, + What new service now is meetest + For the satyr? Shall I stray + In the middle air, and stay + The sailing rack, or nimbly take + Hold by the moon, and gently make + Suit to the pale queen of night + For a beam to give thee light? + Shall I dive into the sea + And bring thee coral, making way + Through the rising waves that fall + In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall + I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies + Whose woven wings the summer dyes + Of many colours? get thee fruit, + Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute? + All these I'll venture for, and more, + To do her service all these woods adore. + + * * * * * + + So I take my leave and pray + All the comforts of the day, + Such as Phoebus' heat doth send + On the earth, may still befriend + Thee and this arbour! + _Clorin._ And to thee, + All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.) + +Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own +individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it +follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain +traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, +it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of +Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum +total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far +surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate +art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of +the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon +accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was +necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and +range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form +from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or +vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action +and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, +and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been +stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from +the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a +successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for +the scene's sake[273].' + + + +II + + +Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no +doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the +academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he +was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London +about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, +before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that +the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have +occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the +very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this +supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at +that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The +play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's +poems edited by his brother in 1638. + +Like Fletcher's play, the _Amyntas_ is a conscious attempt at so altering +the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation +on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, +before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and +intended by the author for performance on the public boards[274]. Yet the +two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing +the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and +conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless +introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest +commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of +plot which we find in the _Pastor fido_. Randolph, on the other hand, +chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained +much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the +complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of +certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced +elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence +of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism +an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable +proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English +melodrama. + +Like the _Pastor fido_[275], Randolph's _Amyntas_ is weighted with a +preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was +betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the +greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. +Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the +faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and +Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her +tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the +goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse: + + Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide + To every bridegroome, and to every bride: + No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire, + Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire. + The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit + Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.) + +Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister +Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to +Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania +and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went +so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the +uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[276]' +replied: + + That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have + Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave: + Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine + To give Urania this, and she is thine. + +Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had +conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love +of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis. + +This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we +find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and +her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the +most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis' +love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her +choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them +abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the +morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose +love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself. +In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard +of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of +his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his +identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise +that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over +the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the +temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and +Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon, +fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award +of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who +shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks +to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear +and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has +fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her +all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and +finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil +conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make +Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his +old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the +letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares +that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is +forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off +in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we +find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and +bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius' +blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the +fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self. +Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of +wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that +of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues +that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might +without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly +stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are +alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the +general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her +vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels +before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the +appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the +solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband. + +This plot is a mingling of comedy in the scenes of Laurinda's +'wavering'[277] and the 'humours' of Amyntas' madness, and of tragi-comedy +in the catastrophe. But besides this there is what may best be described +as an antiplot of pure farce, in which the main character is the roguish +page Dorylas, who in the guise of Oberon robs Jocastus' orchard, tricks +Thestylis into marrying the foolish augur, and gulls everybody all round. +The humour of this portion of the piece may be occasionally a trifle broad +and at the same time childish, but there is nevertheless no denying the +genuineness of the quality, while the verse is as a rule sparkling, and +the dialogue both racy and pointed, occasionally displaying qualities +hardly to be described as other than brilliant. + +This comic subplot obviously owes nothing to Guarini, but is introduced +in accordance with the usage of the English popular drama, and is grafted +somewhat boldly on to the conventional stock. Dorylas is one of the most +inimitable and successful of the descendants of Lyly's pages; while the +characters of Mopsus and Jocastus, although the former no doubt owes his +conception to a hint in the _Aminta_, belong essentially to the English +romantic farce. The scenes in which the page appears as Oberon surrounded +by his court recall the introduction of the 'mortal fairies' of the _Merry +Wives,_ and that in which Amyntas' 'deluded fancy' takes the augur for a +hound of Actaeon's breed may owe something to a passage in _King Lear_. +But even apart from the elements of farce and comedy there are important +aspects in which the _Amyntas_ severs itself from the stricter tradition +of the Italian pastoral. Randolph, while adopting the machinery and much +of the scenic environment of Guarini's play, made certain not unimportant +alterations in the dramatic construction, tending towards greater variety +and complicity. In the _Pastor fido_ the four main characters, though they +ultimately resolve themselves into two pairs, are throughout +interdependent, and their story forms but a single plot. That the play +should have needed a double solution, the events that bring two couples +together having no connexion with one another, was a dramatic blunder but +imperfectly concealed by the fact that Silvio and Dorinda are purely +secondary, the whole interest being concentrated on the fortunes of +Mirtillo and Amarilli. In Randolph's play, on the other hand, there are no +less than six important characters. These are divided into two groups, +each with an independent plot, one of which contains a telling though +somewhat conventional [Greek: peripe/teia], while the other, though +possessing originality and pathos, is lacking in dramatic possibilities. +Thus each supplies the elements wanting in the other, and if woven +together harmoniously, should have been capable of forming the basis of a +well-constructed play. The first of these groups consists of Laurinda, +Alexis, Damon, and Amarillis, the last two being really the dramatically +important ones, though their fortunes are connected throughout. It is +Laurinda's choice of Alexis that leads to the union of Damon and +Amarillis, and it is not till Damon has unconsciously fulfilled the +oracle and been freed by its interpretation, that the loves of Laurinda +and Alexis can hope for a happy event. Thus Randolph has at least not +fallen into the error by which Guarini introduced a double catastrophe +into a single plot, though he has not altogether avoided a somewhat +similar danger. This is due to the other group above mentioned, consisting +of Amyntas and Urania, who, so far as the plot is concerned, are +absolutely independent of the other characters. Their own story is +essentially undramatic, although it possesses qualities which would make +it effective in narrative; and it is, moreover, wholly unaffected by the +solution of the other plot. This is obviously a weak place in the +construction of the play, but the author has shown great resource in +meeting the difficulty. First, by placing the interpretation of the oracle +in the mouth of Amyntas, who must yet himself remain hopeless amid the +general rejoicing, he has produced a figure of considerable dramatic +effect, and so kept the attention of the audience braced, and stayed the +relaxing effect of the anti-climax. Secondly, he has amused the spectators +with some excellent fooling until, while Io and Paean are yet resounding, +it is possible to crown the whole by the solution of the second oracle, +and send the hero and his love to join the others in the festive throng. +The imperfection of plot is there, but the author has been skilful in +concealing it, and it may well be that his success would appear all the +greater were his play to be put to the real test of dramatic composition +by being actually placed on the boards. + +But there is yet another point in which the _Amyntas_ differs not only +from its Italian model but from its English predecessors likewise. This is +a certain genially humorous conception of the whole, quite apart from and +beyond the mere introduction of comedy and farce, which we have never +found so marked before, and which has indeed been painfully absent from +the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the _Aminta_. This +humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in +a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing +the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming +stilted and pretentions--a fault not less commonly and quite as justly +charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of +humour is the great safeguard against an author taking either himself or +his creations too seriously. Randolph's _Amyntas_, it is true, renounces +the high ideality of its predecessors, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, of _Hymen's Triumph_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_; but it makes +up for it by human sanity of feeling and expression, by good humour and by +wit. It is, moreover, genuinely diverting. Here at least we find no +endeavour to attain to the importance and solemnity of a classical tragedy +as with Guarini, nor a striving after an utterly unreal, unsympathetic and +impossible ideal as with Fletcher. It is, moreover, noticeable and +eminently to the credit of the author that the comic scenes, even when +somewhat extravagant alike in tone and proportion, seldom clash +unpleasantly with the more serious passages, nor derogate from the +interest and dignity of the whole. + +The play has generally met with a far from deserved neglect, owing in part +no doubt to the singular failure on the part of most critics to apprehend +correctly the nature and conditions of pastoral poetry.[278] Mr. W. C. +Hazlitt, who edited Randolph's works in 1875, does not so much as mention +the play in the perfunctory introduction, in which he chiefly follows the +extravagant, pedantic, and utterly worthless article in the sixth volume +of the _Retrospective Review_.[279] The merits of the piece have been +somewhat more fully recognized by Dr. Ward and Mr. Homer Smith, but the +treatment accorded the play by the former is necessarily scanty, while +that of the latter is inaccurate. Throughout a tendency is manifest to +find fault with the artificiality of the piece, and to blame the author +for not representing the true 'simplicity' of pastoral life. That the +pastoral tradition was a wholly impossible, not to say an absurd one, +bearing no true relation to nature at all, may be admitted; and it may be +lamented by such as love to shed bitter tears because the sandy shore is +not a well-swept parquet, or because anything you please is not something +else to which it bears not the smallest resemblance. It may or may not be +unfortunate that Randolph should have elected to write _more pastorali_, +but to censure the individual work because it is not of a type to which +its author never had the remotest intention of making it conform, and to +which except for something like a miracle it was impossible that it should +even approach, is the acme of critical fatuity. Judged in accordance with +the intention of the author the _Amyntas_ is no inconsiderable achievement +for a young writer, and compared with other works belonging to the same +tradition it occupies a highly respectable place. With Tasso's _Aminta_ +and Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ it cannot, in point of poetic merit, +for one moment compare, falling as far below them in this as it surpasses +them in complexity and general suitability of dramatic construction. A +fairer comparison may be made between it and the _Pastor fido_ in Italian +or _Hymen's Triumph_ in English, and here again, though certainly with +regard to the former and probably with regard to the latter it stands +second as poetry, as a play it is decidedly better suited than either for +representation on the stage--at least on a stage with the traditions and +conventions which prevailed in this country in the author's day. + + * * * * * + +It is then in the matter of the poetical quality of the verse that +Randolph's play appears to least advantage. Living in a polished and +cultured literary circle at Cambridge, and enjoying after his remove to +London the congenial fellowship of the tribe of Ben, he naturally attained +the ease and skill necessary to maintain a respectable level of +composition, but he was sparing of the higher flights. He seldom strikes +the attention by those purple patches which make many of his +contemporaries so quotable, yet, while by no means monotonously correct, +it is equally seldom that he sinks much below his general level. The +dialogue is on the whole natural and easy, and at the same time crisp and +pointed. A few of the more distinctively poetic and imaginative passages +may be quoted, in order to give some idea of the style. Laurinda thus +appoints a choice to her brace of lovers: + + I have protested never to disclose + Which 'tis that best I love: But the first Nymph, + As soone as Titan guilds the Easterne hills, + And chirping birds, the Saints-bell of the day, + Ring in our eares a warning to devotion-- + That lucky damsell what so e're she be + [That first shall meet you from the temple gate][280] + Shall be the Goddesse to appoint my love, + To say, 'Laurinda this shall be your choice': + And both shall sweare to stand to her award! (III. i.) + +Another passage of deliberate poetic elaboration is the monologue of +Claius on once again treading his native soil: + + I see the smoake steame from the Cottage tops, + The fearfull huswife rakes the embers up, + All hush to bed. Sure, no man will disturbe mee. + O blessed vally! I the wretched Claius + Salute thy happy soyle, I that have liv'd + Pelted with angry curses in a place + As horrid as my griefes, the Lylibaean mountaines, + These sixteene frozen winters; there have I + Beene with rude out-lawes, living by such sinnes + As runne o' th' score with justice 'gainst my prayers and wishes: + And when I would have tumbled down a rock, + Some secret powre restrain'd me. (III. ii.) + +By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few +passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the +verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. The following is a graceful +example in a somewhat conceited vein; the transition, moreover, from +blank to rimed measure has an appearance of natural ease. The rivals are +awaiting the arbitrement of their love: + + _Alexis._ How early, Damon, + Doe lovers rise!... + + _Damon._ No Larkes so soon, Alexis. + + _Al._ He that of us shall have Laurinda, Damon, + Will not be up so soone: ha! would you Damon? + + _Da._ Alexis, no; but if I misse Laurinda, + My sleepe shall be eternall. + + _Al._ I much wonder the Sunne so soone can rise! + + _Da._ Did he lay his head in faire Laurinda's lap, + We should have but short daies. + + _Al._ No summer, Damon. + + _Da._ Thetis[281] to her is browne. + + _Al._ And he doth rise + From her to gaze on faire Laurinda's eyes.... + + _Da._ I heare no noise of any yet that move. + + _Al._ Devotion's not so early up as love. + + _Da._ See how Aurora blushes! we suppose + Where Tithon lay to night. + + _Al._ That modest rose + He grafted there. + + _Da._ O heaven, 'tis all I seeke, + To make that colour in Laurinda's cheeke. (IV. iv.) + +A more tragic note is struck in the speech in which Claius retorts on +Pilumnus after his discovery: + + I, glut your hate, Pilumnus; let your soule + That has so long thirsted to drinke my blood, + Swill till my veines are empty;... I have stood + Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove + Levels his thunder; all my boughes long since + Blasted and wither'd; now the trunke falls too. + Heaven end thy wrath in mee! (IV. viii.) + +In some of these 'high tragical endeavours,' and notably in Damon's +confession, we do indeed find a certain stiltedness, but even here there +rings a true note of pathos in the farewell: + + Amarillis, + I goe to write my story of repentance + With the same inke, wherewith thou wrotes before + The legend of thy love. (IV. ix.) + +These passages will serve to give a fair and not unfavourable impression +of the style, but I have reserved for separate consideration what I +consider to be the most striking portions of the play. The first of these +is the string of Latin songs in which the would-be elves comment on their +nefarious proceedings in Jocastus' orchard. I quote certain stanzas only: + + Nos beata Fauni Proles, + Quibus non est magna moles, + Quamvis Lunam incolamus, + Hortos saepe frequentamus. + + Furto cuncta magis bella, + Furto dulcior Puella, + Furto omnia decora, + Furto poma dulciora. + + Cum mortales lecto jacent, + Nobis poma noctu placent; + Illa tamen sunt ingrata, + Nisi furto sint parata. + + * * * * * + + Oberon, descende citus, + Ne cogaris hinc invitus; + Canes audio latrantes, + Et mortales vigilantes. + + * * * * * + + I domum, Oberon, ad illas + Quae nos manent nunc ancillas, + Quarum osculemur sinum, + Inter poma, lac et vinum. (III. iv.) + +To discuss verses such as these seriously is impossible. The dog-Latin of +the fellow of Trinity is inimitable, while there is a peculiarly roguish +delicacy about his humour. In the admirable ease with which the words are +adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of +the _carmina vagorum_. Lastly, as undoubtedly the finest passage of the +play, and as one that must give us pause when we would deny to 'prince +Randolph' the gifts requisite for the higher imaginative drama, I must +quote the scene in which the distracted Amyntas fancies that in his +endless search for the 'impossible dowry' he has arrived on the shores of +Styx and boarded Charon's bark. + + _Amyntas._ Row me to hell!--no faster? I will have thee + Chain'd unto Pluto's gallies! + + _Urania._ Why to hell, + My deere Amyntas? + + _Amyntas._ Why? to borrow mony! + + _Amarillis._ Borrow there? + + _Amy._ I, there! they say there be more Usurers there + Then all the world besides.--See how the windes + Rise! Puffe, puffe Boreas.--What a cloud comes yonder! + Take heed of that wave, Charon! ha? give mee + The oares!--So, so: the boat is overthrown; + Now Charons drown'd, but I will swim to shore.... + My armes are weary;--now I sinke, I sinke! + Farewell Urania ... Styx, I thank thee! That curld wave + Hath tos'd mee on the shore.--Come Sysiphus, + I'll rowle thy stone a while: mee thinkes this labour + Doth looke like Love! does it not so, Tysiphone? + + _Ama._ Mine is that restlesse toile. + + _Amy._ Is't so, Erynnis? + You are an idle huswife, goe and spin + At poore Ixions wheele! + + _Ura._ Amyntas! + + _Amy._ Ha? + Am I known here? + + _Ura._ Amyntas, deere Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Who calls Amyntas? beauteous Proserpine? + 'Tis shee.--Fair Empresse of th' Elysian shades, + Ceres bright daughter intercede for mee, + To thy incensed mother: prithee bid her + Leave talking riddles, wilt thou?... Queene of darknesse, + Thou supreme Lady of eternall night, + Grant my petitions! wilt thou beg of Ceres + That I may have Urania? + + _Ura._ Tis my praier, + And shall be ever, I will promise thee + Shee shall have none but him. + + _Amy._ Thankes Proserpine! + + _Ura._ Come sweet Amyntas, rest thy troubled head + Here in my lap.--Now here I hold at once + My sorrow and my comfort.--Nay, ly still. + + _Amy._ I will, but Proserpine-- + + _Ura._ Nay, good Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Should Pluto chance to spy me, would not hee + Be jealous of me? + + _Ura._ No. + + _Amy._ Tysiphone, + Tell not Urania of it, least she feare + I am in love with Proserpine: doe not Fury! + + _Ama._ I will not. + + _Ura._ Pray ly still! + + _Amy._ You Proserpine, + There is in Sicilie the fairest Virgin + That ever blest the land, that ever breath'd + Sweeter than Zephyrus! didst thou never heare + Of one Urania? + + _Ura._ Yes. + + _Amy._ This poore Urania + Loves an unfortunate sheapheard, one that's mad, Tysiphone, + Canst thou believe it? Elegant Urania-- + I cannot speak it without tears--still loves + Amyntas, the distracted mad Amyntas. + Is't not a constant Nymph?--But I will goe + And carry all Elysium on my back, + And that shall be her joynture. + + _Ura._ Good Amyntas, + Rest here a while! + + _Amy._ Why weepe you Proserpine? + + _Ura._ Because Urania weepes to see Amyntas + So restlesse and unquiet. + + _Amy._ Does shee so? + Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, + When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; + I will not move a haire, not let a nerve + Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! Hush,-- + Shee sleepes! + + _Ura._ And so doe you. + + _Amy._ You talk too loud, + You'l waken my Urania. + + _Ura._ If Amyntas, + Her deere Amyntas would but take his rest, + Urania could not want it. + + _Amy._ Not so loud! (II. iv.) + +It was no ordinary imagination that conceived this example of the +grotesque in the service of the pathetic. + +I have endeavoured in the above account to do a somewhat tardy justice to +the considerable and rather remarkably sustained qualities of Randolph's +play. I do not claim that as poetry it can be compared with the work of +Tasso, Fletcher, or Jonson, or that it even rivals that of Guarini or +Daniel, though had Randolph lived he might easily have surpassed the +latter. But I do claim that the _Amyntas_ is one of the most interesting +and important of the experiments which English writers made in the +pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its +kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the +genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived +author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not +overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her +laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it +is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun +in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth +of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other +hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to +assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of +the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when +Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works--the _Jealous Lovers_, a +Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the +_Muses' Looking Glass_, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and +the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than +occasionally improper--will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact +that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of +pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due +to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the +loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play +failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature.[282] + + + +III + + +In Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ we find ourselves once again considering a work +which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, +but which at the same time raises important questions of literary +criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to +consider--Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, +Randolph's _Amyntas_--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian +pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the +very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, +aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. +Except for such comparatively unimportant works as _Gallathea_ and the +_Converted Robber_,[283] the spectators found themselves, for the first +time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of +Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,' +the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those +of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, +Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's +rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of +Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which +had been variously present since Tasso styled his play _favola +boschereccia_, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction +of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of +the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of +the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd +Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated +and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to +fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something +fresh and original and new. + +Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is +at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some +years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of +1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what +date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered +upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for +supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor +that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is +conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier +pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost _May Lord_ has +little to recommend it.[284] Seeing that the play is far from being as +generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give +a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place.[285] + +After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with +characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, +lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is +supposed to have been drowned in the Trent. + + Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here! + Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow: + The world may find the Spring by following her; + For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.) + +He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to +fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to +entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the +stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of +melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin +Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country +maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls +forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of +shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical +pretensions of the puritan reformers--a passage which yields, in biting +satire, neither to his own presentation in the _Alchemist_ nor to Quarles' +scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they +become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks +to himself like a madman. + + It will be rare, rare, rare! + An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words! + Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: + If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing! + Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, + On every greene sworth, and in every path, + Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; + There will I knock the story in the ground, + In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, + Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; + And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, + Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. + Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither, + Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water, + Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout, + As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs, + Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine; + Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice; + And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice. + Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest, + And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles, + And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle; + To fling a fellow with a Fever in, + To set it all on fire, till it burne, + Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, + When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.) + +Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that +he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his +distracted fancy breaks out afresh: + + A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes? + Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks? + Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe? + These may grow still; but what can spring betide? + Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died? + As if there since did fall one drop of dew, + But what was wept for her! or any stalke + Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome, + After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith, + You doe not faire, to put these things upon me, + Which can in no sort be: Earine, + Who had her very being, and her name, + With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring, + Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet, + Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd, + And Venus led the Graces out to dance, + And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap, + Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration, + To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know, + How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since, + No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre + Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke, + As it were hung so for her Exequies! + And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell, + But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle, + And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule + Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings! + Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.) + +To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad +north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a +new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer. + + Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this, + This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse; + [_Forces Amie to kiss Karolin._ + Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty, + For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem + From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her: + Now I am poore as you. (ib.) + +There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the +quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's +interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.' + + _Robin._ I! what was that, sweet Marian? [_Kisses her._ + + _Marian._ You'll not heare? + + _Rob._ I love these interruptions in a Story; [_Kisses her + again._ + They make it sweeter. + + _Mar._ You doe know, as soone + As the Assay is taken-- [_Kisses her again._ + + _Rob._ On, my Marian. + I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.) + +To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there + + sate a Raven + On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse! + +crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen +swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by +Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, +broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now +proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie +complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly +explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the +stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the +strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults +Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to +Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act +Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of +Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought +discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it +now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow +tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now +enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases +from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, +which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, +and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, +reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in +which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This +latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned +to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one +might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would +appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of +natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been +awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to +dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of +his nymphs and swains.[286] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce +the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and +by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next +scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill +at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain +possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the +_navet_ of _Daphnis and Chloe_. + + How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth, + Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth, + Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by + A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie, + Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree, + Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee? + Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost, + The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost, + My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence, + Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence. + But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove, + Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove; + It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe + All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.) + +To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late +conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of +the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains +unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to +thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and +begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin +declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At +this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to +the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting +poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her +disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its +delicate comedy and pathos. + + _Amie_ [_asleep_]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ... + O', . + + _Marian._ How is't Amie? + + _Melifleur._ Wherefore start you? + + _Amie._ O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet. + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men? + The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet! + + _Amie._ I', so! + Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe: + Karol is only faire to mee! + + _Mar._ And why? + + _Amie._ Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die. + Karol he singeth sweetly too! + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men? + + _Amie._ I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing, + But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring, + The Nightingale. + + _Maud._ Then why? then why, alone, + Should his notes please you? ... + + _Amie._ This verie morning, but--I did bestow-- + It was a little 'gainst my will, I know-- + A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine, + And now I wish that verie kisse againe. + His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose, + His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes; + The relish of it was a pleasing thing. + + _Maud._ Yet like the Bees it had a little sting. + + _Amie._ And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe + And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.) + +After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer +doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of +Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise +shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of +venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a +gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes +and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an +Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an +old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As +fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers +kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales +forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and +boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad +Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade! +The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of +lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! +Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie +Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their +habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks +of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a +poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits +play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the +Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, +o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent +charmes. (II. viii.) + +In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as +the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk +it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the +dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The +latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a +'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein +no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas. + + But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine, + Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers, + Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste + To get up to the Moone, and Mercury; + And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring + Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars, + Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe + Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all + The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World + Againe, his first and tunefull planetting! + O' what an age will here be of new concords! + Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages, + Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation, + And throw a silence upon all the creatures!... + The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes + Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse; + Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme + Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht, + To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.) + +After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for +the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again +appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and +their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, +and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle +and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with +it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the +shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and +sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again +addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting +his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch: + + Gang thy gait, and try + Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel'; + +the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we +know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of +Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden +mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her +girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped +by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers. + +Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's +pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford, +who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical +judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of +propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought, +and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the +petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who +stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its +heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, +however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the _Sad +Shepherd_ to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of +it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will +serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They +display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of +judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben +Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour +and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel, +Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian, +and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious +part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque, +was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit; +the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the +success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt +of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary +groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous +contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On +the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate +the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of +composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with +such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the +projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more +amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or +more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise, +but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that +now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt +influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but +he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is +impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone +final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was +of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his +work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and +deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he +denounces the heresy + + That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall, + +as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he +introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by +Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In +_The Sad Shepherd_ [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit +of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than +either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is +due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance +that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It +must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in +part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit +that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be +repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's +invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it +will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as +favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike +are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may +feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There +are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely +refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a +writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but +with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel +bound to record my dissent. + +Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and +genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr. +Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry' +in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive +that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to +repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[287] That Jonson did not +fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only, +however, I believe, because he faied to carry it to completion. Had he +lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant +with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question +as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult +and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, +especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the +unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic +construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers +with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted. + +Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, +it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first +place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads, +pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and +seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken +to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and +forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral +tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in +name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and +boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's +_Hymen's Triumph_, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, +are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly +indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the +woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their +essence and history indistinguishable.[288] Probably, however, what the +writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of +popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he +regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by +Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return. + +Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the +comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer +Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as +an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this +view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, +the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin +Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject +of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which +the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of +stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of +a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is +known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we +have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, +_Hymen's Triumph_ and Rutter's _Shepherds' Holiday_; while in the +detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an +exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements +of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by +Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the +materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited +by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the +exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse, +have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part +of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an +unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the +_imbroglio_ can do more than restore the harmony which had been before, +and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the +dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the _Faithful +Shepherdess_. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end +of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose +than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her +confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her +Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the +materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact +that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than +half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the +felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot +as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness +almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the +burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid +Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin +Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which +arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various +threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and +incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic +characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished +shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy +one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr. +Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain +the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are +essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic +composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets +of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the +sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without +qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is +welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's +pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention +of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found +its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious +idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined +creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from +common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many +shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may +frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind, +Phoebe, and Audrey in _As You Like It_? But that is a question to which we +shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the _Sad +Shepherd_ we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined +atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet +constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude +unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels +at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This +brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we +shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of +the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage. + +The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's +pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All +that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the +stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and +with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope +to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be +in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic +characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in +reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts +them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock +and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as +exhibited in the _Sad Shepherd_, would not be worth defending. But it is +not so. + +It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions. +It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain +passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world +in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and +irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so +far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial +Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the +rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine; +of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find +her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of +the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the +singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the +mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean +and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come +dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an +occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense +at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good +angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a +familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of +borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain +incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual +passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as +they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to +lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between +these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be +remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather +beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not +fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had +the play undergone revision. + +Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and +general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. +The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and +may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country +lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular +romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way +antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft +and fairy lore[289]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far +as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no +Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his +lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of +burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic +lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical +tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not +contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, +since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether +necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is +going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,' +they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be +wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, +it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the +pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly +poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce +references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less +naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, +introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable +characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the +same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also +noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one +passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise +incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of +Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically +something of an anachronism. + +Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized +than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular +tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as +Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than +with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood +tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it +exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the +popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock +and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely +less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That +Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found +is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like +Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect. + +Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for +an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic +characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a +mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this +light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for +death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude +audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while +there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private +opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to +cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he +laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister +reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an +imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, +removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of +romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less +idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but +regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more +in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the +shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and +other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition. + +There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the +ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the +groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher +than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the +whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it +is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it +not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere +literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not +only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have +been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum +true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his +day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters +not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we +should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised +fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author +decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his _English Grammar_ shows, +was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and +it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral +himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of +language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have +escaped his critical eye. + +Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor +importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in +previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in +popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a +veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it +remained unfinished at the death of its author. + + * * * * * + +In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment. +This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and +falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure +of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat +qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of +the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and +convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by +which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. +The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but +only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course, +introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all +ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the +hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth +quoting[290]: + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + With breath of bugles sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide, + Nor branchy head will long abide; + Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath, + Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death. + + The hart is slain! his faithful deer, + In spite of hounds or huntsman near, + Despising Death, and all his train, + Laments her hart untimely slain! + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + (Act IV.) + + + + +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 thse 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 +_Astre_ 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 _dbcle_ 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. + + + +II + + +The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the +English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At +no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. +Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner +compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic +drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what +had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. +Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this +romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to +attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the +three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as +we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to +bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient +importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it +may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of +classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England +is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless +experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two +cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards +some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true +that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of +time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves +to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object +was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral +drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in +that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with +artistic evolution. + +A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals +will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it +is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us +to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain +doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of +our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of +most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development +would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than +in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is +unhappily wanting. + +In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of +the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as +familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less +consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the +mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the +mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and +more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest +play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous _Maid's +Metamorphosis_, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in +1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it +presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. +Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to +be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, +discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly +into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch +their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live +among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner +left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in +love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of +livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by +Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be +able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication +has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has +fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his +pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the +infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much +regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens +is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the +suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or +Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo +to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this +performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he +the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the +duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it +seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be +welcome. + +Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, +weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of +the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but +little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd +and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic +clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have +drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's _Gallathea_, in which, it will be +remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a +man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the +sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to +note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, +a fact that carries them back towards Peele's _Arraignment_ and the days +previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the +characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish +pages of Lyly.[317] + +The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often +irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it +contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in +description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not +unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, +are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the +master:[318] + + Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found + A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground: + So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe, + As for his life the sunne durst never peepe + Into the entrance: which doth so afright + The very day, that halfe the world is night. + Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound: + There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground, + No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call, + Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all. + No sound is heard in compasse of the hill, + But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still. + Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie, + A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie + Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God, + Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.) + +And again: + + Then in these verdant fields al richly dide, + With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride: + There is a goodly spring whose christal streames + Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames: + There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory, + The Graces sit, listening the melodye: + The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes + Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles, + Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates + Is as a base unto their hollow throates. + Garlands beside they weare upon their browes, + Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes: + From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise, + As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.) + +The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the + + grassie bed + With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.) + +Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of +haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied: + + I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare + With woodmen thus audaciously compare? + Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King, + And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing. + Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene, + Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene. + And so alas, the good Athenian knight, + And swift Acteon herein tooke delight: + And Atalanta the Arcadian dame, + Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game, + That with her traine of Nymphs attending on, + She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.) + +We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, +in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the +songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which +bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by +Eurymine-- + + Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above, + Forge of desires working love, + Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye + Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.) + +there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of +acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song: + + Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a: + Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a. + Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a: + All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.) + +The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is +undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon +Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect: + + _Gemulo._ As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides, + When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne-- + + _Silvio._ As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides, + Where Nightingales record upon the thorne-- + + _Ge._ So rise my thoughts-- + + _Sil._ So all my sences cheere-- + + _Ge._ When she surveyes my flocks-- + + _Sil._ And she my Deare. + + _Ge._ Eurymine! + + _Sil._ Eurymine! + + _Ge._ Come foorth! + + _Sil._ Come foorth! + + _Ge._ Come foorth and cheere these plaines! + + _Both._ Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines-- + + _Sil._ The Wood-mans Love-- + + _Ge._ And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.) + +Not long after the appearance of the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ there was +written a play entitled _The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves_, +which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, +and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe +Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of +Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose +life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or +nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present +at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses +neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in +prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the +author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and +ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted +restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to +be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the +author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only +characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy +hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess +of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the +woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and +reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a +hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her +turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. +While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on +their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent +to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread +of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and +his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from +passages in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The piece has a prologue for +representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that +honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition. + +Passing over the _Faithful Shepherdess_ in 1609, we come to a play of a +very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's +_Sicelides_, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at +Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before +the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, +surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account +for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the +hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the +neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more +particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been +overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have +already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included +under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic +merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues +of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, +which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer +who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the +fountain-head of his inspiration. + +Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his +affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns +indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with +mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is +courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she +turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but +soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has +relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon +offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks +the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is +condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on +the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is +bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, +when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile +Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of +Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, +determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his +mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a +love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, +mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls +into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting +a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but +Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast +from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. +These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of +Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic +under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love +for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends +happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and +uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who +had been carried off long before by pirates. + +This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian +pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the +construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it +is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in +couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at +times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the +author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such +phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. +Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at +Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone: + + Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it + That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.) + +The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to +be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[324]. The orc +probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the +influence of the _Metamorphoses_ is likewise, as so often, present. The +following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many +short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted: + + The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes, + The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes, + And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames, + Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ... + Only love waking rests and sleepe despises, + Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises. + With him the day as night, the night as day, + All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day. + How different from love is lovers guise! + He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.) + +Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral +that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild +production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled +_The Careless Shepherdess._ It was printed many years after its original +production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. +of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this +ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, +where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the +living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is +probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but +the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are +informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at +Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the +playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' +the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last +months of the author's life[325]. The question of the date is interesting +principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking +resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's _Sad +Shepherd_: + + This was her wonted place, on these green banks + She sate her down, when first I heard her play + Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be + Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose + I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke + Then court my eye; She must be here, or else + That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd + Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that + Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head + To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.) + +The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, +while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely +interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the +play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four +characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and +Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not +object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son +of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes +his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of +disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so +continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile +informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the +return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in +despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is +throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the +exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian +predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, +feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far +successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves +him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her +turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus +challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances +to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in +the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two +shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers +desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by +Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two +maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. +While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of +satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a +despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement +that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his +marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the +swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding +their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover +themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No +satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for +while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be +their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. +Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. +Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for +we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and +carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of +the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. +Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and +are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are +actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. +They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr +reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to +induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of +banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now +ends happily. + +In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled +and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent _enlvements_ by the +satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story +distantly recalls Ingegneri's _Danza di Venere_. One feature of importance +is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended +satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe +his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a +measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner +of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written +in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such +slighter compositions as the _Converted Robber_ and Tatham's _Love Crowns +the End_, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was +no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular +with the audience.[327] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of +Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt +responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves +the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as +is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. +Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely +Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, +introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the +office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a +sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This +mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the +courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the +lyrical verse of the play: + + Come Shepherds come, impale your brows + With Garlands of the choicest flowers + The time allows. + Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair, + And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers + With hast repair: + Where you shall see chast Turtles play, + And Nightingales make lasting May, + As if old Time his youthfull minde, + To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.) + +There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by +Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while +adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. +Of the author of _Rhodon and Iris_, as the play was called, little is +known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare +facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or +chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the +restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have +been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the +same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of +certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters +are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of +the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many +cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose +connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly +subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to +interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the +oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, +moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one +thread is cut short by a _dea ex machina_ of the most mechanical sort, +while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following +is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached +on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she +appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of +Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's +behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has +abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. +The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who +with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of +Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a +love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as +his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused +to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send +Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace +(All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in +time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that +Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a +double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the +attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the +prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan +she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his +followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus +she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to +her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus +Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is +only referred to in the epilogue. + +The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The +large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly +and Spanish type than to that of works like _Menaphon_, or even _Daphnis +and Chloe_. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow +servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine +and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The +allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the +_Queen's Arcadia_.[328] + +This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely +unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the +_Fairy Pastoral_ in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so +at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to +see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse +and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both +in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous +poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for +example, the lines from Eglantine's lament: + + Since that the gods will not my woe redresse, + Since men are altogether pittilesse, + Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare; + Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare, + And listen to my plaints that doe excell + The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel. + Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while, + Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle, + Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone, + Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne, + And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare + The growing liver of the ravisher; + Let these behold my sorrows and confesse + Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.) + +Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine: + + Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains, + That in the woods and mountains art ador'd, + The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires, + Who art for chastity renouned most, + Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure + The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes, + Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply + Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.) + +Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast: + + When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed, + When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,... + When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober, + When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,... + When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down, + When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown, + To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow; + Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.) + +Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a +second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to +write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort: + + Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort + Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames + Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages, + Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed; + But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy + Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd + With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.) + +Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste +and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of +measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The +occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines, +sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play: + + Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire + My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite; + My hopes are vanish'd into ayre, + My day is turn'd to gloomy night; + For since my Rhodon deare is gone, + Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none. + A Cell where griefe the Landlord is + Shall be my palace of delight, + Where I will wooe with votes and sighes + Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite; + Since I have lost my Rhodon deare, + Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.) + +To treat of Walter Montagu's _Shepherds' Paradise_ at a length at all +commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there +are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give +it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of +Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. +The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, +who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. +The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' +Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, +and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence +the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and +likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, +Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a +man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same +pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly +company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in +love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised +Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of +Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds +to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, +it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the +prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to +Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen +perpetual queen[329]. + +The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the +Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited, +in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover, +as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more +intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous +tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of +verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater +merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence +of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from +the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external +circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation. + +One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's _Session +of the Poets_, from which it is evident that the style of the play +attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's +contemporaries: + + Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial, + And did not so much as suspect a denial; + But witty Apollo asked him first of all, + If he understood his own pastoral! + +The _Shepherds' Paradise_ is, however, best remembered on account of +circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a +letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her +ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously +appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in +which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who +appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the +public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific +instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any +personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the +supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears. + +It is presumably at this point that Randolph's _Amyntas_ should appear in +a chronological survey of English pastoralism. + +Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before +the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and +it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[330]. The +songs in the introduction and the _intermed_ were undoubtedly in French, +and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French +forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles +franaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which +belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only +influenced in the _dnoment_ by mythological tradition, appears to be +original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to +exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[331] The relation of the +characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account +of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess +Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her +servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to +the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and +passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by +Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the +nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds. +Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e. +Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this +garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love. +Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the +faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now +fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances +of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered +her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene +at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and +begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene +accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to +show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from +Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when +Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene +now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are +interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene. +This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that +they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to +abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her +love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to +Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and +Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the +latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize +shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their +love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them. +Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns +to complete the _tableau_. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many +deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these +marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the +spectators. + +The _Shepherds' Holiday_ is the most typical, as it is on the whole the +most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the +Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page +informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is +satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the +translater of Corneille's _Cid_, who appears to have been in some way +attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of +Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The +following analysis will sufficiently express its nature. + +At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of +Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral +inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished, +carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament, +the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich +shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain +Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene +between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss +of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone, +however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her +love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis, +finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him +with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the +giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she +faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her +father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court. +Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus, +recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son +of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd +Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country +folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had +discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now +again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity +of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile +Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own +daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king +to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore +commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born, +but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and +carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to +commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers +fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the +play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a +restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who +adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her +lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her +still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries, +however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis, +overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a +friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in +accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and +Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to +die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however, +leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends +happily.[332] + +In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be +desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the +unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is +properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot +on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but +clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to +predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The +verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if +its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in +flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser +poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the +_Shepherds' Holiday_ from _Hymen's Triumph_. Rutter's verse also displays +a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it +preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which +Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which +opens with a reminiscence of Spenser: + + All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks, + So pine and languish they, as in despair + He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks + Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair, + Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them. + And now what beauty can there be to live, + When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.) + +Again the opening situation recalls that of _Hymen's Triumph_, a +resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual +names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of +Dorinda are taken from the _Pastor fido_. From the _Aminta_, of course, +comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of +the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the _Pastor fido_ her +confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines +of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation: + + Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul, + Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina + But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so; + To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[333] (II. iii.) + +But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the +construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his +own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his +love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and +also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. +Verbal reminiscences of the _Aminta_ also are scattered through the play, +for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who +seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations +particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. +Her father not unreasonably retorts: + + Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is, + Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth + To follow you with lies and flatteries. + Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades, + Which will not always last, and you go crooked, + As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground, + Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.) + +With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of +those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists +make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, +Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly +have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our +attention. + +Cowley's _Love's Riddle_, published in 1638, but written two or three +years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply +to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it +is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of +genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics +professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not +finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's +conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley +had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the +world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was +perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely +on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less +clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were +interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and +courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic +or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin. + +Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the +shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at +the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her +suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and +Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, +finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost +his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with +the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, +daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral +characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, +who fills at once the rles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On +Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and +Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister +Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of +some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after +vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under +the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with +Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that +he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad +Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him +home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by +transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, +working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and +Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. +Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in +Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to +recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by +Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their +lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's +identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is +found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, +stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby +removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and +Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent +to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted +by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs +is secured. + +There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley +shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of +individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there +is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole +construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various +threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, +fall apart of themselves, without any _dnoment_, strictly speaking, at +all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, +absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction. + +The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of +mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below +the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which +possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found +in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora: + + How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples + Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.) + +or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her +brother's sword: + + As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet + Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble: + I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune, + And am almost worne out with often playing; + And therefore I would entertaine my death + As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.) + +Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct +following without imitation of _The Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph.' +Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it +was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its +application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not +taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of +astrologers.[334] That Cowley had read _The Jealous Lovers_, published in +1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the +yet unpublished _Amyntas_. This he may perhaps have seen when it was +performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own +Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of +Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual +verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little +doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque, +half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed +to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of +Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in _Amyntas_, +while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene +of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of +Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation, +rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and +his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have +been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the _Jealous Lovers_, she is +probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in +_Amyntas_. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the +liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will +not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of +incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the +loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere +schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could +be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft +are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some +praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The +position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls +that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia, +particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe. +The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel +finds of course an obvious parallel in _Twelfth Night_. The discovery of +Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in +Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's +_Filli di Sciro_, which might also be traced in the attribution to +centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral +tradition. + +It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral +tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English +stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a +schoolboy. _Love in its Extasy_, described on the title-page as 'a kind of +Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of +Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William +Peaps.[335] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to +have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps +regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile +effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[336] treating of tyrants and +revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might +have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the +publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a +period after 1642. + +_Love in its Extasy_ itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be +called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it +with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the +title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of +the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in +their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is +no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere +of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in +the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or +pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is +for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and, +considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author. +An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two +princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other +appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths, +and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple +elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot +intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be +admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a +wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and +the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it +has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will +be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly +incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one +prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally +important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic +tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics +are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure +respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form. + +The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is +true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the +practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly +unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can +hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines, +as where a lover bids his penitent mistress + + Go, + Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine + Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.) + +There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to +dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness +displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun +writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and +pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have +been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who +know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the +composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities +Cowley's flashy precocity. + +This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated +play entitled _Love's Victory_, extracts from a manuscript of which were +printed in 1853.[337] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the +date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat +archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with +free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is +of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts, +but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a +pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the _finale_, while the +situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the +quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The +only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate +their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the +involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the +whole the poetic merit is small.[338] + +We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within +our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or +at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces +in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for +our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each +other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice +differences of form as may be found to exist among them. + + + + +Chapter VII. + +Masques and General Influence + + + +I + + +The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what +may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the +early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic +kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, +and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of +its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may +often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and +exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines +of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact +usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous +and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate +themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that _Comus_ is a +masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question +of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt +may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must +not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics +such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest +possible signification as including not only the regular and highly +developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on +the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all +dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or +inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the +question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a +particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and +quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of +forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever +classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a +clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat +in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully +developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something +no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from +the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times +especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, +and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral +tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong. + +The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may +well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the +isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the +pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to +supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while +the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing +matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of +structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had +long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and +occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter +forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the +pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more +noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama. + +The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of +interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which +Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according +to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn. +The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it +is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being +no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation. + +The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the +middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for +classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight +entertainment, to which the name of _The Lady of May_ has been given by +modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth +during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to +have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict +sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains +the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind. +The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the +May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending +for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party +being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who +decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show. +A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old +shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the +character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little +more extravagant than that of Sidney's own _Arcadia_. As in the romance, +at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional +songs are of small merit. + +The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work +breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the _Descensus +Astraeae_, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the +Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. +1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment +of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of +pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car +with the words: + + Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green, + Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks; + Such pastures are not common to be seen: + Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks, + For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall; + And heaven's great architect be praised for all[339]. + +In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate +speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together +with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march. + +The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her +Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at +Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right +Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very +characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing +rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the +compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more +detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards +Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild +man who began his speech thus: + + I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why, + nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to + our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan, + whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty + thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee + Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet + counted the god of the Woods. + +He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle +of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their +Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all +join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read +further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest +Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.' +Ceres sings: + + Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking; + Pomona pineth, + Fruitlesse her tree; + Fair Phoebus shineth + Onely on mee. + Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,... + All other Gods of power bereven, + Ceres only Queene of heaven. + + With Robes and flowers let me be dressed; + Cynthia that shineth + Is not so cleare, + Cynthia declineth + When I appeere, + Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ... + And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers, + Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres. + +She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely +Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech; +whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show +accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the +metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree, +having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.' + + Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth, + This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth: + The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene, + And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene. + If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste, + And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.' + +'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne +after, with these words:' + + Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire, + Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste, + And yet because so chaste, must I despaire? + And to despaire, I yeelded have at last. + +'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:' + + I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene + of chastety, &c. + +a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader. +The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus. +Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the +shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the +feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake. +After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in +a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked +Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes +the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of +Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's +delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but +however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other +similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not +necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[340] + +To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces +printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of +_Dialogues and Dramas_.[341] The only one of these that can really be +styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled _Amphrissa, or the +Forsaken Shepherdess_. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and +fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the +unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins +in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise +counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the +scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, +virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously +raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song. + +In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most +appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest +concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in +blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards +Euphuism. Thus we read of men how + + like as the Chamelions change themselves + Into all perfect colours saving white; + So they can to all humors frame their speech, + Save only to prove honest; + +or else how + + light minds are catcht with little things, + And Phancie smels to Fennell. + +Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness +the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in +the _Gallathea_ already quoted (p. 227): + + You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits, + A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse, + And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste: + It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart: + 'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst, + And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie. + +Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us +rather of Daniel and the sonneteers: + + To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst, + And all contingents brooke with patience, + Is a most soveraigne medicine. + +All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who +regards the piece as forming part of the _Five Plays in One_, acted at the +Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed +in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with +the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is +that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, +and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from +the work of Peele and Lyly. In _Jupiter and Io_, which perhaps made part +of the same performance as _Amphrissa_, Mercury disguises himself as a +shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good +purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the +inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the +character of which can be easily imagined from its title, _Apollo and +Daphne_, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of +the mythological pastoral: + + Howsoe're the Minutes go, + Run the heures or swift or slow: + Seem the Months or short or long, + Passe the seasons right or wrong: + All we sing that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + + Early fall the Spring or not, + Prove the Summer cold or hot: + Autumne be it faire or foule, + Let the Winter smile or skowle: + Still we sing, that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + +Passing on to the seventeenth century, the first piece that demands +attention is the St. John's Twelfth Night entertainment, _Narcissus_, +performed at Oxford in 1602. If its pastoral quality is somewhat +evanescent, there is another point of view from which the piece has a good +deal of interest. It is, namely, a burlesque production of the nature of +the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and +flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela +eclogue in _Menaphon_. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the +'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, +evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the _Metamorphoses_, and +which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[342] I +may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, suggested by Ovid, are +introduced and handled with more than usual ingenuity; and further to +quote two characteristic passages. In one of these the nymphs Florida and +Clois court the affections of the loveless hero. + + _Florida._ Shine thou on mee, sweet plannet, bee soe good + As with thy fiery beames to warme my bloud ... + + _Narcissus._ To speak the truth, faire maid, if you will have us, + O Oedipus I am not, I am Davus. + + _Clois._ Good Master Davis, bee not so discourteous + As not to heare a maidens plaint for vertuous. + + _Nar._ Speake on a Gods name, so love bee not the theame. + + _Flo._ O, whiter then a dish of clowted creame, + Speake not of love? How can I overskippe + To speake of love to such a cherrye lippe? + + _Nar._ It would beseeme a maidens slender vastitye + Never to speake of any thinge but chastitye. + + _Flo._ As true as Helen was to Menela + So true to thee will be thy Florida. + + _Clo._ As was to trusty Pyramus truest Thisbee + So true to you will ever thy sweete Clois bee. + + _Flo._ O doe not stay a moment nor a minute, + Love is a puddle, I am ore shooes in it. + + _Clo._ Doe not delay us halfe a minutes mountenance + That ar in love, in love with thy sweet countenance. + + _Nar._ Then take my dole although I deale my alms ill, + Narcissus cannot love with any damzell; + Although, for most part, men to love encline all, + I will not, I, this is your answere finall. + +We are here, it is true, as far as ever from the delicate rusticity of +Lorenzo de' Medici, and not particularly near to the humour of the +Athenian rustics, but for burlesque it is passably amusing. The _Midsummer +Night's Dream_ had appeared possibly a decade earlier, and the audience in +the college hall at Oxford can hardly but have been reminded of Wall and +Moonshine as they listened to the speech by one who enters carrying 'a +buckett and boughes and grasse.' + + A well there was withouten mudd, + Of silver hue, with waters cleare, + Whome neither sheep that chawe the cudd, + Shepheards nor goates came ever neare; + Whome, truth to say, nor beast nor bird, + Nor windfalls yet from trees had stirrde. + [_He strawes the grasse about the buckett._ + And round about it there was grasse, + As learned lines of poets showe, + Which next by water nourisht was; [_Sprinkle water._ + Neere to it too a wood did growe, _[Sets down the bowes._ + To keep the place, as well I wott, + With too much sunne from being hott. + And thus least you should have mistooke it, + The truth of all I to you tell: + Suppose you the well had a buckett, + And so the buckett stands for the well; + And 'tis, least you should counte mee for a sot O, + A very pretty figure cald _pars pro toto_. + +The first strict masque of a pastoral character that we meet with is that +of Juno and Iris, with the dance of nymphs and the 'sunburnt sicklemen, of +August weary,' introduced by Shakespeare into the _Tempest_; but this must +not be taken as altogether typical of the independent productions of the +time. The masques introduced into plays were necessarily, for the most +part, of a slighter and less elaborate character than those performed at +court, or for the entertainment of persons of rank. This is more +particularly the case with the serions portions of the masques, since the +actors, who were engaged for the performance of the antimasques in court +revels, frequently transferred their parts bodily on to the public boards. +Thus, in the entertainment in the _Winters Tale_, in which shepherds also +appear, the main feature was a dance of satyrs, which was no doubt +borrowed from Jonson's _Masque of Oberon_.[343] The _Tempest_ masque, +however, is of the simpler type, without antimasque. At Juno's command +Iris summons Ceres, and the goddesses together bestow their blessing on +the young lovers. Then at Iris' call come the naiads and the reapers for +the dance. The date of the play may be taken as late in 1610, or early the +next year, a time at which the popularity of the masque was reaching its +height. + +Although the mythological element is everywhere prominent, the pastoral is +comparatively of rare occurrence in the regular masque literature of the +seventeenth century. This, considering the adaptability and natural +suitability of the form, is rather surprising. Probably the masque as it +evolved itself at the court of James needed a subject possessing a +traditional story, or at least fixed and known conditions of a kind which +the pastoral was unable to supply. Be this as it may, on one occasion +only did Jonson make extended use of the kind, namely, in the masque which +in the folio of 1640 appears with the heading 'Pans Anniversarie; or, The +Shepherds Holy-day. The Scene Arcadia. As it was presented at Court before +King James. 1625. The Inventors, Inigo Jones, Ben. Johnson[344].' Even +here, however, we learn little concerning the condition of pastoralism in +general, from the highly specialized form employed to a specific purpose. +As in all the regular masques of the Jonsonian type the characters and +situations exist solely for the opportunities they afford for dance and +song. Shepherds and nymphs constitute the personae of the masque proper, +while those of the antimasque are supplied by a band of Bocotian clowns, +who come to challenge the Arcadians to the dance. Some of the songs are +very graceful, suggesting at times reminiscences of Spenser, at others +parallels to Ben's own _Sad Shepherd_, but the piece does not possess +either sufficient importance or interest to justify our lingering over it. +Outside this piece the nearest approach to pastoral characters to be found +in Jonson's masques are, perhaps, the satyr and Queen Mab in the fairy +entertainment at Althorp in 1603, Silenus and the satyrs in _Oberon_ in +1611, and Zephyrus, Spring, and the Fountains and Rivers in _Chloridia_ in +1631. + +During James I's reign pastoral shows of a sort no doubt became frequent. +While in some cases which remain to be noticed they reached the +elaboration of small plays, in others they probably remained simple +affairs enough. We get an interesting glimpse of the conditions of +production in a note of John Aubrey's.[345] 'In tempore Jacobi,' he +writes, 'one Mr. George Ferraby was parson of Bishops Cannings in Wilts: +an excellent musitian, and no ill poet. When queen Anne came to Bathe, her +way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. +He made severall of his neighbours, good musitians, to play with him in +consort, and to sing. Against her majestie's comeing, he made a pleasant +pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in +shepherds' weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that +wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues.' This was in +1613; Ferraby or Ferebe later became chaplain to the king. + +The more elaborate pieces were usually written for performance at schools +or colleges. Such a piece is Tatham's _Love Crowns the End_, composed for +the scholars of Bingham in Nottinghamshire in 1633, and printed in his +_Fancy's Theatre_ in 1640. Small literary interest attaches to the play, +which is equally slight and ill constructed, but is perhaps not +unrepresentative of its class. In spite of its very modest dimensions it +possesses a full romantic-pastoral plot, with the resuit that it is at +times almost unintelligible, owing to the want of space in which to +develop in an adequate and dramatic manner the motives and situations. The +bewildering rapidity with which character succeeds character upon the +stage must have made the representation almost impossible to follow, while +the reading of the piece is not a little complicated by the confusion in +which the stage directions remain in the only modern edition.[346] Some +notion of the complexity of the plot may be gathered from the following +account. Cliton, having in a fit of jealousy sought to kill his love +Florida, is found wandering in the woods by Alexis, who receives his +confession and shows him the way to repentance. Florida, moreover, has +been found and healed by the wise shepherdess Claudia, and is living in +retirement. Meanwhile Cloe (a name which it appears from the rimes that +the author pronounced Cloi) is saved by Lysander from the pursuit of a +Lustful Shepherd, in consequence of which she transfers to him the +affection she previously bore to her lover Daphnes. Next Leon and his +daughter Gloriana appear, together with the swain Francisco, to whom +against her will the maiden is apparently betrothed. They all go off to +view the games in which Lysander, whose heart is also fixed on Gloriana, +proves victor. His refusal to entertain the affection of Cloe drives her +to a state of distraction, in which the nymphs of the woods take pity on +her and bring her to Claudia to be cured. Gloriana in the meantime returns +the affections of Lysander, but the meeting of the lovers is interrupted +by the jealous Francisco and a gang who wound Lysander and carry off +Gloriana. She escapes from her captors, but only after she has lost her +reason, and wanders about until she meets with Cliton, who has turned +hermit and who now undertakes her cure. Throughout the play we find comic +interludes by Scrub, a page or attendant in search of his master, who also +has some farcical business with the Lustful Shepherd, who after being +disappointed of Cloe disguises himself as a satyr, apparently deeming that +rle suited to his taste. In the end all the characters are brought +together. Francisco, found contrite, is forgiven by Lysander and Gloriana; +Cliton and Florida love once more; so do Daphnes and Cloe, appropriately +enough. Scrub announces the death of the usurping duke, 'who banished good +old Leon;' Francisco and Lysander reveal themselves as princes who left +the court to win his daughter's love, when he was driven from his land, +and so--love crowns the end. + +Through this medley it is not hard to see the various debts the author has +incurred towards his predecessors. The verse, in rimed couplets, whether +deca- or octo-syllabic, ultimately depends on Fletcher; of the comic prose +scenes I have already spoken in dealing with Goffe's _Careless +Shepherdess_, a play the influence of which may perhaps be specifically +traced in the satyr-disguise, the gang who carry off Gloriana, her +unexplained escape, and the songs of the 'Destinies' and a 'Heavenly +Messenger,' who in their inconsequence recall the 'Bonus Genius' of +Goffe's play. Scrub may owe his origin to the same source, though he is +rather more like the page in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The usurping duke +recalls _As You Like It_; the princes seeking their love-fortunes among +the shepherd folk suggest the _Arcadia_; while the influence of the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ is not only traceable in the character of the +Lustful Shepherd, but also in certain specific parallels, as where the +wounded Lysander, seeing his love carried off, exclaims: + + Stay, stay! let me but breathe my last + Upon her lips, and I'll forgive what's past; (p. 24) + +a reminiscence of the lines spoken by Alexis in a similar situation: + + Oh, yet forbear + To take her from me! give me leave to die + By her! (_Faithful Shepherdess_, III. i. 165[347].) + +The general level of the verse is not high, but we now and again light on +some pleasing lines such as the following: + + My dearest love, fair as the eastern morn + As it breaks o'er the plains when summer's born, + Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree, + New life and hope imparting, as to me + Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare + As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air + The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play + The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away, + And thou shalt stand as judge to censure me. (p. 18.) + +So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant +echo of Peele's gem: + + _Gloriana._ Sit, while I do gather flowers + And depopulate the bowers. + Here's a kiss will come to thee! + + _Lysander._ Give me one, I'll give thee three! + + _Both._ Thus in harmless sport we may + Pass the idle hours away. + + _Gloriana._ Hark! hark, how fine + The birds do chime! + And pretty Philomel + Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.) + +Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum +manuscript, where it bears the title of _The Converted Robber_.[348] No +author's name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced. The +scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the +occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with +Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words: + + Lett us that do noe envy beare um + Wish all felicity to Sarum. + +Now in 1636,[349] according to Anthony Wood, there was acted at St. +John's College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled _Stonehenge_, the +occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as +Dean of Salisbury. We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two +pieces. The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated +1637. This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may +possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting +the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal +reckoning. + +The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a +stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link +between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles _Comus_, +employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai +dances of the masque.[350] + +The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds +and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of +Stonehenge--'stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of +Sarum'--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the +shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved +from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her +love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve +him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd +folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among +them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During +a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda's sister, and +finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to +stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and +is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall +upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason +by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in +his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while +Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful +swains, Palaemon and Dorus. + +In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic +construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque. +The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual +'rime' is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in +the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, +as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of +dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of +keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the +Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one +recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the substitution of the +name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false +etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called 'Pannes blest +babe.' After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old +shepherd proceeds: + + But sturdy shepherds brought all the other stones, + And reard up that great Munster all at once, + Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man, + Do come to worship theyr great God Pann. + +A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by +Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit +to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the +queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, +when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue +ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and +Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain +Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd +and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author +of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest +authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its +construction, of Davenant's _Prince d'Amour_.[351] + +Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on +which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor's pageant. The +'first show by land' of the _Porta Pietatis_, presented by the drapers in +1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot's mayoralty, consisted of a +speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short +account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of +sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft +honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of +London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often +startling information. + +We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the +Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of +Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic +dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age +of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his +_Triumph of Beauty_, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular +masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the goddesses and +their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen +and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of +Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a +comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small +play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden +fleece, reminiscent, like _Narcissus_, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. +This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city +pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite +allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it +was dependent on the _libretto_, demanded a power of light and graceful +lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the +author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of +the goddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary +audience than they do to the reader to-day. + +I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by +Robert Baron in his romance [Greek: E)rotopai/gnion], _or the Cyprian +Academy_, printed in 1647. It is entitled _Gripus and Hegio, or the +Passionate Lovers_, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and +Daris; while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of +stricter propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse classical +myth; Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of +pastoral commonplace. The romance also contains a masque entitled _Deorum +Dona_, in which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and +the like. It is in no wise pastoral. + +Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry +than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny's +_Shepherds' Holiday_, printed from manuscript in the _Inedited Poetical +Miscellany_ of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only +slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical +cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather +temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in +the preface. + +A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or +less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. +This is the case, for instance, in the _Acteon and Diana_, published in +1656.[352] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, +a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole. Then +enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs. +Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is +rebuked by the goddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the +forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when +they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the goddess turns upon him, +and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of +the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his +own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre +description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt +depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious +fact, to which Davenant's work among others is witness, that the nominally +private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while +the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it +must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without +sacrificing either propriety or tradition. + +Another similar composition, headed 'The Rural Sports on the Birthday of +the Nymph Oenone,' is printed together with the above. In it the strains +of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, +the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs. + +One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The +reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will +endeavour to repair it. + + + +II + + +In Milton's contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day +we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in +question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict +application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to +extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn +from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the +early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as _Arcades_ +and _Comus_, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether +different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional +commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster +of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow +masque: 'I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the +Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs +and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing +parallel in our Language[353].' + +The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written +within a short while of one another, and the second anticipated by more +than three years the composition of _Lycidas_. But the connexion between +the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was +the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite +evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the +entertainment, of which as we are told _Arcades_ formed a part, originated +with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the +following year probably, bore the chief parts in _Comus_. The +entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, +the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy +at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir +John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando +Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of +actors with whom Shakespeare's name is associated; and secondly, after +his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by +rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The +span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving +events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare's patron, who +may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of +his first appearance on the London stage--the 'Amarillis' of _Colin +Clout_, with whom, and with her sisters 'Phillis' and 'Charillis,' Spenser +claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his _Tears of the Muses_ in +1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amusement in the +reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master +Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of _Paradise Lost_. + +_Arcades_, or 'the Arcadians,' can hardly be dignified by the name of a +masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at +the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the +constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following +year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced +into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription +explicitly informs us, but 'Part of an entertainment presented to the +Countess Dowager of Darby.' Nevertheless it is complete and +self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Masson does, as 'part, +and part only, of a masque,' is to give a wholly false impression; for, +whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the +least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the +portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A +group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, +approach the 'seat of State' where sits the venerable Countess, whom they +address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of +the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[354] This is followed by a song +introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to +a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is +of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the +rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that +to which it served as herald: + + Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more + By sandy Ladons Lillied banks; + On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar + Trip no more in twilight ranks; + Though Erymanth your loss deplore + A better soyl shall give ye thanks. + From the stony Maenalus + Bring your Flocks, and live with us; + Here ye shall have greater grace + To serve the Lady of this place, + Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were, + Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. + Such a rural Queen + All Arcadia hath not seen. + +Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as +also of that harmonious interweaving of classical names which long years +after was to lend weight and dignity to the 'full and heightened style' of +the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the +quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, +indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which +Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he +cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the +fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among +the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his +mind turned, through some natural bent or early association, to the +employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more +forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the +composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college +acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical +transmutation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language. + +It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes +was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of +the _Triumph of Peace_ and the _Coelum Britannicum_, that Milton composed +the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day +familiar with the term 'masque.' In the second of the elaborate +productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no +particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpassed author, Tom +Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief +nobles deigned to bear a part--minor rles had been assigned to the two +sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master +Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to assume the +Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their +sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed +before the assembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow +Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, +the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest. + +It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in +the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, +but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval +ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and +costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the +spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more +splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great +hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town +upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour +and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall +just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the +unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting +out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate +under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London. + +I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which +we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary +history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in +view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor +Masson. The debts Milton owed to the _Somnium_ of Puteanus, to Peele's +_Old Wives' Tale_ and to Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, are now all +more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and +character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The +second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers +for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while +many passages might be cited to prove Milton's close acquaintance with +Fletcher's poem[355]. + +The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one +important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that +in which it left Milton's hand. This form is attested by the original +quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by +Milton's manuscript draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, +Cambridge. The variant form is found in the manuscript at Bridgewater +House, reputed to be in Lawes' handwriting, which seemingly represents the +acting version. In Milton's text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the +attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long +speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more +appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he +took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently +transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical +speech of the Spirit, substituting the words 'From the heavens' for +Milton's 'To the ocean.' The change was doubtless effective, and was +skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the +poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his +friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements +of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as +performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into +the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his +friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth +into the world in its slender quarto garb. + +A brief analysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is +constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of +the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in +possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by +Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they +seek to trick unwary passengers into drinking of the fateful cup which +shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all +remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them +content 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' Wherefore the Spirit is +sent to guide the steps of those 'favoured of high Jove,' and save them +from the wiles of the fleshly god. Announcing that he goes to assume 'the +weeds and likeness of a swain,' so as to perform his charge unknown, the +Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A +brilliant speech by the god, preceding the first measure, illustrates the +strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that +the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best +work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo +the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning +of sin was intentional on Milton's part; he painted the pleasures of +[Greek: k~mos] in their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue +might appear by so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to assert +that final victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that +unless it was made psychologically and artistically convincing the total +effect would be the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare +the speech of Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall +hardly escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a +mere schoolboy's idea of 'plot,' as of some combination of events to be +infused with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not +such as should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters +themselves. In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his +followers: + + Break off, break off, I feel the different pace + Of some chast footing neer about this ground; + +and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and +narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted +by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding +some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her +brothers' attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus +re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut +where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left +the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with +a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of +virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly +been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's +shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their +sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with +hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the +sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, +'set out with all manner of deliciousness,' where the god and his rabble +are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the +banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its +waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within. +We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the +magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then +follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the +blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the +spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found +to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant +Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin goddess of +the stream: + + Sabrina fair + Listen where thou art sitting + Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, + In twisted braids of Lillies knitting + The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, + Listen for dear honour's sake, + Goddess of the silver lake, + Listen and save. + +Thus conjured in some of the most perfectly musical lines in the language +the daughter of Locrine rises from her waves, and enters the hall with a +song, attended by her obedient nymphs. Having broken the spell and freed +the captive Lady, she at once departs with her train, and after another +speech by the Spirit, the scene changes to the town and castle of Ludlow, +a bevy of shepherds dancing in the foreground. After these have concluded +their measure, the wanderers enter, still guided by the spirit-shepherd, +who presents them safe and sound to their parents. Then follows another +dance, and the Spirit, throwing off, we may presume, his pastoral +disguise, launches into his final speech: + + To the Ocean now I fly, + And those happy climes that ly + Where day never shuts his eye; + +concluding: + + Mortals that would follow me, + Love vertue, she alone is free, + She can teach ye how to clime + Higher than the Spheary chime; + Or if Vertue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +Such is the bare outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help +wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the +flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we +have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the +life it enjoyed for one brief hour nearly three hundred years ago. We must +be thankful that we count the poem itself among our treasures, and be +content to confine our inquiry to it. It is, after all, to the accidents +of its production as the body to the robes that adorn it. + +It must be confessed that outwardly at least _Comus_ has but little +connexion with pastoral. The habit of the Spirit, the disguise of the +magician, the dance in the third scene, these are the only points serving +to connect the poem with pastoral tradition in any formal manner. It is +not, however, on account of these that _Comus_ has been commonly assigned +to the same category as the _Faithful Shepherdess_ and _Lycidas_, but +rather because its whole tone, its mode, one might almost say, is +essentially pastoral, and because it is directly dependent upon previous +pastoral work. + +It has been the fashion to praise _Comus_ above all other masques +whatever, and from the point of view of the poetry it contains it would be +idle to dispute its supremacy. But there are other considerations. As a +masque proper, and from the point of view of what had come to be expected +of such compositions, how does it stand? I am not here concerned to +inquire how far the term can with strict propriety be applied to the +piece, a question which may be left to the somewhat arid region of the +formal classification of literature. The points in which it resembles the +regular spectacular masques, as well as those in which it differs from +them, will be alike evident from the analysis given above. It may, +however, be well to put in a caution against the manner in which some +writers on the masque seek to make their distinctions appear more clearly +defined than they in reality are by declaring _Comus_ to be not a masque +at all but a play. It is no more a regular play than it is a strict +masque, but a dramatic composition containing elements of both in almost +equal proportions. + +That the songs are for the most part exquisite, that they were worthily +set to music and adequately rendered; that the measures, the dance of the +revellers in their half-brutish disguises, the antimasque of country folk, +and the final or main dance of the wanderers, were effective; that the +whole was graceful, complete and polished, is either self-evident to-day, +or may with reason be inferred. The scenery, too, must have been striking; +the dreary forest, its darkness just relieved by the half-seen +'glistering' forms; the heavy drug-like splendour of the enchanted palace +and the cold moonlight outside; the bright, fresh sunshine, lastly, +dew-washed, of the early morning; there were here a series of pictures the +contrasts of which must have added to their individual effect. The scene, +the song and the measure, these form, indeed, the very stuff that masques +are made of. But Milton's poem offered more than this; and it may well be +questioned how far this more was of a nature to recommend it to the tastes +of his audience, or indeed to heighten rather than to diminish its merits +as a work of literature and art. There was, in the first place, a +philosophical and moral intention, which, however veiled in fanciful +imagery and clothed in limpid verse, is yet not content to be an inspiring +principle and artistic occasion of the poem, but obtrudes itself directly +in the length of some of the speeches; refuses, that is, to subserve the +aesthetic purpose, and endeavours to divert the poetic beauty to its own +non-aesthetic ends. In the second place, and probably of greater +importance as regards the actual success of the piece on the stage, it +contained somewhat of dramatic emotion, of incident which depended for its +value upon its effect on the characters involved, which was ill served by +the spectacular machinery and necessary limitations of the composition, +while at the same time it must have interfered with the opportunity for +mere sensuous effect which it was the main business of the masque to +afford. The weight which different persons will attach to these objections +will no doubt vary with their individual temperaments, their +susceptibility to the magical charm of the verse, their sense of artistic +propriety, and the degree to which they are able to recall in imagination +the conditions of a bygone form of artistic presentation. I speak for +myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, +Milton's poem appears to me to be surpassed, for instance, by the best of +Jonson's masques, no less than it surpasses them, and all others of their +kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the 'tragical' or +lyrical portions. + +Since I have ventured to formulate certain objections against an +acknowledged masterpiece, it will be well that I should define as clearly +as possible the ground upon which those objections are based. I have, I +hope, sufficiently emphasized my dissent from that school of criticism +which condemns a work of art for not conforming to one or another of a +series of fixed types. That _Comus_ lies, so to speak, midway between the +drama and the masque, and partakes of the nature of either, is not, by any +inherent law of literary aesthetics, a blemish; what in my view is a +blemish, and that a serions one, is that the means employed are not +calculated to the demands of the situation. The struggle of the Lady +against the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost +sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however +simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel +that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements +of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction. That is to say +that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, +an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium +adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not +in its regular and orthodox form. It follows that the dramatic interest is +a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is +necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content. + +It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely +styled 'A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle'; the title of _Comus_ was +first affixed by Warton. It was an obvious title for a critic to adopt; it +is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of +choosing. Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of +the masques at court, the title of the _Triumph of Virtue_ could not but +have suggested itself. This is indeed the very theme of the piece. Virtue +in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the +attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the +blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of +Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque. It is a +subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular illustration, and +possesses a moral after Milton's own heart. The closing lines of the poem, +already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive. Were the subject, +on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the +Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise--had; indeed, in +varying forms long exercised--the highest dramatic genius. But in this +direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton's most evident +limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the +idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in +undeniable failure. From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the +terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular +performance. Yet in spite of this Milton's conception of the piece is, as +we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the +means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the +Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high rle. +The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to +satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call +forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual +to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means. + +These considerations have an important bearing upon the other objection +which I ventured to bring forward, that of moralizing; for it cannot be +argued, I imagine, that the direct expression of philosophical or ethical +ideas is in any way illegitimate in the masque proper, any more than it is +in the choric ode. But, as I have said, Milton--no doubt intentionally, +though the point is irrelevant--has raised dramatic issues and dramatic +emotions, and consequently by the laws of the drama, that is, by his +success in satisfying those emotions, he must be judged. All speeches +therefore introduced with a directly moral and philosophical rather than a +dramatic end must be pronounced artistic solecisms. Whether Milton has +been guilty of such undramatic interpolations, such lapses from the one +end of art, may be left to the individual judgement of each reader to +determine; for my own part I cannot conceive that any doubt should exist. + +But even if we pass over what some readers will be inclined to dismiss as +a mere theoretical objection, there are other charges which these same +passages will have to meet. Those who have borne with me in my remarks on +the _Aminta_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_, will probably also agree with +me here, when I say that to me at least there is something not altogether +pleasing in Milton's presentment of virtue. I should add at once, that to +place Milton's poem on an ethical level with either of the above-mentioned +pieces would, of course, be preposterous. It is impossible to doubt the +severe chastity of Milton's own ideal, and to compare it for one moment to +the conventional _onest_ which replaced virtue in Tasso's world, or with +the nauseous unreality of the puppet Fletcher sought to enthrone in its +place, would be to commit an uncritical outrage. Nevertheless, the +expression Milton chose to give to his ideal cannot, therefore, lay claim +to privilege. That expression had become intimately associated with +pastoral convention, and he accepted it along with much else from his +predecessors. I am not aware of any reason why spectators should have been +prejudiced otherwise than in favour of the Lady Alice Egerton; but she is, +nevertheless, careful to take the first opportunity of informing them, +with much earnest protestation, of her quite remarkable purity and virtue, +implying as it were a nave surprise at having arrived unsullied at the +perilous age of thirteen. The stilted affectation of this self-conscious +innocence is perhaps less evident in the scene in which we should most +readily look for it--that, namely, in which the Lady defends herself from +the persuasions of the Sorcerer, where a certain fervour of feeling raises +her utterances above a merely colourless level--than in the long soliloquy +in which she indulges on first appearing on the stage. Something of the +same disagreeable quality is present in the rather mawkish discussion +between her two young brothers. Milton, who is entirely untouched, either +with the levity of Tasso or the cynicism of Fletcher, was undoubtedly +himself wholly unconscious that any such charge could be brought against +his work. It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want +of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in passages of +offensively bad taste[356]. As yet it is hardly responsible for anything +worse than a confused conception in the poet's imagination. [Greek: Pa/nta +kathara\ toi~s katharoi~s], and the allegory is an old one whereby virtue +appears as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is, however, to those +alone who are innocent of evil that belongs the faery talisman. The +virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, +but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the +glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels +instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth +into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing, of course, would be easier +than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule +upon the whole of Milton's conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is +it more needful than in such a case as the present to remember the +fundamental maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking at its +strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside for the moment all questions of art +and all considerations of taste, there remains a question worthy of being +fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained. Milton has +deliberately penned passages of smug self-conceit upon a subject whose +delicacy he was apparently incapable of appreciating, and these passages +he has placed, to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child +just passing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby outraging at once +the innocence of childhood and the reticence of youth. Is it possible to +pretend that this is an action upon which moral censure has no word to +say[357]? + +It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or +to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the +verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat +injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a +certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality +of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the nobleness of +Milton's conception and the brilliance, within certain limits, of the +execution; but when we are further challenged to admire the 'moral +grandeur' of the figure in which virtue is honoured, there are some at +least who will feel tempted to reply in the significant words: 'Methinks +the lady doth protest too much!' + +A word may be said finally as to the quality of the verse. I need not +repeat that it is exquisite, that the music of it is like a full stream +overflowing the rich pastures; what I am concerned to maintain is, that it +is not for the most part of Milton's best. In the first place, what, for +want of a better name, I have called Milton's moralizing is a blemish upon +the poetic as it is upon the dramatic merits of the piece. The muse of +poetry, like all her sisters, is not slow in avenging herself of a divided +allegiance. By the cynical irony of fortune already noticed, where Milton +would most impress us with his moral he becomes least poetical. There is, +it is true, hardly a speech or a song which does not contain lines worthy +to rank with any in the language, from the opening words: + + Before the starry threshold of Joves Court, + +to the final couplet: + + Or if Virtue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +But there are passages in which these memorable lines appear as so much +rich embroidery superimposed upon the baser fabric of the verse, not woven +of the woof. They are in their nature more easily detached, and often form +the best known and most often quoted passages of the work. Take the first +speech of the Lady, concerning which something has already been said. Here +we find the lines: + + They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n + Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed + Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain; + +or again: + + A thousand fantasies + Begin to throng into my memory + Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire, + And airy tongues, that syllable mens names + On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses; + +or yet again: + + Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud + Turn forth her silver lining on the night? + +We have the song: + + Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen + Within thy airy shell + By slow Meander's margent green, + And in the violet imbroider'd vale + Where the love-lorn Nightingale + Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well. + +Such lines would justly render famous any passage in any poem in which +they occurred. Nevertheless, remove them, which can be done without +material injury to the sequence of the thought, and see whether in its +warp and web the speech can for a moment stand comparison with that of +Comus, to which it stands in direct and dramatic contraposition. + +But this drawback is only incidental; through nine-tenths of the piece, +perhaps, there is little or no moral preoccupation to disturb us. And +here, though no doubt the poetic beauty reaches a climax in the song to +Sabrina--a song for pure music certainly unsurpassed and probably +unequalled by anything else that Milton ever wrote--there are others, such +as 'By the rushy-fringed bank,' as well as less distinctively lyrical +passages, which come within measurable distance even of its perfection. +And yet, with certain noticeable exceptions, there are few passages in +which comparison with Milton's later works will not reveal technical +immaturity. This is no less true of the decasyllabic verse, when compared +with the full sonority of _Lycidas_, than of the shorter measures. Take, +for example, the invocation of Sabrina which follows the song previously +quoted--the speech beginning: + + Listen and appear to us + In name of great Oceanus. + +In spite of its very great beauty there is observable at the same time a +certain monotony of cadence, and an occasional want of success in the +attempts to relieve it, which place the passage distinctly below Milton's +best. And yet it seems almost ungenerous to place Milton even below +himself, particularly when in the very speech we are criticizing we are +brought face to face with two such flawless lines as those on 'fair +Ligea's golden comb', + + Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks + Sleeking her soft alluring locks-- + +lines which anticipate and rival the perfection of rhythmic modulation in +_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_[358]. + + + +III + + +There remains to inquire what influence of pastoral tradition is traceable +in the wider field of the romantic drama, whether in individual scenes and +characters, or more vaguely in general tone and sentiment; and, finally, +to consider for a moment the critical expression given by writers of +various dates to the sentimental philosophy of life which went under the +name of pastoralism in fashionable circles. + +The number of plays in which definite pastoral elements can be traced is +surprisingly small, even when every allowance has been made for the fact +that we have already included in our examination several pieces which come +but doubtfully within the fold. The spirit of the romantic drama, instinct +with sturdy life, had little in common with the artificial and unreal +sentiment of a tradition which had almost ceased to pretend to a basis in +the emotions of natural humanity. The result was, as might be expected, +that when the drama introduced characters of a nominally pastoral type, +they were either direct transcripts from actual life, deliberately +ignoring conventional tradition, or else specifie borrowings from that +tradition, introduced with full consciousness of its fashionable +unreality, and using that unreality for a definite dramatic purpose. Thus, +although the basis of pastoralism is found in non-traditional garb, and +though pastoralism itself is found as the subject of dramatic treatment, +yet, so far as the introduction of individual scenes and characters is +concerned, it is seldom possible to say that pastoral has influenced the +romantic drama in any sensible degree. + +A certain number of plays, presumably of a more or less pastoral nature, +have perished. Thus no trace remains of the _Lusus Pastorales_ licensed to +Richard Jones in 1565, the nature of which can be only vaguely +conjectured. The early date of the entry renders it important, and it is +much to be regretted that the work should have perished, since it might +have thrown very interesting light upon the condition of pastoralism in +England previous to the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_. Most +probably, however, the piece, whatever it may have been, was composed in +Latin. We also have to lament the non-survival of a _Phillida and Corin_, +which, we learn from the Revels' accounts, was acted by the Queen's men +before the court, at Greenwich, on St. Stephen's day, 1584. This again +would be an interesting piece to possess, since the title suggests a +purely pastoral composition contemporary with Peele's mythological play. +On February 28, 1592, Lord Strange's men performed a piece at the Rose, +the title of which is given by Henslowe as 'clorys & orgasto,' presumably +_Chloris and Ergasto_. It was an old play, probably dating from some years +earlier. Whether 'a pastorall plesant Commedie of Robin Hood and little +John,' entered to Edward White in the Stationers' Register, on May 14, +1594, could have justified its title may be questioned, but it is curious +as suggesting an anticipation of Jonson's experiment. Again, on July 17, +1599, George Chapman received of Philip Henslowe forty shillings, in +earnest of a 'Pastorall ending in a Tragydye,' which, however, was +apparently never finished. Possibly our loss is not great, for Chapman's +talents hardly lay in this line; but a tragical ending to a play of the +pure pastoral type would have been something of a novelty, and the early +date would also have lent it some interest. Yet another play known to us +solely from Henslowe's accounts is the _Arcadian Virgin_, on which Chettle +and Haughton were at work for the Admiral's men in December, 1599, and for +which they received sums amounting in all to fifteen shillings. The title +suggests that the play may have been founded on the story of Atalanta, but +it was probably not completed. Ben Jonson's _May Lord_, which we know only +through the notes left by Drummond of his conversations, was almost +certainly not dramatic, though critics have always accepted it as such; +but the same authority records that Jonson at the time of his visit to +Hawthornden was contemplating a fisher-play, the scene to be laid on the +shores of Loch Lomond. There is no evidence that the scheme ever reached a +more mature stage. Finally, I may mention a play entitled _Alba_, a Latin +pastoral, which incurred the royal displeasure when performed before James +and his consort in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605. The +historian of the visit, quoted by Nichols, says that 'It was a pastoral, +much like one which I have seen in King's College, Cambridge, but acted +far worse.' The allusion is presumably to the Latin translation of the +_Pastor fido_. The cause of offence was the appearance of 'five or six men +almost naked,' who no doubt represented satyrs. + +To what extent these plays were of a pastoral character must, of course, +be matter of conjecture. They may have been pastoral plays of a more or +less regular type, they may have been mythological dramas, or they may +have been distinguished from the ordinary run of romantic compositions by +a few incidental traits of pastoralism only. Not a few pieces of the +latter description have been preserved, pieces in which definite traces +of pastoral are to be found, but which cannot as a whole be included in +the kind. + +We have already had occasion to note the very slight pastoral influence +which exists in the short masques or dialogues of Thomas Heywood, in spite +of the opportunity afforded by their mythological character. The same may +be noticed in the plays in which he drew his subject from classical +legend. _Love's Mistress_ is the appropriate and attractive title of a +dramatization of the last-born fancy of the mythopoeic spirit of Greece, +Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche. The early editions add to the title +the further designation of 'The Queen's Masque.' The work is indeed a +composite piece, a masque grown into a play through the accretion of +foreign matter, and was probably in its original state a far simpler +composition than it now appears. The writing is in a dainty vein, and had +the piece been completed in a manner consonant with the simple and idyllic +grace of the earlier scenes, it would have been no such unequal companion +to Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_. What the play contains of pastoral +belongs to one of the accretions. It is a rustic element in the +interludes, satiric and farcical, supplied by a country clown, some +shepherds, and 'a shee Swaine,' Amarillis. In his _Ages_ the pastoral +element shrinks to an occasional dance and song. Thus in the _Golden Age_ +the satyrs and nymphs sing a song in honour of Diana, which introduces the +disguised Jupiter in his courtship of Calisto. In the _Silver Age_, again, +the rape of Proserpine by Pluto is preluded by a song of 'a company of +Swaines, and country Wenches' in honour of Ceres. + +An unkind and quite worthless tradition, based on a manuscript note in an +old copy, has connected Peele's name with the lengthy and tedious drama of +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_. It was admitted into the canon of Peele's +works by Dyce, and though Mr. Bullen differed from his predecessor as to +the justness of the ascription, he retained it in his edition. We find in +it a coarse, dialect-speaking rustic, named Corin, who at one point +succours Clyomon, and with whom Neronis, daughter of the King and Queen of +the Strange Marshes, seeks service in the disguise of a boy. Apart from +his name and the profession of shepherd he is a mere countryman, with +nothing to connect him with pastoral tradition, though the princess' +action finds, of course, abundant parallels therein. The _Old Wives' +Tale_, printed as 'by G. P.,' and of which there is no reason to question +Peele's authorship, connects itself with pastoral chiefly through the +already mentioned parallel which it affords to _Comus_. It also +anticipates, in a song of harvesters, the introduction of the 'sunburnt +sicklemen' of the _Tempest_ masque. + +At a later date we find Shirley in his _Love Tricks_ introducing two +sisters who leave their home and, taking the disguise of shepherd and +shepherdess, dwell among the country folk in the fields and pastures, +whither they are followed by their lovers. There are passages which reveal +a genuine pastoral tone, such as Shirley could readily adopt when it +suited his purpose, and it is not only in the measure that the tradition +reveals itself in such lines as: + + A shepherd is a king whose throne + Is a mossy mountain, on + Whose top we sit, our crook in hand, + Like a sceptre of command, + Our subjects, sheep grazing below, + Wanton, frisking to and fro. (IV. ii.) + +Again, in the _Grateful Servant_ we have a show of 'Satyres pursuing +Nymphes; they dance together. Exeunt Satyres; three Nymphes seem to +intreat [Lodowick] to goe with them,' accompanied by a song of Silvanus. + +Yet slighter traces of pastoral are to be occasionally found in other +plays of the period. Thus in Brome's _Love-Sick Court_ the swains and +nymphs are led in the dance by characters who have sought and found a cure +for love among the country folk. In John Jones' _Adrasta_, the scene of +which is laid at Florence, several of the characters disguise themselves +in pastoral attire, and there is one definitely pastoral scene in which +they appear in the midst of real shepherds and shepherdesses. The play was +printed in 1635, and it is noticeable as containing, in the pastoral +scene, satire on the Puritans resembling that introduced by Jonson in the +_Sad Shepherd_. So again, similar disguisings, though of a less +pronouncedly pastoral character, occur in the anonymous _Knave in Grain_, +in which the scene is Venice. Satyrs and nymphs, clowns and maids, join in +a song in Nashe's curious allegorical show entitled _Summer's Last Will +and Testament_; nymphs and satyrs appear in the interludes of Dekker's +_Old Fortunatus_; Silvanus, with nymphs and satyrs, perform a sort of +interlude with song in the anonymous _Wily Beguiled_; and, lastly, we have +the morris danced by the countrymen and wenches who accompany the jailor's +daughter in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_. + + * * * * * + +The wider influence of tone and spirit is, in the nature of the case, far +more difficult to determine. It is possible that some court-plays may show +the influence of the artificial arrangement of characters and the +conventional play of motives characteristic of the pastoral drama. But it +is a matter of the greatest difficulty to analyse with certainty such +structural peculiarities as these, still more so to assign them with +confidence to their proper origin. Many characteristics which one might at +first sight put down to the influence of the pastoral drama are, in +reality, far more likely to be due to that of the comic stage of Italy in +general. But while it would be rash to assert that the pastoral plays in +this country exercised any wide influence over the regular drama, there +can be no question such an influence was exercised to a very appreciable +degree by pastoral poetry in general. I am not thinking of the romances at +this moment, for as we have already seen it was the non-pastoral elements +in the pastoral novel that exerted such influence as can be traced over +the drama, but rather of the pastoral ideal and the pastoral mode in +general, as expressed either in the lyric, the eclogue, or the drama. In +this the drama shared an influence which was also exercised on other +departments of literature. Numerous songs might be quoted from the scenes +of the Elizabethan dramatists in support of this contention; while, on the +other hand, we also find dramatic and descriptive passages the idyllic +quality of which may not unreasonably be referred to a pastoral source. + +This tendency of the drama to absorb pastoral elements rather from the +lyric and the idyll than from regular plays in that kind is significant. +It is the acknowledgement of an important fact, which pastoralism failed +to recognize; namely, that as the expression of the pastoral idea gained +in complexity of artistic structure it lost in vitality. The pastoral +drama, born late in time, was the outcome of very especial circumstances, +emphatically the child of its age, and little calculated to serve the +artistic requirements of any other. Once the creative impulse that gave it +life was withdrawn the falsity of the kind as a form of art became +manifest; and though it lingered on for many years its life was but that +of a fashionable toy, with little or no hold over the vital literature of +its day. The popularity of the pastoral eclogue or idyll was of far longer +duration. Though the form was more or less definitely conditioned, it had +less of the structural rigidity of the drama, it brought its subject less +into contact with the hard limitations of reality, and, which may also +have been important, brought it less into comparison with other +subject-matter employing the same or a closely analogous form. Thus it was +better able to adapt itself to the tastes and requirements of various +ages, and found favour in such vastly different societies as those for +which Theocritus, Mantuan, Spenser, and Pope produced their works in this +kind. Even here, however, the simple sensuous ideal was too much hampered +by the ungenuine paraphernalia which the conventions of these various +societies had gathered round it to take rank among the permanent and +inevitable forms of literary art. This was granted to the lyric alone. It +was through the lyric that the pastoral ideal and pastoral colouring most +deeply penetrated and influenced existing forms; for the lyric, the freest +and most unconditioned of all poetical kinds, the least tied to the +circumstances and limitations of the actual world, was particularly fitted +to extract the fragrance from the pastoral ideal without raising any +unseasonable questions as to its rational or actual possibility. + + It was a lover and his lass + That o'er the green cornfield did pass-- + +this is the essential; and we ask no more if we are wise. The very +essence, be it remembered, of the pastoral ideal is no more than 'love +_in vacuo_.' And this the lyric alone can give us. + + * * * * * + +But there is one play which more than any other illustrates the nature of +the influence exerted by pastoral tradition over the romantic drama and +the relation subsisting between the two. This is _As You Like It_; for if +in one sense Shakespeare was but following Lodge in the traditional +blending of pastoral elements with those of court and chivalry, in another +sense he has in this play revealed his opinion of, and passed judgement +upon, the whole pastoral ideal. This must necessarily happen whenever a +great creative artist adopts, for reasons of his own, and takes into his +work any merely outward and formal convention. It was rarely that in his +plays Shakespeare showed any inclination to connect himself even remotely +with pastoral tradition. The _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ traces its origin, +indeed, to the _Diana_ of Montemayor; but all vestige of pastoral +colouring has vanished, and Shakespeare may even have been himself +ignorant of the parentage of the story he treated. A more apparent element +of pastoral found its way many years later into the _Winters Tale_; but it +is characteristic of the shepherd scenes of that play, written in the full +maturity of Shakespeare's genius, that, in spite of their origin in +Greene's romance of _Pandosto_, they owe nothing of their treatment to +pastoral tradition, nothing to convention, nothing to aught save life as +it mirrored itself in the magic glass of the poet's imagination. They +represent solely the idealization of Shakespeare's own observation, and in +spite of the marvellous and subtle glamour of golden sunlight that +overspreads the whole, we may yet recognize in them the consummation +towards which many sketches of natural man and woman, as he found them in +the English fields and lanes, seem in a less certain and conscious manner +to be striving in plays of an earlier date. It was characteristic of +Shakespeare, as it has been of other great artists, to introduce into his +early writings incidental sketches which serve as studies for further work +of a later period. In much the same manner the varied, but at times +uncertain, melody of the early love comedies seems to aspire towards the +full sonority and magic of lyric feeling and utterance in _Romeo and +Juliet_. + +Thus it is neither to the mellow autumn of his art, when he had cast aside +as unworthy all the trivialities of convention, nor yet to the storm and +stress of adolescence, the immaturity of pettiness and exaggeration, that +we must look if we would discover Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral +tradition. _As You Like It_ belongs to his middle period. It will be +remembered, from what has been said on an earlier page, that in this play +Shakespeare substantially followed the story of Rosalind as narrated by +Lodge, to whom we owe the introduction of a pastoral element into the old +tale of Gamelyn. The pastoral characters of the play may be roughly +analysed as follows. Celia and Rosalind, the latter disguised as a youth, +are courtly characters; Phebe and Silvius represent the polished Arcadians +of pastoral tradition; while Audrey and William combine the character of +farcical rustics with the inimitable humanity which distinguishes +Shakespeare's creations. It is noteworthy that this last pair is the +dramatist's own addition to the cast. Thus we have all the various +types--all the degrees or variations of idealization--brought side by side +and co-existent in the fairyland of the poet's fancy. The details of the +play are too well known for there to be any call to outrage the delicate +interweaving of character and incident by translating the perfect scenes +into clumsy prose. Nor would such analysis throw any light upon +Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral. That must be sought elsewhere. We +may seek it in the fanciful mingling of ideals and idealizations--of +courtly masking, of the conventional naturalism of polished dreamers, and +of a rusticity more genuine at once and more sympathetic than that of +Lorenzo, all of which act by their very natures as touchstones to one +another. We may seek it in the uncertainty and hovering between belief and +scepticism, earnest and play, reality and imagination--such as can only +exist in art, or in life when life approaches to the condition of an +art--which we find in the scenes where Orlando courts his mistress in the +person of the youth who is but his mistress in disguise. We may seek it +lastly in the manner in which the firm structure of the piece is +fashioned of the non-pastoral elements; in the happiness of the art by +which the pastoral incidents and business appear but as so much fair and +graceful ornament upon this structure, bringing with them a smack of the +free, rude, countryside, or a faint perfume of the polished Utopia of +courtly makers. It is here that we may trace Shakespeare's appreciation of +pastoral, as a delicate colouring, an old-world fragrance, a flower from +wild hedgerows or cultured garden, a thing of grace and beauty, to be +gathered, enjoyed, and forgotten, unsuited in its evanescent charm to be +the serious business of art or life. + +On this note, the realization at once of the delicate loveliness and of +the unsubstantiality of the pastoral ideal, we may close our survey of its +growth and blossoming in our dramatic literature, and before finally +turning from the tradition which fascinated so many generations of +European artists, pause for one moment to inquire of the critical +expression it has received at the hands of more philosophical writers. + +We have already seen how in the early days of modern pastoral composition +Boccaccio, summing up the previous history of the kind, found in allegory +and topical allusion its _raison d'tre_. We have seen how in our own +tongue Drayton expressed a similar view, and how Fletcher adopted in +theory at least a more naturalistic position. This antagonism which runs +through the whole of pastoral theory is really dependent upon two +questions which have not always been clearly distinguished. There is, +namely, the question of the allegorical or topical interpretation of the +poems, and there is the question of the rusticity or at least simplicity +of the form and language. It is possible to advocate the introduction of +Boccaccio's 'nonnulli sensus' and yet demand that, whatever the esoteric +interpretation of which the poem may be capable, the outward expression +shall be appropriate to the apparent condition of the speakers; while on +the other hand it is possible to confine the meaning to the evident and +unsophisticated sense of the poem, while allowing such a degree of +idealization in the language and sentiments of the characters as to +differentiate them widely from the actual rustics of real life. The former +of these positions is that assumed by Spenser in the _Shepherd's +Calender_, however much he may have failed in logical consistency; the +second is that which, in spite of much incidental matter of a topical +nature, underlies Tasso's masterpiece in the kind. It is with the second +of the above questions that critics have in the main been concerned. They +have, namely, as a rule, tacitly though not explicitly recognized the fact +that a poem whose value depends exclusively upon an esoteric +interpretation has no meaning whatever as a work of art, while if artistic +value can be assigned to the primary meaning of the work, it is a matter +of indifference aesthetically whether there be an esoteric interpretation +or not. + +Every writer, I think, who comes within the limits of pastoral as usually +understood, has found a certain idealization and a certain refinement +necessary in bringing rustic swains into the domain of art. That any such +process is inherently necessary to produce an artistic result there is no +reason whatever to suppose; it may even be rationally questioned whether +it is necessary to ensure the result falling within the recognizable field +of pastoral; but neither of these considerations affects the historical +fact. It is commonly admitted that among pastoral writers Theocritus +adhered most closely to nature; yet no one has been found to describe him +as a realist, whether in method or intention. But though this process of +idealization is practically universal, few poets have confessed to it. +Only occasionally an author, writing according to the demands of his age +or of his individual taste, has been alive to what appeared to be a +contradiction between his creations and what he mistook for the +fundamental conditions of the kind in which he created. This was the case +with Tasso, and he sought to reconcile the two by making Amore in the +prologue declare: + + Spirer nobil sensi a' rozzi petti, + Raddolcir nelle lor lingue il suono, + Perche, ovunque i' mi sia, io sono Amore, + Ne' pastori non men, che negli eroi; + E la disagguaglianza de' soggetti, + Come a me piace, agguaglio. + +This served, of course, no other purpose than to salve the author's +artistic conscience, since it is perfectly evident that the polished +civility of his characters belongs to them by nature, and is not in any +way an external importation. The remark, however, is interesting in +respect of the philosophy of love as a civilizing power, which we have +seen constantly recurring from the days of Boccaccio onward. Ben Jonson +expressed himself sharply on this subject, with respect to Guarini and +Sidney, in his conversations with Drummond. 'That Guarini, in his Pastor +Fido, keept not decorum, in making Shepherds speek as well as himself +could.... That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making everyone speak as +well as himself.'[359] The critical foundation of these censures in an _a +priori_ definition of pastoral is obvious, and they are more interesting +for their authorship than for their intrinsic merit. It would be curious +to know how Jonson defended such a character as his Sad Shepherd--but his +views had time to alter. + +It is to the critics of the late years of the seventeenth century and +early ones of the eighteenth that we owe the attempt to formulate a theory +of pastoral composition. The attempt has not for us any great importance. +All the work we have been considering had appeared, and the vast majority +of it had passed into oblivion, before the French critics first engaged +upon the task. Nor has the attempt much intrinsic interest. The theories +of individual writers such as those already mentioned are of value, as +showing the critical mood in which they themselves created; but these, and +still more the theories of pure critics, are of no importance, either in +the field of abstract critical theory or of historical inquiry. +Fontenelle, offended at the odour of Theocritus' hines, Rapin, with his +Jesuitical prudicity and ethico-literary theories of propriety, are not +the kind of thinkers to advance critical and historical science. Yet it +was to their school that the far greater English critics of the early +eighteenth century belonged. Their work consists for the most part of +various combinations of _a priori_ definition and arbitrary rules, based +on the notion of propriety. Thus Pope in the _Discourse on Pastoral_, +prefixed to his eclogues in 1717, writes: 'A pastoral is an imitation of +the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character.... If we +would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that +pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age. So that we are not +to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they +may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the +employment.' Shallow formalism this; but what else was to be expected from +Alexander Pope at the age of sixteen? His contemporaries, however, and +successors down to Johnson, took his solemn vacuity in all seriousness. +Steele, writing in the _Guardian_ in 1713 (Nos. 22, &c.), follows much the +same lines. He speaks of 'Innocence, Simplicity, and whatever else has +been laid down as distinguishing Marks of Pastoral.' Again, the reader is +informed that 'Whoever can bear these'--namely, certain _concetti_ from +Tasso and Guarini--'may be assured he hath no Taste for Pastoral.' We find +the same pedantic and ignorant objections to Sannazzaro's piscatorials as +were later advanced by Johnson: 'who can pardon him,' loftily queries the +censor, 'for his Arbitrary Change of the sweet Manners and pleasing +objects of the Country, for what in their own Nature are uncomfortable and +dreadful?' An afternoon's idling along the cliffs of Sorento or the shore +of Posilipo will supply a sufficient answer to such ignorant conceit as +this. Lastly, in the same familiar strain, but with all the pompous weight +of undisputed dictatorship, we find Dr. Johnson a generation later laying +down in the _Rambler_ that a pastoral is 'a Poem in which any action or +Passion is represented by its Effects upon a Country Life.... In Pastoral, +as in other Writings, Chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be +observed, and Purity of Manners to be represented; not because the Poet is +confined to the Images of the golden Age'--this is a rap at Pope--'but +because, having the subject in his own Choice, he ought always to consult +the Interest of Virtue.' The one fixed idea which runs throughout these +criticisms is that pastoral in its nature somehow is, or should be, other +than what it is in fact[360]. + +This is a view which very rightly meets with small mercy at the hands of +the modern historical school of criticism. A last fragment of the hoary +fallacy may be traced in Dr. Sommer's remark: 'Die Theorie des +Hirtengedichtes ist kurz in folgenden Worten ausgedrckt: schlichte und +ungeknstelte Darstellung des Hirtenlebens und wahre Naturschilderung.' It +cannot be too emphatically laid down that there is and can be no such +thing as a 'theory' of pastoral, or, indeed, of any other artistic form +dependent, like it, upon what are merely accidental conditions.[361] As I +started by pointing out at the beginning of this work, pastoral is not +capable of definition by reference to any essential quality; whence it +follows that any theory of pastoral is not a theory of pastoral as it +exists, but as the critic imagines that it ought to exist. 'Everything is +what it is, and not another thing,' and pastoral is what the writers of +pastoral have made it. + +It may be convenient before closing this chapter to summarize briefly the +results of our inquiry into the history of pastoral tradition on the +pre-restoration stage in England, without the elaboration of detail and +the many necessary though minor distinctions unavoidable in the foregoing +account. We saw, in the first place, that the idea of a literature dealing +with the humours and romance of farm and sheepcot was not wholly alien to +national English literature; but, on the contrary, that the shepherd plays +of the religions cycles, the popular ballads, and a few of the Scots poets +of the time of Henryson, all alike furnish verse which may be regarded as +the index of the readiness of the popular mind to receive the +introduction of a formal pastoral tradition. Next, preceding, as in Italy, +the introduction or evolution of a regular pastoral drama, we find a +series of mythological plays embodying incidentally elements of pastoral, +written for the amusement of court circles, and founded on the +_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. In these the nature of the pastoral scenes appear +to be conditioned, in so far as they are independent of their classical +source, partly by the already existing eclogue, and partly perhaps by the +native impulse mentioned above[362]. All this anticipates the rise of the +pastoral drama proper. The foreign pastoral tradition reached England +through three main channels. The earliest of these, the eclogue, was +imitated by Spenser from Marot, who, while depending somewhat more +closely, perhaps, than was usual upon the ancients, and adding to his work +a certain original flavour, yet belonged essentially to the tradition of +the allegorical pastoral which took its fashion from the works of Petrarch +and Mantuan. The second, and for the English drama vastly the more +important channel, was the pastoral-chivalric romance borrowed by Sidney +from Montemayor, the great exponent of the Spanish school, which was, +however, based upon the Italian work of Sannazzaro. The third was the +Arcadian drama of the Ferrarese court, which was imitated, chiefly from +Guarini, by Samuel Daniel. Thus, of the three forms, verse, prose, and +drama, adopted by England from Italy, the first came by way of France, the +second by way of Spain, while the third alone was taken direct[363]. These +three blended with the pre-existing mythological play, and with the +traditions of the romantic drama generally, to produce the pastoral drama +of the English stage. The influence ot the eclogue was on the whole +slight, but to it we may reasonably ascribe a share of the topical and +allusive elements, when these do not appear assignable either to the +Arcadian drama or to masque literature generally.[364] The influence of +the mythological drama, again, is not of the first importance, and is also +very restricted in its occurrence; the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ is the most +striking example. The three main influences at work in fashioning the +pastoral drama upon the English stage were, therefore, the Arcadian drama +of Italy, the Sidneian romance borrowed from Spain, and the native +tradition of the romantic drama.[365] But we have seen that the most +important examples of dramatic pastoral in this country, though to some +extent conditioned like the rest by the above-mentioned influences, were +the outcome of direct and conscious experiment. In part, at least, the +earliest, and by far the most simple, was the work of Samuel Daniel +himself, which aimed at nothing beyond the mere transference of the +Italian tradition unaltered on to the English stage. A different aim +underlay the attempts alike of Fletcher and Randolph; the combination, +namely, of the traditions of the Arcadian and romantic dramas. This common +end they sought, however, by very diverse means. Fletcher, while adopting +the machinery and methods of the popular drama, left the ideal and +imaginary content practically untouched, and even chose a plot which in +its structure resembled those familiar in the romantic drama even less +than did Guarini's own. Randolph, on the other hand, while preserving much +of the classical mechanism as he found it in Guarini, altered the whole +tone and character of the piece to correspond to the greater complexity of +interest, more genial humour, and more genuine romanticism of the English +stage. Lastly, we found Jonson cutting himself almost entirely adrift from +the tradition of Italian Arcadianism, and seeking to create an essentially +national pastoral by the combination of shepherd lads and girls, +transmuted from actuality by a natural process of refinement akin to that +of Theocritus, with the magic and fairy lore of popular fancy, and with +the characters of Robin and Marian and all the essentially English +tradition of Sherwood. These three chief experiments in the production of +an English pastoral drama which should rival that of Italy stand, together +with Daniel's two plays, apart from the general run of pieces of the kind. +It is also worth notice that they are all alike unaffected by the Sidneian +romance. The remaining plays which form the great bulk of the contribution +made by English drama to pastoral, and among which we must look for such +dramatic pastoral tradition as existed, are almost all characterized by a +more or less prevalent court atmosphere, disguisings and adventures in +shepherd's garb forming the mainstay of the plot, while the genuine +pastoral elements supply little beyond the background of the action. + +Into the post-restoration pastorals it is no part of my present scheme to +enter. They flourished for a while under the wing of the fashionable +romance of France, but were almost more than their predecessors the things +of artificial convention, having their form and being in a world whose +only pre-occupations were the pangs and transports of sensibility. They +occupy by right a small corner in the _Carte du Tendre_. Nor do I propose +to do more than allude in passing to Allan Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd_. In +spite of the almost unvarying praise which has been lavished upon this +'Scots pastoral,' and even though the characters may have some points of +humanity in common with actual Lothian rustics, the whole composition of +the piece can scarcely be pronounced less artificial than that of the +Arcadian drama itself, and the play has undoubtedly shared in the +exaggerated esteem which has fallen to the lot of dialectal literature +generally. The tradition lingered on throughout the eighteenth and into +the nineteenth century. Goethe in his youth, while under the French +influence, composed the _Laune des Verliebten_, and in his later days at +Weimar the _Fischerin_, a piscatorial adapted for representation on an +open-air stage, in which the interest was purely spectacular. As a general +rule, however, pastoral inanity seldom strayed beyond the limits of the +opera. + +That the pastoral should flourish by the side of the romantic drama was +not to be expected. It was impossible in England, as it was impossible in +Spain. In either case it might now and again achieve a mild success at +court, or under some exceptional conditions of representation; it never +held the popular stage. No literature based on the accidents of a special +form of civilization, or upon a set of artificially imagined conditions, +can ever hope to outlive the civilization or the fashion that gave it +birth. 'Love _in vacuo_' failed to arouse the interest of general mankind. +Every literature of course wears the livery of its age, but where the body +beneath is instinct with human life it can change its dress and pass +unchanged itself from one order of things to another; where the livery is +all, the form cannot a second time be galvanized into life. Pastoral, +relying for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the +essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and +independent form of art. The trivial toy of a courtly coterie, it +attempted to arrogate to itself the position of a philosophy, and in so +doing exposed itself to the ridicule of succeeding ages. Men with a stern +purpose in life turned wearily from the sickly amours of romantic poets +who dreamed that human happiness found its place in the economy of the +world. They left it to a rout of melodious idlers to imagine unto +themselves a state in which serious importance should attach to the +gracious things of sentiment and the loves of youth and maiden. + + + + +Addenda + + + +Page 19.--Even apart from the evidence of the _Bucolica Quirinalium_, it +is, of course, clear that Vergil's eclogues were familiar to the writers +of the early middle ages. How far their interest in them was literary, and +how far, like that of the mystery-writers, it was theological, may, +however, be questioned. It is worth noticing in this connexion that a +German translation was projected by no less a person than Notker, and +since they are coupled by him with the _Andria_, we may reasonably infer +that in this case at least the writer's concern, if not distinctively +literary, was at any rate educational. (See W. P. Ker, _The Dark Ages_, p. +317.) + +Page 112, note 2.--There is an error here. _The Passionate Pilgrim_ +version of 'As it fell upon a day' does not contain the couplet found in +_England's Helicon_. I was misled by its being supplied from the latter by +the Cambridge editors. Another poem of the same description appears in +Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_. (See Sidney Lee's introduction to the Oxford +Press facsimile of the _Passionate Pilgrim_, p. 31.) + +Page 204.--It is perhaps hardly surprising to find Tasso's 'S' ei piace, +ei lice' quoted by English writers as summing up the cynical philosophy of +those whom they not unaptly styled 'politicians.' In Marston's tragedy on +the story of Sophonisba, for instance, the villain Syphax concludes a +'Machiavellian' speech with the words: + + For we hold firm, that 's lawful which doth please. + (_Wonder of Women_, IV. i. 191.) + + + + +Appendix I + +On the Origin and Development of the Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +The chapter in the history of Italian literature which shall deal with the +evolution of the Arcadian drama still remains to be written. The treatment +of it in Symonds' _Renaissance_ is decidedly inadequate, and even as far +as it goes not altogether satisfactory. The explanation of this is, that +the most important works fall outside his period; the _Aminta_ and the +_Pastor fido_ are admirably treated in the volumes dealing with the +counter-reformation, but these are of the nature of an appendix, and +formed no part of his original plan. Tiraboschi's account is also meagre. +A long discussion of the subject will be found in the fifth volume of J. +L. Klein's _Geschichte des Dramas_ (Leipzig, 1867), but the bewildering +irrelevancy of much of the matter introduced by that eccentric writer +seriously impairs the critical value of his work. An excellent sketch of +the early history as far as Beccari, with full references, is given in +Vittorio Rossi's valuable monograph, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_ +(Torino, 1886), pt. ii. ch. i. This has the immense advantage of +conciseness, and of a clear and scholarly style. An important review of +Rossi's book, concerning itself particularly with the chapter in question, +appeared in the _Literaturblatt fr germanische und romanische Philologie_ +for 1891 (col. 376), from the pen of A. L. Stiefel, who incidentally +announced that he was himself engaged on a comprehensive history of the +pastoral drama. Of this work I have been unable to obtain any further +information. Next an elaborate essay by the veteran Giosu Carducci, +largely combatting Rossi's conclusions as to the literary evolution of the +form, and bringing forward a good deal of fresh evidence, appeared in the +_Nuova Antologia_ for September, 1894, and was reprinted with additions +and corrections as the second of three papers in the author's pamphlet _Su +l'Aminta di T. Tasso_ (Firenze, 1896). To this Rossi rejoined, effectively +as it seems to me, in the _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +(1898, xxxi. p. 108). The treatment in W. Creizenach's _Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_ (Halle, 1901, ii. p. 359) is unfortunately not yet +complete. + +The theory of development which I have adopted is substantially that +elaborated by Rossi. To him belongs the honour of having been the first +clearly to indicate the historical steps by which the eclogue passes into +the drama. The idea, however, was not original; it underlies the accounts +given by Egidio Menagio in the notes to his edition of the _Aminta_ +(Paris, 1655), by G. Fontanini (_Aminta difeso_, Roma, 1700, and Venezia, +1730), by P. L. Ginguen (_Histoire littraire d'Italie,_ vol. vi, Paris, +1813), and by Klein. It was also virtually accepted by Stiefel in his +review of Rossi, since he confined his criticism to pointing out and +attempting to fill occasional gaps in the sequence of development, and to +insisting on the influence of the regular drama, and more particularly of +the Intronati comedy. The incomplete state of Creizenach's work, and the +caution with which he expresses himself on the subject, preclude our +reckoning him among the declared supporters of the theory; but there can +be little doubt, I think, as to the tendency of his remarks. This may then +be regarded as the orthodox view. It has not, however, received the +exclusive adherence of scholars, and it may therefore be thought right +that I should both give in detail the arguments by which it is supported +and my reasons for accepting it, and likewise state the grounds on which I +reject the rival theories that have been propounded. + +Two of these latter may be quickly dismissed. These are the views put +forward respectively by Gustav Weinberg, _Das franzsische Schferspiel in +der ersten Hlfte des XVIIten Jahrhunderts_ (Frankfurt, 1884), and by J. +G. Schnherr in his _Jorge de Montemayor_ (Halle, 1886). Weinberg finds +the origin of the Italian pastoral drama in the 'clogas' of Juan del +Encina. With regard to this theory it may be sufficient to observe that, +at the time Encina wrote, the _ecloga rappresentativa_, or dramatic +eclogue, was already familiar in the Italian courts, and that, so far from +his writings being the source of any pastoral tradition even in his own +country, what subsequent dramatic work of the kind is to be found in Spain +merely represents a further borrowing from Italy. Schnherr, on the other +hand, regards the _Jus Robins et Marion_ as the source of the Arcadian +drama. Not only, however, did Adan de le Hale's play fail to originale any +dramatic tradition in its own country, but it is itself nothing but an +amplified _pastourelle_, a form which, in spite of marked Provenal +influence, never obtained to any extent in Italy. It need hardly be said +that there is not a vestige of historical evidence to support either of +these theories[366]. + +It is different with the theory advanced by Carducci in the essay already +mentioned. The reputation of the great Italian critic would alone entitle +any view he advanced to the most respectful consideration. In the present +case, however, there is more than this, for his essay is a monument of +deep and loving scholarship, and whether we agree or not with its +conclusions, it adds greatly to our knowledge of the subject. Briefly and +baldly stated, his contention is as follows. The Arcadian drama was a +creation of the literary and courtly circles of Ferrara, and so far as +Italy is concerned the precursors of the _Aminta_ are to be sought in +Beccari's _Sacrifizio_ and Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_ alone, with a +connecting link as it were supplied by the pastoral fragment of the latter +author, first printed as an appendix to the essay in question. Beyond +these compositions no influence can be traced, except that of a study of +the classics in general, and of Theocritus in particular. It is certainly +remarkable that the important texts mentioned above, as well as Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ and the _Aminta_ itself, should all alike have been written +for and produced at the court of the Estensi at Ferrara. The selection, +however, I regard as somewhat arbitrary. The _Egle_ appears to lie +entirely off the road of pastoral development, and I cannot help thinking +that Carducci falls into the not unnatural error of exaggerating the +importance of the interesting document he was the first to publish. The +primitive dramatic eclogue was not altogether unknown at Ferrara, nor do +the pastoral shows elsewhere appear to have been always as remote from the +courtly grace of the Arcadian tradition as the critic is at pains to +demonstrate. In view therefore of the practically unbroken line of formal +development, and the consistency of artistic aim observable from +Sannazzaro in the last quarter of the fifteenth to Guarini in the last +quarter of the sixteenth century, I find it impossible to accept +Carducci's conclusions. + +The advocates of the orthodox theory, however, must be prepared to meet +and combat the objections which Carducci has raised, and which, in his +opinion, necessitate the adoption of a different explanation. The +evolution of the pastoral drama from the eclogue he declares to be +impossible, in the first place, on historical grounds. This objection +relates to the evidence as to a continuous development traceable in the +accessible texts, and to it the account given in the following pages +will--or will not--be found a sufficient answer. In the second place, he +declares it to be impossible on aesthetic grounds. These are three in +number, and may be briefly considered here. (_a_) 'Idealization cannot +develop out of caricature.' Here, I presume, he is using 'caricature' in +its technical sense of what Aristotle calls 'imitation worse than +nature,' not merely for the resuit of an inadequate command over the +medium of artistic [Greek: mi/msis]. The remark, therefore, can only apply +to the 'rustic' productions. But, as Aristotle's phrase suggests, +burlesque, or caricature, is only idealization in a different direction, +so that there appears to be less antagonism between the two tendencies +than might at first be supposed. Moreover, no one has suggested that the +rustic shows were the origin of the Arcadian drama, so that it is to be +presumed that Carducci had in mind the more or less frequent but still +sporadic elements borrowed by the eclogues from the popular drama. These, +however, are found in conjunction with idealized elements of courtly +tradition, both in the dramatic eclogues themselves and more especially in +the _ecloghe maggiaiuole_ or May-day shows of the Congrega dei Rozzi. +Thus, although it is true that we should not expect idealization to be +evolved out of caricature, there is no reason to deny its evolution from a +form in which burlesque and romance subsisted side by side. (_b_) 'Those +eclogues that are not burlesque are occasional compositions equally +incapable of developing into the Arcadian drama.' Though, no doubt, +usually written for presentation upon some particular occasion, several of +the dramatic eclogues present no topical features. Nor does it appear why +a form of composition, the type of which was fairly constant although the +individual examples might be ephemeral enough, should not develop into +something of a more permanent nature. Moreover, the topical allusions +scattered throughout the _Aminta_, as well as the highly occasional +character of the prologue to the _Pastor fido_, serve to connect these +plays directly with the 'occasional' eclogue. (_c_) The metrical form of +the recognized dramatic pastorals differs from that of the eclogues.' +While beginning, however, with simple _terza_ or _ottava rima_, the +dramatic eclogue gradually became highly polymetric in structure, though +it is true that it seldom affected the free measures peculiar to the +Arcadian drama. These, however, were no more suited to short compositions +than the stiff terzines and octaves to more complicated dramatic works. +The prevalent metre, as indeed many other points, might well be borrowed +by the dramatic pastoral from the practice of the regular stage without it +thereby ceasing to be the formal descendant of the eclogue. + +Another point in debate is the view taken of the question by contemporary +critics--that is, by Guarini and his adversaries. Rossi pointed out a +passage in Guarini's _Veraio_ of 1588[367] which he held to support his +theory of development. Translated, the passage runs: 'And why should it +not be thought lawful for the eclogue to grow out of its infancy and +arrive at mature years, if this has been possible in the case of tragedy? +... Even as the Muses grafted tragedy upon the dithyrambic stock, and +comedy upon the phallic, so in their ever-fertile garden they set the +eclogue as a tiny cutting, whence sprang in later years the stately growth +of the pastoral,' that is, of the _favola di pastori_, or dramatic +pastoral, as he elsewhere explains. 'But in thse words,' objects +Carducci, 'the writer is in no way referring to the Italian eclogues of +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The eclogue had passed out of its +infancy in the work of Theocritus.' Here, however, Carducci appears to me +to misinterpret Guarini's meaning in an almost perverse manner. The +metaphoric 'infancy' of which Guarini speaks is the pre-dramatic period of +pastoral growth. No one will deny that the Theocritean idyl had attained +full and perfect development in its own kind; but from the dramatic point +of view, and granted that it contained the germ of the later pastoral +drama, it belonged to a period of infancy, or, to adopt a more strictly +accurate metaphor, of gestation. Were further evidence needed to show that +the allusion is to the Italian rather than to the classical eclogue, it +might be found in the fact that the passage in question was Guarini's +answer to the following criticism of De Nores, as to the meaning of which +there can be no two opinions. Attacking the pastoral tragi-comedy, the +critic remarks: 'Until the other day similar compositions were represented +under the name of eclogues at festivals and banquets, ... but now of a +sudden they have been fashioned of the extension of comedies and tragedies +in five acts[368].' It will be noticed that in his reply Guarini makes no +attempt to question the underlying identity of the pastoral tragi-comedy +with the dramatic eclogue, but contents himself with very justly asserting +the right of the latter to develop into a mature literary form. Two other +passages from Guarini have been quoted as germane to the discussion. They +occur in the _Verato secondo_, written as a counterblast to De Nores' +_Apologia_,[369]. One may be rendered thus: 'Although the dramatic +pastoral, in respect of the characters introduced, recognizes its ultimate +origin in the eclogue and in the satire [i. e. the satyric drama] of the +ancients, nevertheless, in respect of its form and ordinance it may be +said to be a modern kind of poetry, seeing that no example of such +dramatic composition, whether Greek or Latin, is to be found in ancient +times.' The other runs: 'having regard to the fact that Theocritus stepped +beyond the number of persons usual in similar poems, and composed one [the +_Feast of Adonis_] which not only contains many interlocutors, but is of a +more dramatic character than usual, and remarkable also for its greater +length; it seemed to him [Beccari] that he might with great honour supply +that kind neglected by the Greek and Latin authors[370].' In the former of +these passages Guarini, while recognizing the community of subject-matter +between the classical eclogue and the renaissance pastoral drama, claims +that as an artistic form the latter is independent of the former. Nor is +this inconsistent with what he says in the subsequent passage, for it is +perfectly true that it was with Beccari that the pastoral first attained +its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus +means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after +the manner of a _cinquecento_ critic, he is seeking for authority at least +among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found. His +reference to the evolution of classical tragedy and comedy in the passage +cited from his first essay shows clearly that he had in mind a process of +gradual and natural development, not one of definite borrowing or +artificial creation. + +It appears to me, therefore, that Carducci has erred in not taking a +sufficiently broad view of the lines on which literary development +proceeds; and also, more specifically, in failing to recognize the +importance of the distinction between the ordinary and the dramatic +eclogue. This distinction, though on the scanty evidence extant it is +extremely hard to draw it with any degree of certainty, appears to me a +vital point in the history of the species. The value of Carducci's work +lies in his insistence on the influence of the regular drama, to which, +perhaps on account of its very obviousness, Rossi had failed to attach +sufficient importance; in his directing attention to the local Ferrarese +tradition; in the admirable energy and patience with which he has +collected all available evidence; and in his reprinting the interesting +pastoral fragment of Giraldi Cintio. For these he deserves the warmest +thanks of all students of Italian literature; for my own part I need only +refer the reader to the footnotes to the following pages as indicating in +some measure the extent of my indebtedness[371]. + +The theatrical tendency first exhibited itself in the mere recitation of +a dialogue in character, and the earliest examples of these _ecloghe +rappresentative_ are identical in form with those written merely for +literary circulation. For the dates of these external evidence +unfortunately fails us almost entirely, but a fairly well-marked sequence +may be established on the grounds of internal development. Roughly, they +must fall within a few years of the close of the fifteenth century, say +between 1480 and 1510. They are commonly of an allegorical nature, +containing allusions to real persons, and are for the most part composed +in _terza rima_, diversified in the more complex examples by the +introduction of octaves and lyrical measures[372]. Of this primitive form +is a poem by the Genoese Baldassare Taccone, bearing the superscription +'Ecloga pastorale rapresentata nel Convivio dell' III. Sig'r. Io. Adorno, +nella quale si celebra l' amor del Co. di Cayace [Francesco Sanseverino] e +di M. Chiara di Marino nuncupata la Castagnini[373].' This piece, in which +the characters represent real persons, is a mere dialogue without any +semblance of action. Aminta questions his fellow-shepherd Fileno as to the +cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless +passion for a certain cruel nymph. His offer to undertake his friend's +cure is met with the declaration, that of the two death were preferable. +Similar in simplicity of construction is another poem, the work of +Serafino Aquilano, which deals with the corruption of the Church, and was +performed at Rome during the carnival of 1490[374]. An advance in +dramatization is made by an eclogue of Galeotto Del Carretto's, written in +1492, in honour of the newly elected Alexander VI, in that one character +enters upon the scene after the other has been discoursing for some time; +while another, the work of Gualtiero Sanvitale, contains three speakers, +of whom one enters towards the close, and is called upon to decide between +the other two. This arbiter is none other than Lodovico Sforza +himself[375]. So far the eclogues have all been in Sannazzaro's _terza +rima_. A wider range of metrical effect, including not only terzines both +_sdrucciole_ and _piane_, but also hendecasyllables with internal rime and +a _canzone_, and at the same time a more dramatic treatment, is found in +another eclogue of Aquilano's[376]. In this Palemone sends his herdsman +Silvano to inspect his flocks after a stormy night. The herdsman meets +Ircano in a melancholy mood, who when questioned endeavours to hide the +nature of his grief by feigning that he has lost his flock in the storm. +At that moment, however, the real cause of his sorrow enters in the shape +of a nymph, and Ircano leaves Silvano in order to follow her with prayers +and supplications. Silvano endeavours to dissuade him from his love, but +meets with the usual want of success. In the case of this piece, as also +of the two preceding ones, we have no direct evidence of any +representation, but all three, and especially the last, have the +appearance of being composed for recitation. Another piece, exhibiting an +advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo +pasturale,' a disputation on love by Bernardo Bellincioni[377], apparently +in some way connected with Genoa, in the course of which five characters, +probably representing actual personages, though we lack external evidence, +forgather upon the stage. The versification again exhibits novel features, +the piece being for the most part in _ottava rima_ with the introduction +of _settenar_ couplets. In the former we may perhaps see the influence of +the _Orfeo_, or possibly of the old _sacre rappresentationi_ themselves. +In 1506 the court of Urbino witnessed the eclogue composed and recited by +Baldassare Castiglione and Cesare Gonzaga[378]. It also belongs to the +octave group, and is diversified with a canzonet. Dramatically the piece +is somewhat of a retrogression, but it is interesting from the characters +introduced in pastoral guise. Thus in Iola and Dameta we may see +Castiglione and his fellow author; Tirsi, who gives his name to the poem, +is a stranger shepherd attracted by reports of the court; while among the +characters mentioned are discernible Bembo and the Duchess Elizabeth. At +this point may be mentioned a somewhat similar eclogue found in a Spanish +romance of about 1512, entitled _Cuestion de amor_, descriptive of the +Hispano-Neapolitan society of the time. The eclogue, which is clearly +modelled on the Italian examples, contains five characters, and is +supposed to represent the love affairs of real personages[379]. Two +so-called 'commedie pastorali,' from which Stiefel hoped for useful +evidence, prove on inspection to be medleys of pastoral amours exhibiting +little advance in dramatization, though interesting as showing traces of +the influence of the not yet fully developed 'rustic' eclogue. They are +composed throughout in _terza rima_ without any division into acts or +scenes, and are the work of one Alessandro Caperano of Faenza, thus +hailing, like the later _Amaranta_, from the Romagna[380]. In 1517 we find +a fantastic pastoral entitled _Pulicane,_ written in octaves by Piero +Antonio Legacci dello Stricca, a Sienese, who was also the author of +several rustic pieces, in which is introduced a monster half dog and half +man. Another work by the same, again in octaves, and entitled _Cicro_, +appeared in 1538. Another piece mentioned by Stiefel as likely to throw +light on the development of the dramatic pastoral is the 'Ecloga di +amicizia' of Bastiano di Francesco, or Bastiano 'the +flax-dresser'(_linaiuolo_), also of Siena, which was first printed in +1523. It turns out, however, to be a decidedly primitive composition in +_terza rima_, with a certain slightly satirical colouring[381]. + +If the texts that have survived are somewhat scanty, there is good reason +to believe that they form but a small portion of the eclogues actually +represented at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth +centuries. Thus we find a show, of the nature of which it is not +altogether easy to judge, recorded in a letter by a certain Floriano +Dulfo, written from Bologna in July, 1496[382]. It appears to have been a +composition of some length, pastoral only in part, supernatural in others, +but belonging on the whole rather to the cycle of chivalresque romance +than of classical mythology. In Act I an astrologer announces the birth of +a giant, who in Act II is represented as persecuting the shepherds. Acts +III and IV are occupied by various complaints on his account In Act V, +called by Dulfo 'la ultima comedia, overo egloga,' the giant carries off a +nymph while she is gathering flowers; the shepherds, however, come to her +rescue and restore her to her lover. This incident, reminiscent possibly +of the rape of Proserpine, tends to connect the piece with the +mythological tradition. So far as can be gathered, the verse appears to +have been _ottava rima_ with the introduction of lyrical passages. Again, +we know that the representation of eclogues formed part of the festivities +at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with Giovanni Sforza in 1493, and again +in 1502, when she espoused Alfonzo d' Este. In 1508 the carnival shows at +Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, +Antonio dall' Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[383]. At Venice we have note of +similar performances, and even find _ecloghe_ mentioned among the forms of +dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state. I may also call +attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction +of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a +performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled _La morte +del Danese_[384]. The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and +must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced +into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler +order than actually represented at court. It may also not improbably have +been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its +description as a 'festa in atti rusticali' would seem to indicate. + +Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though +rather in arrear of the courtly variety. In 1508 we find a piece in _terza +rima_, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one +Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen 'villani' appear +with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[385]. Eating +and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female +characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether +the piece was intended for representation. Not till five years later have +we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In +1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided +at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city +was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio,' otherwise Biagio Pallai +delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to +us. A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers +then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper +citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the +two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before +retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a +Christian land. They find the Capitol _en fte_, and the piece ends with a +song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[386]. Of the same year is the 'Egloga +pastorale di Justitia,' the earliest extant specimen of the rustic +dramatic eclogue proper. It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, +who fails to obtain justice because he is poor. He at last appeals to the +king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in +place of Adulation[387]. This form of composition, recalling as it does +the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs +widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical +of rustic representations. Again, to the same year, 1513, belongs an +eclogue in rustic speech and Bellunese dialect, by Bartolommeo Cavassico, +which like the Roman show turns upon the horrors of the war which had been +devastating the country since 1508. Recollections of the 'tagliata di +Cadore[388]' blend incongruously with fauns, nymphs, bears, pelicans, and +wild men of the woods, to form a whole which appears to be of a decidedly +burlesque character. The distribution, however, of these rustic eclogues +never appears to have been very wide, and in later times they were chiefly +confined to the representations of the famous Congrega dei Rozzi at Siena, +though the activity of this society extended, it is true, far beyond the +limits of its Tuscan home. Most of these representations, at any rate in +the earlier years with which we are concerned, were short realistic farces +of low life composed in dialectal verse. Some of the cleverest are by +Francesco Berni, better known for his obscene _capitoli_ and his +_rifacimento_ of Boiardo's _Orlando_, and appeared between 1537 and 1567; +while in later days the kind attained its highest perfection in the work +of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, whose _Tancia_ originally appeared +in 1612[389]. + +It may be questioned to what extent these rustic shows influenced the +development of the pastoral eclogue. Their recognition as a dramatic form +was subsequent to that of the _ecloga rappresentativa_, and no element +traceable to their influence can be shown to exist in the dramatic +pastoral as finally evolved. On the other hand, we do undoubtedly meet +with incidents and characters in the courtly shows which appear to belong +to the style of the popular burlesque. A point of contact between the two +traditions may be found in the _commedie maggiaiuole_, a sort of May-day +shows also represented by the Rozzi, but of a more idealized character +than the rustic drama proper. They may, indeed, be regarded as to some +extent at least a parody of the two kinds--the courtly and the popular +pastoral--since by combining the two each was made the foil and criticism +of the other. Nymphs and shepherds appear as in the pastoral eclogues, but +their loves are interrupted by the incursion of boisterous rustics, who +substitute the unchastened instincts and brute force of half-savage boors +for the delicate wooing and sentimentality of their rivals. + + * * * * * + +We return to the development of the dramatic eclogue in a work of some +importance as marking an advance both in dramatic construction and +versification. _I due pellegrini[390]_, written not later than 1528, when +the author, Luigi Tansillo, was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, was +doubtless produced on some occasion before the court of the Orsini, at +Nola, near Naples. It was revived with great pomp ten years later at +Messina, when Don Garcia de Toledo, commander of the Neapolitan fleet, +entertained Antonia Cardona, daughter of the Count of Colisano, for whose +hand he was a suitor[391]. Two shepherds, pilgrims of love, bereft of the +objects of their affection, the one through death, the other through +inconstancy, meet in a forest and reason of the comparative hardness of +their lots. Unable to decide the question, they each resolve to bear the +strongest possible witness to the depth of their affliction by putting an +end to their lives. At this moment, however, the voice of the dead +mistress is heard from a neighbouring tree, persuading them to relinquish +their intentions, reconciling them once more with the world and life, and +directing them to join the festivities in the city of Nola. Here for the +first time we meet with a pastoral composition of some length pretending +to a dramatic solution, and contrasting with the stationary character of +most of the eclogues we have been examining in that the change of purpose +among the actors constitutes a sort of [Greek: peripe/teia], or +_rivolgimento_. The piece is likewise important from a metrical point of +view, since it not only contains a free intermixture of _ottava_ and +_terza rima_, and hendecasyllables with _rimalmezzo_, a favourite verse +form in certain kinds of composition[392], but likewise foreshadows, in +its mingling of freely riming hendecasyllables with _settenar_, the +peculiar measures of the pastoral drama proper. _I due pellegrini_ was +not, however, an altogether original composition. In 1525 had appeared a +work by the Neapolitan Marco Antonio Epicuro de' Marsi, styled in the +original edition 'dialogo di tre ciechi,' and in later reprints +'tragi-commedia intitulata _Cecaria_[393].' In this three blind men, one +blind with love, another with jealousy, the third with gazing too intently +on the sun-like beauty of his mistress, meet and determine to die +together. They fall in, however, with a priest of Amor, who sends them +back to their respective loves to be cured. It was this theme that +Tansillo arranged in pastoral form, borrowing even the metres of the +original, but it was just the element which justifies our including it +here that he added, and it is useless to seek in Epicuro's work the origin +of the form with which it was thus only accidentally associated. + +A composition of some importance, dating from a period about two years +later than Tansillo's piece, is an 'ecloga pastorale' by the 'mestissimo +giovane' Luca di Lorenzo of Siena.[394] Two nymphs, by name Euridice and +Diversa, respectively seek and shun the delights of love. They meet a +_citto_--that is a _bambino_ in Sienese dialect--who proves to be none +other than Cupid himself, and rewards them according to their deserts, +Euridice obtaining the love of the courtly shepherd Orindio, while Diversa +is condemned to follow the rude and loveless Fantasia. The piece is +written in a mixture of _ottava_ and _terza rima_, with a variety of +lyrics introduced. The contrast between the loving and the careless +nymphs, and the episode of the latter being bound to a tree, appear to +anticipate the later pastoral; while the introduction of Cupid as a +dramatis persona carries one back to the mythological drama, and the +rustic characters connect the piece with the plays of the Rozzi. Another +composition of Tuscan origin is the _Lilia_, first printed in 1538, and +composed throughout in polished octaves.[395] It merely relates how the +shepherd Fileno courted the fair Lilia, a certain rustic element being +introduced in the persons of the herdsmen Crotolo and Tirso. + +With the _Amaranta_ of Casalio we have been sufficiently concerned in the +text (p. 172). It was printed at Venice in 1538,[396] having probably been +written some years earlier. It is composed in _ottava_ and _terza rima_, +with the introduction of a canzonet, and marks an important advance on +previous work, not only in the nature of the plot, but in being divided +into acts and scenes. Sixteen years elapsed between the publication of +_Amaranta_ and the appearance of the regular pastoral drama in Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. Some time ago Stiefel pointed out a considerable hiatus at +this point in Rossi's account, and mentioned certain works which might be +expected to fill it. These and others have since been examined by +Carducci, with the result that it is possible, at least partially, to +bridge the gap. The period proves to be one less of gradual evolution than +of conscious experiment. At least this is how I read the available +evidence. + +Besides the _Cecaria_, mentioned above, Epicuro de' Marsi also left a +manuscript play entitled _Mirzia_, which he describes as a 'favola +boschereccia,' being thus the first to make use of the term later adopted +by Tasso.[397] The piece, which was written some ten years before the +author's death in 1555, leads us off into one of the numerous by-paths +into which the pastorals of this period were for ever wandering. Two +despised lovers, together with their friend Ottimo, witness unseen the +dances of Diana and the nymphs, on which occasion Ottimo falls in love +with the goddess herself. After passing through various plights, into +which they are led by their love of the careless nymphs, they all have +recourse to an oracle, whose predictions are fulfilled through a series of +violent metamorphoses. This mixture of mythology and magic is wholly +foreign to the spirit of the Arcadian drama, and the _Mirzia_ cannot any +more than the _Cecaria_ be regarded as the progenitor of that form. I may +mention incidentally that among the characters is a good-natured satyr, +who consoles Ottimo in his hopeless passion for Diana. + +Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and +one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic +compositions, is the Florentine 'commedia pastorale' first printed in 1545 +under the title of _Silvia_.[398] The author calls himself Fileno +Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the +pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo +Firenzuola. The prologue relates how the first _archimandrita_ of the +academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was +driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, +'Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.' This would seem to imply that the +head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an +interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne +out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola's +departure from Prato. The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already +dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola's death +earlier by three years than the accepted date. The inference, however, is +not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral +character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh. The play +itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, +Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a +variety of metres--_terza rima_, octaves both _sdrucciole_ and _piane_, +and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both +blank and with _rimalmezzo_, and lyrical stanzas. The plot itself is of +the simplest, and resembles that of the _Amaranta_. Through the sovereign +will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love. A temporary +estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his +burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of +Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are +united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of +Cupid and Venus. What could be more complete? + +The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, +_Erbusto_ and _Filena_, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, +the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the +pieces were presumably composed.[399] The first of these, _Erbusto_, is in +three acts, and _terza rima_. The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in +the love of a shepherdess named Flora. The girl's affections are set on +the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be +Erbusto's own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont. +Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent +occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, +as here, with some actual event in contemporary history. The second piece, +_Filena_, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the +_terza rima_. It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat +formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular +pastoral, need not be examined in detail. + +To the next few years belong a series of 'giocose moderne e facetissime +ecloghe pastorali,' by the Venetian Andrea Calmo, composed in +_endecasillabi sdruccioli sciolti_, and published in 1553.[400] They +introduce a number of dialects, suited to various personages; Arcadian +shepherds like Lucido, Silvano, and the rest; rustics with names such as +Grtolo di Burano, mythological figures, and a _satiro villan_ who speaks +Dalmatian. An advance in dramatization may perhaps be seen in the +introduction of a second pair of lovers, while the writer goes even +further than Beccari in the introduction of oracles (a point in which, +however, he had been anticipated by the author of _Mirzia_), and an echo +scene, a device of which Calmo's example is certainly of an elementary +character. + +The most important, however, of the writers between Casalio and Beccari is +the well-known Ferrarese novelist Giovanbattista Giraldi, surnamed Cintio, +the author of the _Ecatommiti_, and of a number of tragedies on the +classical model. The first piece of his which claims our attention is a +_satira_ entitled _Egle_, which was privately performed at the author's +house in February, 1545, and again the following month in the presence of +Duke Ercole and his brother, the Cardinal Ippolito d' Este.[401] The play +is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the +Greeks, a kind of which the _Cyclops_ of Euripides is the only extant +example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the +like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, +at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby +they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of +leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns +and satyrs. On these the unwary maids take pity, and begin forthwith to +dance and play with them in the woods. The deceitful divinities, however, +have only hidden for a while, and when opportunity serves are placed by +Egle where they may surprise the nymphs at sport. They suddenly break +cover, follow and seize the flying girls, and are on the point of enjoying +the success of their plot when Diana intervenes, transforming her outraged +followers into trees, streams, and so forth. The metamorphosis is related +by Pan himself, who returns bearing in his hand a reed, all that is left +of his beloved Syrinx. Thus the piece may be regarded as a dramatization +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_, expanded by the free introduction of +mythological characters, and bears no connexion with the real nature of +pastoral, the life-blood of which, whether in the idyls of Theocritus, the +_Arcadia_ of Sannazzaro, or the _Aminta_ of Tasso, is primarily and +essentially human. + +The other work of Cintio with which we are here concerned, a fragment +which remained in MS. till published by Carducci in 1896 as an appendix to +his essays on the _Aminta_, may be at once pronounced the most important +attempt at writing a really pastoral drama previous to Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. It is found with the heading 'Favola pastorale' in an +autograph MS., along with several other works of the author, including +_Egle_, but with no indication of the date of composition. The author +survived till 1573, but we may reasonably suppose that the piece was +written before his departure from Ferrara in 1558. It consists of what are +apparently intended for two acts, headed respectively _Parte prima_ and +_Parte quinta_, each consisting of several scenes, though these are not +distinguished. The first two form a sort of introduction, in which Cupid +and Diana mutually defy one another on account of the nymph Irinda, whom +the boy-god has wounded with love for Filicio. The shepherd returns her +love, but finds a rival in Viaste, whose blind passion, though unreturned, +will admit no discourse of reason. It is, however, ultimately discovered +that Irinda and Viaste are cousins, a fact which is regarded as a +sufficient reason for the infatuated swain to free himself wholly and +immediately from his passion, and accept the love of the faithful +Frodignisa, who has followed him throughout.[402] The story, which +resembles that of Cazza's _Erlusto_, is thus of a simple order, and it is +chiefly in the composition that the likeness of the play to the regular +pastoral is seen. What the author intended for the middle three acts it is +hard to say, since the action at the opening of the fifth is precisely at +the point at which the first left it. Probably they were never written, +and the author may even have abandoned his work owing to the difficulty of +filling the hiatus. In both Cintio's pieces the metre is blank verse +(hendecasyllabic), diversified in the case of the _Egle_ with a rimed +chorus.[403] + +One point becomes, I think, apparent from the foregoing examination; +namely, that while the fully developed pastoral owes its origin to the +evolution of the eclogue as a dramatic kind, its final form was arrived +at, not merely by a natural and inevitable process of growth, but as the +result of direct experimenting on certain lines. The evolution, that is, +was at the last conscious, not spontaneous. While up to a certain point +the dramatic germs latent in the eclogue develop upon a natural line of +growth, each advance being the reasonable resuit of the action of +surrounding conditions upon a previous stage of evolution, there comes a +time when authors seem to have felt that the form was in a state of +unstable equilibrium, that it was advancing towards a final expression, +which it had so far failed to find, but which each individual writer +sought to realize in his work. The supposition of a theoretic +preoccupation on the part of these writers is reasonable enough, +considering the critical atmosphere in which the pastoral developed, and +the heated controversy which soon centred round the accomplished form; and +it serves at the same time to explain the liabilities of writers before +Tasso to run metaphorically into blind alleys. The conscious endeavour +after a stable and adequate form appears to me a determining factor in the +work of Casalio, Cintio, and finally Beccari. + +Of the _Sacrifizio_ of Agostino Beccari[404] have already spoken at some +length in the text (p. 174). From the account there given it will be seen +that the plot, though from its threefold character it attains a certain +degree of complexity, is in reality little more than the scenic +combination of three distinct stories, each of which might well have +formed the subject of an eclogue, and the whole play is thus closely +connected with the dramatic simplicity of its origin.[405] The verse, +which is blank, interspersed with lyrical passages, shows, like Cintio's, +the influence of the regular drama. For the satyr we need seek no +individual source; he was already as much a recognized character of the +Italian pastoral as the Vice was of the English interlude. The magical +element is doubtless ultimately traceable to a romantic source; it is one +which almost entirely drops out of the later pastoral drama, in which the +more distinctively classical oracle gradually won for itself a place. +Finally, I may remark that Beccari's claim to be considered the originator +of the pastoral drama was made in spite of his being perfectly well +acquainted with Cintio's _Egle_, as a passage in the first scene of Act +III testifies. There is, indeed, no reason to suppose that any writer +before Carducci ever considered Cintio's play as belonging to the realm of +pastoral. + +Beccari's immediate successors were of no great interest in themselves, +and contributed little to the development of the form. In 1556 appeared a +'comedia pastorale,' by the Piedmontese Bartolommeo Braida, a hybrid +composition in octave rime, written possibly for representation at the +court of Claudio of Savoy, governor of Provence and Marseilles, to whose +wife it is dedicated.[406] This piece resembles Poliziano's play, not only +in metrical structure, but in having a prologue spoken by Mercury, while +by its general character it connects itself with such old-fashioned +productions as Cavassico's Bellunese eclogue of 1513, and the +representation reported from Bologna by Dulfo in 1496. On the other hand, +the introduction of three pairs of lovers, and the incident of the nymph +being bound to a tree, suggest that Braida may at least have heard of the +Ferrarese _Sacrifizio_. The whole is a strange medley of various and +incongruous elements--mythological in Mercury and Somnus; pastoral in the +shepherds, Tindaro, Ruffo, Alpardo, and their loves; rustic in the clown +Basso, who speaks Piedmontese in shorter measure; satirical in the wanton +hermit; allegorical in the figure of Disdain; romantic in the wild man of +the woods and the magic herb. Thus on the whole Braida's work represents a +decided retrogression in the development of pastoral; or perhaps it may be +more accurate to say that it renects the tradition of an outlying district +in which that development had been retarded. + +To this period likewise, if we are to believe the author, belongs a 'nova +favola pastorale' entitled _Calisto_, by Luigi Groto, the blind +littrateur of Adria, whose preposterous pastoral, _Il pentimento +amoroso_, was produced between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +According to a note in the original edition, the piece was first +represented at Adria in 1561, revived and rewritten in 1582, and first +printed the following year.[407] It is founded on the well-known tale of +the love of Zeus for Calisto, a nymph of Artemis, who by him became the +mother of the Arcadians, as related by Ovid in the second book of the +_Metamorphoses_ (ll. 401, &c.). It may, therefore, so far as the subject +is concerned, be classed among the mythological plays, but the author has +mingled with his main theme much of the vulgar indecency of the Latin +comedy as adopted in the _cinquecento_ on to the Italian stage. The piece +is composed in _sdrucciolo_ blank verse. + +With our next author, the orator Alberto Lollio, we return once more to +Ferrara. In 1563 a play entitled _Aretusa_[408] was presented before +Alfonso II and his brother the cardinal, by the students of law at +Ferrara, at the command, it is said, of Laura Eustoccia d' Este. The verse +is blank, diversified by a single sonnet, but the piece is again a hybrid +of an earlier type--a love-knot solved by the discovery of +consanguinity--with certain elements of Plautine comedy added. There is +also extant in MS. the plot, or prose sketch, of another comedy by Lollio, +entitled _Galatea_, on the same model as the _Aretusa_, but with somewhat +greater complexity of construction.[409] + +It is evident that, though in the _Sacrifizio_ the final form of the +pastoral drama had been attained, the fact was not immediately recognized. +Indeed, until the seal had been set upon that form by the genius of Tasso, +it must have been difficult for any one to realize what had been achieved. +The form had been discovered, but it remained to prove that it was the +right form, and to show its capabilities. In 1567 a return was made to the +tradition of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_.[410] With +this piece also, composed in blank verse with a couple of lyric songs, we +have already been sufficiently concerned (p. 175). I only wish to draw +attention to one point here, namely, that if Guarini's Silvio is a +companion portrait to Tasso's Silvia, she in her turn is but the feminine +counterpart of Argenti's Silvio. The _Sfortunato_ stands on the threshold +of the _Aminta_, and its performance may have suggested to Tasso the +composition of his pastoral masterpiece, but it contributed little either +to the evolution of the form, or to the poetic supremacy of its successor. + +We have arrived at the end of the catalogue, and it is for the reader to +decide whether or not I have succeeded in establishing a formal continuity +between the eclogue and the pastoral drama, and so answering the most +serious of Carducci's objections. + + + + +Appendix II + +Bibliography + + + +Any attempt at an adequate bibliography of pastoral literature would +require space far greater than that at present at my disposal. In the case +of all the more important works considered in the foregoing inquiry, I +have been careful to mention the edition from which my quotations are +taken whenever this was not the original. Nor do I propose to mention in +this place every book or article which I have consulted in the course of +my study. Where some particular authority has been followed on some +particular point the reference has been given in the form of a footnote. +There are, however, two classes of books which require special mention. +The first of these consists of those works to which I have had cause +constantly to refer, and which I have therefore quoted by abbreviated +titles; and second, of certain works which I have constantly consulted and +followed, but to which I have had no occasion to make specific reference +in the notes. A list of the works coming under one or other of these heads +will give a very fair survey of the critical literature of the subject, +and may therefore not only be convenient to readers of my work, but may +prove useful as a guide to any who may wish to make an independent study. +I have, of course, derived much help from the critical apparatus +accompanying many of the texts cited, but these I have not, as a rule, +thought it necessary to recapitulate here. Where, however, I have used +critical matter in editions other than those quoted for the text, they +have been duly recorded. Ordinary works of reference need no specific +notice. + + + +A. General. + + +([Greek: a]) Works on General Literature. These chiefly refer to Italian +and English literature. + +(i) _Italian._ J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. IV and V. +Italian Literature._ To the whole of this work, but especially to the +section dealing with literature and to that on the Catholic reaction +mentioned below (B. vi), my indebtedness is far more than any specific +acknowledgement can express. My references are to the new edition (7 +vols., London, 1897-8), which has the advantages of being obtainable, and +of having a full though not very accurate index to the whole work, but +which is unfortunately very carelessly printed. + +B. Weise and E. Prcopo. _Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur von den +ltesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart._ Leipzig und Wien, 1899. I have often +found this of considerable use as summarizing the latest work on the +subject. It is, however, not invariably accurate, and the literary +appreciations, whether original or borrowed, are seldom enlightening. Had +the space occupied by these been devoted to giving references to special +works, the value of the book would have been enormously increased. + +A. D'Ancona and O. Bacci. _Manuale della letteratura italiana._ 5 vols. +Firenze, 1897-1900. I have fonnd the biographical and bibliographical +notes to this collection of the greatest use. + +(ii) _English._ W. J. Courthope. _A History of English Poetry._ 5 vols, +published. London, 1895-1905. Vols, ii and iii contain accounts of English +poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. + +A. W. Ward. _A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of +Queen Anne._ New and revised edition. 3 vols. London, 1899. + +F. G. Fleay. _A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama._ 2 vols. +London, 1891. + + +([Greek: b]) General Works on Pastoral. Of these some refer chiefly to +pastoral poetry, some mainly to the English drama. + +(i) _Poetry._ E. W. Gosse. _An Essay on English Pastoral Poetry._ A. B. +Grosart, _Rider on Mr. Gosse's Essay._ In Grosart's edition of Spenser, +vol. iii, 1882, pp. ix-lxxi. + +H. O. Sommer. _Erster Versuch ber die englische Hirtendichtung._ Marburg, +1888. A useful sketch of the eclogue in English literature from 1510 to +1805, though superficial and not always accurate. + +Katharina Windscheid. _Die englische Hirtendichtung von._1579-1625. Halle, +1895. This contains a good deal of original investigation, and I have +found it of considerable use. In questions of literary judgement, however, +the author is not always happy. + +C. H. Herford. _Spenser. Shepheards Calender, edited with introduction and +notes._ London, 1897. The Introduction contains an admirable sketch of +pastoral poetry in general. + +E. K. Chambers. _English Pastorals, with an introduction._ London, 1895. A +collection of lyrics, eclogues, and scenes, with a useful introduction. + +(ii) _English Drama._ Homer Smith. _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama._ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. +xii (1897), pp. 355-460. This has been constantly cited in my notes. As +the first serious attempt to investigate the English pastoral drama it +deserves credit; but in detail it is often inaccurate, while I generally +disagree with the author on all matters on which divergence of opinion is +possible. + +Josephine Laidler. _A History of Pastoral Drama in England until 1700._ +Englische Studien, July, 1905, xxxv (2). pp. 193-259. This appeared while +my work vas passing through the press, and though I have read it +carefully, I think that the reference to Mahaffy's not very accurate +account of Arcadia (see p. 51, note) is the total extent of my +indebtedness. The article adds little to Homer Smith's work for the period +with which we are concerned, while it is at the same time both incomplete +and inaccurate. + +A. H. Thorndike. _The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605._ +Modern Language Notes, vol. xiv. cols. 228-246 (1899). A careful and +interesting article, which I also only read while my book was in the +press. Though it did not contain much that was new, I was particularly +glad to find myself in agreement with the author as regards the importance +of the pre-Italian tradition in English pastoral. + +([Greek: g]) I ought also to mention: J. C. Dunlop. _History of Prose +Fiction. A new edition by H. Wilson.._2 vols. London, 1888. The fact that +this work consists chiefly of summaries of plots and stories makes it of +great value for tracing sources. + + + +B. Special. + + +(i) Classical (Chap. I, sect. ii). J. A. Symonds. _Studies of the Greek +Poets. Third edition._ 2 vols. London, 1893. Chap. XXI deals with 'The +Idyllists.' + +Andrew Lang. _Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus rendered info English Prose, +with an introductory essay._ London, 1889. The introduction contains a +very interesting account of the conditions of Alexandrian poetry. + +Joseph Jacobs. _Daphnis and Chloe: the Elizabethan version from Amyot's +Translation by Angel Day._ London, 1890. The introduction contains an +account of Longus and his translators. + + +(ii) Medieval and Humanistic (Chap. I, sect. iv). F. Macr-Leone. _La +Bucolica latina nella letteratura italiana del secolo XIV, con una +introduzione sulla bucolica latina nel medioevo._ Parte I (all published). +Torino, 1889. + +P. H. Wicksteed and E. G. Gardner. _Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, +including a critical edition of the text of Dante's 'Eclogae Latinae' and +of the poelic remains of Giovanni del Virgilio._ Westminster, 1902. + +Attilio Hortis, _Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca pubblicati ed +illustrati.._Trieste, 1874. + +Luigi Ruberto. _Le Egloghe del Petrarca._ Il Propugnatore, xi (2). p. +244, xii (1). p. 83, (2). p. 153. Bologna, 1878-9. + +Attilio Hortis. _Studl sulle opere latine del Boccaccio con particolare +riguardo alla storia delia erudizione nel medio evo e alle letterature +straniere._ Trieste, 1879. + +Marcus Landau. _Giovanni Boccaccio, sua vita e sue opere. Traduzione di +Camillo Antona-Traversi approvata e ampliata dall' autore._ Napoli, 1881. +Greatly enlarged from the original German edition. Stuttgart, 1877. + +[Bucolic Collections.] (a) _Eclogae Vergilii. Calphurnii. Nemesiani. +Frcisci. Pe. Ioannis Boc. Ioanbap Ma. Pomponii Gaurici.._Florentiae. +Philippus de Giunta. 1504. Decimo quinto. Calendas Octobris. Contains the +_editio princeps._of Boccaccio's eclogues. + +([Greek: b]) _En habes Lector Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII. quot quot +uidelicet Vergilij tate ad nostra usque tempora, eo pomatis genere +usos, sedul inquirentes nancisci in prsentia licuit: farrago quidem +Eclogarum CLVI. mira cm elegantia tum uarietate referta, nuncque primum +in studiosorum iuuenum gratiam atque usum collecta._ Basel. Ioannes +Oporinus. 1546. Mense Martio. + +[Sannazzaro.] I may note here, what I was unaware of when writing my +account of Sannazzaro's Latin poems, that the _Salices._was translated +into English under the title of _The Osiers._ by Beaupr Bell, about 1724. +The MS. is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; see M. R. James' +Catalogue of the Western MSS., ii. p. 102. + + +(iii) Spanish (Chap. I, sect. vii). George Ticknor. _History of Spanish +Literature. Sixth American edition._ 3 vols. Cambridge (Mass.), 1888. + +J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, _A History of Spanish Literature._ London, 1898. + +H. A. Rennert. _The Spanish Pastoral Romances._ Publications of the Modern +Language Association of America, vol. vii (3). pp. 1-119, (1892). An +elaborate study, which, however, I only discovered when my work was in the +press. + +Francesco Torraca. _Gl' imitatori stranieri di Jacopo Sannazaro. Seconda +edizione accresciuta._ Roma, 1882. A study which I have found very useful +both in relation to Spanish and French pastoralism. + + +(iv) French (Chap. I, sect. viii). L. Petit de Julleville. _Histoire de la +Langue et de la Littrature franaise._ 8 vols. Paris, 1896-1899. + + +(v) English Poetry (Chap. II). J. G. Underhill. _Spanish Literature in the +England of the Tudors._ New York (Columbia University Studies in +Literature), 1899. A valuable study, particularly in connexion with +Montemayor, with useful bibliography. + +A. W. Pollard. _The Castell of Labour, translated from the French of +Pierre Gringore by Alexander Barclay._ Edinburgh (Roxburghe Club), 1905. +Whatever can be said for Barclay as a poet is admirably said in the +Introduction to this work. + +F. W. Moorman. _William, Browne. His Britannia's Pastorals and the +pastoral poetry of the Elizabethan age._ Strassburg (Quellen und +Forschungen), 1897. + +Walter Raleigh. _The English Novel. Second edition._ London, 1895. To this +brilliant study, and in particular to the treatment of Euphuism and +Arcadianism, I am deeply indebted. + +J. J. Jusserand. _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, translated +from the French by Elisabeth Lee. Revised and enlarged by the author._ +London, 1890. + +K. Brunhuber. _Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlufer._ Nrnberg, +1903. Though not always accurate, the first part, dealing chiefly with the +sources, possesses original value; the same cannot be said of the second, +dealing with the dramatizations, which is superficial. + + +(vi) Italian Drama (Chap. III). J. L. Klein. _Geschichte des Dramas. Vol. +V. Das italienische Drama. Zweiter Band._ Leipzig, 1867. + +Wilhelm Creizenach. _Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Zweiter Band. +Renaissance und Reformation. Erster Theil._ Halle, 1901. + +Alessandro D'Ancona. _Origini del teatro italiano._ 2 vols. Torino, 1891. +Very much enlarged from the original edition, 2 vols., Firenze, 1877. + +Curzio Mazzi. _La Congrega dei Rozzi di Siena nel secolo XVI._ 2 vols. +Firenze, 1882. + +Vittorio Rossi. _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido. Studio +biografico-critico con documenti inediti._ Torino, 1886. + +Giosu Carducci. _Su l'Aminta di T. Tassa, saggi tre. Con una pastorale +inedita di G. B. Giraldi Cinthio._ Firenze, 1899. + +J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. VI and VII. The Catholic +Reaction._ (See above, A. a. i.) Chapters VII and XI contain admirable +criticisms of the pastoral work of Tasso and Guarini. + + +(vii) English Masques (Chap. VII). Rudolf Brotanek. _Die englischen +Maskenspiele._ Wien und Leipzig (Wiener Beitrge), 1902. + +David Masson. _The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited with memoir, +introduction, notes, and an essay on Milton's English and versification._ +3 vols. London, 1890. + +M. W. Sampson. _The Lyric and Dramatic Poems of John Milton, edited, with +an introduction and notes._ New York, 1901. + + + + +Index + + + +[In cases where a name occurs several times, the main reference or +references, if any, are distinguished by bold-face type.] + + +Abbot, Sir Maurice, _Lord Mayor_ +Abbruzzese, A. +_Abuses Stript and Whipt_ +_Accademia tusculana_ +Achelly, Thomas +Achilles Tatius +_Actaeon and Diana_ +dan de le Hale, _or_ le Bochu +Addiaccio, academy at Prato +Admiral, Lord (Charles, Lord Howard) +_Adone_ +_Adrasta_ +Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +_Aeneid_ +_Aethiopica_ +_Affectionate Shepherd_ +Aff, Ireneo +_Ages_ +_Agincourt_ +_Alba_ +Alberti, Leo Battista +_Albion's England_ +_Albumazar_ +_Alceo_ +_Alchemist_ +_Alcon_ +Alcuin +Aldus Manutius, the elder +Aldus Manutius, the younger +Alexander VI, _Pope_ +Alexander, Sir William (Earl of Stirling) +_Alexis_ +Allacci, Leone +_Allegro_ +Almerici, Tiburio +Alva, Duke of +_Amadis of Gaul_ +_Amaranta_ +_Amarilli_ +_Ambra_ (Lorenzo de' Medici) +_Ambra_ (Poliziano) +Ambrogini, Angelo, _see_ Poliziano. +_Ameto_ +_Aminta_ +_Aminta_ (Tasso), English translations: + Fraunce + Reynolds + Dancer + Oldmixon, du Bois, Ayre, Stoekdale, Leigh Hunt, anon. +_Aminta bagnato_ +_Aminta difeso_ +_Amintae Gaudia_ +_Amphrissa_ +_Amore cortese_ +_Amore fuggitivo_ +_Amores_ (Ovid) +_Amorosi sospiri_ +_Amorous War_ +_Amyntas_ (Randolph) +_Amyntas_ (Watson) +Amyot, Jacques +Anacreon +Ancona, Alessandro D' +_Andria_ +_Andromana_ +Angeli, Nicol degli +_Anglia_ +Anne of Denmark +Annunzio, Gabriele d' +_Anthology_ (Greek) +Antona-Traversi, Camillo +Antonius +_Apollo and Daphne_ +_Apologia contre l'autor del Verato_ +_Apology for Poetry_ +Apuleius +Aquilano, Serafino +Arber, Edward +_Arcades_ +Arcadia, Academy of the +_Arcadia_ (Sannazzaro) +_Arcadia_ (Shirley) +_Arcadia_ (Sidney) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, drama) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, romance) +_Arcadia in Brenta_ +_Arcadia Reformed_ +_Arcadian Lovers_ +_Arcadian Princess_ +_Arcadian Virgin_ +Archer, Edward +_Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_ +_Aretusa_ +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Glapthorne) +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Quarles) +Argenti, Agostino +_Arimne_ +Ariosto, Lodovico +_Arisbas_ +Aristotle +Arnold, Matthew +_Arraignment of Paris_ +Arsocchi, Francesco +_Art of English Poesy_ +_As You Like It_ +_Asolani_ +_Assetta_ +_Astre_ +_Astrological Discourse_ +_Astrophel_ +_Astrophel and Stella_ +_Atalanta_ +Atchelow, Thomas +_Athenae Oxonienses_ +_Athlette_ +Aubrey, John +_Aucassin et Nicolette_ +Ausonius +_Auto pastoril castelhano_ +Averara, Niccol +Ayre, William + +B., I. D. +_Babylonica_ +_Bacchus and Ariadne_ +Bacci, Orazio +Baglione family +Balbuenas, Bernardo de +Baldi, Bernardino +Baldini, Vittorio +Baldinucci, Filippo +Baldovini, Francesco +Ballad Society +Bandello, Matteo +Bang, W. +Barclay, Alexander +Barclay, John +Bariola, Felice +Barksted, William +Barnes, Barnabe +Barnfield, Richard +Baron, Robert +Bartoli, Adolfo +Bartoli, Clementi +Basse, William +Bastiano di Francesco (linaiuolo) +Bathurst, Theodore +Baylie, Richard +Beaumont, Francis +_Beautiful Shepherdess of Arcadia_ +_Beca di Dicomano_ +Beccari, Agostino +Bede +Beeching, H. C. +Belcari, Feo +Beling, Richard +Bell, Beaupr +Bellarmino, Roberto, _Cardinal_ +Bellay, Joachim du +Belleau, Remi +_Bellessa, the Shepherd's Queen_ +Bellincione, Bernardo +Bembo, Pietro +Bendidio, Lucrezia +Beni, Paolo +Benivieni, Girolamo +Bentivogli, Annibale +Benvoglienti, Uberto +_Bergerie_ (Belleau) +_Bergerie de Juliette_ +Berni, Francesco +Bertini, Romolo +_Biographia Dramatica_ +Bion +Blake, William +Blosio, _see_ Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio. +Boccaccio, Giovanni +Bodoni, Giambattista +Boethius +Boiardo, Matteo Maria +Bois, P. B. Du +Boleyn, Anne +Bonarelli della Rovere, Guidubaldo +Bond, R. W. +Bonfadino, Giovanbattista +Boni, Giovanni de +Bonifacia, Carmosina +Boninsegni, Fiorino +Bonnivard, Franois de +_Bonny Hynd_ +_Bonny May_ +Bono de Monteferrato, Manfrido +Borgia, Lucrezia +Boscn Almogaver, Juan +Botticelli, Alessandro +Brabine, Thomas +Brackley, Viscount, _see_ Egerton +Braga, Teofilo +Braida, Bartolommeo +Brandt, Sebastian. +Brathwaite, Richard +Breton, Nicholas +Bridgewater, Earl of, _see_ Egerton. +_Brief Discourse about Baptism_ +_Britannia's Pastorals_ +Brome, Richard +Brooke, Dr. +Brooke, Christopher +Brooke, Samuel +Brookes, Mr. +_Broom of Cowdenknows_ +Brotanek, Rudolf +Browne, William +Brunhuber, K. +Bruni, Lionardo +Bryskett, Lodovic +Buc, Sir George +Buchanan +Buck, George, _Gent._ +_Bucolica Quirinalium_ +_Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII_ +_Bucolics_ (Vergil) +Bulifon, Antonio +Bullen, A. H. +Buonarroti, Michelangelo, the younger +_Burd Helen_ +Byse, Fanny + +C., H. +Caccia, G. A., _see_ Cazza, G. A. +_Caccia col falcone_ +_Caccia d' amore_ +Calderon de la Barca, Pedro +_Calendar of Shepherds_ +_Calisto_ +Callimachus +Calmo, Andrea +Calpurnius +Calvin, Jean +Campori, G. +_Canace_ +Canello, Ugo Angelo +_Canterbury Tales_ +_Canzoniere_ (Petrarca) +Camoens, Luis de +Caperano, Alessandro +_Capitolo pastorale_ (Machiavelli) +Cardona, Antonia +Carducci, Giosu +_Careless Shepherdess_ +Carew, Thomas +_Caride_ +Carlton, Sir Dudley +Carlo emanuele, _Duke of Savoy_ +_Carmen bucolicum_ (Endelechius) +Caro, Annibale +Carretto, Galeotto Del +_Carte du Tendre_ +Casalio, Giambattista +Cassio da Narni +Castalio +Castelletti, Cristoforo +Castelvetri, Giacopo +Castiglione, Baldassarre +_Castle of Labour_ +Catharine of Austria +Catherine of Siena, _Saint_ +Catullus +Cavassico, Bartolommeo +Cavendish, George +Cazza, Giovanni Agostino +_Cecaria_ +Cecco di Mileto +_Cefalo_ +_Cefalo y Pocris_ +_Celos aun del aire matan_ +_Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ +Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de +Cesana, Gasparo +Chaloner, Thomas +Chamberlain, John +Chambers, E. K. +Chandos, Lord +Chapman, George +Chariton +Charles I +Charles II +Chteillon, Sbastien +Chaucer, Geoffrey +_Chester mysteries_ +Chettle, Henry +Chetwood, W. R. +Child, F. J. +_Child Waters_ +_Chloridia_ +_Chloris_ +_Chloris and Ergasto_ +_Cicro_ +_Cid_ +_Cintia_ +Ciotti, Giovanbattista +Claudio of Savoy +_Clio_ +_Clorys and Orgasto_ +Ciacco dell'Anguillaja +_Citizen and Uplondishman_ +Clement VI, _Pope_ +Coello, Antonio +_Coelum Britannicum_ +Coleridge, S. T. +_Colin Clout's come home again_ +Colisano, Count of +Colleoni, Bartolommeo +Collier, J. P. +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Avignon) +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Rome) +_Columbia University Studies in Literature_ +Compani, A. +_Compendio della poesia tragicomica_ +_Complete Angler_ +_Comus_ +_Conflictus veris et hiemis_ +Conington, John +Constable, Henry +Contarini, Francisco +_Converted Robber_ +_Copa_ +_Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_ +Corazzini, Francesco +Corneille, Pierre +_Cornhill Magazine_ +Corrado, Gregorio +Correggio, Niccol da +_Cortegiano_ +Count Palatine (Frederick V, Elector Palatine) +Courthope, W. J. +_Coventry mysteries_ +_Cowdenknows,_ see _Broom of Cowdenknows._ +Cowley, Abraham +Cox, Robert +Coxeter, Thomas +Creizenach, Wilhelm +Cresci, Pietro +Crescimbeni, G. M. +Croce, B. +Crusca, Accademia della +Cuchetti, Giovanni Donato +_Cuestion de amor_ +Cunningham, Peter +_Cupid and Psyche_ +_Cupid's Revenge_ +_Cyclops_ +_Cynthia_ (Barnfield) +_Cynthia_ (Dyer) + +D., D. +D., E. +Dancer, John +Daniel, Samuel +Dante Alighieri +_Danza di Venere_ +_Daphnada_ +_Daphne_ +_Daphnis and Chloe_ +[Greek: Da/phnis Polyste/phanos] +Davenant, Sir William +Davies, Sir John +Davison, Francis +Day, Angel +Day, John +_Decameron_ +_Dfense de la langue franaise_ +_Defence of Poesy_ +_Defence of Rime_ +Deighton, Kenneth +Dekker, Thomas +Delaval, Lady Elizabeth +_Delia_ +Denny, Sir William +Denham, Sir John +Denores, Giasone, _see_ Nores, Giasone de. +_Deorum Dona_ +_De Remedio Amoris_ +Derby, Countess Dowager of +Dering, Sir E. +_Descensus Astraeae_ +Devonshire, Duke of +_De Vulgari Eloquio_ +_Dialogo di tre ciechi_ +_Dialogue at Wilton_ +_Dialogue in Praise of Astrea_ +_Dialogues and Dramas_ +_Diana_ +_Diane_ +Diane de Poitiers +Dickenson, John +_Dictionary of National Biography_ +_Dido_ +Digby, Sir Kenelm +Digby, Lady Venetia +Dionisio, Alessandro +Dionisio, Scipione +_Discorso intorno alla commedia_ +_Discourse of English Poetry_ +_Discourse on Pastoral_ +_Discoveries_ +_Dispraise of a Courtly Life_ +_Divina Commedia_ +_Dodsley's Old Plays_ +Dodus +Dolce, Lodovico +_Donald of the Isles_ +Donati, Alesso +Donne, John +_Don Quixote_ +_Dorastus and Fawnia_ +Dorset, Earl of +Dossi, Dosso +Dove, John +Drake, Sir Francis +Drayton, Michael +_Driadeo d'amore_ +Drummond, Jean +Drummond, William +Dryden, John +Du Bartas, Seigneur (Guillaume de Salluste) +_Due pellegrini_ +Dunlop, J. C. +Dulfo, Floriano +Dyce, Alexander +Dyer, Sir Edward +Dymocke, Mr. +Dymocke, Charles +Dymocke, Sir Edward +Dymocke, John + +_Earl Lithgow_ +_Earl Richard_ +Early English Text Society +Ebsworth, J. W. +_Ecatommiti_ +_Ecloga di amicizia_ +_Ecloga di justizia_ +_Ecloga duarum sanctimonialium_ +_Ecloga Theoduli_ +_clogas_ (Encina) +_clogue au Roi_ (Marot) +_clogue Gratulatory_ (Peele) +_clogue, ou Chant pastoral_(I. D. B.) +_clogues sacres_ (Belleau) +Edward IV, _King of England_ +Edward V, _King of England_ +Edward VI, _King of England_ +Egerton, Lady Alice +Egerton, John (first Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, John (third Viscount Brackley and second Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, Sir Thomas (Baron Ellesmere and first Viscount Brackley) +Egerton, Thomas (son of John, first Earl of Bridgewater) +_Egle_ +Elizabeth, _Queen of England_ +Elizabeth, _Duchess of Urbino, see_ Gonzaga, Elizabeta. +_Elpine_ +Encina, Juan del +Encinas, Pedro de +Endelechius, Severus Sanctus +_England's Helicon_ +_England's Mourning Garment_ +_England's Parnassus_ +_Englische Studien_ +_English Grammar_ (Jonson) +_English Miscellany_ +Enrique IV, _King of Spain_ +_Entertainment at Althorp_ +_Entertainment at Elvetham_ +_Entertainment at Kenilworth_ +_Entertainment at Richmond_ +Epicuro de' Marsi +_Epithalamium_ (Spenser) +Erasmus, Desiderius +_Erbusto_ +[Greek: E)rotopai/gnion] +Erythraeus, Janus Nicius +Essex, Earl of +Este, House of (Estensi) +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d' (Ercole I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d'(Ercole II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Francesco d' +Este, Ippolito d', _Cardinal_ +Este, Laura Eustoccia d' +Este, Leonora d' +Este, Lucrezia d' (wife of Annibale Bentivogli) +Este, Lucrezia d' (daughter of Ercole II) +Este, Luigi d', _Cardinal_ (son of Ercole II) +Este, Renata d' (wife of Ercole II, and daughter of Louis XII of France) +_Euphormus_ +Euripides + +_Faery Queen_ +Fairfax, Edward +_Fairy Pastoral_ +_Faithful Shepherdess_ +Falkland, Viscount +_Fancy's Theatre_ +Fanfani, P. +Fanshawe, Sir Richard +_Faunus_ +_Faustus, Dr_. +_Feast of Adonis_ +Ferdinand I, _King of Naples_ +Ferrario, Giulio +Ferraby, George +FF. Anglo-Britannus (_pseud._) +_Fiammella_ +_Fickle Shepherdess_ +_Fida Armilla_ +_Fida ninfa_ +_Fida pastora_ +_Fidus Pastor_ +Field, Nathan +_Fig for Momus_ +_Figlia di Iorio_ +_Figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli_ +Figueroa, Cristbal Surez de +Figueroa, Francisco de +_Filena_ +Fileno Addiacciato +_Filide_ +Filleul, Nicolas +_Filli di Sciro_ +_Filli di Sciro_ (Bonarelli), English translations: + Sidnam + Talbot + [Latin] _(Scyros)_ +_Finta Fiammetta_ +Firenzuola, Agnolo +_Fischerin_ +_Fisherman's Tale_ +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James +_Five Plays in One_ +Flamini, F. +Fleay, F. G. +Fleming, Abraham +Fletcher, Giles, the elder +Fletcher, John +Fletcher, Phineas +_Florimene_ +_Flower of Fidelity_ +Folengo, Teofilo +Fontanini, Giusto +Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de +_Forbonius and Prisceria_ +Forde, Thomas +Fortini, Pietro +Franois I, _King of France_. +Frati, L. +Fratti, Giovanni +Fraunce, Abraham +Frederick of Aragon, _King of Naples_ +Frezzi, Frederigo +_Frutti d'amore_ +Furness, H. H. + +G., T. +_Galatea_ (Cervantes) +_Galatea_ (Lollio) +_Galizia_ +_Gallathea_ +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_ +Garcia de Toledo +Garcilaso de la Vega +Gardner, E. G. +Gascoigne, George +_Gaudeamus!_ +Gauricus, Pomponius +_Gentle Shepherd_ +_Georgics_ +_Gerusalemme liberata_ +_Gesta Romanorum_ +Gifford, William +Ginguen, P. L. +_Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +_Giostra_ +Giovanni del Virgilio +Giraldi _Cintio_, Giovanni Battista +Giunta, Filippo di +Glapthorne, Henry +_Glasgow Peggie_ +_God's Revenge against Murder_ +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang +Goffe, Thomas +_Golden Age_ (Graham) +_Golden Age_ (Heywood) +_Golden Fleece_ +Golding, Arthur +Gollancz, Israel +Gomersall, Robert +Gonzaga, Cesare +Gonzaga, Elisabetta (wife of Guidubaldo II of Urbino) +Gonzaga, Francesco +Gonzaga, Gianvincenzo, _Cardinal_ +Gonzaga, Isabella +Gonzaga, Scipione +Gonzaga, Vincenzo +Goodere, Anne +Goodwin, Gordon +Googe, Barnabe +Gosse, E. W. +Gosson, Stephen +Gower, Lady +Gower, John +Gozze, Gauges de +Graham, Kenneth +_Grateful Servant_ +Gravina, Gian Vincenzo +_Great Plantagenet_ +Greene, Robert +Gregory XI, _Pope_ +Greville, Dorothy +Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke) +Grimaldi, Bartolommeo Ceva, _Duke of Telese_ +Grimani, Marin, _Doge_ +Gringore, Pierre +_Gripus and Hegio_ +Grosart, A. B. +Groto, Luigi +_Guardian_ +Guarini, Alessandro +Guarini, Battista +Guerrini, O. +Guidubaldo I, _see_ Montefeltro, G. +Guidubaldo II, _see_ Rovere, G. della. +Gustavus Adolphus, _King of Sweden_ + +H., I. +Hall, Edward +Hall, Joseph +Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. +Hardy, Thomas +_Harmony of the Church_ +_Harpelus' Complaint_ +Harvey, Gabriel +Harvey, Richard +Harvey, Thomas +_Havelok the Dane_ +Hawes, Stephen +Hazlewood, Joseph +Hazlitt, W. C +Heber, Richard +_Hecatompathia_ +Heliodorus +Henneman, J. B. +Henrietta Maria +_Henry VI_ +Henry VIII, _King of England_ +Henryson, Robert +Henslowe, Philip +_Heptameron_ +Herbert, Sir Henry +Herd, David +Herford, C. H. +_Hermophus_ +Herrick, Robert +Hewlett, Maurice +Heywood, John +Heywood, Thomas +Hiero of Syracuse +_Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane_ +Homer +_Honour's Academy_ +Horace +Hortis, Attilio +_Hospital of Lovers_ +_House of Fame_ +Howard, Douglas +Howard, Sir Edward +Hunt, Leigh +_Hunting of Cupid_ +_Hymen's Triumph_ +_Hymn to Pan_ +_Hymns in honour of Love and Beauty_ + +_Idea_ +_Idropica_ +_Idyllia_ (Ausonius) +_Idyls_ (Theocritus) +Immerito (_pseud._) +Index, Congregation of the +_Index Expurgatorius_ +_Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ +_Inedited Poetical Miscellany_ +Ingegneri, Angelo +_Inner Temple Masque_ +Innocent VIII, _Pope_ +_Intricati_ +_Intrichi d' amore_ +Intronati, academy at Siena +_Iphis and Ianthe_ +Isauro, Fileno di (_pseud._) +_Isle of Dogs_ +_Isle of Gulls_ +_Ivychurch_ + +Jackson, Henry +Jacobs, James +James I, _King of England_ +James, M. R. +James, William +Jauregui, Juan de +_Jealous Lovers_ +Jeanne de Laval +Jennaro, Pietro Jacopo de +_John, King_ +John of Bologna, _see_ Giovanni del Virgilio. +_Johnie Faa_ +Johnson, Samuel +Jones, Inigo +Jones, John +Jones, Richard +Jones, Stephen +Jonson, Benjamin +_Jonsonus Verbius_ +Julius Caesar +_Jupiter and Io_ +Jusserand, J. J. +Juvenal, 6. + +K., E. +Ker, Robert (Earl of Roxburgh) +Ker, W. P. +King, Edward +Kipling, Rudyard +Kirke, Edward +Kirkman, Francis +Klein, J. L. +Kluge, Friedrich +_Knave in Grain_ +Knevet, Ralph +_Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ +_Knight of the Burning Pestle_ +Koeppel, Emil +Kynder, Philip + +_Lady of May_ +_Lady Pecunia_ +La Fayette, Comtesse de +_Lagrime di San Pietro_ +Laidler, Josephine +Lamb, Charles +_Lamentations of Amyntas_ +_Lamenta di Cecco da Varlungo_ +Landau, Marcus +Lang, Andrew +Langland, William +Languet, Hubert +Laud, William +_Laune des Verliebten_ +Laura +Lauro, Cristoforo +Lawes, Henry +_Lawyer's Logic_ +_Lear, King_ +Lee, Elizabeth +Lee, Honoria +Lee, Margaret L. +Lee, S. L. +Lee, William +Lee Priory Press +Legacci dello Stricca, Piero Antonio +Legge, Cantrell +Leicester, Earl of +_Leir, King_ +_Lenore_ +Leo X, _Pope_ +L'Estrange, Sir Roger +_Lettere memorabili_ +_Licia_ +_Ligurino_ +_Lilia_ +_Literaturblatt fr germanische und romanische Philologie_ +_Lizie Baillie_ +_Lizie Lindsay_ +Lodge, Thomas +_Lodovick Sforza_ +Logan, W. H. +Lollio, Alberto +Longus +_Love Crowns the End_ +_Love in its Ecstasy_ +_Love-Sick Court_ +_Love Tricks_ +_Love's Changelings' Change_ +_Love's Labour's Lost_ +_Love's Labyrinth_ +_Love's Metamorphosis_ +_Love's Mistress_, 407. +_Love's Riddle_ +_Loves Victory_ +Loyse de Savoye +Luca di Lorenzo +Lucian +Lucretius +Lungo, Isidore del +_Lusus Pastorales_ +Luther, Martin +Lydgate, John +_Lycidas_ +Lyly, John + +Macaulay, Lord +Machiavelli, Niccolo +Machiavelli, Paolo +Machin, Lewis +Macr-Leone, F. +Madan, Falconer +Mahaffy, J. P. +Maidment, James +_Maid's Metamorphosis_ +_Maid's Revenge_ +Malacreta, Giovan Pietro +_Man in the Moon_ +Mancina, Faustina +_Mandragola_ +_Mangora_ +Manso, Giovanni Battista +Mantegna, Andrea +Mantuanus +Manuscripts quoted:-- + Bodleian:-- + Ashmole + Douce + Rawl. Poet. + British Museum:-- + Addit. 10,444 + " 11,743 + " 14,047 + " 18,638 + " 29,493 + Egerton, 1994 + Harl. 6924 + " 7044 + Lansd. 1171 + Sloane, 836 + " 857 + Caius College, Cambridge + Cambridge University Library + Emmanuel College, Cambridge + Trinity College, Cambridge +Manwood, Sir Peter +Manwood, Thomas +Marchesa, Cassandra +Margaret of Navarre +Marini, Giovanbattista +Marlowe, Christopher +Marot, Clement +Marsi, E., _see_ Epicuro de' Marsi. +Marston, John +Martin Mar-prelate (_pseud._) +Martino da Signa +Mason, I. M. +Masson, David +_Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas_ +_Mauriziano_ +_May Lord_ +Mazzi, Curzio +Mazzoni, G. +McKerrow, R. B. +Medici, Eleonora de' +Medici, Ferdinando de' (Ferdinando I), _Grand Duke of Florence_ +Medici, Giuliano de' (brother of Lorenzo) +Medici, Giuliano de' (son of Lorenzo) +Medici, Lorenzo de', _Il Magnifico_ +_Melanthe_ +_Meliboeus_ +Menagio, Egidio +_Menaphon_ +Mendoza, Iigo de +_Menina e moa_ +Menzini, Benedetto +Meres, Francis +_Merry Wives of Windsor_ +_Metamorphoses_ +_Metellus_ +Meung, Jean de +Meyers, Ernest +_Midsummer Night's Dream_ +Milton, John +Mirari, Alessandro +_Mirrha_ +_Mirror for Magistrates_ +_Mirzia_ +_Modern Language Association of America, Publications of the_ +_Modern Language Notes_ +_Modern Language Quarterly_ +_Modern Language Review_ +Molza, Francesco Maria +Montagu, Walter +Montefeltro, Guidubaldo (Guidubaldo I), _Duke of Urbino_ +Montemayor, Jorge de +Moore, Thomas +Moore, Sir Thomas +Moorman, F. W. +Moraldi, Giannantonio +_Moretum_ +_Morte del Danese_ +_Morte della Nencia_ +Moschus +_Mother Bombie_ +_Mother Hubberd's Tale_ +_Mourning Garment_ +_Mucedorus_ +Munday, Anthony +_Muses' Elizium_ +_Muses' Looking Glass_ +Mussato, Albertino +_Mutability_ +_Mydas_ + +Nappi, Cesare +_Narcissus_ +_Narcissus' Change_ +Nashe, Thomas +Nemesianus +_Nencia da Barberino_ +Nettleship, Henry +_Never too Late_ +_New English Dictionary_ +Nichols, John +Nicolas de Montreux +_Nigella_ +_Ninfa tiberina_ +_Ninfale fiesolano_ +Noci, Carlo +Nores, Giasone de +Norris of Rycote, Baron +Northampton, Earl of +Northumberland, Earl of +Notker the German +_Novelle de Novizi_ +Numerianus +_Nuova Antologia_ +_Nut-brown Maid_ + +_Oberon_ +Occleve, Thomas +Octavianus +_Old-fashioned Love_ +_Old Fortunatus_ +_Old Law_ +Oldmixon, John +_Old Wives' Tale_ +Ollenix du Mont-Sacr +_Ombres_ +_Omphale_ +Ongaro, Antonio +Oporinus, Joannes +_Orfeo_ +_Orlando furioso_ +_Orlando innamorato_ +_Orphei Tragoedia_ +Orsini family +_Osiers_ +_Otranto, Castle of_ +Ovid + +P., G. +Paglia, Francesco Baldassare +_Palladis Tamia_ +Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio +_Palmers Ode_ +Palmerini, I. +_Pan his Syrinx_ +_Pandosto_ +_Pan's Anniversary_ +_Pan's Pipe_ +_Paradise Lost_ +_Paradiso_ +Parsons, Philip +_Parthenia_ +_Parthenophil and Parthenope_ +Pasqualigo, Luigi (Alvisi) +_Passionate Pilgrim_ +_Passionate Shepherd_ +_Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ +Paston, Edward +Paston, Sir William +_Pastor fido_ +_Pastor fido_ (Guarini), English translations: + 'Dymock,' + Sidnam + Fanshawe + Settle + [Latin] + Grove, Clapperton +_Pastor lobo_ +_Pastor vedovo_ +_Pastoral ending in a Tragedy_ +_Pastores de Balue_ +_Pastoureau crestien_ +Patrizi, Francesco +_Paul et Virginie_ +Pausanias +_Pazzia_ +Peaps, William +_Pearl_ +Pearson, John +Peele, George +Pelliciari, Ercole +Pembroke, Countess of +_Pembroke's Arcadia, Countess of_, see _Arcadia_ (Sidney). +_Pembroke's Ivychurch, Countess of_, see _Ivychurch_. +_Penseroso_ +_Pentimento amoroso_ +Pepys, Samuel +Prcopo, Erasmo +Percy Society +Percy, Thomas +Percy, William +Prez, Alonzo +_Perimedes the Blacksmith_ +Perth, Earl of +Perugino (Pietro Vespucci) +_Pescatoria amorosa_ +Pescetti, Orlando +Petit de Julleville, L. +Petowe, Henry +Petrarca, Francesco +Petrarca, Gherardo +Phanocles +_Philaster_ +Philetas +_Phillida and Corin_ +_Phillida and Corydon_ +_Phillida flouts me_ +Phillips, Edward +_Phillis_ +_Phillis of Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_. +Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +Pico delia Mirandola, Giovanni +_Piers Plowman_ +Pigna, Giovanbattista +_Pilgrim_ +_Pinacoteca_ +Pinturicchio, Bernardo +Pio, Ercole +Pius II, _Pope_ +Plato +_Podere_ +_Poems Lyric and Pastoral_ +_Poetical Diversions_ +_Poetical Rhapsody_ +_Poetics_ (Aristotle) +_Poet's Willow_ +_Poimenologia_ +Poliziano (Angelo Ambrogini) +Pollard, A. W. +_Pollio_ +Polo, Gaspar Gil +Polybius +_Polyolbion_ +Ponce, Bartolom +Ponsonby, William +Pontana, Accademia +Pontano +Pope, Alexander +Porcacchi, Tommaso +_Porta Pietatis_ +_Primavera_ +_Primelion_ +_Prince d'Amour_ +_Princesse de Clves_ +_Propugnatore_ +_Prova amorosa_ +Prynne, William +Ptolemy Philadelphus +Pulci, Bernardo +Pulci, Luca +Pulci, Luigi +_Pulicane_ +_Purgatorio_ +_Purple Island_ +Puteanus (Hendrik van der Putten) +Puttenham, (George?) +Pynson, Richard +Pyper, John + +_Quadriregio_ +Quaritch, Bernard +Quarles, Francis +_Queen's Arcadia_ +_Quetten und Forschungen_ + +R., J. +Raleigh, Walter +Raleigh, Sir Walter +_Rambler_ +Ramsay, Allan +Randolph, Thomas +Rapin, Ren +_Rapture_ +Reid, J. S. +Reinolds, _see_ Reynolds. +Reissert, Oswald +_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ +Ren of Anjou +Renier, R. +Rennert, H. A. +_Retrospective Review_ +Reynolds, Henry +Reynolds, John: + Fellow of New College + of Exeter + author of _God's Revenge_ + translator +Reynolds, Sir John, Colonel +_Rhodon and Iris_ +Ribeiro, Bernardim +_Rinaldo_ +_Risposta al Malacreta_ +_Robene and Makyne_ +Robert of Sicily +_Robin Hood and Little John_ +_Robins et Marion_ +Rodrgues de Lobo, Francisco +Rollinson, Anthony +_Roman de la Rose_ +_Romeo and Juliet_ +Rondinelli, Dionisio +Ronsard, Pierre de +_Rosalynde_ +Rossi, Bartolommeo +Rossi, Giovanni Vittorio +Rossi, Vittorio +Rota, Bernardino +Rovere, Francesco Maria delia +Rovere, Guidubaldo delia (Guidubaldo II), _Duke of Urbino_ +Rowley, William +Roxburghe Club +Royden, Matthew +_Royster Doyster_ +Rozzi, Congrega dei +Ruberto, Luigi +_Rural Sports of the Nymph Oenone_ +Russell, Lady +Rutter, Joseph + +S., E. +S., H. +J. (translater of the _Filli di Sciro_) +S., J. (author of _Andromana_) +S de Miranda, Francisco de +Sabie, Francis +Sacchetti, Franco +Sackville, Edward +_Sacrifizio_ (Beccari) +_Sacrifizio_ (Intronati masque) +_Sacrifizio pastorale_ +_Sad Shepherd_ +Sagredo, Giovanni +Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri Bernardin de +Saintsbury, George +_Salices_ +Salviati, Lionardo +Samson, M. W. +Sand, George +Sandys, J. E. +Sannazzaro, Jacopo +Sansovino, F. +San vitale, Gualtiero +Sappho +_Saturday Review_ +Savio, Giovanni +Schlegel, A. W. von +Schnherr, J. G. +Schucking, L. L. +_Scilla's Metamorphosis_ +Scott, Mary A. +Scott, Sir Walter +_Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_ +Seneca +_Selva d' amore_ +_Selva sin amor_ +Serassi, Pierantonio +Serono, Orazio +_Session of the Poets_ +Settle, Elkanah +Seward, Thomas +Seyffert, Oskar +_Sfortunato_ +Sforza, Giovanni +Sforza, Lodovico +_Shadow of Sannazar_ +Shakespeare, William +Shakespeare Society +Shepherd Tony _(pseud.)_ +_Shepherd's Calendar_ +_Shepherd's Complaint_ +_Shepherd's Content_ +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Angel Day) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Denny) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Rutter) +_Shepherd's Hunting_ +_Shepherds' Masque_ +_Shepherd's Ode_ +_Shepherd's Oracle_ +_Shepherd's Oracles_ +_Shepherds' Paradise_ +_Shepherd's Pipe_ +_Shepherds' Sirena_ +_Shepherd's Taies_ +_Shepherd's Wife's Song_ +Sherburne, Sir Edward +Sherley, James +_Ship of Fools_ +Shuckburgh, E. S. +_Sicelides_ +Sidnam, Jonathan +Sidney, Lady +Sidney, Sir Philip +_Siglo de Oro_ +Signorelli, Luca +Silesio, Mariano +_Silvanus_ +_Silver Age_ +_Silvia_ (Fileno) +_Silvia_ (Kynder) +Sincerus, Actius, _see_ Sannazzaro, Jacopo. +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_ +_Sirena_, see _Shepherds' Sirena._ +Skeat, W. W. +Skelton, John +Smith, G. C. M. +Smith, Homer +Smith, William, 124. +Solerti, Angelo +Solisy Rivadeneira, Antonio de +Sommer, H. O. +_Somnium Puteani (Cornus, sive Phagesiposia Cimeria)_ +_Song of Solomon_ +Sophocles +_Sophy_ +Southampton, Earl of +_Speeches at Bisham, &c._ +Speed, John +Spencer, Sir John +Spenser, Edmund +Speroni, Sperone +Spinelli, A. G. +Stanley, Ferdinando (Lord Strange) +_Steel Glass_ +Steele, Sir Richard +Stesichorus +Stevenson, R. L. +Stiefel, A. L. +Stockdale, Percival +_Stonehenge_ +Strange, Lord, _see_ Stanley, F. +_Stultifera Navis_ +Suckling, Sir Thomas +Suidas +_Summer's Last Will and Testament_ +Summo, Faustino +Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard) +_Sweet Sobs and Amorous Complaints_ +Swinburne, A. C. +Symonds, J. A. + +T., I. +Taccone, Baldassare +Talbot, Sir George +_Tale of Troy_ +_Tancia_ +Tansillo, Luigi +_Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_ +Tasso, Torquato +Tatham, John +Taylor, John +_Taylor's Pastoral_ +_Tears of the Muses_ +Tebaldeo, Antonio +_Tempest_ +Texeda, Jernimo de +_Theatrum Poetarum_ +Theocritus +Thomason, George +Thorndike, A. H. +_Thracian Wonder_ +Thynne, William +Tibullus +Ticknor, George +_Timone_ +Tiraboschi, Girolamo +_Tirena_ +_Tirsi_ +_Titirus and Galathea_ +Tofte, Robert +_Tottel's Miscellany_ +_Townley mysteries_ +_Triumph of Beauty_ +_Triumph of Peace_ +_Triumph of Virtue_ +Torraca, Francesco +Turberville, George +Turnbull, W. B. +_Twelfth Night_ +_Tivo Gentlemen of Verona_ +_Two Noble Kinsmen_ + +Ugolino, Braccio +Ulloa, Alonzo de +_Under der linden_ +Underhill, J. G. +Uniti, Accademia degli +Urceo +Urfe, Honor d' + +_Valle tenebrosa_ (_Vallis Opaca_) +Valle, Cesare della +Valois, House of +Vega, Lope de +_Vendemmiatore_ +_Venus and Adonis_ +_Verato_ +_Verato secondo_ +Vergil +Vergna, Maria della, _see_ La Fayette, Comtesse de +Vicente, Gil +Vida, Marco Girolamo +Villon, Franois +_Volpone_ +_Vuelta de Egypto_ + +W., A. +Waldron, F. G. +Walsingham, Sir Francis +Walther von der Vogelweide +Walton, Isaac +_War without Blows and Love without Suit (? Strife)_ +Ward, A. W. +Warner, William +Warton, Thomas +Waterson, Simon +Watson, Thomas, III +Web, William, _Lord Mayor_ +Webbe, William +Weber, H. W. +Webster, John +Webster, William +Weinberg, Gustav +Weise, Berthold +White, Edward +Wicksteed, P. H. +Wilcox, Thomas +Wilde, George +Wilson, H. +Wilson, Thomas +_Wily Beguiled_ +Windscheid, Katharina +Winstanley, William +_Winter's Tale_ +Wither, George +Wolfe, John +Wolsey, Thomas, _Cardinal_ +_Woman in the Moon_ +_Wonder of Women_ +Wood, Anthony +Wotton, Sir John +Wotton, Sir Henry +Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder +Wynkyn de Worde + +Yong (or Young), Bartholomew + +_Zanitonella_ +Zinano, Gabriele +Zola, Emil +Zurla, Lodovico + + + +Oxford: Horace Hart, Printer to the University. + + + + +Footnotes + + + + +[1] The often cited pastoralism of the _Song of Solomon_ resolves itself +on investigation into an occasional simile. These argue familiarity with +the scenes of pastoral life, but equally reveal the existence of the +contrast in the mind of the writer. It was on the orthodox interpretation +of this love-song that Remi Belleau founded his _clogues sacres_, but +they contain little or nothing of a pastoral nature. The same may be said +of Drayton's paraphrase, included in his _Harmony of the Church_ in 1591, +which is chiefly remarkable for the evident and honest pleasure with which +he rendered the unsophisticated meaning of the original. It is, however, +just possible that the Hebrew poem may have had some influence on pastoral +poetry in Italy. There is a monograph on the subject by A. Abbruzzese, _Il +Cantico dei Cantici in alcune parafrasi poetiche italiane: contributo alla +storia del dramma pastorale_, which, however, I have not seen. With regard +to possible Greek predecessors of Theocritus, it must be borne in mind +that there were singing contests between shepherds at the Sicilian +festival of Artemis, and it is possible that the competitors may have been +sufficiently influenced by other orders of civilization to have given a +definitely pastoral colouring to their songs. Little is known of their +nature beyond the fact that they probably contained the motive of the +lament for Daphnis, which appears to be as old as Stesichorus. They have +perished all but two lines which are found prefixed by way of motto to the +_Idyls_: + + [Greek: de/xai ta\n a)gatha\n ty/chan, de/xai ta\n y(gi/eian + a(\n phe/romen para\ ta~s theoy~, a(\n e)kale/ssato t/na] + +What I have wished to emphasize above is the fact that because shepherds +sang songs we have no reason to assume that these were distinctively +pastoral. In later times the pastoral generally acknowledged a theoretical +dependence on rustic song, and the popular compositions did actually now +and again affect literary tradition. But this was rare. + +[2] Details concerning the conception of the golden age will be found in +Moorman's _William Browne_, p. 59. + +[3] The tendency to form an ideal picture of his own youth is common both +to mankind and man. The romance of childhood is the dream with which age +consoles itself for the disillusionments of life. This it is that gives a +peculiar appropriateness to the title of Mr. Graham's pictures of +childhood in _The Golden Age_, a work of the profoundest insight and +genius, as delightful as it is unique. I am not aware that there has ever +been another author in English who could have written thus intimately of +children without once striking a false note. + +[4] There is some truth in the charge. Even Symonds wrote of Theocritus, +possibly with Fontenelle's words in his mind: 'As it is, we find enough of +rustic grossness on his pages, and may even complain that his cowherds and +goatherds savour too strongly of their stables.' (_Greek Poets_, ii. p. +246.) + +[5] Landscapes as decoration may be seen on the walls of the so-called +Casa Nuova at Pompeii. It should be remarked that one idyl is addressed to +Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, and it is quite possible that Theocritus may +have been a frequent visitor there. + +[6] Theocritus flourished in the first half of the third century B.C. Some +authorities place the younger poets more than a hundred years later. + +[7] Familiar to English readers through Matthew Arnold's translation. + +[8] Suidas says that Moschus came from Sicily, and some authorities speak +of him as a Syracusan. But in his 'Lament' he alludes to his 'Ausonian' +song, apparently as distinguished from that of Theocritus 'of Syracuse.' +The passage, however, is rendered obscure by an hiatus. Another tradition +made Theocritus a native of the island of Cos. More probably it was +between the time of his leaving Syracuse and that of his settling at +Alexandria that he was the pupil of the Coan poet and critic, Philetas. + +[9] Ernest Myers' version from Andrew Lang's delightful volume in the +Golden Treasury Series. + +[10] Placing the romance, that is, in the third century A.D. Authorities +assign it to various dates from the second to the sixth centuries, +according as they regard it as a model or an imitation of Heliodorus' +work. + +[11] A similar use of [Greek: a)nagn/risis] is very frequent in the +Italian pastoral drama, where, however, it is more probably derived from +Latin comedy. + +[12] This was not the first Italian version of Longus. _Daphnis and Chloe_ +had been translated directly from the Greek by Annibale Caro in the +previous century. + +[13] Two poems, written in close imitation of Theocritus' natural manner, +and entitled respectively _Moretum_ and _Copa_, have sometimes, but +wrongly, been attributed to Vergil. + +[14] _Greek Poets_, ii. p. 265. + +[15] Symonds speaks strongly on the point. 'Virgil not only lacks his +[Theocritus'] vigour and enthusiasm for the open-air life of the country, +but, with Roman bad taste, he commits the capital crime of allegorising.' +(_Greek Poets_, ii. p. 247.) + +[16] Seyffert's classical dictionary, as revised by Nettleship and Sandys +(1899), definitely assigns Calpurnius to the middle of the first century. +In that case the amphitheatre mentioned was no doubt the wooden structure +that preceded the Colosseum. + +[17] See, in Conington and Nettleship's _Virgil_, 1881, the essay on 'The +Later Bucolic Poets of Rome,' in which will be found a detailed account of +this very intricate controversy. + +[18] It would appear that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue +deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their +purpose. Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the +pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is +characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear. He +was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian +eclogue, and adopted it for definite purposes of utility. Boccaccio is +even more explicit, and I cannot do better than transcribe the very +interesting summary of the history of pastoral verse down to his day, +given in a letter addressed by him to Martino da Signa, which I shall +again have occasion to mention in dealing with his own contributions to +the kind. He writes: 'Theocritus Syracusanus Poeta, ut ab antiquis +accepimus, primus fuit, qui Graeco Carmine Buccolicum escogitavit stylum, +verum nil sensit, praeter quod cortex verborum demonstrat. Post hunc +Latine scripsit Virgilius, sed sub cortice nonnullos abscondit sensus, +esto non semper voluerit sub nominibus colloquentium aliquid sentiremus. +Post hunc autem scripserunt et alii, sed ignobiles, de quibus nil curandum +est, excepto inclyto Praeceptore meo Francisco Petrarca qui stylum praeter +solitum paululum sublimavit et secundum Eclogarum suarum materias continue +collocutorum nomina aliquid significantia posuit. Ex his ego Virgilium +secutus sum quapropter non curavi in omnibus colloquentium nominibus +sensum abscondere.' _Lettere di G. Boccaccio_, ed. Corazzini, 1877, p. +267. + +[19] Line 1228. See Skeat's note in the _Athenum_, March 1, 1902. + +[20] On all points connected with these compositions see the elaborate +monograph by Wicksteed and Gardner. + +[21] Dante's poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect. It +would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also +some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in +support of the above remarks. It is significant of their independence of +medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of +Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the +whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus. + +[22] Boccaccio was of course acquainted with Dante's eclogues, and in his +life of the poet he allows them considerable beauty. It seems never to +have occurred to him, however, to regard them as serious contributions to +pastoral literature, for, as we have already seen, he stigmatizes all +bucolic writers between Vergil and Petrarch as _ignobiles_. I do not think +this attitude was due to the influence of Petrarch having lessened his +admiration of Dante, as maintained by Wicksteed and Gardner, but simply to +his recognition of the absolute unimportance of the poems in question from +the historical point of view. + +[23] In this connexion it will be remembered that Dante places Brutus and +Cassius, the betrayers of Julius, in company with Judas, the betrayer of +Christ, as arch-traitors in the innermost circle of hell (_Inferno_, +xxxiv). He was no doubt influenced in this by his philosophical Ghibelline +tendencies. + +[24] The evolution of this idea, suggested of course by John X. II, can be +clearly traced in the mosaics at Ravenna. + +[25] So Hortis (_Scritti inediti di F. Petrarca_, pp. 221, &c.), who +combats A. W. von Schlegel's view that the Epy of Eclogue VII stands for +Avignon. + +[26] This spelling was current for some centuries, Spenser among others +adopting it. Indeed, _egloghe_ is still the prevalent form among Italian +scholars. + +[27] One other was discovered and published from MS. by Hortis, in his +_Studi sulle opere latini_, p. 351. + +[28] It is not impossible that Boccaccio may have begun composing eclogues +before his acquaintance with Petrarch, since the influence of the poems +sent by Dante to Giovanni del Virgilio has been traced in the eclogue +printed by Hortis, and in an early version of the _Faunus_, as well as in +the work of Boccaccio's correspondent, Cecco di Mileto. + +[29] So Aeneas Sylvius, in his _De Remedio Amoris_, after a particularly +virulent tirade against women, explained: 'De his loquor mulieribus quae +turpes admittunt amores.' + +[30] 'Syncerius' is the form used, but there can be little doubt who was +intended. + +[31] In the days when it was fashionable for men of learning to discuss +the laws of pastoral composition, a certain northern giant fell foul of +the Neapolitan's piscatory eclogues on somewhat theoretical grounds. +Having never seen the blue smile of the bay of Naples, he suggested that +the sea was an object of terror; forgetful of the monotonous setting of +pastoral verse, he complained that the piscatory life offered little +variety; finally, he contended that the technicalities of the craft were +unfamiliar to readers--but are we to suppose that the learned author of +the _Rambler_ was competent to tend a flock? + +[32] They were at least the first to appear in print. The contributors +were Girolamo Benivieni, of Florence, and Francesco Arsocchi and Fiorino +Boninsegni, of Siena. The first possibly deserves mention as having +introduced Pico della Mirandola as a character in his eclogues: some of +the poems of the last are noteworthy as having been composed as early as +1468. There exists a poem by Luca Pulci on the story of Polyphemus and +Galatea in the form of an eclogue. Luca died in 1470. Leo Battista +Alberti, the famous architect, who died in 1472, also left a poem, which +was published from MS. in 1850, with the heading 'Egloga.' This, however, +proves not to be strictly pastoral. Among other early ventures were ten +Italian eclogues in _terza rima_, by Boiardo. These, and also his ten +Latin eclogues, will be found printed from MS. in his _Poesie volgari e +latine_ (ed. A. Solerti, Bologna, 1894), while full accounts of both will +be found in the essays contributed by G. Mazzoni and A. Campani to the +_Studi su M. M. Boiardo_, edited by N. Campanini (Bologna, 1894). There +can be no doubt that the court of Lorenzo was full of pastoral experiments +in the vernacular for some time before the publication mentioned above. + +[33] Having regard to the general character of the _Ameto_, I am not sure +that it might not be possible to find some hidden meaning in the poem in +question, if one were challenged to do so. The allegory is, however, +mostly of the abstract kind, and the eclogue can hardly conceal allusions +to any actual events. + +[34] A very useful and representative, though of course by no means +complete, collection is that by G. Ferrario, in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[35] Castiglione also figured among the Latin eclogists of his day, and +the influence of his _Alcon_ is even traced by Saintsbury in _Lycidas_ +(_Earlier Renaissance_, p. 34). + +[36] It is said to have been by way of penance for having written the +_Vendemmiatore_ that he later undertook the composition of the _Lagrime di +San Pietro_, a lengthy religious poem, which remained unfinished at his +death in 1568. + +[37] _La Beca_ is ascribed by mistake to Luca Pulci in the first edition +of Symonds' _Renaissance_. + +[38] The best imitation is said to be the _Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo_ +by Francesco Baldovini (1643-1700), which is graceful, though rather more +satiric in tone than its model. + +[39] It differs, however, from most poems of the sort, in that the +langnage of the fisher craft in Italy was capable of the same wantonly +double meaning as was suggested to English writers by the name and terms +of the noble art of venery. This serves to differentiate it from the style +of pastoral, and suggests that we should rather class it along with such +works as Berni's _Caccia d'amore._ + +[40] It is occasionally traceable in the French _pastourelles_, but that +form of courtly composition never became popular south of the Alps. Its +vogue passed completely with the decline of Provenal tradition. D'Ancona +quotes one Italian example of the thirteenth century, the work of a +Florentine, Ciacco dell' Anguillaja. It begins gracefully enough: + + O gemma leziosa, + Adorna villanella, + Che se' pi virtudiosa + Che non se ne favella, + Per la virtude ch' hai + Per grazia del Signore, + Aiutami, che sai + Che son tuo servo, amore. + + +[41] Further evidence of the popularity of this poem will be found in the +existence of a religious parody beginning: + + O vaghe di Ges, o verginelle, + Dove n' andate si leggiadre e belle? + +(_Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari_, &c., Firenze, 1863, p. 105.) It is +founded on the fourteenth ceutury, not on the popular, version. + +[42] The foregoing remarks follow very closely Symonds' treatment in the +third chapter of his _Italian Literature_. In point of fact, I lit on +Donati's poem quite accidentally, before reading the chapter in question, +but I have made no scruple of availing myself of his guidance wherever it +was to be had. + +[43] Symonds has some very severe strictures on these songs from the moral +point of view. Judging from the actual songs themselves his remarks would +appear somewhat exaggerated, but if we take into consideration the +historical circumstances they are probably amply justified. + +[44] It is perhaps worth putting in a word of warning against the possible +confusion of this poem with Politian's Latin composition bearing the same +title. Ambra was a rustic resort in the neighbourhood of Florence, to +which Lorenzo was much attached. By the lover Lauro the author seems to +have meant himself. At least this is rendered probable by some lines near +the end of Politian's poem, in which the villa is again personified as a +nymph: + + Et nos ergo illi grata pietate dicamus + Hanc de Pierio contextam flore coronam, + Quam mihi Caianas inter pulcherrima nymphas + Ambra dedit patriae lectam de gramine ripae: + Ambra mei Laurentis amor, quam corniger Vmbro, + Vmbro senex genuit domino gratissimus Arno: + Vmbro suo tandem non erupturus ab alneo. + (_Opera,_ Basel, 1553, p. 581.) + + +[45] He was born at Montepulciano in 1454, and died, at the age of forty, +two years after Lorenzo. + +[46] Symonds, _Renaissance_, iv. p. 232, note 3. + +[47] It has been sometimes thought that the description of Mars in the lap +of Venus, in stanzas 122-3, suggested Botticelli's picture in the National +Gallery; but, though the lines are worthy of having inspired even a more +successful example of the painter's art, the resemblance is in this case +too general to warrant any such conclusion. + +[48] A favourite phrase of his. 'What has been well called _la volutt +idillica_--the sensuous sensibility to beauty, finding fit expression in +the Idyll--formed a marked characteristic of Renaissance art and +literature.' _Renaissance_, v. p. 170. + +[49] The similar alternation of verse and prose found in the French and +Provenal _cante-fables,_ notably in _Aucassin et Nicolette,_ is of a +different nature, for in them the prose served properly to explain and +connect the verse-passages which contained the actual story, and it +probably formed no part of the original composition. + +[50] I quote from the handy edition of Boccaccio's _Opere minori_ in the +'Biblioteca classica economica.' The passages cited above will be found on +pp. 246 and 250, or in the _Opere volgari_, 1827-34. xv. pp. 186 and 194. + +[51] It is probably no accident that, like Dante's poem, Boccaccio's +romance is styled a 'comedy.' Both represent, in allegorical form, the +ascent of the human soul from sin, through purgation, to the presence of +God. + +[52] It has been suggested that there is a gradual spiritualization in the +motives of the tales; but this would appear to be a somewhat fanciful +view. + +[53] Proemio, _Opere minori_, p. 145; _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 4. + +[54] _Opere minori_, p. 176, _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 60. + +[55] While greatly shortening the passage, and taking considerable +liberties in the way of paraphrase, I have endeavoured, as far as +possible, to preserve the style and diction of the original. This will be +found in the _Opere minori_, pp. 213, &c., _Opere volgari_, xv. pp. 126, +&c. + +[56] The description of the spring is from Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, III, +407, &c. No doubt a great deal more could be traced to Latin sources. + +[57] For details concerning tree-lists see Moorman's _William Brown_, p. +154. + +[58] Dunlop's notion of the verse being the important part, and the prose +only written to connect the varions eclogues, is clearly wrong. Verse +started by being subordinate in Boccaccio's romance, and remained so in +all subsequent examples. + +[59] _Prosa_ VIII. The whole passage was versified in Spanish by +Garcilaso, whence a portion found its way into Googe's eclogues. Among +other ingenions devices Sannazzaro mentions that of pinning down a crow by +the extremity of its wings and waiting for it to entangle its fellows in +its claws. If any reader should be tempted to imagine that the author has +been drawing on a fertile imagination, let him turn to the adventures of +one Morrowbie Jukes, as related by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, for a description +of this identical method of crow-catching as practised on the banks of an +Indian stream. + +[60] It may be well to point out that at times, as in Carino's invocation +to the Dryads, Symonds has infused into his version a beauty of diction of +which Sannazzaro appears to be innocent. + +[61] The _Arcadia_ must have been extant in its original form as early as +1481, when it served as model for the eclogues of Pietro Jacopo de +Jennaro. The earliest known MS. dates from 1489, and contains the first +ten _Prose_ and _Ecloghe_. In this form it was surreptitiously printed in +1502; the complete work first appeared in 1504. The earliest commentary, +that of Tommaso Porcacchi, appeared in 1558, and went through several +editions. An elaborate variorum edition was printed at Padua in 1723. I +have followed the text in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[62] Arcadia had been called 'the mother of flocks' in the Homeric _Hymn +to Pan_, and Polybius had described the softening effects of music upon +its rude inhabitants. See some interesting remarks on the snbject by J. E. +Sandys, in his lectures on the _Revival of Learning_, Cambridge, 1905; +also J. P. Mahaffy, _Rambles and Studies_, ch. xii. + +[63] Having had occasion in the course of the following pages to call +attention to certain inaccuracies of Ticknor's, I should like in this +place to record my indebtedness to what still remains the standard history +of Spanish literature. I have likewise made free use of +Fitzmaurice-Kelly's admirable monograph. + +[64] _Don Quixote_, pt. ii. ch. 62. + +[65] Calderon wrote an early play on the tale of Cephalus and Procris, +which met, it is said, with success. It was entitled _Celos aun del aire +matan_, and was styled a 'fiesta cantada.' Later in life he parodied it in +the 'comedia burlesca' entitled _Cefalo y Pocris_ (sic). Neither play +appears to have any connexion with the _Cefalo_ of Niccol da Correggio +(_v. post_, ch. iii). Both are printed in the third volume of Calderon's +comedies in the 'Biblioteca de autores espaoles,' 1848-50. The _Pastor +fido_ will be found in vol. iv. + +[66] Mr. Gosse has protested against the use of such terms as 'exotic' in +connexion with products of literary art, and no doubt the word has been +not a little abused. I employ it in its strict sense of 'introduced from +abroad, not indigenons,' and without implying any critical censure. + +[67] Though a Portuguese, and one of the most notable poets in his own +dialect, much of his poetical work is in Castillan. + +[68] So, at least, Theophilo Braga interprets what he calls 'o drama +amoroso das Eclogas,' in his monograph on _Bernardim Ribeiro e o +bucolismo_. Porto, 1897. + +[69] Ticknor is responsible for an unfortunate error, and much consequent +confusion, respecting this date. Some one had cited an imaginary edition +of 1545. Of this Ticknor confessed ignorance, but stated that he had in +his possession a copy consisting of 112 quarto leaves, printed at Valencia +in 1542. This description applies exactly to the earliest edition extant +in the British Museum, except in the matter of the date. There can be no +doubt that this is a mistake. The date 1542 is intrinsically impossible. +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, who himself dates the work 1558-9, points out that one +of the songs refers to events which took place in 1554. The sudden crop of +reprints, dated 1561 and 1562, proves the _Diana_ to have been then a new +book, and inclines me to place the actual publication somewhat after the +date suggested by Kelly. I may mention that Ticknor is also in error over +the date of Ribeiro's work, which he assigns to 1557. + +[70] See the collection of Latin student songs, _Gaudeamus! Carmina +uagorum selecta in usum laetitiae_, Leipzig, 1879, p. 124. + +[71] The novels alluded to will be found in the _Ecatommiti_, I. i, _Cent +Nouvelles nouvelles_, No. 82, and _Novelle de' Novizi_, No. 12. + +[72] _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, II. viii. (Dyce, ii. p. 172), and +_The Pilgrim_, IV. ii. (Dyce, viii. p. 66). + +[73] B. M., Roxburghe, III. 160, also II. 30. + +[74] References are best given to F. J. Child's monumental collection, in +five volumes, where all variants are printed. _Cowdenknows_ and the _Bonny +May_ are No. 217; _The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ 110, the _Bonny +Ilynd_ 50, _Child Waters_ 63, _The Laird of Drum_ 236, _Lizie Lindsay_ +226, _Lizie Baillie_ 227, _Glasgow Peggie_ 228, and _Johnie Faa_ 200. No +doubt further examples might be collected. + +[75] Similar shepherd-scenes are found not only in French but even in +Italian miracle plays. The tendency they indicate, however, is not +traceable in later pastoral, as it is with us. That such representations +as those of the Sienese 'Rozzi' formed no exception to this general +statement I shall have to show later. + +[76] For the literary history of the Wakefield cycle, see A. W. Pollard's +admirable introduction to the edition published by the Early English Text +Society. + +[77] They also criticize the angels' singing in curiously technical +language. + +[78] Towneley Plays, XII. l. 377, &c., and l. 386, &c., cf. Vergil, +_Bucolics_, IV. 6. + +[79] It is perhaps necessary to define the above use of 'idealization' as +that modification of photographie reality observable in all true art. It +is only when the methods of art have become self-conscious that realism +can become an end in itself. + +[80] _An English Garner_: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. +Pollard, 1903, p. 87. The carol is from a MS. at Balliol College. + +[81] The poem will be found in Arber's edition of the 'Miscellany,' p. +138, and in A. H. Bullen's reprint of _England's Helicon_, p. 56. In +dealing with isolated poems I have quoted, wherever possible, from +Bullen's reprints of the song books, &c. + +[82] Forst = cared for. + +[83] It first appeared as 'The Ploughman's Song' in the 'Entertainment at +Elvetham' in 1591. This has been recently claimed for Lyly. Without +expressing any opinion in this place as to the likelihood of such an +ascription for the bulk of the piece, it may be remarked that the song in +question is as like the rest of Breton's work in style as it is unlike +anything to be found in Lyly's writings. + +[84] Of all pedestrian, not to say reptilian, metres, this is perhaps the +most intolerable; indeed, it was not until touched to new life by the +genius of Blake that it deserved to be called a metre at all. + +[85] See R. B. McKerrow's articles on the Elizabethan 'classical metres' in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for December, 1901, and April, 1902, iv. +p. 172, and v. p. 6. + +[86] Eclogues i-iv were printed by Pynson, and the fifth by Wynkyn de +Worde early in the century; i-iii were twice reprinted about 1550. Barclay +died in 1552. + +[87] Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II. I suppose that +it is on account of this statement of Barclay's that English critics have +constantly referred to the work as pastoral. It is nothing but a prose +invective against court life. + +[88] See Dyce's _Skelton_, Introduction, p. xxxvi. + +[89] 'Eglogs Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Newly written by Barnabe Googe: +1563. 15. Marche.' Reprinted by Professer Arber from the Huth copy. + +[90] The title of the collection as originally published is obviously +ambiguous--is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There +is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases +by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice +seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be +little doubt that the title of Spenser's work was suggested by the +_Calender of Shepherds_. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear +that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin +Clout--that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the +shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for +shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I +think, a defensible spelling. + +[91] The alternative view, which would make Spenser his own commentator, +is not without supporters both in Germany and in this country. Even were +the question, however, one of greater importance from our point of view, +the 'proofs' so far adduced do not constitute sufficient of an _a priori_ +case to justify discussion here. + +[92] _Anglia_, iii. p. 266, and ix. p. 205. + +[93] At the end of the _Calender_ Spenser placed as his motto 'Merce non +mercede'--as merchandise, not for reward. + +[94] On all questions relating to the _Shepherd's Calender_ see C. H. +Herford's edition, to which I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. So +far as I am aware, we possess no more admirable edition of any monument of +English literature. + +[95] Cf. the titles of Drayton's _Idea_ and Basse's MS. eclogues, _infra_. + +[96] _Discoveries_, 1640 (-41), p. 116 (Gifford, 1875; cxxv). The +'ancients,' as appears from the context, are Chaucer and Gower. + +[97] _Apology for Poetry_, 1595; Arber's edition, p. 63. + +[98] Even Sidney's authorities break down to some extent. Theocritus +certainly modified the literary dialect in his pastoral idyls, and we may +recall that when Vergil began his third eclogue with the line-- + + Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei? + +a wit of Rome retorted: + + Die mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus?' anne Latinum? + +Or again it may be asked whether Lorenzo de' Medici is not as good a name +to conjure by as Jacopo Sannazzaro. + +[99] Some of the eclogues are mucn more pronouncedly dialectal than +others, but even within the limits of a single one, literary and dialectal +forms may often be found used indiscriminately. See Herford's remarks on +the subject. + +[100] 'February,' l. 33, &c. Lines 35-6 contain one of the few direct +reminiscences of Chaucer. Cf. _House of Fame_, II. 1225-6. Spenser +repeated the imitation, _Faery Queen_, VI. ix. 43-5, and was followed by +Fletcher, _Faithful Shepherdess_, V. v. 183-4. + +[101] _Pastime of Pleasure_, xxxv. 6, from the edition of 1555 (Percy +Soc., 1845, p. 113). + +[102] In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that +all anomalous lines in Spenser's measure become strict decasyllables when +done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident. My point is +that Chaucer's verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have +often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser's. The view I have +indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (_History of English +Poetry_, ii. p. 253). Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to +Chancer's influence to explain Spenser's anomalies, regards the metre in +question as derived from the old alliterative line. From this view I am +reluctantly forced to dissent. The alliterative line may be readily traced +in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes +and such comedies as _Royster Doyster_; and this tradition may have +affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even +the popular ideas concerning Chaucer's metre. But as to the actual origin +of Spenser's four-beat line there can surely be no doubt. + +[103] The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of +literary casuistry _(Spenser_, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly +astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and +similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the _Calender_ and +elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores +the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done +nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a +Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his +own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for +their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, +while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their +authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. +Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at +all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily +unknown. + +[104] The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is +contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue. It is entitled +_Poimenologia_. The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, +fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596. Dove became Master of Arts in +1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation +probably belongs to an earlier date. I am indebted for knowledge of and +information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof. Moore Smith, and +of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College. + +[105] Winstanley (_Lives of the English Poets_, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it +to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin +version of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. + +[106] _Faery Queen_, VII. vi. 349, &c. + +[107] Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the _Orlando_ and the +_Gerusalemme_, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in +Spenser can be directly referred. + +[108] See A. H. Bullen's edition, two vols., 1890-91. The poems in question +will be fonnd in vol. i, pp. 48, 58, 63 and 76. + +[109] It is worth noting that in the last stanza all the early editions +read 'Thenot' instead of 'Wrenock'; Thenot being the corresponding +character in Spenser. + +[110] Perhaps Anne Goodere: but the question is alien to our present +discussion. Some of the allusions in the eclogues are obvious, and +probably all the names, except perhaps the speaker's, conceal real +personalities. In the _Muses' Elizium_, on the other hand, most of the +names and characters appear to me fictitious. In connexion with the name +'Idea,' in which certain critics have wished to see a deep philosophical +meaning, I would suggest that it may be nothing but the feminine of +'Idaeus,' that is, a shepherd of Mount Ida, a name found in the second +eclogue of Petrarch. It is, however, true that the word 'idea' bore the +meaning of 'an ideal,' in which sense, no doubt, we occasionally find it +applied to England. + +[111] Concerning translations of Watson's Latin poems, I may be allowed to +refer to a paper contributed to the _Modern Language Quarterly_, February, +1904, vi. p. 125. + +[112] Cf. the passage from Spenser's October eclogue, quoted on p. 88. + +[113] A certain similarity between this poem and the song in _Love's +Labour's Lost_, beginning: + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May; + +has caused them to be at times ascribed to Shakespeare. They are +subscribed 'Ignoto' in _England's Helicon_, but appeared among the poems +published with Barnfield's _Lady Pecunia_ in 1598, a tail of thirty lines +of very inferior quality being substituted for the singularly perfect and +effective final couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in +the _Passionate Pilgrim_, this time with both the couplet and the +addition. The _Helicon_ version is certainly by far the best, and not +improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of +Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in _An English Miscellany_, +Oxford, 1901. + +[114] Gascoigne's _Steel Glass_ is far rather medieval in conception. + +[115] Compare with the lines in _Rosalynd_, beginning 'Phoebe sat, sweet +she sat,' those in _Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_, beginning, 'Down I +sat, I sat down,' and see A. H. Bullen's _Poems from Elizabethan Romances_, +1890, p. xi. + +[116] The copy of _Pan's Pipe_ in the British Museum wants the _Tale_, but +this will be found by itself marked C. 40. e. 68 (2, 3). + +[117] Collier and Hazlitt supposed two William Basses, but the balance of +evidence seems against the theory. See S. L. Lee in _Dic. Nat. Biog_., and +the edition by R. W. Bond, 1893. + +[118] Fleay (_Biographical Chronicle_, i. p. 67) identifies Musidore with +Lodge, and 'Hero's last Musaeus' with H. Petowe. The latter +identification, which had already been proposed by Collier +(_Bibliographical Account_, i. p. 130), is in all probability correct. + +[119] Printed by me in the _Modern Language Quarterly_, July, 1901, iv. p. +85. + +[120] These are missing in most copies of the book; the only one I know +containing them is in the Bodleian. + +[121] I do not know who started the idea. It was mentioned in the +_Retrospective Review_ (ii. p. 180) in 1820, accepted by Sommer, and +elaborated with small success by K. Windscheid. Masson makes no mention of +it in his edition of Milton's poetical works. The author of _Lycidas_ was +probably a reader and admirer of Browne's poems, but of _Britannia's +Pastorals_ rather than of the decidedly inferior eclogues. + +[122] The _Arcadian Princess_, translated by Brathwaite from Mariano +Silesio, a kind of metaphorical manual of judicial polity, is in no way +pastoral. It may be remarked that in 1627 there appeared as the work of +one I. D. B. an 'Eclogue, ou Chant Pastoral,' on the marriage (1625) of +Charles and Henrietta Maria, in which two Scotch Shepherds, Robin and +Jacquet, discourse in French Alexandrines. _Taylor's Pastoral_ of 1624 +again, a fanciful treatise of religious and secular history, does not +properly belong to pastoral tradition. + +[123] One of these appeared two years previously, entitled _The Shepherd's +Oracle_. + +[124] Appended to the third edition of the _Arcadia_, 1598. + +[125] Appended to the _Arcadia_ in 1613. + +[126] _Arcadia_, 1590, fol. 237 verso. + +[127] _Opera_, Basel, 1553, p. 622. + +[128] The song is said to be between 'two nymphs, each answering other +line for line'; but the simple alternation adopted by Spenser makes +nonsense of the present poem. The above arrangement seems to distribute +the lines best; viz. the first quatrain to Phillis, with interposition of +lines 2 and 4 by Amaryllis, the second quatrain to Amaryllis, with +interposition of line 2 only by Phillis. + +[129] Others in the _Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, and Walton's _Complete +Angler_, 1653. + +[130] So, rather than 'Fair-lined,' as Bullen prints; but query +'Fur-lined.' + +[131] This is the text of _England's Helicon_, which is superior to that +in the play, except for the omission of the couplet in brackets, and +possibly in the reading 'hath sworn' for 'is sworn,' in l. 11. + +[132] From E. K. Chambers' _English Pastorals_, p. 113. The date is +uncertain, but a tune of the name was extant in 1603. The earliest +recorded text is a broadside, of about 1650, in the Roxburghe collection +(III. 142). The conjecture of an 'original issue, _circa_ 1600,' is on the +whole plausible. In that case there was, somewhere, a poet capable of +anticipating the particular cadences of _Sirena_ and _Agincourt_, and that +poet is more likely to have been Drayton than another. See Ebsworth's +edition for the Ballad Society (_Roxburghe Ballads_, vi. p. 460). + +[133] _Lycidas_ is almost too familiar, one might suppose, to need +comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different +authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt +to view the work critically in relation to pastoral tradition as a whole. + +[134] When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as 'easy, +vulgar, and therefore disgusting,' he was but exhibiting a critical +incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters. + +[135] For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of +parallel passages--as well as some of doubtful relevance--the reader may +be referred to F. W. Moorman's monograph. I use the text of G. Goodwin's +edition of Browne's poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., +1894. + +[136] K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third +book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne. Its merit +is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; +and Browne's work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for +depriving or relieving him of its authorship. + +[137] + + The hatred which they bore was only this, + That every one did hate to do amiss; + Their fortune still was subject to their will; + Their want--O happy!--was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.) + +Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that + + First of all joys that unto sin belong-- + The sweet felicity of doing wrong. + +[138] Pail. + +[139] The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to +ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful +minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been +constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on _Spanish +Literature in England_, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his +wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this +country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. +18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both +on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke +Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator +himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' +The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of +Spanish by Thomas Wils Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle +of Southampt who was then uppon y'e Spanish voiage w'th my Lord of +Essex--Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers +are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish +nation, as is of y'e English of [_sic_] y't admirable & never enough +praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.' + +[140] Arber's edition, p. 83. + +[141] See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his +paper on the _Pastoral Influence in the English Drama_. All needful +apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness' +'Variorum' edition of the play. + +[142] Macaulay once remarked of the _Faery Queen_, that few and weary are +the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. It might with +equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere +the Arcadian princesses in Sidney's romance are rescued from the power of +Cecropia. + +[143] Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the +Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here. + +[144] Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile +of the first edition, 1891. + +[145] Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10. + +[146] K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the _Arcadia_ (_Sir Philip Sidneys +Arcadia und ihre Nachlufer_, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to +find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's +influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style +and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet +belonged essentially to the Spanish school. + +[147] Analyses of the _Arcadia_ will be fouud in all works upon the novel +from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which +is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the _Retrospective +Review_, 1820, ii. p. 1. + +[148] An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the +critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his _Art of English +Poesy_ (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas +Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the _Diana_, +given above (p. 141, note). + +[149] A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum. + +[150] See Jusserand's _English Novel in the time of Shakespeare_, 1890, p. +274. + +[151] The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the _Astre_ +as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most +concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here. + +[152] I should at once say that the view of the development of the +pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set +forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have +swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, +however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I +believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an +appendix. + +[153] 'Orfeo cantando giugne all' Inferno' is one of the stage directions. + +[154] For an elaborate example (1547) of this kind of stage, on which +various localities were simultaneously represented, see Petit de +Julleville, _Histoire de la langue et de la littrature franaise_, ii. +pp. 416-7. + +[155] Concerning the play see the account given by Symonds, together with +his admirable translation in _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece_, +ii. p. 345, also an elaborate essay, 'L'Orfeo del Poliziano alla corte di +Mantova,' by Isidoro del Lungo, in the _Nuova antologia_ for August, 1881, +and A. D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro italiano_, ii. pp. 2 and 106. The +standard edition of Poliziano's Italian works, that by Carducci, is +unfortunately not in the British Museum. + +[156] A note concerning the use of the term 'nymph' may save confusion. +Creizenach remarks that the introduction of a nymph as the beloved of a +shepherd is a peculiarity of the renaissance pastoral which manifestly +owes its origin to Boccaccio's _Ninfale fiesolano_ (_Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_, ii. p. 196). In so far as this view implies that the +'nymphs' of pastoral convention are the same order of beings as those +either of the _Ninfale_ or of classical myth, it appears to me utterly +erroneous. The 'nymphs' who love the shepherds in the renaissance +pastorals are nothing but shepherdesses. The confusion no doubt began with +Boccaccio. The nymph of Diana in the _Ninfale_ is, as we have already +seen, nothing but a nun in pagan disguise. The nymphs of the _Ameto_ are +represented as of the classical type, but their amorous confessions reveal +them as in nowise differing from mortal woman. The gradual change in the +connotation of the word is one of the results of the blending of Christian +and classical ideas. The original elemental or local spirits even in Greek +myth acquired some of the characteristics of votaries (as in the legeud of +Calisto), and these Christian tradition tended to accentuate, while +popular romance, and in many cases contemporary manners, facilitated the +connecting of such characters with tales of secret passion. Gradually, +however, the idea of illicit love gave place to one merely of unrestrained +natural desire, the religious elements of the character were forgotten as +the supernatural had been earlier, and 'nymph' came to be no more than the +feminine of 'shepherd' in an ideal society which by its freedom of +intercourse, as by its honesty of dealing, presented a complete contrast +to the polished circles of aristocratic Italy. + +[157] A small circular picture in _chiaroscuro_ among the arabesques of +the _cappella nova_ in the cathedral at Orvieto. It represents the +youthful Orpheus crowned with the laureate wreath playing before Pluto and +Proserpine upon a fiddle or crowd of antique pattern. At his feet lies +Eurydice, while around are spirits of the other world. + +[158] In some passages of this speech the resemblance with Ovid is very +close: + + famaque si ueteris non est mentita rapinae, + uos quoque iunxit Amor... + omnia debentur nobis, paulumque morati + serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam... + haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos, + iuris erit uestri; pro munere poscimus usum. + quod si fata negant ueniam pro coniuge, certum est + nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum. (_Met_. x. 28, &c.) + + +[159] Cf. _Amores_, II. xii, ll. 1, 2, 5, and 16. + +[160] This interpretation of the passion of Orpheus, characteristic as it +is of renaissance thought, was not original. Though unknown in early +times, it is found in Phanocles, a poet probably of the third or fourth +century B. C. + +[161] So original: revision 'o o.' + +[162] The earliest edition I have seen is that contained in the 'Opere' of +June 10, 1507, where the heading runs: 'Fabula di Caephalo cposta dal +Signor Nicolo da Correggia a lo Illustrissimo. D. Hercole & da lui +repsentata al suo floretissimo Populo di Ferrara nel. M. cccc. lxxxvi. +adi. xxi. Ianuarii.' In this edition, printed at Venice by Manfrido Bono +de Monteferrato, the works are said to be 'Stampate nouamente: & ben +corrette.' Bibliographers record no edition previous to 1510. The date in +the heading is either a misprint, or refers to the year 1486-7 according +to the Venetian reckoning. See D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro_, ii. p. +128-9. Symonds (_Renaissance_, v. p. 120) quotes some Latin lines as from +the prologue to this play. This is an error. He has misread D'Ancona, to +whom he refers (ed. 1877), and from whom he evidently copied the +quotation. The lines actually occur in the prologue to a Latin play on the +subject of the taking of Granada. + +[163] Rossi, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_, 1886, p. 171, note 2. + +[164] I do not, of course, mean that no mythological plays were produced +between the days of Correggio and those of Beccari, but that they show no +signs of consistent development in a pastoral or indeed in any other +direction. + +[165] _Il Verato secondo_, 1593, p. 206. + +[166] _Compendio della poesia tragicomica, tratto dai duo Verati_, 1602, +pp. 49-50. + +[167] In this and the following section I have used the texts of the +exceedingly useful collection of _Drammi de' boschi_ in the 'Biblioteca +classica economica,' which comprises the _Aminta, Pastor fido, Filli di +Sciro_, and _Alceo_. + +[168] Symonds, in dealing with Tasso in the sixth volume of his _Italian +Renaissance_, lays, to my mind very justly, considerable stress upon this +quality. + +[169] Quoted by Serassi, Tasso's biographer, in his preface to the Bodoni +edition of the play (Crisopoli, 1789), p. 8. + +[170] See Angelo Solerti, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Torino, Loescher, 1895, i. +p. 181, &c. Carducci, 'Storia dell' _Aminta_,' the third of the _Saggi_, +80, 1st edition. + +[171] Leigh Hunt pointed out, in some interesting if rather uncritical +remarks prefixed to his translation of the _Aminta_ (London, 1820), that +some at any rate of the regular choruses cannot have formed part of the +original composition. In fact the first edition (Aldus, 1581) contains +those to Acts I and V only; that to Act II appeared in the second edition +(Ferrara, 1581), and also in the collected _Rime_ (Aldus, 1581); the rest +were added in the Aldine quarto of 1590. + +[172] Supposing always that this representation, of which Filippo +Baldinucci, in his _Notizie dei professori del disegno_ (sec. iv, dec. +vii; 1688, p. 102), has left a glowing account, was a representation of +the _Aminta_, and not, as some have maintained, of the _Intrichi d' +amore_, another play sometimes ascribed to Tasso. + +[173] Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce's _Dido_; +and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is +extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of +the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209). The prologue to +the _Pastor fido_ is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of +Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_, which begins with another Ovidian +reminiscence (_Amores_, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken +by a personification of night, that of Ongaro's _Alceo_ by Venus, of +Castelletti's _Amarilli_ by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' of Cristoforo +Lauro's _Frutti d'amore_ by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana's _Prova +amoroso_, by Hercules. The list might be extended indefinitely. Contarini, +at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his +_Finta Fiammetta_ has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, +Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of _amoretti_; that +of his _Fida ninfa_ is spoken by the shade of Petrarch. + +[174] Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, +1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would +identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt +possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience +conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino +contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see +Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and +sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal +Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the +part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent +attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred +the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on +his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on +three of Pigna's wooden _canzoni_, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is +appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the +words: + + Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava + Pur di colei che nell' istessa rete + Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse; + E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo + Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.) + +The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. +94), be sought in an epigram, _Ad Licorim_, found among Pigna's Latin +_Carmina_ (1553). The whole incident throws a curious light on the +pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, +however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while +mentioning that by the _antro dell' Aurora_ was no doubt intended the room +in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of +Leonora, still known as the _sala dell' Aurora_, from a wretched fresco on +the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi. + +[175] _Aminta_, I. i; _Canace_, IV. ii. + +[176] _Lettere del Guarini_, Veneta, Ciotti, 1615, p. 92. See Rossi, +56^{1} + +[177] I have already had occasion to point out that, from the time of +Boccaccio onwards, a nymph of Diana might represent a nun, but the whole +of Silvia's relations with Dafne make it plain that she is in no way vowed +to virginity. Her being represented as a follower of Diana implies no more +than that she is fancy-free, and so in a sense under the protection of the +virgin goddess. This use of the phrase is as old as Theocritus: 'Artemis, +be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow' (_Idyl_ 27). And it is so used +by Silvia herself in her proud and petulant retort to Aminta: 'Pastor, non +mi toccar; son di Diana' (III. i). + +[178] The idea passed from Italian into English verse: + + tell me why + This goblin 'honour,' by the world enshrined, + Should make men atheists, and not women kind-- + +to improve upon the exceedingly neat bowdlerization which the Rev. J. W. +Ebsworth has sought to palm off as the genuine text of Tom Carew. + +[179] We have, in the passages quoted, a foretaste of the priggish +extravagance of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. That there should have been +found critics to combine just but wholly otiose condemnation of Cloe with +reverential appreciation of the absurdities of Clorin and Thenot, and to +clap applause to the self-conscious virtue, little removed from smugness, +in which the 'moral grandeur' of the Lady of the Ludlow masque is clothed, +is indeed a striking witness to the tyranny of conventional morality. If +virginal purity were in fact the hypocritical convention which it is to +some extent possible to condone in the _Aminta_, but which becomes wholly +loathsome in the work of Fletcher, the sooner it disappeared from the +region of practical ethics the better for the moral health of humanity. + +[180] Menagio's edition is said to have appeared in 1650, but I have only +seen the edition of 1655, which I also notice is the date given by Weise +and Prcopo (p. 319). The play is said to have been printed in Italy alone +some two hundred times; there are twenty French translations, five German, +at least nine English, several in Spanish and other languages. A version +in the Slavonic Illyrian dialect appeared in 1598; a Latin one in iambic +trimeters by Andrea Hiltebrando, a Pomeranian physician, in 1615; another +in modern Greek in 1745. See Carducci, p. 99. + +[181] Published, together with Paglia's reply, by Antonio Bulifon in his +_Lettere memorabili_, Naples, 1698, iii. p. 307. The play had already been +adversely criticized by Francesco Patrizi and Gian Vincenzo Gravina. + +[182] 'L'Aminta difeso e illustrato da G. Fontanini,' Roma, 1700. Another +edition appeared in 1730 at Venice, with further annotations by Uberto +Benvoglienti. + +[183] It is, however, perfectly true that the play, together with the +writings in its defence and the notes, to be considered later, occupied +the attention of the author for a period of fully twenty years, and it is +possibly thus that the tradition arose. I may say that throughout this +section I am under deep obligations to Rossi's monograph. + +[184] Rossi, p. 183. I shall return to the point. + +[185] In later days he was often called Giovanbattista, but the addition +is without authority, in spite of its appearance in the British Museum +catalogue. + +[186] This preliminary history is drawn, as Guarini himself points out in +his notes of 1602, from Pausanias (VII. 21), though less closely than he +there implies. The rest of the plot he claimed as original, but it is to a +large extent merely a rehandling of the same motive. + +[187] Carino is said to represent Guarini in the same manner as Tirsi does +Tasso. + +[188] There is a legend that this scene was placed on the Index. This, +anyhow, cannot refer to the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_, but only to the +_Index Expurgatorius_, which was at no time an officiai publication. But +the whole story appears to be without foundation. + +[189] In comparing the two pieces, it is worth remembering that, whereas +the _Aminta_ contains about 2,000 lines, the _Pastor fido_ runs to close +upon 7,000. + +[190] _Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo XVI_, Milano, 1880, +pp. 244-7. See Rossi, p. 264. His argument is that it anticipated a revolt +against the conventional nature of domestic love, reflecting better than +any other dramatic work the ideas that towards the end of the +_cinquecento_ were, according to him, leading in the direction of a moral +regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile +his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the +counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a +tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical +convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of +domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid tragedy +of Guarini's own family. + +[191] The quotations are from the opening scene of either play. The +parallel is that selected by Symonds for quotation, and is among the most +striking examples of Guarini's method, but similar instances might be +collected from almost every scene. + +[192] G. B. Manso, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Venezia, Denchino, 1621, p. 329. +Carducci, p. 99. + +[193] 'Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale di Battista Guarini, Dedicata +al Ser'mo. D. Carlo Emanuele Duca di Sauoia, &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S. A. +con la Ser'ma. Infante D. Caterina d'Austria.' The tradition of a +performance on this occasion dates from early in the seventeenth century, +and is endorsed by the poet's nephew and biographer, Alessandro Guarini. +It is in part due to a confusion of words: the play was _presentato_, but +not _rappresentato_. + +[194] Guarini, _Lettere_, Venetia, Ciotti, 1615, p. 174. Rossi, 228^{7}. + +[195] At least one of these, a worthless production by a certain Niccolo +Averara, is extant. That of 1598 was probably spoken by Hymen. Rossi, pp. +232-3. + +[196] It has sometimes been supposed that the Baldini edition, Ferrara, +1590, was the earlier, but Guarini's letter is conclusive. + +[197] Of this edition the British Museum possesses a magnificent copy on +large and thick paper, bearing on the title-page the inscription: 'Al +Ser^{mo}. Principe di Vinegia Marin Grimani,' showing that it was the +presentation copy to the Doge at the time of publication. Another copy on +large but not on thick paper is in my own possession, and has on the +title-page the remains of a similar inscription beginning apparently 'All +Ill^{mo} et R^{mo}...' I rather suspect it of being the copy presented to +the ecclesiastic, whoever he was, who represented the Congregation of the +Index at Venice. Innumerable editions followed; I have notes of no less +than fifty during the half-century succeeding publication, i.e. 1590-1639. + +[198] The authorship of the notes is placed beyond doubt by a letter of +Guarini's, otherwise it might have been doubted whether even he could have +been guilty of the fulsome self-laudation they contain. On the controversy +see Rossi, pp. 238-43. + +[199] Certain modern writers have shown themselves worthy descendants of +the criticaster of Vicenza by insisting that the play should properly be +called the _Pastorella fida_. Guarini was weak enough to reply to +Malacreta's carpings in his notes, and thereby exposed himself to similar +attacks from posterity. + +[200] The absurdity lies of course in the commanding merit ascribed to the +piece. As Saintsbury has pointed out in his _History of Criticism_, had +Aristotle known the romantic drama of the renaissance, the _Poetics_ would +have been largely another work. + +[201] Summo evidently thought that Pescetti's defence at least was the +work of Guarini himself. There is no evidence that this was so, but Rossi +considers it not improbable that Guarini at least directed the labours of +his supporters. + +[202] It is unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of these +plays. The following titles, however, quoted by Stiefel in his review of +Rossi, may be mentioned. Scipione Dionisio, _Amore cortese_, 1570 (?) (not +the Alessandro Dionisio whose _ecloga_, entitled _Amorosi sospiri_, with +intermezzos of a mythological character, was printed in 1599); Niccol +degli Angeli, _Ligurino_, 1574 (so Allacci, _Drammaturgia_, 1755; the only +edition in the British Museum is dated 1594; Venus and Silenus are among +the characters, and the prologue is spoken by 'Tempo'); Cesare della +Valle, _Filide_, 1579; Giovanni Fratta, _La Nigella_, 1580; Cristoforo +Castelletti, _Amarilli_, 1580 (which edition, though given by Allacci, +appears to be now unknown, as is also the date of composition; a second +edition appeared in 1582; the prologue was spoken by 'Apollo in habito +pastorale,' and Ongaro contributed a commendatory sonnet); Giovanni Donato +Cuchetti, _La Pazzia_, 1581; Pietro Cresci, _Tirena_, 1584; Alessandro +Mirari, _Mauriziano_, 1584; Dionisio Rondinelli, _Galizia_, 1583 (his +_Pastor vedovo_ was printed in 1599, with a prologue spoken by +'Primavera,' and an echo scene). + +[203] Preface to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_, p. 12. + +[204] This episode of the double love of Celia formed the subject of an +attack on the play. The author wrote an elaborate defence which was +printed at Ancona in 1612. It runs to 221 quarto pages. + +[205] I am aware that attempts have been made to find evidence of Italian +influence in Lyly, but of this later. + +[206] The piece appeared anonymously, but the authorship is attested by +Nashe in his preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 1589. Some songs from the +play also appear over Peele's signature in _England's Helicon_, 1600. I +have quoted from A. H. Bullen's edition of Peele's works, 2 vols. 1888. + +[207] Fraunce's translation in his _Ivychurch_ (_vide post_), and J. +Wolfe's edition, together with the _Pastor fido_, both 1591. + +[208] Like Dove. Cf. p. 98. + +[209] i.e. coupled impartially with its reward. + +[210] Umpire. + +[211] Groves. + +[212] The entry of the piece to R. Jones, on July 26, 1591, in the +Stationers' Register, coupled with the fact that _England's Parnassus_ +quotes almost entirely from printed works, puts this practically beyond +doubt. It is of course possible that a copy may yet be discovered. + +[213] Dr. Henry Jackson, than whom no classical scholar has devoted more +study to the Elizabethan drama, draws my attention to the fact that a +somewhat indelicate passage in the play, obscurely hinted at in Drummond's +notes (ed. Bullen, ii. p. 366), evidently forms the basis of that poet's +own epigram 'Of Nisa' (ed. Turnbull, p. 104). + +[214] Two other plays of Lyly's appear at first sight to present pastoral +features. There are five 'shepherds' among the dramatis personae of +_Mydas_, but they appear in one scene only (IV. ii), and merely represent +the common people, introduced to comment on the actions of the king. The +names, as is usual with Lyly, except in the case of comic characters, are +classical. The other play is _Mother Bombie_, which, however, is nothing +but a comedy of low life, combining the tradition of the Latin comedy with +the native farce, which goes back through _Gammer Gurton_ to the old +interludes. It contains a good deal of honest fun and a notable lack of +Euphuism. + +[215] For many years, indeed, his romance continued to run through +ever-fresh editions, that of 1636 being the twelfth. It is clear, however, +that its public had changed. + +[216] It is a curious fact that the authorship of these songs, though it +has never been seriously questioned, rests on very uncertain evidence. I +may refer to an article on the subject in the _Modern Language Review_ for +October, 1905, i. p. 43. + +[217] A play entitled 'Iphis and Ianthe, or A marriage without a man,' was +entered on the Stationers' Register on June 29, 1660, as the work of +Shakespeare. + +[218] Lyly may very possibly have known the story of Hesione cited by R. W. +Bond (ii. 421), but it presents no particular points of similarity, and the +outline of the legend was of course common property. A similar sacrifice +forms an episode in _Orlando furioso_, VIII. 52, &c.; the sacrifice of a +youth to an _orribile serpe_ also forms the central incident in Orazio +Serono's _Fida Armilla_, 1610; while the motive of the annual sacrifice +occurs of course in the _Pastor fido_. + +[219] There can be little doubt as to the identity of the 'Commoedie of +Titirus and Galathea,' entered on the Stationers' Register under date +April 1, 1585; and now that, thanks to Bond's researches, it is evident +that the reference to _Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus_ (see III. iii) +was no _ex post facto_ prophecy, but borrowed from Richard Harvey's +_Astrological Discourse_ of 1583, there is no reason to suppose a double +date. + +[220] Bond argues in favour of the extant text being mutilated, and +representing a late revival about 1600. I am not prepared, and in the +present place certainly not concerned, to dispute his hypothesis; whatever +the cause, the literary result is unsatisfactory, and from his remarks +concerning its dramatic merits I must emphatically dissent. + +[221] Bond's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for _nip_ of the quarto. + +[222] This story, strangely characterized as 'extremely attractive' by +Bond, is elaborated from that given by Ovid in the eighth book of the +_Metamorphoses_. I have elsewhere alluded to the theory of Italian +pastoral influence in Lyly. I had in mind L. L. Schiicking's monograph on +_Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komodie zur italienischen bis +Lilly_, Halle, 1901, but must here state that to my mind he has completely +failed to prove his thesis. I need not enter into details in this place, +but may refer to Bond's discussion in his 'Note on Italian influence in +Lyly's plays' (ii. p. 473). There is, however, one passage in _Love's +Metamorphosis_ (not mentioned by Schucking) which suggests a reminiscence +of the _Aminta_; Cupid, namely, describes himself (V. i.) as 'such a god +that maketh thunder fall out of Joves hand, by throwing thoughts into his +heart.' Compare the lines in Tasso's Prologue: + + un dio... + Che fa spesso cader di mano a Marte + La sanguinosa spada... + E le folgori eterne al sommo Giove. + +I give the parallel for what it is worth. So far as I am aware it is the +only one which can claim the least plausibility, and alone it is clearly +insufficient to prove any borrowing on the part of the English playwright. + +[223] Bond adduces some fairly strong reasons for supposing it later than +1590. A. W. Ward was evidently unable to make up his mind upon the +question, and treats the play at the head of the list of Lyly's works, in +which it seems to me that he hardly does justice to his critical powers. + +[224] A very similar reminiscence of Marlowe's rhythm: /p And think I wear +a rich imperial crowne, p/ occurs in the old play of _King Leir_, which +must belong to about the same date, _c._ 1592. + +[225] It is possible, though of course by no means necessary, that we have +a specifie reminiscence of the lines in _Faustus_: + + More lovely than the monarch of the sky + In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.) + + +[226] I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays +which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the +question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, +mention the _Atalanta_ of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than +Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 +to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though +the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion +with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced. + +[227] See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to +the _Ivychurch_, in which the translation appeared, 1591. + +[228] The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that +Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the +Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in +the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's +relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die +englischen Tasso-bersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in _Anglia_, vol. xi +(1889), p. 11. + +[229] 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would +be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oim! tu vivi; +Altri non gi': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules. + +[230] Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as +happened to be more familiar with that language. + +[231] Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the +opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has +surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests +ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose _Theatrum +Poetarum_, 1675, we find _s.v._ Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): +'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' +Who this John was is open to question. The _Dic. Nat. Biog._ recognizes +three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John +Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, +Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (_fl._ 1621-50), author of _God's +Revenge against Murder_, and of translations from French and Dutch; and +(3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British +Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, +of Exeter, author of _God's Revenge_ and other works, and John Reynolds +the translator (to whom the _Aminta_ is tentatively ascribed). I am not +aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in +the composition of _God's Revenge_ to make one suppose the author capable +of producing the translation of the _Aminta_. On the other hand, it must +be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably +in the _Flower of Fidelity_, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on +a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John +Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is +second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present +case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with +this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which +appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end +of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with +Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable +series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the +Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. +112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice +in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ This ascription is based upon the entry in the +Stationers' Register, which runs: '7 Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred +for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A +booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... +vj^{d}' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an +epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more +reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ +further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is +proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his +remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_ (Parma, 1789), +ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the +dates 1628 and 1698. + +[232] Streams or inlets. + +[233] The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the +translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line. + +[234] Later translations of the _Aminta_ may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, +1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; +Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by +Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had +the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of +the _Aminta_ as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention +that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of +Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the +B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared _c._ 1650. I +have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the +second belongs to _c._ 1730. + +[235] The facts are as follow. The entry on the Stationers' Register is +dated September 16, 1601, and does not mention the translator's name. The +first edition, quarto, 1602, contains a sonnet by Daniel, addressed to Sir +Edward Dymocke, in which he refers to the translator as the knight's +'kinde Countryman.' This is followed by 'A Sonnet of the Translator, +dedicated to that honourable Knight his kinsman, Syr Edward Dymock.' After +this comes an epistle dedicatory addressed to Sir Edward, and signed by +Simon Waterson, the publisher, dated 'London this last of December. 1601.' +In it the writer speaks of Sir Edward's 'nearenesse of kinne to the +deceased Translator.' The play was reprinted in 1633, in 12mo, with an +epistle dedicatory by John Waterson to 'Charles Dymock, Esquire,' +beginning: 'That it may appeare unto the world, that you are Heire of what +ever else was your Fathers, as well as of his vertues, I heere restore +what formerly his gracious acceptance made onely his: Which as a +testimonie to all, that it received Life from none but him, was content to +loose its being with us, since he ceased to bee.' Through the hyperbolical +ambiguity of this passage it clearly appears that Charles was Sir Edward's +son, but not in the least that he was the translator as has been supposed, +still less that he was the son of the translator, as has also been +suggested. The play is first mentioned in the second edition (1782) of the +_Biographia Dramatica_, where the translator is said to be a 'Mr. Dymock,' +and Charles is identified as his son. This was copied in the 1812 edition, +and also by Halliwell, while Mr. Hazlitt has the astonishing statement +that the version was by 'Charles Dymock and a second person unknown.' The +_Dic. Nat. Biog._ does not recognize any of the persons concerned. There +is, however, one curious piece of evidence which has been so far +overlooked. In the list of plays, namely, appended by the publisher Edward +Archer to his edition of the _Old Law_ in 1656, occurs the entry: +'Faithfull Shepheardesse. C[omedy]. John Dymmocke.' The compiler has of +course confused the translation with Fletcher's play, but the ascription +is nevertheless interesting. If we insist on identifying the translator at +all, it must be with this John Dymocke. The entries in Archer's list, +however, are far too untrustworthy for their unsupported evidence to carry +much weight. A translation 'by D. D. Gent. 12mo. 1633,' recorded by +Halliwell and others, is evidently due to a series of blunders on the part +of bibliographers, though what the origin of the initials is I have been +unable to discover. They are probably due to Coxeter. + +[236] MS. Addit. 29,493. + +[237] I understand that an edition of Fanshawe's works is in preparation +for Mr. Bullen. + +[238] Later translations of the _Pastor fido_ appeared in 1782 [by +William Grove], and in 1809 [by William Clapperton?]. + +[239] MS. Ff. ii. 9. + +[240] The allusion, which has hitherto escaped notice, will be found +quoted below, p. 252 note. + +[241] In this note the _Pastor fido_ is said to have been 'Translated by +some Author before this,' but the context makes it evident that 'some' is +a misprint for 'the same.' + +[242] It might be objected that J. S. is called 'Gent,' while Sidnam is +termed esquire; but it should be remarked that in the MS. the 'Esq;' has +been added in a later hand. + +[243] MS. Sloane 836, folio 76^{v}. + +[244] MS. Sloane 857, folio 195^{v}. + +[245] MS. Addit. 12,128. Another MS. in the Bodleian. + +[246] No doubt the Samuel Brooke who became Master in 1629. He was the +brother of the Christopher Brooke who appears in Wither's eclogues under +the pastoral name of Cuddie. Cf. p. 116. + +[247] There is something wrong with this date. The princes were at +Cambridge 2-4 March, 1612-13. (See Nichols' _James I_, iii. (iv.) p. +1086-7. The date 'March 6' in ii. p. 607 is an error.) Probably 'Martij +30,' which appears in the University Library MS., as well as in several +MSS. at Trinity, is a slip of the transcriber for 'Martij 3,' which would +set both day and year right. Nichols, indeed, gives the date as 'Martii +3,' but he refers to the Emmanuel MS., which, like the others, reads +'30.' + +[248] MS. Ee. 5. 16. + +[249] An anonymous writer in B. M. MS. Harl. 7044, quoted by Nichols +(_James I_, i. p. 553), has the following description: '_Veneris_, 30 +_Augusti_ [1605]. There was an English play acted in the same place before +the Queen and young Prince, with all the Ladies and Gallants attending the +Court. It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which +was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cambridge. I was not there +present, but by report it was well acted and greatly applauded. It was +named "Arcadia Reformed."' This has led Fleay into a strange error. '_The +Queen's Arcadia_' he says _(Biog. Chron._ i. p. 110), 'although it is not +known to have been acted till 1605, Aug. 30, had been prepared earlier +(and perhaps acted at Herbert's marriage, 1604, Dec. 27), for it is called +"_Arcadia, reformed_."' Of course the allusion is to the reformation of +Arcadia, not the revision of the play. The play was printed the following +year. + +[250] For further details concerning the occasion of this piece, as also +for information on the state of the text, I may refer to an article of +mine in the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for August, 1903, vi. p. 59. The +first edition appeared in 1615. + +[251] Grosart's edition, printed, not always very correctly, from the +collected works of 1623, offers too unsatisfactory a text for quotation. I +have therefore quoted from the edition of 1623 itself, corrected, where +necessary, by the separate editions, and, in the case of _Hymen's +Triumph_, by Drummond's MS. + +[252] Dramatic prologues occur in some of the later Italian pastorals (see +p. 185, note). That to _Hymen's Triumph_ recalls the dialogue between +Comedy and Envy prefixed to _Mucedorus_. + +[253] Alexis is one of those characters whose appearance, while not +essential to the plot, lends life to the romantic drama, and whose +conspicuous absence in the neo-classic type is ill compensated by the +prodigal introduction of superfluous confidants. + +[254] It is just possible that Daniel took a hint for this episode from +Dickenson's romance, _Arisbas_ (1594), meutioned above, p. 147. + +[255] The similarity between Silvia and Shakespeare's Viola and Beaumont's +Euphrasia-Bellario is too obvious to need comment. It may, however, be +remarked that in Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised +as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. See p. 212. + +[256] This narrative has been much admired, notably by Lamb and Coleridge, +critics from whom it is not good to differ; but I must nevertheless +confess that, to my taste, Daniel's sentiment, here as elsewhere, is +inclined to verge upon the fulsome and the ludicrous. + +[257] It is evident that this pompous inflation of style damaged the piece +upon the stage, for on Feb. 10, 1613-4, John Chamberlain, writing to Sir +Dudley Carleton, described the performance as 'solemn and dull.' + +[258] The corresponding passage in the _Aminta_ (I. ii.) is marred by a +series of rather artificial conceits. + +[259] Architecture or building. A very rare use not recognized by the New +English Dictionary, though it is also found in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ (I. iv. 405): + + To find an house ybuilt for holy deed, + With goodly architect, and cloisters wide. + + +[260] Guarini had already called dreams (_Pastor fido_, I. iv): + + Immagini del d, guaste e corrotte + Dall' ombre della notte. + + +[261] Saintsbury, in his _Elizabethan Literature_, insists, not +unnaturally, on Daniel's lack of strength. Upon this Grosart commented in +his edition (iv. p. xliv.): 'This seems to me exceptionally uncritical.... +One special quality of Samuel Daniel is the inevitableness with which he +rises when any "strong" appeal is made to ... his imagination.' The +partiality of an editor could surely go no further. + +[262] The prodigality of _Oh's_ and _Ah's_ is an obvious characteristic of +his verse, which may possibly have been in Jonson's mind when, in the +prologue to the _Sad Shepherd_, he wrote: + + But that no stile for Pastorall should goe + Current, but what is stamp'd with _Ah_, and _O_; + Who judgeth so, may singularly erre. + + +[263] This could hardly be maintained as literally true were we to include +the Latin plays of the Universities. Of these, however, I propose to take +merely incidental notice. In no case do they appear to be of considerable +importance, and they are, as a rule, only preserved in MSS. which are +often difficult of access. I may here mention one which reached the +distinction of print, and is of a more regularly Italian structure than +most. The title-page reads: 'Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Iacobus +Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberni Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, +ibidemq; Musarum, atque eius animi grati dies quinque Commoraretur. +Egerunt alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. +Excudebat Cantrellus Legge. Mart. 27. 1615.' The play was acted, according +to the invaluable John Chamberlain, on March 10, 1614-5, and appears to +have made a very favourable impression. It belongs to the series of +entertainments which included the representation of _Albumazar_, and was +to have included that of Phineas Fletcher's _Sicelides_, had the king +remained another night. The author of _Melanthe_ is said to have been 'Mr. +Brookes,' probably the Dr. Samuel Brooke who had produced the +already-mentioned translation of Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_ two years +before. See Nichols' _Progresses of James I_, iii. p. 55. + +[264] Fleay considers the _Faithful Shepherdess_ a joint production of +Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory +is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten +yeers since, hath [_sic_] written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a +Tragicomedie, well done.' Considering that the same authority makes Jonson +ascribe the _Inner Temple Masque_ to Fletcher, his statement as to the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think +that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher +in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to +think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his _Biographical +Chronicle_, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For +myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand +Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on +account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but +A. H. Thorndike (_The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere_, +Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that +dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than +Fleay imagined. + +[265] Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of +Thenot and the unconventional rle of the satyr, find parallels in the +earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls +the enchanted lake of the _Sacrifizio_; the introduction of a supernatural +agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's +_Mirzia_; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, +indebted to the revised version of the _Orfeo_; the character of Thenot is +anticipated in the _Sfortunato_. I give the resemblances for what they are +worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have +been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not +impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a +survival of the ordeal by fire. + +[266] Certain critics have suggested that the _Pastor fido_ might more +appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, +since it would mean giving the title-rle to the wholly secondary Dorinda. +Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. +With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely +nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the +piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central +character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I +incline to believe that it is the latter that is the 'faithful +shepherdess,' since it might be contended that, in the conventional +language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the +'constant shepherdess.' (Cf. II. ii. 130.) + +[267] See Homer Smith's paper on _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama_. His theory concerning the _Faithful Shepherdess_ will be found on +p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the +detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular +instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea. + +[268] 'Poems' [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral +poetry already quoted, p. 18, note. + +[269] One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is +the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to +sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent +absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the +good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in +the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score. + +[270] I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added +the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the 'Temple Dramatists.' + +[271] The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr +is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's +beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle +disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious +power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage +nature appears a little fatuous. + +[272] Specifically from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is +almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when +we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been. + +[273] In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of _La +Fida pastora,_ by 'FF. Anglo-Britannus,' namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as +appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page. + +[274] As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to +court representation. + +[275] Randolph's familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there +is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis' humorous +expansion of Corisca's remark about changing her lovers like her clothes: + + Other Nymphs + Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne, + Nay, every petticote; I have only one, + The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.) + +[276] A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, [Greek: o)mph/], a +divine voice or prophecy. He may possibly have associated the word with the +Delphic [Greek: o)mphalo/s]. + +[277] It is possible that Laurinda's indecision may owe something to the +_doppio amore_ of Celia in the _Filli di Sciro_. See especially III. i. of +that play. + +[278] Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as +'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking +of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a +servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the +comments in the _Dictionary of Plays_ are original. The above first +appears in the _Biographia Dramatica_ of 1812, and may therefore be +ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further +words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' +The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical +claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his _Illustrations of +the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (Shakespeare Soc., +1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we +are not informed. + +[279] 1822, p. 61. This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of +the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever +better deserved than that administered by the _Saturday Review_ on August +21, 1875. As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have +had recourse to the very correct first edition of the _Poems_, 1638, +checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues. + +[280] The sense in the original is defective. + +[281] i.e. Tethys, a very common confusion. + +[282] The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes +it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole +collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 +twice. In 1703 appeared the _Fickle Shepherdess_, 'As it is Acted in the +New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all +by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to +be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose +rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the +language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good +verse into bad prose. + +[283] Vide post, p. 382. + +[284] For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to +the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the _Materialien zur Kunde +des lteren Englischen Dramas_ (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may +be quoted. '(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed +more of the _Sad Shepherd_ than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of +the substantial identity of the _Sad Shepherd_ and the _May Lord_ must be +rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at +all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected +in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. +(iv) The _May Lord_ was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) +The date of the _Sad Shepherd_ cannot be fixed with certainty; but there +is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and +the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in _Jonsonus Virbius_], which agree in +placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.' + +[285] The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected +editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary +state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a +separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldrou, whose edition, with +continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. +viii), was given in Lamb's _Specimens_. In quoting from the play I have +preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely +correcting certain obvions errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which +wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text. + +[286] Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion. + +[287] It involves, moreover, the critical fallacy of supposing that poetry +is a sort of richly embroidered garment wherewith to clothe the nakedness +of the underlying substance. This may be so in certain cases in which the +poet is made and not born, or in which he forces himself to work at an +uncongenial theme. But in a genuine work of art the substance cannot so be +separated from the form without injury to both. The poetry in this case is +not an external adornment, but a necessary part of the structure, without +which it would be something else than what it is. Verse, when in organic +relation with the subject, modifies the character of that subject itself, +and the subject can only be rightly apprehended through the medium of the +verse. I contend that the _Sad Shepherd_ is a case in point, and Mr. +Swinburne's remarks, I conceive, bear out my view. I shall not, therefore, +seek to analyse the types represented by the characters--styling poor +little Amie a modification of the type of the 'forward shepherdess'!--nor +count the number of lines assigned respectively to the shepherds, to the +huntsmen, or to the witch; but shall endeavonr to ascertain the particular +object Jonson had in view in adopting a particular presentation of the +subject, the means he employed, and the measure of success he achieved. + +[288] The distinction which appears to belong peculiarly to the drama is +most likely a survival of the influence of the mythological plays, in +which the huntress nymphs of Diana frequently appear. We find, however, a +tendency to a similar dualism in Mantuan's upland and lowland swains. + +[289] It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is +originally none other than the familiar figure of French _pastourelles_. +However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. +It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough +material. See E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_, i. p. 175. + +[290] The author, however, is at fault in his terms of art. If the quarry +to which he likens Aeglamour had a dappled hide, it was a fallow and not a +red deer. In this case it should have been called a buck, and not a hart. +Again, the female should have been a doe: deer is a generic name including +both sexes of red, fallow, and roe alike. + +[291] A translation of the _Astre_ appeared as early as 1620, but the +French fashion obtained no hold over the popular taste till the later days +of the Commonwealth. + +[292] I may say that this section was written as it stands before K. +Brunhuber's essay on _Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaufer_ came into my +hands. He gives a superficial account of several printed plays, but was +unaware of the existence of those in MS. + +[293] The quotations are from the Gifford-Dyce edition of Shirley's Works +(1833), the only collected edition that has appeared. The text stands +badly in need of revision, but I have had to content myself with a few +obvious corrections. For instance, in the passage quoted above, the +editors have followed the quarto in reducing l. 13 to nonsense, by reading +'no man,' and l. 20 by reading 'And the imagination.' + +[294] So at least in the printed play. In the original draft, and probably +also in the acting version, as Fleay has pointed out, they were king and +queen, and of this traces remain. Thus we twice find Gynetia addressed as +'Queen,' while elsewhere 'Duke' rimes with 'spring,' and 'Duchess' with +'spleen.' The alteration was no doubt made from motives of prudence. Even +so the play was, according to Fleay, published surreptitiously, i.e. it +does not appear on the Stationers' Register. + +[295] A. H. Bullen's reprint of Day's works was privately printed in 1881. +Though the text is not in all respects satisfactory, I have thought myself +justified in quoting from it as the only edition available. + +[296] Not tennis, as Mr. Bullen states (Introd. p. 17), oblivious for the +moment of the impossibility of representing a tennis match on the stage, +as well as of the fact that the game was never, in Elizabethan times, +played by ladies. + +[297] There is one printed play, the relation of which to the _Arcadia_ is +not very clear. The title, _Mucedorus_, at once suggests some connexion, +but it is difficult to follow it out in detail. Mucedorus, 'the king's +sonne of Valentia,' leaves his father's court and goes disguised as a +shepherd to win the love of Amadine, 'the king's daughter of Arragon.' He +twice rescues the princess, is sentenced to banishment, and reveals his +identity just as his father arrives in search of him. The play was +originally printed in 1598, but no doubt originated some years earlier, +_c._ 1588 according to Fleay. Most of the resemblances with the _Arcadia_, +however, are due to scenes which first appeared in 1610, in which edition +the king of Valentia first plays a part. Beyond Mucedorus' disguise there +is absolutely nothing pastoral in the play. With the exception of some of +the additional scenes, which are undoubtedly by a different hand from the +rest, the play is unrelieved rubbish. Probably the original author +utilized in the composition of his piece such elements and incidents of +the _Arcadia_ as he had gathered orally while the unfinished work still +circulated in MS. Later the reviser, being aware of this source, expanded +the play from a knowledge of the completed work. It cannot be said to be a +dramatization of the romance, though it is undoubtedly in a manner founded +upon it. + +[298] Egerton MS. 1994. Not _Love's Changelings Changed_, as usually +quoted. + +[299] _Old Plays_, ii. p. 432. + +[300] Rawl. Poet, 3. + +[301] In the Bodleian MS. Ashmole 788 is a Latin epistle by Philip Kynder, +a miscellaneous writer and court agent under Charles I, born in 1600 at +latest, which was 'prefixt before my _Silvia_, a Latin comedie or +pastorall, translated from the _Archadia_, written at eighteen years of +age.' (See Halliwell's _Dic. of Plays_.) The 'Archadia' might, of course, +refer either to Sannazzaro's or Lope de Vega's romances, though this is +highly improbable. + +[302] So much we learn from the title-page itself. The play had very +likely been acted at court some years earlier, but the document mentioning +such a performance, printed by Cunningham, is of doubtful authenticity, +while Fleay contradicts himself upon the subject. The question is, +happily, immaterial to our present purpose. + +[303] Here, as in the _Isle of Gulls_, the titles of Duke and Duchess have +been imperfectly substituted for King and Queen, probably for court +performance. + +[304] The story in the romance is very different. Erona, after many +adventures, marries her lover. Both episodes are related in Book II, +chapters xiii and following (ed. 1590). They are epitomized by Dyce, whose +edition I have of course used. + +[305] Here, again, the catastrophe of the play bears no resemblance to the +romance. + +[306] See III. v. According to Chetwood (_British Theatre_, 1752, p. 47), +the play was revived in 1671, with a prologue attributing it to Shirley. +This is, of course, possible, but it requires more than Chetwood's +unsupported authority to render it probable. Fleay suggests that the +author is the same as the J. S. of _Phillis of Scyros_, namely, as I have +shown, Jonathan Sidnam. This seems to me highly improbable. The play is +printed in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xiv, whence I quote, with necessary +corrections. + +[307] Bk. I. chaps. v-viii, Bk. III. chap. xii, in the edition of 1590. + +[308] Quotations are taken, with corrections, from Pearson's reprint of +Glapthorne's works (1874). + +[309] K. Deighton's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for 'Love' of the +original. (_Conjectural Readings_, second series, Calcutta, 1898, p. 136.) + +[310] I have been unable to trace this work beyond a reference to Heber's +sale given in Hazlitt's _Handbook_. The original story will be found in +_Albion's England_, Book IV, chap. xx, of the first Part, published in +1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of +Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to +Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base +scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has +sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the +princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this +Argentile is ignorant, and when she hears of her uncle's purpose, she +contrives to escape from court and lives disguised as a shepherdess. After +her flight Curan also leaves the court and assumes a shepherd's garb, and +meeting Argentile by chance again falls in love with her without knowing +who she is. After a while he reveals his identity, and she hers; they are +married, and he conquers back her kingdom from the usurping Edel. + +[311] So far as I am aware, A. B. Grosart was the first to point this out. +(_Spenser_, iii. p. lxx.) + +[312] It is printed in Hazlitt's _Webster_, vol. iv. Fleay, with +characteristic assurance, identifies the _Thracian Wonder_ with a lost +play of Heywood's, known only from Henslowe's Diary, and there called 'War +without blows and love without suit.' He argues: 'in i. 2, "You never +shall again renew your suit;" but the love is given at the end without any +suit; and in iii. 2, "Here was a happy war finished without blows."' The +identification, however, will not bear examination. No battle, it is true, +is fought at Sicily's first appearance, but the title, _War without Blows_ +could hardly be applied to a play in which the whole of the last act is +occupied with fierce fighting between three different nations. So with the +second title, _Love without Suit_. Serena indeed grants her love in the +end without any reason whatever, but only after her lover has 'suited' +himself clean out of his five wits. Moreover, it is not certain that this +second title should not be _Love without Strife_. Heywood's play, I have +little doubt, was a mere love-comedy (cf. such titles as _The Amorous +War_, and similar expressions in the dramatists _passim_). The +identification, moreover, would necessitate the date 1598, though this +does not prevent Fleay from stating that the piece is founded on William +Webster's poem published in 1617. So early a date seems to me rather +improbable. Since William Webster's poem has nothing to do with the +present piece, the suggestion that Kirkman's attribution of the play to +John Webster was due to a confusion of course falls to the ground. + +[313] According to S. L. Lee in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._, who follows the +_Biographia Dramatica._ + +[314] It will be found in Mr. Bullen's admirable collection, _Lyrics from +the Dramatists_, 1889, p. 231. + +[315] Reprinted in 1882 by A. H. Bullen in the first volume of his _Old +English Plays_, and more recently by R. W. Bond in his edition of Lyly. In +quoting, I have generally followed the latter, though I have preferred my +own arrangement of certain passages. None of the suggestions that have +been put forward as to the authorship of the play appear to me to carry +much weight. The ascription of the whole to Lyly, first made by Archer in +1656, and repeated by Halliwell as late as 1860, is now utterly +discredited. The view, first advanced by Edmund Gosse, that the author was +John Day, has been tentatively endorsed by both editors of the piece; but +I agree with Professer Gollancz in thinking it unlikely on the ground of +style. Fleay assigns the serious (verse) portion of the play to Daniel, +and the comic (prose) scenes to Lyly. It seems to me unlikely, however, +that Daniel, who was shortly to appear as the chief exponent of the +orthodox Italian tradition, should at this date have been concerned in the +production of a typical example of the hybrid pastoral of the English +stage. Nor do I believe that Lyly was in any way concerned in the piece, +though some scenes are evident imitations of his work. This, however, +involves the question of the authorship of the lyrics found in Lyly's +plays, and I must refer for a detailed discussion to my article upon the +subject already cited (p. 227). + +[316] _Metamorphoses_, ix. 667, &c. Ward is moved to characterize the plot +as a theme of 'Ovidian lubricity.' I question whether any such censure is +merited. That the theme is one which would have become intolerably +suggestive in the hands of the Sienese Intronati, for instance, may be +admitted, but the author has treated the story with complete _navet_. +The obscene passages referred to later on (p. 345) occur in the comic +action, and are in no way connected with the point in question. Ward +further informs us that the play is 'throughout in rime,' notwithstanding +the fact that something approaching a quarter of the whole is in prose. + +[317] I must repeat that I see no advantage to be gained from the method +adopted by Homer Smith, who tries to extract and separate the strictly +pastoral elements from the medley. A play is not a child's puzzle that can +be taken to pieces and labelled, nor even a chemical compound to be +analysed into its component parts. What is of interest is to note the +various influences which have affected and modified the growth of the +literary organism. + +[318] Though the author may very likely have known Spenser's description +of the house of Morpheus _(Faery Queen_, I. i. 348, &c.), he certainly +drew his own account straight from Ovid (_Metam._ xi. 592, &c.), to which, +of course, Spenser was also indebted. I am rather inclined to think the +author drew his material from Golding's translation (xi. 687, &c.). With +the second passage quoted, cf. _Faery Queen_, II. xii. 636, &c. + +[319] 'Trip and go' was a proverbial expression, and is found, with its +obvious rime 'to and fro,' in several old dance-songs. + +[320] The only composition I can recall which at all anticipates the +peculiar effect of this lyric is Thestylis' song in the _Arraignment of +Paris_ (III. ii.), to which, in the old edition, is appended the quaint +note, 'The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.' + +[321] Fleay gives the date 1601, following Halliwell, but Haslewood has +1603. + +[322] According to Fleay, it 'was intended to be presented to James I on +13th Mar. 1614.' This date must be a slip, since it was not till 1615 that +the king was at Cambridge. It is, moreover, correctly given in his +_History of the Stage_. The preparations also appear to have been for the +eleventh, not the thirteenth. Fleay further mentions a performance at +King's before Charles I, but gives no authority. + +[323] An exception must be made of Ward, whose remarks are almost +excessively laudatory, though his treatment of the piece is necessarily +slight. + +[324] The incidents occur, however, in Book II of Browne's work (Songs 4 +and 5), which was not printed till 1616. Either, therefore, Fletcher had +seen Browne's poem in manuscript, or else the play, as originally +performed, differed from the printed version. I think it unlikely that the +borrowing should have been the other way. + +[325] Fleay confuses the two performances, and, by placing Goffe's death +in 1627, is forced to suppose that the 'praeludium' was added by another +hand. It may be noticed that, if this introduction is by Goffe, Salisbury +Court was probably opened in the spring, a point otherwise unsettled. + +[326] The resemblance with the _Sad Shepherd_, I. i, is almost too close +to be fortuitous. It is, on the other hand, not easily accounted for. The +whole passage quoted above is somewhat markedly superior to the general +level of the verse in the play, not merely the two or three lines in which +a distinct resemblance to Jonson can be traced. Is it possible that both +Goffe and Jonson were following, the one slavishly, the other with more +imagination, one common original, now unknown? Or can it be that Goffe is +here reproducing a passage from an early unpublished work of Jonson's own, +a passage which Jonson later refashioned into the singularly perfect +speech of Aeglamour? + +[327] Homer Smith, in making these assertions, overlooks historical +evidence. It is, however, only fair to Goffe to say that other critics +apparently take a very much more favourable view of the merits of the +piece than I am able to do. + +[328] Hardly in those of the prologue to _Hymen's Triumph_, as suggested +by Homer Smith. + +[329] W. C. Hazlitt (_Manual of Plays_, p. 25) records: 'Bellessa, the +Shepherd's Queen: The scene, Galicia. An unpublished and incomplete drama +in prose and verse. Fol.' In the absence of further evidence I conclude +that this is an imperfect MS. of Montagu's piece. + +[330] The designs for the scene, by Inigo Jones, are preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Lansd. 1,171, fols. 15-16. Fols. 5-6 of the same MS. +contain the ground-plans 'for a pasterall in the hall at whitthall w'ch +was ackted by the ffrench on St Thomas day the 23th of decemb'r 1635,' +which may refer to the same piece. + +[331] It may, however, be founded on some French romance. + +[332] The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I +quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have +had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and +Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of +Dorset's _liaison_ with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought +necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author +explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a +pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely +overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, +apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in +pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts +the scene is laid at court. + +[333] See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in +question. + +[334] Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed +Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's +Plautine comedy into confusing it with the _Amyntas_. The criticism is +from an article in the _Cornhill_ for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites +it. + +[335] The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the +Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be +accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name. + +[336] II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition. + +[337] Halliwell, _Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to +which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished_. +MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. +Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, +1899; I have been unable to trace it. + +[338] I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin +plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. +Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play +entitled _Parthenia_, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but +concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan +Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was +influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. +The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male +characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be +recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. +Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no +correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any +allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the _Silvanus_, a MS. of +which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, +1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson--the +name is erased. + +[339] Bullen's _Peele_, i.p. 363. + +[340] The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but +is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at +present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different +edition, is found in Nichols' _Progresses of Elisabeth_, from which a +modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, +it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote. + +[341] See the excellent edition by W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des +alteren englischen Dramas_, vol. iii, 1903. + +[342] All necessary apparatns for the study of this literary curiosity +will be fonnd in Miss M. L. Lee's edition, 1893. The original is a MS. in +the Bodleian. + +[343] See A. H. Thorndike, _Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on +Shakspeare_, 1901, p. 32. In _Mucedorus_ (I. i. 51) we find mention of a +shepherd's disguise used 'in Lord Julio's masque.' The passage occurs in +the additional scenes of 1610, and there are numerous masques of the +period that might claim to be that referred to. Fleay conjectures '_The +Shepherds' Mask_ of James I.'s time,' and elsewhere identifies this title, +which he gets from Halliwell's _Dictionary_, with Jonson's masque, _Pan's +Anniversary, or the Shepherds' Holiday_. This, however, was produced at +earliest in 1623, and can hardly therefore have been alluded to in 1610. +Halliwell took his title from the British Museum MS. Addit. 10,444, in +which appears the music for a number of 'masques,' or dances taken from +masques, and in which this particular _Shepherds' Masque_ (fol. 34^{v}) is +dated 1635. + +[344] The date here assigned presents obvions difficultes. It would +naturally mean that it was performed after March 24, 1625; but as James +died after about a fortnight's serious illness on March 27, this can +hardly be accepted. Nichols placed the performance conjecturally in +August, 1624, for reasons which I am inclined to regard as satisfactory. +Fleay pronounces in favour of June 19, 1623, with a confidence not +altogether calculated to inspire the like feeling in others. + +[345] _Lives_, Oxford, 1898, i. p. 251. + +[346] 'The Dramatic Works of John Tatham,' 1879. In Maidment and Logan's +_Dramatists of the Restoration_. + +[347] Another parallel may be found in Shirley's _Maid's Revenge_, IV. iv, +where the wounded Antonio exclaims: + + Where art, Berinthia? let me breathe my last + Upon thy lip; make haste, lest I die else. + +The situation, however, is different. Shirley's play was licensed in 1626. + +[348] In a small quarto volume, classed as Addit. MS. 14,047. The piece +has hitherto been ascribed to George Wilde, on the authority of Halliwell. +There appears to be no reason for this ascription, beyond the fact that +the same volume also contains two pieces by Wilde. His name, however, does +not occur in connexion with the present play, and the volume, which is in +a variety of hands, certainly includes work not by him. Wilde was scholar +and fellow of St. John's, chaplain to Laud, and Bishop of Londonderry +after the restoration. His plays consist of the two comedies in this +volume, viz. the Latin _Euphormus, sive Cupido Adultus_, acted on Feb. 5, +1634/5, and the _Hospital of Lovers_, acted before the king and queen on +Aug. 29, 1636, both at St. John's. He is also said to have written another +Latin play, called _Hermophus_, though nothing is known of it beyond the +record of its being acted. It was most probably the same as _Euphormus_, +the titles being anagrams of each other. + +[349] The _Dic. Nat. Biog_. gives the date as 1635. + +[350] The stage directions for these entries are interesting: (l) 'Enter +An Antique [i.e. antimasque] of Sheapheards'; (2) 'enter the Masque'; (3) +'the masque enters and dances, and after wardes exit.' The terms 'masque' +and 'antimasque' appear to have been used technically for the dances of +the masque proper, and of its burlesque counterpart. In this sense the +words occur repeatedly in the British Museum Addit. MS. 10,444, which +contains the music only. In the present case the masquers appear to have +been distinct from the characters of the play. + +[351] R. Brotanek, _Die englischen Maskenspiele_, 1902, p. 201. See also +the edition by R. Brotanek and W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des lteren +Englischen Dramas,_ vol. ii, 1903; and further in the _Modern Language +Quarterly_ for April, 1904, vii. p. 17. + +[352] The first issue was printed 'for the use of the Author,' without +date, but was received by Thomason on Sept. 1, 1656, which would appear to +dispose of the fiction that Cox died in 1648. + +[353] This letter was prefixed to the masque in the collected edition of +the Poems (1645), but was written to the author without view to +publication. + +[354] Fifty-eight lines in decasyllabic couplets--not eighty-three lines +of blank verse, as for some inexplicable reason Masson asserts (i. p. +150). + +[355] Specific references will be found scattered through Masson's notes. +To supplement his work I may refer to some interesting remarks on _Comus_ +as a masque, and a useful comparison with Peele's play, by M. W. Samson, of +Indiana University, in the introduction to his edition of Milton's Minor +Poems, New York, 1901. Here, as elsewhere in the case of Milton's Works, I +follow H. C. Beeching's admirable text, Oxford, 1900. + +[356] Not wishing to pursue this point further, I may be allowed to refer +to certain candid and judicious remaries in Saintsbury's _Elizabethan +Literature_, p. 387. + +[357] I am perfectly aware of, and in writing the above have made every +allowance for, three considerations which may be urged in explanation of +the passages in question. In the first place, it must be remembered that +the age was an outspoken one, and used to giving free expression to +thoughts and feelings which we are in the habit of passing over in +silence. Secondly, the age was unquestionably one of considerable licence, +which must be held to have warranted somewhat direct speaking on the part +of those who held to a stricter code of morals; and, moreover, it must be +conceded that the Puritan failing of self-righteous protestation was as a +rule combined with very genuine practice of the professed virtues. +Thirdly, there is the fact that the age of thirteen was at that time, by +common consent, regarded as already mature womanhood. On one and all of +these heads a good deal might be written, but it would only extend yet +further a discussion which has already, it may be, exceeded reasonable +limits. + +[358] I ought, perhaps, to apologize for thus alluding to these poems as +subsequent to _Comus_, seeing that criticism usually places them some +years earlier. There is, however, no external evidence of any kind, and to +me the internal evidence of style points strongly to a later date. +Possibly, since they are not fonnd in the Trinity MS., they were composed +during Milton's travels, which would place them after _Lycidas_ even, +somewhere about 1638 or 1639. One of the ablest of our living critics, +himself a close and original student of Milton, writes in a private +letter: 'I long ago heard a good critic say that _Comus_ seemed to him +prentice work beside _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_; and these do seem to +me, I must confess, the maturer poems.' The point was raised by F. Byse in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for July, 1900, iii. p. 16. + +[359] Conversations, IV and III, Shakespeare Society, 1842, pp. 4 and 2. + +[360] Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find the necessary +references in Sommer's _Erster Versuch ber die Englische Hirtendichtung_, +and a full discussion in an elaborate 'Inquiry into the propriety of the +rules prescribed for Pastoral Poetry,' prefixed to the edition of Ramsay's +_Gentle Shepherd_, published at Edinburgh in 1808. Some judicious remarks +will also be found in the Introduction to Chambers' _English Pastorals_, +pp. xliv, &c. + +[361] This limitation, it may be observed, does not necessarily apply to +all literary forms. It may, I think, reasonably be maintained that the +form of the drama, for instance, is essentially conditioned by the +psychological relation of author to audience, through the medium of actual +representation, and that this relation is equivalent to, or at least +capable of forming the basis of, a theory of drama. I am aware that such +an abstract view as this finds little favour with the majority of modern +critics, but while myself doubtful as to its practical value, I do not see +that it involves any critical absurdity. + +[362] This impulse can certainly be traced in some of the eclogues, and +still more markedly in the purely lyrical verse of a pastoral sort. But +the cross influences are too complex to be recapitulated here. + +[363] The influence of the Latin eclogue of the renaissance was +undoubtedly also direct, but though widespread it was hardly vital, and +its importance, as compared with that of the vernacular tradition, may be +not inadequately measured by the relative importance of the chief +exponents of either, Googe and Spenser. + +[364] Especially the allusions to religions controversy. The romance was, +of course, highly topical in Spain, but, waiving the rather debatable +point of Sidney's allusive intentions, it never appears to have been +generally so regarded in this country. + +[365] Possibly I ought to add a fourth, the masques at court; but their +influence in large measure duplicated that of the Italian drama, and +cannot be distinguished from it. + +[366] See Rossi, p. 175, note 1. + +[367] Ferrara, Caraffo, 1588, p. 50. Rossi, 175^{1}. Carducci, 59. + +[368] _Discorso_, Padova, Meieto, 1587; Rossi, 175^{1}. + +[369] _Apologia contro l'autor del Verato_, Padova, Meietti, 1590. + +[370] _Il Verato secondo_, Firenze, Giunti, 1593, pp. 206-7; Carducci, +59-60. + +[371] I make no pretence at having myself examined all the texts mentioned +in the following discussion. Many, indeed, are only to be found in +out-of-the-way provincial libraries in Italy, and have, I believe, never +been examined by any one but Carducci himself. The references in my notes +equally testify my indebtedness to Rossi's monograph; indeed, my whole +treatment of the subject is based on his work. + +[372] I shall endeavour to note the various verse-forms employed, as the +evidence is often of use in determining the question of development. It +may, however, be very easily misleading if unduly pressed, as by Carducci. +In general, the _terza rima_ may be taken as pointing to the influence of +Sannazzaro's _Arcadia; ottava rima_, courtly or rustic, to that of +Poliziano's _Orfeo_ and _Giostra_ and Lorenzo de' Medici's _Nencia_ +respectively; the _endecasillabi sciolti_, or blank verse, to that of the +regular drama. Of the free measures, _endecasillabi e settinar_, of the +later plays I shall have to speak more in detail hereafter. + +[373] Edited from MS. by Felice Bariola, with other poems of Taccone's, +Firenze, 1884, p. 14. Rossi, 166^{2}; Carducci, 28^{1}. + +[374] Printed in the 'Opere dello elegante poeta Seraphino Aquilano,' +Venetia, Bindoni, 1516, sig. D5. Rossi, 167^{1}. For the date, Carducci, +29^{2}. + +[375] Of these authors little or nothing appears to be known. Both pieces +have come down to us in MS.; see Adolfo Bartoli, _Mss. italiani della +Nazionale di Firenze_, Firenze, 1884, ii. pp. 138 and 163. Concerning the +first, see further, _Poesie inedite di G. Del Carretto_, by A. G. Spinelli, +Savona, pp. 10-15; concerning the second, R. Renier, in the _Giornale +storico della letteratura italiana_, 1885, v. p. 236, note 1. Rossi, +167^{2},^{3}; Carducci, 30^{2}, 28^{3}. + +[376] _Opere_, 1516, as cited, sig. E. Rossi, 167^{4}. + +[377] In _Rime_, ed. P. Fanfani, 1876-8, ii. p. 225. Rossi, 168^{1}. + +[378] Rossi, 169^{2}. Carducci, 26^{3}. + +[379] See B. Croce, 'Napoli dal 1508 al 1512 (da un antico romanzo +spagnuolo),' in _Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_, anno xix, +fasc. i, pp. 141 and 157. Carducci, 29^{1}. + +[380] _Opera nova_, Venetia, Rusconi, 1508. In the old edition the pieces +are merely termed 'commedie,' the designation 'pastorali' being due to the +'Arcadian,' G. M. Crescimbeni, whose _Istoria delia volgar poesia_ +originally appeared in 1698. Carducci, 41^{1}. + +[381] See Carducci, p. 35. Stiefel, being only aware of the edition of +1543, hoped to find in the piece a link between Casalio and Beccari. Among +several female characters introduced is one 'la quale volentieri starebbe +in mezzo di due amanti o mariti: il che,' pursues Carducci, ' del tutto +opposto all' idealit delia favola pastorale.' One would have thought that +certain traits in the characters of Dafne and Corisca would have occurred +to him. Bitter satire on women was indeed one of the most permanent +features of pastoral comedy, as it had been of the Latin eclogue. + +[382] See D'Ancona, 'II teatro mantovano nel secolo _XVI_,' in the +_Giornale storico_, v. p. 19. Rossi, 170^{1}. + +[383] See G. Campori, _Notizie sulla vita di L. Ariosto_, Modena, 1871, p. +68. Rossi, 172^{1}. No mention of these is made by Carducci, his thesis +being that the _ecloga rappresentativa_ did not obtain at Ferrara, the +home _par excellence_ of the Arcadian drama. Thus, on p. 54 he writes: +'Delie parecchie ecloghe pastorali e rusticali passate in rassegna fin qui +non una ce n' o scritta o rappresentata o stampata in Ferrara, non una +d'origine ferrarese. In Ferrara entriamo classicamente e signorilmente con +l'_Egle_ [1545].' + +[384] Rossi, 173^{1}. Carducci, 37. + +[385] See L. Frati, 'Un' ecloga msticale del 1508,' in the _Giornale +storico_, xx(1892), p. 186. Carducci, 27^{2}. + +[386] See O. Guerrini, _Narrazione di Paolo Palliolo_, Bologna, Romagnoli, +1885, p. 96. Carducci, 31^{1}. + +[387] See C. Mazzi, _La congrega dei Rozzi di Siena_, i. p. 139 and ii. p. +100. Carducci, 31^{2}. Also Rossi, 174^{3}; his suggestion of the possible +identity of the two last-mentioned pieces has been shown by later research +to be inadmissible. + +[388] A battle was fought at Tai, near Pieve di Cadore. + +[389] The number of such pieces is very large. A list appended to the +_Assetta_ in 1756 runs to 109 items. An exhaustive bibliography will be +found in Mazzi's work. See also the useful collection by Giulio Ferrario, +forming vol. x of the 'Teatro antico' in the 'Classici italiani,' Milan, +1812. It is unfortunate that Symonds should have referred to Ferrario's +list as evidence of the fertility of the pastoral drama, even though +adding that the list is 'devoted solely to rural scenes of actual life,' +since he can hardly escape the charge of regarding the rustic compositions +as part of the pastoral drama proper--a position to which they certainly +have no claim. + +[390] Not, of course, to be confused with the _sacra rappresentazione_ so +called. + +[391] See F. Flamini's edition of Tansillo's poems, Napoli, 1893. Rossi, +171^{1}; Carducci, 39^{2}. + +[392] Used, for example, by Sannazzaro, in his _Farsa_. See his 'Opere +volgari,' Padova, 1723, p. 422. + +[393] See E. Prcopo, 'M. Ant. Epicuro,' in the _Giornale storico_, 1888, +xii. p. 1. Carducci, 39^{1}. The earliest edition with the later title I +have met with is one dated 1533, in my possession. The British Museum has +none earlier than 1535. + +[394] Siena, Mazochi, 1530. Carducci, 44^{3}. + +[395] It continued to be occasionally reprinted till as late as 1612. +Carducci, 44. + +[396] Venezia, Zoppino, 1538. Carducci, 43^{1}. + +[397] It may have been a direct borrowing, for we know that Tasso was +acquainted with the plays of Epicuro, whom he imitated in his _Rinaldo_ +(V. 25, &c.). The _Mirzia_ is printed in 'I drammi pastorali di A. Marsi,' +ed. I. Palmerini, Bologna, 1887-8. See also Prcopo in the _Giornale_, as +cited. Carducci, 62. The authorship is a little doubtful. Creizenach, ii. +365^{1}. + +[398] Firenze, 1545. Carducci, 46^{1}. + +[399] _Rime_, Venezia, Giolito, 1546. Carducci, 51^{1}. + +[400] Vinegia, Bertacagno, 1553. Carducci, 53^{1}. + +[401] _Egle_, s.l. et a. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 54. + +[402] This strong feeling concerning the incestuous nature of connexion +between cousins, however strange to us, appears to have been very real in +Italy in the sixteenth century. _Sorella germana_, a common term for a +female cousin, is in itself sufficient evidence of the feeling. Readers of +the _novelle_ will remember the discussion on the subject by Pietro +Fortini in his _Novelle de' Novizi_, xxxi. The explanation of the +phenomenon is no doubt to be sought in the peculiar conventions of Italian +society. + +[403] Speaking of the _Favola_, Carducci says: 'lo stile quel nobile del +Giraldi.' This is a point on which the opinion of a foreigner can never +carry very much weight; but with all deference to Signer Carducci's +judgement, I cannot help expressing my opinion that the verse is +characterized by awkward verbal repetitions and a certain stiffness of +expression, which impart to it a quality of heaviness similar to that +found in the prose of the _Ecatommiti_. It seems to be the result of a +conscious endeavour on the part of the Ferrarese to write pure Tuscan, and +the reader is constantly reminded of the memorable words in the preface to +the _Cortegiano_, in which Castiglione announces his intention 'di farmi +pi tosto conoscere per Lombardo, parlando Lombardo, che per non Toscano, +parlando troppo Toscano.' + +[404] Ferrara, De Rossi, 1555. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 57. The piece +must not, of course, be confused either with the _Sacrifizio pastorale_, +paraphrased by Firenzuola from the _Arcadia_, or with the masque called +_El Sacrifizio_, performed by the Intronati at Siena in 1531, and printed +in 1537. + +[405] The remark is Rossi's, and, though strongly controverted by +Carducci, appears to me absolutely true. + +[406] 'Comedia pastorale di nuovo composta per mess. Barth. Brayda di +Summariva,' Torino, Coloni da Saluzzo, 1556. Carducci, 64^{2}. The date is +given as 1550 in the note, and correctly, I take it, as 1556 in the text. + +[407] Vinezia, Zopini, 1583, B. M. The preface is dated Sept, 1, 1580. +Carducci (71^{1}) speaks of the edition of 1586 as the first. + +[408] Ferrara, Panizza, 1564. Carducci, 69^{1}. + +[409] Edited by A. Solerti in the _Propugnatore_, 1891, new series, iv. p. +199. Carducci, 70^{1}. + +[410] Venezia, Giolito, 1568. Carducci, 71^{2}; Klein, v. p. 61. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama +by Walter W. Greg + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + +***** This file should be named 12218-8.txt or 12218-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1/12218/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Greg + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration + Stage in England + + +Author: Walter W. Greg + +Release Date: April 30, 2004 [EBook #12218] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="note"><p>[<span class="smallcaps"><strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></span> Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end.]</p></div> + +<div class="note"><p>[<span class="smallcaps"><strong>Note on characters:</strong></span> There are several <span class="smallcaps">Masculine Ordinal Indicators</span> +(º - <span class='smallcaps'>U+00BA</span>) used in this book. These should not be confused with the +<span class="smallcaps">Degree Sign</span> (° - <span class="smallcaps">U+00B0</span>).]</p></div> + + + +<div id="tp"> +<h1 class="title">Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama</h1> + + + + +<blockquote class="epi"><p> <i>Far, far from here...<br /> + The sunshine in the happy glens is fair,<br /> + And by the sea, and in the brakes<br /> + The grass is cool, the sea-side air<br /> + Buoyant and fresh.</i></p> + +<p> Matthew Arnold.</p></blockquote> + + + + +<h1 class="title">Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama</h1> + +<h2 class="subtitle">A Literary Inquiry, with Special<br /> +Reference to the Pre-Restoration<br /> +Stage in England.</h2> + +<h2 class="author">By Walter W. Greg, M.A.</h2> + +<h3>MCMVI.</h3> + +<h4>Oxford: Horace Hart<br /> +Printer to the University</h4> +</div> + + + +<h4>MAGISTRIS MEIS<br /> +AMICISQVEM</h4> + + + +<div id="preface"> +<h2>Preface</h2> + + + +<p>Some ten years ago, it may be, Mr. St. Loe Strachey suggested that I +should write an article on 'English Pastoral Drama' for a magazine of +which he was then editor. The article was in the course of time written, +and in the further course of time appeared. I learnt two things from +writing it: first, that to understand the English pastoral drama it was +necessary to have some more or less extensive knowledge of the history of +European pastoralism in general; secondly, that there was no critical work +from which such knowledge could be obtained. I set about the revision and +expansion of my crude and superficial essay, proposing to prefix to it +such an account of pastoral literature generally as should make the +special form it assumed on the English stage appear in its true light as +the reasonable and rational outcome of artistic and historical conditions. +Unfortunately perhaps, but at least inevitably, this preliminary inquiry +grew to ever greater and more alarming proportions as I proceeded, till at +last it swelled to something over half of the whole work. Part of this +bulk was claimed by foreign pastoral poetry, the origins of the kind; part +by English pastoral poetry, and the introduction of the fashion into this +country; part by the pastoral drama of Italy, the immediate parent of that +of England. The original title proved too narrow to cover the subject with +which I dealt. Hence the rather vague and perhaps ambitions title of the +present volume. I make no pretence of offering the reader a general +history of pastoral literature, nor even of pastoral drama. The real +subject of my work remains the pastoral drama in Elizabethan +literature--understanding that term in the wide sense in which, quite +reasonably, we have learnt to use it--and even though I may have been +sometimes carried away by the interest of the immediate subject of +investigation, I have done my best to keep the main object of my inquiry +at all times in view. The downward limit of my work is a little vague. The +old stage traditions, upon which all the dramatic production of the time +was at least in some measure, and in different cases more or less +consciously, based, were killed by the act of 1642: the new traditions, +created or imported by a company of gentlemen who had come under the +influence of the French genius during the eleven years of their exile, +first announced themselves authoritatively in 1660. During the intervening +eighteen years a number of works were produced, some of which continued +the earlier traditions, while some anticipated the later. My treatment has +been eclectic. Where a work appeared to me to belong to or to illustrate +the older school I have included it, where not, I have refrained from +doing so. Fanshawe's <i>Pastor fido</i> (1647) will be found mentioned in the +following pages, T. R.'s <i>Berger extravagant</i> (1654) will not.</p> + +<p>Some explanation may be advisable with regard to my method of quotation. +Where a satisfactory modern edition of the work under discussion was +available I have taken my quotations from it, whether the spelling of the +text was modernized or not. Where none such existed I have had recourse to +the original. This explains the perhaps alarming mixture of old and modern +orthographies which appear in my pages. Such inconsistency seemed to me a +lesser evil than making nonce texts to suit my immediate purpose. I have, +however, exercised the right of following my own fancy in the matter of +punctuation throughout, and also in that of capitalization, though I have +been chary of alterations in the case of old-spelling texts. This applies +to English works. I have found it necessary myself to modernize to some +extent the spelling of the quotations from early Italian in order to +render it less bewildering to readers who may possibly, like myself, have +no very profound knowledge of the antiquities of that tongue. I have been +as sparing as possible, however, and trust I may have committed no +enormities to shock Romance scholars. Lastly, the italics and contractions +which are of more or less frequent occurrence in the original editions +have been disregarded, and certain typographical details made to conform +to modern practice.</p> + +<p>My indebtedness is not small to a number of friends who, during the +progress of my work, have helped me more or less directly in a variety of +ways. A few have received specific mention in the notes. Alike to those +who have, and to the far greater number, I fear me, who have not, I desire +hereby to confess my debt, and humbly to beg them to claim their share in +the dedication of this volume. More specifically I should mention Mr. R. +B. McKerrow, who was the first to read the following pages in manuscript, +and to make many useful suggestions, and Mr. Frank Sidgwick, to whose +careful revision alike of manuscript and proof and to whose kind and +candid criticism I am indebted perhaps more than an author's vanity may +readily allow me to acknowledge. Lastly, it would argue worse than +ingratitude to pass over my obligation to the admirable readers of the +Clarendon Press, whose marvellous accuracy in the most diverse fields and +whose almost infallible vigilance form a real asset of English +scholarship.</p> + +<p>W. W. G.<br /> +Park Lodge, Wimbledon.<br /> +<i>December</i>, 1905.</p> +</div> + + +<div id="toc"> +<h2>Contents</h2> + + + +<p>Chapter I. <a href="#ch01">Foreign Pastoral Poetry</a></p> + <p><a href="#ch01-intro">Introduction</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch01-1">The origin and nature of pastoral</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-2">Greek pastoral poetry</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-3">The bucolic eclogue in classical Latin</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-4">Medieval and humanistic eclogues</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-5">Italian pastoral poetry</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-6">The Italian pastoral romance</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-7">Pastoral in Spain</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch01-8">Pastoral in France</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter II. <a href="#ch02">Pastoral Poetry in England</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch02-1">Early pastoral verse</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-2">Spenser</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-3">Spenser's immediate followers</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-4">The regular eclogists</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-5">Lyrical and occasional verse</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-6">Milton's <i>Lycidas</i> and Browne's <i>Britannia's Pastorals</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch02-7">The pastoral romances</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter III. <a href="#ch03">Italian Pastoral Drama</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch03-1">Mythological plays containing pastoral elements</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch03-2">Evolution of the pastoral drama</a> (see <a href="#app1">Appendix I</a>)</li> + <li><a href="#ch03-3">Tasso and his <i>Aminta</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch03-4">Guarini and the <i>Pastor fido</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch03-5">Minor pastoral drama</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter IV. <a href="#ch04">Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch04-1">Mythological plays</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch04-2">Translations from the Italian</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch04-3">Daniel's imitations of Tasso and Guarini</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter V. <a href="#ch05">The Three Masterpieces</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch05-1">Fletcher's <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch05-2">Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch05-3">Jonson's <i>Sad Shepherd</i></a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter VI. <a href="#ch06">The English Pastoral Drama</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch06-1">Plays founded on the pastoral romances</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch06-2">The English stage pastoral</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Chapter VII. <a href="#ch07">Masques and General Influence</a></p> +<ul> + <li><a href="#ch07-1">Pastoral in the masques and slighter dramatic compositions</a></li> + <li><a href="#ch07-2">Milton's masques: <i>Arcades</i> and <i>Comus</i></a></li> + <li><a href="#ch07-3">General influence. Pastoral theory. Conclusion.</a></li> +</ul> + +<p>Appendix I. <a href="#app1">On the origin and development of the Italian pastoral drama</a><br /> +Appendix II. <a href="#app2">Bibliography</a></p> + +<a href="#index">Index</a> +</div> + + + +<h1 class="title">Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama</h1> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> +<h2>Chapter I.</h2> + +<h3>Foreign Pastoral Poetry</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch01-intro"> +<p>In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon +some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread +through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to +distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to +survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that +present themselves to us. It is the disadvantage of such an artificial +form of literature as that which bears the name of pastoral that no such +<i>a priori</i> guidance is available. To lay down at starting that the +essential quality of pastoral is the realistic or at least recognizably +'natural' presentation of actual shepherd life would be to rule out of +court nine tenths of the work that comes traditionally under that head. +Yet the great majority of critics, though they would not, of course, +subscribe to the above definition, have yet constantly betrayed an +inclination to censure individual works for not conforming to some such +arbitrary canon. It is characteristic of the artificiality of pastoral as +a literary form that the impulse which gave the first creative touch at +seeding loses itself later and finds no place among the forces at work at +blossom time; the methods adopted by the greatest masters of the form are +inconsistent with the motives that impelled them to its use, and where +these motives were followed to their logical conclusion, the resuit, both +in literature and in life, became a byword for absurd unreality. To live +at all the ideal appeared to require an atmosphere of paradox and +incongruity: in its essence the most 'natural' of all poetic forms, +pastoralism came to its fairest flower amid the artificiality of a +decadent court or as the plaything of the leisure hours of a college of +learning, and its insipid convention having become 'a literary plague in +every European capital,' it finally disappeared from view amid the +fopperies of the Roman Arcadia and the puerile conceits of the Petit +Trianon.</p> + +<p>Wherein then, it may be wondered, does the pastoral's title to +consideration lie. It does not lie primarily, or chiefly, in the fact that +it is associated with names of the first rank in literature, with +Theocritus and Vergil, with Petrarch, Politian, and Tasso, with Cervantes +and Lope de Vega, with Ronsard and Marot, with Spenser, Ben Jonson, and +Milton; nor yet that works such as the <i>Idyls</i>, the <i>Aminta</i>, the +<i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, and <i>Lycidas</i> contain some of the most graceful +and perfect verse to be found in any language. Rather is its importance to +be sought in the fact that the form is the expression of instincts and +impulses deep-rooted in the nature of humanity, which, while affecting the +whole course of literature, at times evince themselves most clearly and +articulately here; that it plays a distinct and distinctive part in the +history of human thought and the history of artistic expression. Moreover, +it may be argued that, from this point of view, the very contradictions +and inconsistencies to which I have alluded make it all the more important +to discover wherein lay the strange vitality of the form and its power of +influencing the current of European letters.</p> + +<p>From what has already been said it will be apparent that little would be +gained by attempting beforehand to give any strict account of what is +meant by 'pastoral' in literature. Any definition sufficiently elastic to +include the protean forms assumed by what we call the 'pastoral ideal' +could hardly have sufficient intension to be of any real value. If after +considering a number of literary phenomena which appear to be related +among themselves in form, spirit, and aim we come at the end of our +inquiry to any clearer appreciation of the term I shall so far have +attained my object. I notice that I have used the expression 'pastoral +ideal,' and the phrase, which comes naturally to the mind in connexion +with this form of literature, may supply us with a useful hint. It +reminds us, namely, that the quality of pastoralism is not determined by +the fortuitous occurrence of certain characters, but by the fact of the +pieces in question being based more or less evidently upon a philosophical +conception, which no doubt underwent modification through the ages, but +yet bears evidence of organic continuity. Thus the shepherds of pastoral +are primarily and distinctively shepherds; they are not mere rustics +engaged in sheepcraft as one out of many of the employments of mankind. As +soon as the natural shepherd-life had found an objective setting in +conscious artistic literature, it was felt that there was after all a +difference between hoeing turnips and pasturing sheep; that the one was +capable of a particular literary treatment which the other was not. The +Maid of Orleans might equally well have dug potatoes as tended a flock, +and her place is not in pastoral song. Thus pastoral literature must not +be confounded with that which has for its subject the lives, the ideas, +and the emotions of simple and unsophisticated mankind, far from the +centres of our complex civilization. The two may be in their origin +related, and they occasionally, as it were, stretch out feelers towards +one another, but the pastoral of tradition lies in its essence as far from +the human document of humble life as from a scientific treatise on +agriculture or a volume of pastoral theology. Thus the tract which lies +before us to explore is equally remote from the idyllic imagination of +George Sand, the gross actuality of Zola, and the combination of simple +charm with minute and essential realism of Mr. Hardy's sketches in Wessex. +Nor does the adoption of the pastoral label suffice to bring within the +fold the fanciful animalism of Mr. Hewlett. By far the most remarkable +work of recent years to assume the title is Signor d'Annunzio's play <i>La +Figlia di Iorio</i>, a work in which the author's powerful and delicate +imagination and wealth of pure and expressive language appear in matchless +perfection. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that there is nothing +in common between the 'pastoral ideal' and the rugged strength and +suppressed fire of the great modern Italian's portrait of his native land +of the Abruzzi.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>Some confusion of thought appears to have prevailed among writers as to +the origin of pastoral. We are, for instance, often told that it is the +earliest of all forms of poetry, that it characterizes primitive peoples +and permeates ancient literatures. Song is, indeed, as old as human +language, and in a sense no doubt the poetry of the pastoral age may be +said to have been pastoral. It does not, however, follow that it bears any +essential resemblance to that which subsequent ages have designated by the +name. All that we know concerning the songs of pastoral nations leads us +to suppose that they bear a close resemblance to the type of popular verse +current wherever poetry exists, folk-songs of broad humanity in which +little stress is laid on the peculiar circumstances of shepherd life. An +insistence upon the objective pastoral setting is of prime importance in +understanding the real nature of pastoral poetry; it not only serves to +distinguish the pastoral proper from the more vaguely idyllic forms of +lyric verse, but helps us further to understand how it was that the +outward features of the kind came to be preserved, even after the various +necessities of sophisticated society had metamorphosed the content almost +beyond recognition. No common feature of a kind to form the basis of a +scientific classification can be traced in the spontaneous shepherd-songs +and their literary counterpart. What does appear to be a constant element +in the pastoral as known to literature is the recognition of a contrast, +implicit or expressed, between pastoral life and some more complex type of +civilization. At no stage in its development does literature, or at any +rate poetry, concern itself with the obvious, with the bare scaffolding of +life: whenever we find an author interested in the circle of prime +necessity we may be sure that he himself stands outside it. Thus the +shepherd when he sang did not insist upon the conditions amid which his +uneventful life was passed. It was left to a later, perhaps a wiser and a +sadder, generation to gaze with fruitless and often only half sincere +longing at the shepherd-boy asleep under the shadow of the thorn, lulled +by the low monotonous rustle of the grazing flock. Only when the +shepherd-songs ceased to be the outcome of unalloyed pastoral conditions +did they become distinctively pastoral. It is therefore significant that +the earliest pastoral poetry with which we are acquainted, whatever half +articulate experiments may have preceded it, was itself directly born of +the contrast between the recollections of a childhood spent among the +Sicilian uplands and the crowded social and intellectual city-life of +Alexandria[<a href="#fn1">1</a>].</p> + +<p>As the result of this contrast there arises an idea which comes perhaps as +near being universal in pastoral as any--the idea, namely, of the 'golden +age.' This embraces, indeed, a field not wholly coincident with that of +pastoral, but the two are connected alike by a common spring in human +emotion and constant literary association. The fiction of an age of +simplicity and innocence found birth among the Augustan writers in the +midst of the complex and luxurious civilization of Rome, as an +illustration of the principle enunciated by Professer Raleigh, that +'literature has constantly the double tendency to negative the life +around it, as well as to reproduce it.' Having inspired Ovid and Vergil, +and been recognized by Lucretius, it passed as a literary legacy to +Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meung; it was incorporated by Frezzi in his +strange allegorical composition the <i>Quadriregio</i>, and was thrice handled +by Chaucer; it was dealt with humorously by Cervantes in <i>Don Quixote</i>, +and became the prey of the satirist in the hands of Juvenal, Bertini, and +Hall. The association of this ideal world with the simplicity of pastoral +life was effected by Vergil, and in this form it was treated with loving +minuteness by Tasso in his <i>Aminta</i> and by Browne in his <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i>[<a href="#fn2">2</a>]. The fiction no doubt answered to some need in human nature, +but in literature it soon came to be no more than a polite convention.</p> + +<p>The conception of a golden age of rustic simplicity does not, indeed, +involve the whole of pastoral literature. It does not account either for +the allegorical pastoral, in which actual personages are introduced, in +the guise of shepherds, to discuss contemporary affairs, or for the +so-called realistic pastoral, in which the town looks on with amused envy +at the rustic freedom of the country. What it does comprehend is that +outburst of pastoral song which sprang from the yearning of the tired soul +to escape, if it were but in imagination and for a moment, to a life of +simplicity and innocence from the bitter luxury of the court and the +menial bread of princes[<a href="#fn3">3</a>].</p> + +<p>And this, the reaction against the world that is too much with us, is, +after all, the keynote of what is most intimately associated with the name +of pastoral in literature--the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness +in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, +lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini. For everywhere +in these soft melodies of luscious beauty, even in the studied sketches of +primitive innocence itself, there is an undercurrent of tender melancholy +and pathos:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Il mondo invecchia<br /> + E invecchiando intristisce.</p></blockquote> + +<p>I have said that a sense of the contrast between town and country was +essential to the development of a distinctively pastoral literature. It +would be an interesting task to trace how far this contrast is the source +of the various subsidiary types--of the ideal where it breeds desire for a +return to simplicity, of the realistic where the humour of it touches the +imagination, and of the allegorical where it suggests satire on the +corruption of an artificial civilization.</p> + +<p>When the kind first makes its appearance in a world already old, it arises +purely as a solace and relief from the fervid life of actuality, and comes +as a fresh and cooling draught to lips burning with the fever of the city. +In passing from Alexandria to Rome it lost much of its limpid purity; the +clear crystal of the drink was mixed with flavours and perfumes to fit the +palate of a patron or an emperor. The example of adulteration being once +set, the implied contrast of civilization and rusticity was replaced by +direct satire on the former, and later by the discussion under the +pastoral mask of questions of religious and political controversy. Proving +itself but a left-handed weapon in such debate, it became a court +plaything, in which princes and great ladies, poets and wits, loved to see +themselves figured and complimented, and the practice of assuming pastoral +names becoming almost universal in polite circles, the convention, which +had passed from the eclogue on to the stage, passed from the stage into +actual existence, and court life became one continual pageant of pastoral +conceit. From the court it passed into circles of learning, and grave +jurists and administrators, poets and scholars, set about the refining of +language and literature decked out in all the fopperies of the fashionable +craze. One is tempted to wonder whether anything more serious than light +loves and fantastic amours can have flourished amid eighteenth-century +pastoralism. When the ladies of the court began to talk dairy-farming with +the scholars and statesmen of the day, the pretence of pastoral simplicity +could hardly be long kept up. Nor was there any attempt to do so. In the +introduction to his famous romance d'Urfé wrote in answer to objectors: +'Responds leur, ma Bergere, que pour peu qu'ils ayent connoissance de toy, +ils sçauront que tu n'es pas, ny celles aussi qui te suivent, de ces +Bergeres necessiteuses, qui pour gaigner leur vie conduisent les troupeaux +aux pasturages; mais que vous n'avez toutes pris cette condition que pour +vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte.' No wonder that to Fontenelle +Theocritus' shepherds 'sentent trop la campagne[<a href="#fn4">4</a>].' But the hour of +pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were +playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges +and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the +flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the +old order of social life.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>The Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not the nurse of a great literature, +though the age was undoubtedly one of considerable literary activity. +Scholastic learning and poetic imitation were rife; the rehandling of +Greek masterpieces was a fashionable pastime. For serious and original +composition, however, the conditions were not favourable. That the age +produced no great epic was less due to the disparagement of the form +indulged in by Callimachus, chief librarian and literary dictator, than to +the inherent temper of society. The prevailing taste was for an arrogant +display of rare and costly pageantry. At the coronation of Ptolemy +Philadelphus the brilliant city surfeited on a long-drawn golden pomp, +decked out in all the physical beauty the inheritance of Greek thought and +memories of Greek mythology could suggest, together with a wealth of +gorgeous mysticism and rapture of sensuous intoxication, which was the +fruit of its intercourse with the oriental world. The writers of +Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an +<i>Aeneid</i>, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a <i>Faery Queen</i>. What they +possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while +perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate +between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works of +Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus.</p> + +<p>It is interesting to note that the literary <i>milieu</i> in which Theocritus +moved at Alexandria must have abounded in all those temptations which +proved the bane of pastoral poetry at Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. There +were princes and patrons to be flattered, there were panegyrics to be sung +and ancestral feats of arms to be recorded; nor does Theocritus appear to +have stood aloof from the throng of court poetasters. In spite of the +doubtful authenticity of some of the pieces connected with his name, there +appears no sufficient reason to deprive him of the rather conventional +hymns and other poems composed with a view to court-favour. These have +little interest for us to-day: his fame rests on works which probably +gained him little advantage at the time. It was for his own solace, +forgetful for a moment of the intrigues of court life and the uncertain +sunshine of princes, that he wrote his Sicilian idyls. For him, as at a +magic touch, the walls of the heated city melted like a mirage into the +sands of the salt lagoon, and he wandered once more amid the green woods +and pastures of Trinacria, the noonday sun tempered by the shade of the +chestnuts and the babbling of the brook, and by the cool airs that glide +down from the white cliffs of Aetna. There once more he saw the shepherds +tend their flocks, singing or wrangling with one another, dreamily piping +on their wax-stopped reeds or plotting to annex their neighbours' gear; or +else there sounded in his ears the love-song or the dirge, or the +incantation of the forsaken girl rose amid the silence to the silver moon. +Once again he stood upon the shore and watched the fishers cast their +nets, while around him the goats browsed on the close herbage of the +cliff, and the crystal stream leapt down, and the waves broke upon the +rocks below, till he saw the breasts of the nymphs shine in the whiteness +of the foam and their hair spread wide in the weed, and the fair Galatea, +the enticing and the fickle, mocked the clumsy suit of the Cyclops, as she +tossed upward the bitter spray from off her shining limbs. All these +memories he recorded with a loving faithfulness of detail that it is even +now possible to verify from the folk-songs of the south. To this day in +the Isles of Greece ruined girls seek to lure back their lovers with +charms differing but little from that sung by the Syracusan to Lady +Selene, and the popular poetry alike of Italy and Greece is full of those +delicate touches of refined sentiment that in Theocritus appear so +incongruous with the rough coats and rougher banter of the shepherds. For +though the poet raised the pastoral life of Sicily into the realms of +ideal poetry, he was careful not to dissociate his version from reality, +and he allowed no imaginary conceptions to overmaster his art. He depicted +no age of innocence; his poetry reflects no philosophical illusion of +primitive simplicity; he elaborated no imaginary cult of mystical worship. +His art, however little it may tempt us to the use of the term realism, is +nevertheless based on an almost passionate sympathy with actual human +nature. This is the fount of his inspiration, the central theme of his +song. The literary genius of Greece showed little aptitude for landscape, +and seldom treated inanimate nature except as a background for human +action and emotion, or it may be in the guise of mythological allegory. +Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that Theocritus, so tenderly concerned +with the homely aspects of human life, was not likewise sensitive to the +beauties of nature. At least it is impossible to doubt his attachment to +the land of his childhood, and it is at worst a welcome dream when we +imagine him, as the evening of life drew on, leaving the formal gardens +and painted landscapes of Alexandria and returning to Syracuse and his +beloved Sicily once more.[<a href="#fn5">5</a>]</p> + +<p>The verse of Theocritus was echoed by his younger contemporaries, Bion +and Moschus.[<a href="#fn6">6</a>] The former is best known through the oriental passion of +his 'Woe, woe for Adonis,' probably written to be sung at the annual +festival of Syrian origin commemorated by Theocritus in his fifteenth +idyl.[<a href="#fn7">7</a>] The most important extant work of Moschus is the 'Lament for +Bion,' characterized by a certain delicate sentimentality alien to the +spirit of either of his predecessors. It is perhaps significant that +Theocritus appears to have been of Syracusan, Bion of Smyrnian, and +Moschus of Ausonian origin.[<a href="#fn8">8</a>] With the exception of this poem, which is +modelled on Theocritus' 'Lament for Daphnis,' there is little in the work +of either of the younger poets of a pastoral nature. Certain fragments, +however, if genuine, suggest that poems of the kind may have perished. +Among the remains of Moschus occurs the following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, <br /> + For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, <br /> + Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep;[<a href="#fn9">9</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>lines in which we already take leave of the genuine love of the pastoral +life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and +see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the +imaginary swain.</p> + +<p>Once again, five centuries later,[<a href="#fn10">10</a>] the spirit of Greece shone for one +brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the +changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of <i>Daphnis and +Chloe</i> is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the +idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the +purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and +expression, and yet in such manner as by its very <i>naïveté</i> and innocence +to serve as a goad to satiated appetite. It has been suggested that the +work should properly be styled the <i>Lesbiaca</i>, a name which recalls the +<i>Aethiopica</i> and <i>Babylonica</i>, and reminds us that the author, though a +student of Alexandrian literature, belonged to the school of the erotic +romanciers and traditional bishops, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Of his +life we know nothing, and even his name--Longus--has been called in +question. The story, unlike those of most later pastoral romances, is of +the simplest. The author, however, was no longer satisfied with the +natural refinement of popular love poetry; the central characters are +represented as foundlings nurtured by the shepherds of Lesbos, and are +ultimately identified, on much the same conventional evidence as Ion and +others had been before, as the children of certain rich and aristocratie +families.[<a href="#fn11">11</a>] The interest of the story lies in the growth of their +unconscious love, which constitutes the central theme of the work, though +relieved here and there by wholly colourless adventure.</p> + +<p>A Latin translation made the book popular after the introduction of +printing, and the renaissance saw the French version by Amyot, a work of +European reputation. This was translated into English under Elizabeth; an +Italian translation followed in the seventeenth century,[<a href="#fn12">12</a>] and a Spanish +is also extant. There is no doubt that it was widely read throughout the +sixteenth and following centuries, but it exercised little influence on +the development of pastoral literature. By the time it became generally +known the main features of renaissance pastoral were already fixed, and in +motive and treatment alike it was alien to the spirit that animated the +fashionable masterpieces. The modern pastoral romance had already evolved +itself from a blending of the eclogue with the mythological tale. The +drama was developing on independent lines. Thus although, like the other +romances of the late Greek school, it supplied many incidents and +descriptions to be found in later works, it played no vital part in the +history of pastoral, and left no mark either on the general form or on the +spirit that animated the kind. Longus' romance finds its true descendant, +as well as its closest imitation, in a work that achieved celebrity on the +eve of the French revolution, that masterpiece of unreal and sentimental +simplicity, Saint-Pierre's <i>Paul et Virginie</i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>A faithful reproduction of the main conditions of actual life was the +characteristic of Theocritus' poetry. It was subject to this ever-present +limitation that his graceful fancy exercised its power of idealization. He +took the singing match, the dirge, and the love-song or complaint as he +found them among the shepherd-folk of Sicily, and gave them that objective +setting which is as necessary to pastoral as to every other merely +accidental form of poetry; for the true subjective lyric is independent of +circumstances. The first of his great successors made the bucolic eclogue +what, with trifling variation, it was to remain for eighteen centuries, a +form based upon artificiality and convention. I have already pointed out +that the literary conditions at Alexandria did not differ materially from +those of Rome; it follows that the change must have been due to the +character of Vergil himself. That intense love of beauty for its own sake +which characterized the Greek mind had little hold over the Roman. Nor did +the latter understand the charm of untaught simplicity. It is true that to +the Roman poets of the Augustan period we owe the conception of the golden +age, but it remained with them rather a philosophical mythus than the +dream of an idyllic poet. To writers of the stamp of Ovid, Lucretius, and +Vergil the Idyls of the Syracusan poet can have possessed but little +meaning, and in his own Bucolics the last named seems never to have +regarded the pastoral form as anything but a cloak for matters of more +pith and moment. Although he followed Theocritus in his use of the several +types of song and stamped them to all future ages in pastoral convention, +though he may have begun with fairly close imitation of his model and only +gradually diverged into a more independant style, he at no time showed +himself content with the earlier poet's simplicity of motive.[<a href="#fn13">13</a>] The +eclogue in which he followed Theocritus most closely, the eighth, is +equally, perhaps, the most pleasing of the series. It combines the motives +of the love-lament and incantation, and the closeness with which it +follows while playing variations on its models is striking. One instance +will suffice. Take the passage in the second Idyl thus rendered by +Symonds:[<a href="#fn14">14</a>]</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Hail, Hecatë, dread dame! to the end be thou my assistant,<br /> + Making my medicines work no less than the philtre of Circë, <br /> + Or Medea's charms, or yellow-haired Perimedë's.<br /> + Wheel of the magic spells, draw thou that man to my dwelling.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Corresponding to this we find the following passage in the Latin poem:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Song hath power to draw from heaven the wandering huntress, <br /> + Song was the witch's spell transformed the mates of Ulysses....<br /> + Home from the city to me, my song, lead home to me Daphnis.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Vergil was the first to begin the dissociation of pastoral from the +conditions of actual life, and just as his shepherds cease to present the +features and characters of the homely keepers of the flock, so his +landscape becomes imaginary and undefined. This peculiarity has been +noticed by Professor Herford in some very suggestive remarks prefixed to +his edition of the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>. 'The profiles of the Sicilian +uplands,' he writes, 'waver uncertainly amid traits drawn from the Mantuan +plain. In this confusion lay, perhaps, the germ of those debates between +highland and lowland shepherds which reverberate through the later +pastoral, and are still loud in Spenser.' The gulf that separated Vergil +from his predecessor, in so far as their treatment of shepherd-life is +concerned, may be measured by the manner in which they respectively deal +with the supernatural. In the Greek Idyls we find the simple faith or +superstition as it lived among the shepherd-folk; no Pan appears to sow +dismay in the breasts of the maidens, nor do we find aught of the mystical +worship that later gathered round him in the imaginary Arcadia. He is +mentioned only as the rugged patron of herds and song, the wild indweller +of the savage woods as he appeared to the minds of the simple swains, who +hushed their midday piping fearful lest they should disturb the sleep of +the god. It is true that Theocritus introduces mythological characters in +the tale of Galatea, but it should be noticed that this merely forms the +theme of a song or the subject of a poetical epistle to a friend. +Moreover, it is open to more than one rationalistic interpretation. +Symonds treats it as an allegory in harmony with the mythopoeic genius of +Greek poetry. It is equally possible to regard the Cyclops as emblematic +merely of the rough neatherd flouted by the more delicate +shepherd-maiden--the contrast is of constant occurrence in later +works--for, alike in one of his own fragments and in Moschus' lament, Bion +is represented as courting this same Galatea after she has rid herself of +the suit of Polyphemus. Vergil was content with no such simple mythology +as this. He must needs shake Silenus from a drunken sleep and bid him tell +of Chaos and old Time, of the infancy of the world and the birth of the +gods. This mixture of obsolescent theology and Epicurean philosophy +probably possessed little reality for Vergil himself, and would have +conveyed no meaning whatever to the Sicilian shepherds. Its introduction +stamps his eclogues with that unreality which has been the reproach of the +pastoral from his day to ours. The didactic homily was one fresh +convention introduced. Far more important was the tendency to make every +form subserve some ulterior purpose of allegory and panegyric.[<a href="#fn15">15</a>] For the +Roman its own beauty was no sufficient end of art. That the <i>Aeneid</i> was +written for the glorification of Rome cannot be made a reproach to the +poet; the greatness of the end lent dignity to the means. That the +pastoral was forced to serve the menial part of a vehicle of sycophantic +praise is less easily pardoned. In Vergil's hands a conversation between +shepherds becomes an expression of gratitude to the emperor for the +restitution of his villa, a lament for Daphnis is interwoven with an +apotheosis of Julius Caesar, and in the complaint of the forsaken +shepherd, whom Apollo and Pan seek in vain to comfort, we may trace the +wounded vanity of his patron deserted by his mistress for the love of a +soldier. The fourth eclogue was written after the peace of Brundisium, and +describes the golden age to which Vergil looked forward as consequent upon +the birth of a marvellous infant, perhaps some offspring of the marriages +of Antonius and Octavianus, celebrated in solemnization of the treaty. The +poem achieved considerable fame, which lasted as late as the time of +Dryden, owing to the belief that it contained a prophecy of the birth of +Christ drawn from the Sibylline books, and won for Vergil throughout the +middle ages the title of prophet and magician. Whether this belief was +well founded or not may be left to those whom it may interest to inquire; +it is sufficient for our purpose to note that in the poem in question +Vergil first introduced the convention of the golden age into pastoral +verse.</p> + +<p>The first of the long line of imitators of whom we have any notice was a +certain Calpurnius. His diction is correct and his verse smooth, but the +suggestion that he belonged to the age of Augustus has not met with much +favour among those competent to judge. He followed Vergil closely, chiefly +developing the panegyric. His poems, however, include all the usual +conventions, singing matches, invocations, cosmologies, and the rest, in +the treatment of which originality never appears to have been his aim. +Some of his pieces deal with husbandry, and belong more strictly to the +school of the <i>Georgics</i> and didactic poetry. The most interesting of his +eclogues is one in which he contrasts the life of the town with that of +the country, the direct comparison of which he appears to have been the +first to treat. The poem likewise possesses some antiquarian interest, +owing to a description of a wild-beast show in an amphitheatre in which +the animals were brought up in lifts through the floor of the arena. +Calpurnius is sometimes supposed, on account of a dedication to Nemesianus +found in some manuscripts, to have lived at the end of the third century, +but even supposing the dedication to be genuine, which is more than +doubtful, it does not follow that the person referred to is that +Nemesianus who contested the poetic crown with Prince Numerianus about the +year 283[<a href="#fn16">16</a>]. This Nemesianus was probably the author of some eclogues +which have been frequently ascribed to Calpurnius (numbers 8 to 11 in most +editions), but which must be discarded from the list of his authentic +works on a technical question of the employment of elision[<a href="#fn17">17</a>]. The +<i>editio princeps</i> of these eclogues is not dated, but probably appeared in +1471, so that they were at any rate accessible to writers of the +<i>cinquecento</i>. It is not easy to trace any direct influence, unless, as +perhaps we should, we credit to Calpurnius the suggestion of those poems +in which a 'wise' shepherd describes to his less-travelled hearers the +manners of the town.</p> + +<p>A few pieces from the <i>Idyllia</i> of Ausonius appear in some of the bucolic +collections, but they cannot strictly be regarded as coming within the +range of pastoral poetry.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-4"> +<h3>IV</h3> + + +<p>Events conspired to make Vergil the model for later writers of eclogues. +The fame of the poet was a potent cause among many. Another reason why +Theocritus found no direct imitators may be sought in the respective +methods of the two poets. Work of the nature of the <i>Idyls</i> has to depend +for its value and interest upon the artistic qualities of the poetry +alone. Such work may spring up spontaneously under almost any conditions; +it is seldom produced through imitation. On the other hand, any scholar +with a gift for easy versification could achieve a certain distinction as +a follower of Vergil. His verse depended for its interest not on its +poetic qualities but upon the importance of the themes it treated. +Accidental conditions, too, told in favour of the Roman poet. During the +middle ages Latin was a universal language among the lettered classes, +while the knowledge of Greek, though at no time so completely lost as is +sometimes supposed, was a far rarer accomplishment, and was restricted for +the most part to a few linguistic scholars. Thus before the revival of +learning had made Greek a possible source of literary inspiration, the +Vergilian tradition, through the instrumentality of Petrarch and +Boccaccio, had already made itself supreme in pastoral[<a href="#fn18">18</a>].</p> + +<p>During the middle ages the stream of pastoral production, though it +nowhere actually disappears, is reduced to the merest trickle. Notices of +such isolated poems as survive have been carefully collected by +Macrì-Leone in the introduction to his elaborate but as yet unfinished +work on the Latin eclogue in the Italian literature of the fourteenth +century. As early as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth +century we find a poem by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, variously entitled +'Carmen bucolicum de virtute signi crucis domini' or 'de mortibus boum.' +It is a hymn to the saint cross, and in it for the first time the pastoral +suffered violence from the tyranny of the religious idea. The 'Ecloga +Theoduli' alluded to by Chaucer in the <i>House of Fame</i>[<a href="#fn19">19</a>] appears to be +the work of an Athenian writer, and is ascribed to various dates ranging +from the fifth to the eighth centuries. While preserving as its main +characteristic a close subservience to its Vergilian model, the eclogue +participated in the general rise of allegory which marked the later middle +ages. Pastoral colouring of no very definite order had shown itself in the +elegies of Alcuin in the eighth century, as also in the 'Conflictus veris +et hiemis,' traditionally ascribed to the Venerable Bede, but more +probably the work of one Dodus, a disciple of Alcuin. Of the tenth century +we possess an allegorical religious lament entitled 'Ecloga duarum +sanctimonialium.' About 1160 a Benedictine monk named Metellus composed +twelve poems under the title of <i>Bucolica Quirinalium</i>, in honour of St. +Quirinus and in obvious imitation of Vergil. Reminiscences and paraphrases +of the Roman poet are scattered throughout the monk's own barbarous +hexameters, as in the opening verses:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Tityre tu magni recubans in margine stagni<br /> + Silvestri tenuique fide pete iura peculi!</p></blockquote> + +<p>It would hardly be worth recording these medieval clerks, the +undistinguished writers, 'de quibus,' Boccaccio said, 'nil curandum est,' +were it not that they show how the memory at least of the classical +pastoral survived amid the ruins of ancient learning, and so serve to lead +up to one last spasmodic manifestation of the kind in certain poems which +else appear to stand in a curiously isolated position.</p> + +<p>It was in 1319, during the bitter years of his exile at Ravenna, that +Dante received from one John of Bologna, known, on account of his fame as +a writer of Latin verse, as Giovanni del Virgilio, a poetical epistle +inviting him to visit the author in his native city. His correspondent, +while doing homage to his poetic genius, incidentally censured him for +composing his great work in the base tongue of the vulgar[<a href="#fn20">20</a>]. Dante +replied in a Vergilian eclogue, courteously declining Giovanni's +invitation to Bologna, on the ground that it was a place scarcely safe for +his person. As regarded the strictures of his correspondent, his +triumphant answer in the shape of the <i>Paradiso</i> lay yet unfinished, so +the author of the <i>De Vulgari Eloquio</i> trifled with the charge and +purported to compose the present poem in earnest of reform. There is a +tone of not unkindly irony about the whole. Was it an elaborate jest at +the expense of Giovanni, the writer of Vergilian verse? The Bolognese +replied, this time also in bucolic form, repeating his invitation and +holding out the special attraction of a meeting with Mussato, the most +regarded poet of his day in Europe. Dante's second eclogue, if indeed it +is correctly ascribed to his pen, introduces several historical +characters. It is said not to have reached Bologna till after his death. +These poems were not included in any of the early bucolic collections, and +first appeared in print in the eighteenth century. They seem, from their +purely occasional nature, their inconspicuous bulk, and lack of any +striking characteristics, to have attracted little notice in their own +day, and to have been ignored by later writers on pastoral as forming no +link in the chain of historical development. Given, indeed, the Bucolics +of Vergil, they are imitations such as might at any moment have appeared, +irrespective of date and surroundings, and independent of any living +literary tradition[<a href="#fn21">21</a>]. It is therefore impossible to regard them as in +any way belonging to, or foreshadowing, the great body of renaissance +pastoral, a division of literature endowed with remarkable vitality and +evolutionary force, which must in its growth and decay alike be studied in +close connexion with the ideas and temperament of the age, and in +relation to the general development of the history of letters[<a href="#fn22">22</a>].</p> + +<p>The grandeur of the Roman Empire, the background against which in +historical retrospect we see the bucolic eclogues of Vergil and his +immediate followers, had vanished when Italian literature once more rose +out of chaos. The political organism had resolved itself into its +constituent elements, and fresh combinations had arisen. Nevertheless, +though the Empire was hardly now the shadow of its pristine greatness, men +still looked to Rome as the centre of the civilized world. As the seat of +the Church, it stood for the one force capable of supplying a permanent +element among the warring interests of European politics. Nothing was more +natural than that the poetic form that had reflected the glories of +imperial Rome should bow to the fascination of Rome, the visible emblem on +earth of the spiritual empire of Christ. To the medieval mind, so far from +there being any antagonism between the two ideas, the one seemed almost to +involve and necessitate the other. It saw in the splendeur of the Empire +the herald of a glory not of this world, a preparation as it were, a +decking of the chamber against the advent of the bride; and thus the +pastoral which sang of the greatness of pagan Rome appeared at the same +time a hymn prophetic of the glory of the Church[<a href="#fn23">23</a>].</p> + +<p>Moreover, during the centuries that had elapsed since the days of Vergil +the term 'pastoral' had gained a new meaning and new associations. In the +days of Augustus Pan was a boorish anachronism; it was left to medieval +Christianity to create a god who was in fact a shepherd of men[<a href="#fn24">24</a>] and so +to render possible a pastoral allegory that should embody the dearest +hopes and aspirations of the human heart. That Christian pastoralists +availed themselves successfully of the possibilities of the theme it would +be difficult to maintain. It is a singular fact that, at a time when +allegory was the characteristic literary form, it was yet so impossible +even for the finer spirits to follow a train of thought clearly and +consistently, that it was only when a mind passed beyond the limitations +of its own age, and assumed a position <i>sub specie aeternitatis</i>, that it +was able to free itself from the prevalent confusion of the imaginary and +the real, the word and the idea, and to perceive that success in allegory +depends, not on the chaotic intermingling of the attributes of the type +and the thing typified, but on so representing the one as to suggest and +illuminate the other.</p> + +<p>In the early days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral +tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. It is +not without significance that the first modern eclogues were from the same +pen as the sonnet 'Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,' expressive of the +shame with which earnest sons of the Church contemplated the captivity of +the holy father at Avignon; for thus on the very threshold of Arcadia we +are met with those bitter denunciations of ecclesiastical corruption which +strike so characteristic a note in the works of the satirical Mantuan, and +seem so out of place in the songs of Spenser and Milton. In one eclogue +the poet mourns over the ruin and desolation of Rome, as a mother deserted +of her children; another is a dialogue between two shepherds, in which St. +Peter, under the pastoral disguise of Pamphilus, upbraids the licentious +Clement VI with the ignoble servitude in which he is content to abide; a +third shows us Clement wantoning with the shameless mistress of a line of +pontifical shepherds, a figure allegorical of the corruption of the +Church[<a href="#fn25">25</a>]; in yet a fourth Petrarch laments his estrangement from his +patron Giovanni Colonna, a cardinal in favour at the papal court, whom it +would appear his outspoken censures had offended. Petrarch's was not the +only voice that was raised urging the Pope to return from the 'Babylonian +captivity,' but the protest had peculiar significance from the mouth of +one who stood forth as the embodiment of the new age still struggling in +the throes of birth. When 'the first Italian' accepted the laurel crown at +the Capitol, he dreamed of Rome as once more the heart of the world, the +city which should embody that early Italian idea of nationality, the ideal +of the humanistic commonwealth. The course urged alike by Petrarch and by +St. Catherine was in the end followed, but the years of exile were yet to +bear their bitterest fruit of mortification and disgrace. In 1377 Gregory +XI transferred the seat of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, with the +resuit that the world was treated to the edifying spectacle of three +prelates each claiming to be the vicar of Christ and sole father of the +Church.</p> + +<p>These ecclesiastical eclogues form the most important contribution made by +Italy's greatest lyric poet to pastoral. Others, one in honour of Robert +of Sicily, another recording the defeat of Pan by Articus on the field of +Poitiers, follow already existing pastoral convention. Some few, again, of +less importance in literary history, are of greater personal or poetic +interest. In one we see Francesco and his brother Gherardo wandering in +the realm of shepherds, and there exchanging their views concerning +religious verse. A group of three, standing apart from the rest, connect +themselves with the subject of the <i>Canzoniere</i>. The first describes the +ravages of the plague at Avignon; the second mourns over the death of +poetry in the person of Laura, who fell a victim on April 6, 1348; the +third is a dirge sung by the shepherdesses over her grave. One, lastly, a +neo-classic companion to Theocritus' tale of Galatea, recounts the poet's +unrequited homage to Daphne of the Laurels, thus again suggesting the +idealized source of Petrarch's inspiration. This poem is not only the gem +of the series, but embodies the mythopoeic spirit of classical imagination +in a manner unknown in the later days of the renaissance.</p> + +<p>The, eclogues, twelve in number, appear to have been mostly composed +about the middle of the fourteenth century. In the days of Petrarch the +art of Latin verse was yet far from the perfection it attained in those of +Poliziano and Vida; it was a clumsy vehicle in comparison with the vulgar +tongue, which he affected to despise while setting therein the standard +for future ages. Nevertheless, Petrarch's Latin poems bear witness to the +natural genius for composition and expression to which we owe the +<i>Canzoniere</i>. The <i>editio princeps</i> of the pastorals appeared in the form +of a beautifully printed folio at Cologne in 1473, ninety-nine years after +the poet's death. They were entitled <i>Eglogae</i>[<a href="#fn26">26</a>] (i.e. <i>aeglogae</i>), by +which, as Dr. Johnson remarked, Petrarch, finding no appropriate meaning +in the form <i>eclogae</i>, 'meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it +will only mean the talk of goats.'</p> + +<p>No two men ever won for themselves more diverse literary reputations than +Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio. The Latin eclogue is one of their few +points of literary contact. The bucolic collections contain no less than +sixteen such poems from the pen of the younger writer[<a href="#fn27">27</a>], which, though +not devoid of merit as poetical exercises, show that as a metrist +Boccaccio fell almost as far short of his friend in the learned as in the +vulgar tongue. They were composed at various dates, mostly, it would +appear, after 1360, though some are certainly earlier; and it would be +difficult to say whether to him or to Petrarch belonged the honour of +reviving the form, were it not that, both in the poems themselves and in +his correspondance, he explicitly mentions Petrarch as his master in the +kind[<a href="#fn28">28</a>]. In any case the dates of composition must cover a wide period, +for the poems reflect varions phases of his life. 'Le Egloghe del +Boccaccio,' says an Italian critic, 'rappresentano tutta la vita +psicologica del poeta, dalle febbri d'amore alle febbri ascetiche.' The +amorous eclogues, to which in later life Boccaccio attached little +importance, are early; several are historical in subject and are probably +of later date, though one may be as early as 1348; there are others of a +religions nature which belong to the author's later years. The allusions +in these poems are so obscure that it would in most cases be hopeless to +seek to unravel the meaning had not the author left us a key in a letter +to Martino da Signa, prior of the Augustinians. Many of the subjects are +purely conventional, such as those of the early poems on the loves of the +shepherds, the historical panegyrics and laments, and the satire on rich +misers. The same may be said of a dispute on the respective merits of +poetry and commerce, and of a poem in praise of poetry; although the +former has an obvious relation to the author's own circumstances, and the +latter appears to be inspired by genuine enthusiasm and love of art. The +forces of confusion that have dogged the pastoral in all ages show +themselves where the poet tells a Christian fable in pagan guise; the +antithesis of human and divine love, while suggesting Petrarch's influence +over his life, is a theme that runs throughout medieval philosophy and was +later embodied by Spenser in his <i>Hymns</i>. One poem stands out from the +rest somewhat after the manner of Petrarch's <i>Daphne</i>. In it Boccaccio +tells us, under the thinnest veil of pastoral, how his daughter Violante, +dead in childhood many years before, appeared to him bearing tidings of +the land beyond the grave. The theme is the same as that of the almost +contemporary <i>Pearl</i>; and in treating it Boccaccio achieves something of +the sweetness and pathos of the English poem. One eclogue, finally, the +<i>Valle tenebrosa (Vallis Opaca)</i>, which appears to owe something to +Dante's description of hell, is probably historical in its intention, but +the gloss explains <i>obscurum per obscurius</i>, and we can only suppose that +the author intended that the inner sense should remain a mystery.</p> + +<p>When Boccaccio wrote, the eclogue had not yet degenerated into the +literary convention it became in the following century; and, though he was +no doubt tempted to the use of the form by Vergilian tradition and the +example of Petrarch, he must also have followed therein a natural +inclination and no mere dictate of fashion. Even in these poems the +humanity of the writer's personality makes itself felt. While Laura tends +to fade into a personification of poetry, and Petrarch's strongest +convictions find expression through the mouth of St. Peter, we feel that +behind Boccaccio's humanistic exercise lies his own amorous passion, his +own religious enthusiasm, his own fatherly tenderness and love. His +eclogues, however, never attained the same reputation as Petrarch's, and +remained in manuscript till the appearance of Giunta's bucolic collection +of 1504.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>As humanism advanced and the golden age of the renaissance approached, +Latin bucolic writers sprang up and multiplied. The fullest +collection--that printed by Oporinus at Basel in March, 1546--contains the +poems of thirty-eight authors, and even this makes no pretence of giving +those of the middle ages. The collection, however, ranges from Calpurnius +to Castalio (i.e. the French theologian Sébastien Châteillon), and +includes the work of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Spagnuoli, Urceo, Pontano, +Sannazzaro, Erasmus, Vida, and others. There is a strong family likeness +in the pastoral verse of these authors, and the majority are devoid of +individual interest. A few, however, merit separate notice.</p> + +<p>It was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that the renaissance +eclogue, abandoning its last claims to poetic inspiration, assumed its +definitive form in the works of Battista Spagnuoli, more commonly known +from the place of his birth by the name of Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in +number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral +composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any +inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author +proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. +Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth +century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it +in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note, +'What the author meant of all, the translater intends only of ill +women[<a href="#fn29">29</a>].' There follows the old complaint of the niggardliness of rich +patrons towards poor poets, and a satire on the luxury of city life. The +remaining poems are ecclesiastical. One is in praise of the religious +life, another describes the simple faith of the country folk and the joys +of conversion; finally, we have a satire on the abuses of Rome, and a +discussion on points of theological controversy. None of these subjects +possess the least novelty; the author's merit, if merit it can be called, +lies in having stamped them with their definitive form for the use of +subsequent ages. Combined with this lack of originality, however, it is +easy to trace a strong personal element in the bitterness of the satire +that pervades many of the themes, the orthodox eclogue on conversion +standing in curious contrast with that on ecclesiastical abuses.</p> + +<p>It is not easy to account for Spagnuoli's popularity, but the curiously +representative quality of his work was no doubt in part the cause. His +poems were what, through the changing fashions of centuries, men had come +to expect of bucolic verse. They crystallized into a standard mould +whatever in pastoral, whether classical or renaissance, was most obviously +and easily reducible to a type, and so attained the position of models +beyond which it was needless to go. They were first printed in 1498, and +went through a number of editions during the author's lifetime. As a young +man--and it is to his earlier years that the bulk of the eclogues must be +attributed--Spagnuoli was noted for the elegance of his Latin verse; but +his facility led him into over-production, and Tiraboschi reports his +later writings as absolutely unreadable. He was of Spanish extraction, as +his name implies, became a Carmelite, and rose to be general of the order, +but retired in 1515, the year before his death.</p> + +<p>Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished +humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a +Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling. His poems were first +published by Aldus in 1505, two years after his death. In one +characteristic composition he laments the loss of his wife, to whom he was +deeply attached; another introduces under a pastoral name his greater +disciple Sannazzaro[<a href="#fn30">30</a>].</p> + +<p>Jacopo Sannazzaro, known to humanism as Actius Sincerus, disciple of the +'Accademia Pontana,' and editor of his master's works, the greatest +explorer, if not the greatest exponent, of the mysteries of Arcadia, was +born of parents of Spanish origin at Naples in 1458. His boyhood was spent +at San Cipriano, but he soon returned to Naples, where he fell in love +with Carmosina Bonifacia. His passion does not appear to have been +reciprocated, but the lady has her place in literature as the Phillis of +the eclogues. He attached himself to the court of Frederick of Aragon, +whom he followed into exile in France. Returning to Naples after his +patron's death in 1503, he again fell in love, this time with a certain +Cassandra Marchesa, to whom he continued to pay court, <i>more Platonico</i>, +till his death in 1530. He is said to have died at her house.</p> + +<p>To his Italian work I shall have to return later; here it is his five +Latin piscatory eclogues that demand notice. There is nothing in the +subject-matter to arrest attention--they consist of a lament for +Carmosina, a lover's complaint, a singing match, a panegyric, and a poem +in honour of Cassandra--but the form is interesting. Of course the claim +sometimes put forward for Sannazzaro, as the inventor of the piscatory +eclogue, ignores various passages in Theocritus, notably the twenty-first +Idyl, whence he presumably borrowed the idea. But it is certainly +refreshing, after wandering in an unreal Sicily and an imaginary Arcadia, +and listening to shepherds discourse of the abuses of the Roman Curia, to +dive into the waters of the bay of Naples, or wanton in fancy along its +sunlit shore from the low rocks of Baiae to the sheer cliffs of Sorrento, +and to feel that, even though Jacopo was no Neapolitan fisher-boy, and +Carmosina no nymph of Posilipo, yet the poet had at least before him the +blue water and the dark rocks, and in his heart the love that formed the +theme of his song[<a href="#fn31">31</a>].</p> + +<p>Sannazzaro also wrote a mythological poem entitled <i>Salices</i>, in which +certain nymphs pursued by satyrs are changed by Diana into willows. The +tale was evidently suggested by Ovid, and cannot strictly be classed as +pastoral, though it may have helped to fix in pastoral convention the +character of the satyr; who, however, at no time enjoyed a very savoury +reputation. The Latin works were first published at Naples in 1536, and +though far from rivalling the popularity of the <i>Arcadia</i>, went through +several editions.</p> + +<p>The Latin eclogues of the renaissance are distinguished from all other +forms of allegory by the obscure and recondite allusions that they +affected. There were few among their authors for whom the narration of +simple loves and sorrows or the graces of untutored nature possessed any +attraction; we find them either making their shepherds openly discuss +contemporary affairs, or more often clothing their references to actual +events in a sort of pastoral allegory, fatuous as regards its form and +obscure as regards its content. Tityrus and Mopsus are alternately lovers, +courtiers and spiritual pastors; Pan, when he does not conceal under his +shaggy outside the costly robes of a prince, is a strange abortive +monster, drawing his attributes in part from pagan superstition, in part +from Christian piety; a libel upon both. The seed sown by Petrarch and +Boccaccio bore fruit only too freely. The writers of eclogues, either +debarred from or incapable of originality, sought distinction by ever more +and more elaborate and involved allusions; and their works, in their own +day held the more sublime the more incomprehensible they were, are now the +despair of those who would wring from them any semblance of meaning.</p> + +<p>The absurdities of the conventional pastoral did not, indeed, pass +altogether unnoticed in their own day, for early in the sixteenth century +Teofilo Folengo composed his <i>Zanitonella</i> in macaronic verse. It consists +of eclogues and poems in hexameter and elegiac metre ridiculing polite +pastoralism through contrast with the crudities of actual rusticity. In +the same manner Berni travestied the courtly pastoral of vernacular +writers in his realistic pictures of village love. But though the satirist +might find ample scope for his wit in anatomizing the foible of the day, +fashionable society continued none the less to encourage the exquisite +inanity, and to be flattered by the elegant obscurity, of the allegorical +pastoral.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-5"> +<h3>V</h3> + + +<p>In 1481 appeared an Italian translation of the Bucolics of Vergil from the +pen of Bernardo Pulci. The same volume also contained a collection of +eclogues in the vernacular by various authors, none of which have any +particular interest beyond what attaches to them as practically heading +the list of Italian pastorals[<a href="#fn32">32</a>]. It will be noticed that these poems +correspond in date with the later school of Latin bucolic writers, +represented by Mantuan; and the vernacular compositions developed +approximately parallel to, though usually in imitation of, those in the +learned tongue. But the fourteenth-century school of Petrarch had not been +entirely without its representative in Italian. At least one poem included +by Boccaccio in his <i>Ameto</i> is a strict eclogue, composed throughout in +<i>terza rima</i>, which was destined to become the standard verse-form for +'pastoral,' as <i>ottava rima</i> for 'rustic,' composition. The poem is a +contention between an upland and a lowland shepherd, and begins in genuine +pastoral fashion:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Come Titan del seno dell' aurora<br /> + Esce, così con le mie pecorelle<br /> + I monti cerco sema far dimora.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is chiefly differentiated from many similar compositions in Latin--and +the distinction is of some importance--in that the interest is purely +pastoral; no political or religious allusions being discernible under the +arguments of the somewhat quarrelsome swains[<a href="#fn33">33</a>]. This peculiarity is on +the whole characteristic of the later vernacular pastoral likewise, which, +after the appearance of the collection of 1481, soon became extremely +common, Siena and Urbino, Ferrara, Bologna and Padua, Florence and Naples, +all alike bearing practical witness to the popularity of the kind[<a href="#fn34">34</a>].</p> + +<p>In 1506 Castiglione[<a href="#fn35">35</a>] and Cesare Gonzaga, in the disguise of shepherds, +recited an eclogue interspersed with songs before the court of Duke +Guidubaldo at Urbino. The Duchess Elizabeth was among the spectators. The +<i>Tirsi,</i> as it is called, begins with the simple themes of pastoral +complaint, whence by swift transition it passes to a panegyric of the +court and the circle of the <i>Cortegiano</i>. It was not the first attempt at +bringing the pastoral upon the boards, since Poliziano's <i>Orfeo</i> with its +purely bucolic opening had been performed as early as 1471; but +Castiglione's <i>ecloga rappresentativa</i> was the first of any note to depend +purely on the pastoral form and to introduce on the stage the convention +of the allegorical pastoral. Some years later a further step was taken in +the dramatization of the eclogue by Luigi Tansillo in his <i>Due pelegrini</i>, +performed at Messina in 1538, though composed and probably originally +acted some ten years before. It is through these and similar poems that we +shall have to trace the gradual evolution of the pastoral drama in a later +section of this work. Tansillo was likewise the author, both of a poem +called <i>Il Vendemmiatore</i>, one of those obscene debauches of fancy which +throw a lurid light on the luxurious imagination of the age, and of a +didactic work, <i>Il Podere</i>, in which, as his editor somewhat naïvely +remarks, 'ci rende amabile la campagna e l'agricoltura[<a href="#fn36">36</a>].'</p> + +<p>The practice of eclogue-writing soon became no less general in the +vernacular than in Latin, and the band of pastoral poets included men so +different in temperament as Machiavelli, who left a 'Capitolo pastorale' +among his miscellaneous works, and Ariosto, whose eclogue on the +conspiracy contrived in 1506 against Alfonso d'Este was published from +manuscript in 1835. The fashion of the piscatory eclogue, set by +Sannazzaro in Latin, was followed in Italian by his fellow-citizen +Bernardino Rota, and later by Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, Abbot of +Guastalla, in whose poems we are able at times to detect a ring of simple +and refreshing sincerity.</p> + +<p>Though, as will be understood even from the brief summary given above, the +allusive element is not wholly absent from these poems, it is nevertheless +true, as already said, that it appears less persistently than in the Latin +works, the weighty matters of religion and politics being as a rule +avoided. The reason is perhaps not far to seek, since, being in the vulgar +tongue, they appealed to a wider and less learned audience, before whom it +might have been injudicious to utter too strong an opinion on questions of +church and state.</p> + +<p>So far the pastoral poetry of Italy had been composed exclusively in the +literary Tuscan of the day. To Florence and to Lorenzo de' Medici in +particular is due the honour of having first introduced the rustic speech +of the people. His two poems written in the language of the peasants about +Florence, <i>La Nencia da Barberino</i> and a canzonet <i>In morte della Nencia</i>, +possess a grace to which the quaintness of the diction adds point and +flavour. A short extract must suffice to illustrate the style.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ben si potrà tener avventurato<br /> + Chi sia marito di sì bella moglie;<br /> + Ben si potrà tener in buon dì nato<br /> + Chi arà quel fioraliso senza foglie;<br /> + Ben si potrà tenersi consolato<br /> + Che si contenti tutte le sue voglie<br /> + D' aver la Nencia, e tenersela in braccio<br /> + Morbida e bianca, che pare un sugnaccio.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> Nenciozza mia, vuo' tu un poco fare<br /> + Meco a la neve per quel salicale?--<br /> + Sì, volentier, ma non me la sodare<br /> + Troppo, chè tu non mi facessi male.--<br /> + Nenciozza mia, deh non ti dubitare,<br /> + Chè l' amor ch' io ti porto sì è tale,<br /> + Che quando avessi mal, Nenciozza mia,<br /> + Con la mia lingua te lo leveria.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This form of composition at once became fashionable. Luigi Pulci[<a href="#fn37">37</a>] +composed his <i>Beca di Dicomano</i>, which attained almost equal success and +passed for the work of Lorenzo. It is, however, a far inferior production, +in which the quaintness of the model is replaced by coarse caricature and +its delicate rusticity by a cruder realism. Other imitations followed, but +none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[<a href="#fn38">38</a>]. It is in thought and +expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish +themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an +anonymous <i>Pescatoria amorosa</i> printed about 1550. It is a Venetian +serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain grace +of language:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cortese donne, belle innamorae,<br /> + Donzelle, vedovette, e maridae,<br /> + Ascholte ste parole, che le no se cortelae,<br /> + Che intendere la causa del vegnir in ste contrae[<a href="#fn39">39</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>Symonds and D'Ancona alike remark, with perfect truth, that Lorenzo's +rustic style, in spite of its sympathetic grace, is not altogether +dissociated from burlesque. While free from the artificiality of court +pastoral, it is equally distinct from the natural simplicity of the +Theocritean idyl. Its flavour depends upon the half cynical, half kindly, +amusement afforded by the contrast between the <i>naïveté</i> of the country +and the familiar and conventional polish of town life. This theme had +already caught the fancy of the song-writers of the fourteenth century, +who produced some of the most delightful examples of native and +unconventional pastoral anywhere to be found[<a href="#fn40">40</a>]. Franco Sacchetti the +novelist, for example, gives us a series of charming vignettes of country +life and scenery, but always from the point of view of the town observer. +One poem of his in particular gained wide popularity, and a modernized and +somewhat altered version was iater printed among the works of Poliziano. +It was originally a <i>ballata</i>, but I prefer to quote some stanzas from the +traditional version:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Vaghe le montanine e pastorelle,<br /> + Donde venite sì leggiadre e belle?-- + + Vegnam dall' alpe, presso ad un boschetto;<br /> + Picciola capannella è il nostro sito;<br /> + Col padre e colla madre in picciol tetto,<br /> + Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito,<br /> + Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito<br /> + Ch' abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle.-- + + Ben si posson doler vostre bellezze,<br /> + Poichè tra valli e monti le mostrate,<br /> + Chè non è terra di sì grandi altezze<br /> + Che voi non foste degne ed onorate.<br /> + Ora mi dite, se vi contentate<br /> + Di star nell' alpe così poverelle?-- + + Più si contenta ciascuna di noi<br /> + Gire alla mandria, dietro alla pastura,<br /> + Più che non fate ciascuna di voi<br /> + Gire a danzare dentro a vostre mura;<br /> + Ricchezza non cerchiam, nè più ventura,<br /> + Se non be' fiori, e facciam ghirlandelle[<a href="#fn41">41</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>Other writers besides Sacchetti produced songs of the sort, but in all +alike the strictly pastoral element was accidental, and merged insensibly +into the more delicately romantic of the <i>novelle</i> themes. The following +lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in +English ballad poetry. They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of +Sacchetti's. A nun sings:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> La dura corda e 'l vel bruno e la tonica<br /> + Gittar voglio e lo scapolo<br /> + Che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica;<br /> + Poi teco a guisa d'assetato giovane,<br /> + Non già che si sobbarcoli,<br /> + Venir me n' voglio ove fortuna piovane:</p> + +<p> E son contenta star per serva e cuoca,<br /> + Chè men mi cocerò ch' ora mi cuoca[<a href="#fn42">42</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally +influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that +we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the +transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the <i>voluttà idillica</i> of +the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor fido.</i> This vein is strong in Lorenzo's +charming carnival songs, which at once recall Villon's burden, 'Où sont +les neiges d'antan?' and anticipate Tasso's warning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cangia, cangia consiglio, <br /> + Pazzerella che sei;<br /> + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The 'triumph' of <i>Bacchus and Ariadne</i>, introduced with amorous nymphs and +satyrs, has the refrain:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Quant' è bella giovinezza,<br /> + Che si fugge tuttavia!<br /> + Chi vuol esser lieto, sia:<br /> + Di doman non c' è certezza.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The flower of lyric melancholy is already full blown. So, too, in another +carnival song of his:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or che val nostra bellezza?<br /> + Se si perde, poco vale.<br /> + Viva amore e gentilezza!</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>Gentilezza, morbidezza</i>--the yielding fancy in the disguise of pity, the +nerveless languor that passes for beauty--such is the dominant note of the +song upon men's lips in the troublous times of the renaissance[<a href="#fn43">43</a>].</p> + +<p>Another of the outlying realms of pastoral is the mythological tale, more +or less directly imitated from Ovid. The first to introduce it in +vernacular literature was Boccaccio, who in his <i>Ninfale fiesolano</i> uses +a pagan allegory to convey a favourite <i>novella</i> theme. The shepherd +Affrico loves a nymph of Diana, and the tale ends by the goddess changing +her faithless votary into a fountain. It is written in somewhat cumbrous +<i>ottava rima</i>, and seldom shows any conspicuous power of narrative. +Belonging to the same class of composition, though of a very different +order of poetic merit, is Lorenzo's wonderfully graceful tale of <i>Ambra</i>. +The grace lies in the telling, for the plot was probably already stale +when Phoebus and Daphne were protagonists. The poem recounts how the +wood-nymph Ambra, beloved of Lauro, is pursued by the river-god Ombrone, +one of Arno's tributary divinities, and praying to Diana in her hour of +need, is by her transformed into a rock[<a href="#fn44">44</a>]. Lorenzo's <i>Selva d'amore</i> and +<i>Caccia col falcone</i> might also be mentioned in the same connexion.</p> + +<p>Less pastoral in motive and less connected in narrative, but of even +greater importance in the formation of pastoral taste, is the famous +<i>Giostra</i> written in honour of the young Giuliano de' Medici. I have +already more than once had occasion to mention its author, Angelo +Ambrogini, better known from the place of his birth as Poliziano or +Politian[<a href="#fn45">45</a>], the contemporary, dependent, and fellow-littérateur of +Lorenzo il Magnifico, and the greatest scholar and learned writer of the +Italian renaissance. As the author of the <i>Orfeo</i> he will occupy our +attention when we come to trace the evolution of the pastoral drama. +Though he left no poems belonging to the recognized forms of pastoral +composition, his work constantly borders upon the kind, and evinces a +genuine sympathy with rustic life which makes the ascription to him of the +already quoted modernization of Sacchetti not inappropriate. He left +several other pieces of a similar nature, some of which at least are known +to be adaptations of popular songs[<a href="#fn46">46</a>]. Such, for instance, is the +irregular <i>canzone</i> beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> La pastorella si leva per tempo<br /> + Menando le caprette a pascer fuora,<br /> + Di fuora, fuora: la traditora<br /> + Co' suoi begli occhi la m' innamora,<br /> + E fa di mezza notte apparir giorno.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The <i>Giostra</i> is composed, like its predecessors, in the octave stanza, +and presents a series of pictures drawn from classical mythology or from +the poet's own imagination, adorned with all the physical beauty the study +of antiquity could supply and a rich and refined taste crystallize into +chastest jewellery of verse[<a href="#fn47">47</a>]. This blending of luxuriance and delicacy +is the characteristic quality of Poliziano's and Lorenzo's poetry. It is +admirably expressed in the phrase of a recent critic, 'the decorum of +things exquisite.' After the lapse of another half-century, during which +the renaissance advanced from its graceful youth to the full bloom of its +maturity, appeared the <i>Ninfa tiberina</i> of Francesco Maria Molza. 'The +<i>voluttà idillica</i>[<a href="#fn48">48</a>],' writes Symonds, 'which opened like a rosebud in +the <i>Giostra</i>, expands full petals in the <i>Ninfa tiberina</i>; we dare not +shake them, lest they fall.' Like the earlier poem it possesses little +narrative unity--the taie of Eurydice introduced by way of illustration +occupies more than a third of the whole--but every point is made the +occasion of minute decoration of the richest beauty. It was written for +Faustina Mancina, a celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of +her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made +a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected +as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. +Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of +idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. +The <i>Driadeo d'amore</i> earlier--a mythological medley variously ascribed in +different editions to Luca and to Luigi Pulci--and Marino's <i>Adone</i> later, +were likewise among the works that went to form the courtly taste to which +the pastoral drama appealed. The detailed criticism, however, of such +compositions lies beyond the scope of this work.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-6"> +<h3>VI</h3> + + +<p>We must now return to an earlier period in order to follow the development +of the pastoral romance. When dealing with <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> I pointed +out that the Greek work could claim no part in the formation of the later +prose pastoral. Between it and the work of Boccaccio and Sannazzaro there +exists no such continuity of tradition as between the bucolics of the +classical Mantuan and those of his renaissance follower. The Italian +pastoral romance, in spite of its almost pedantic endeavour after +classical and mythological colouring, was as essentially a product of its +age as the pastoral drama itself. So far as any influence on the evolution +of the subsequent Arcadia was concerned, Longus might as well never have +written of the pastures of Lesbos. Indeed, were we here concerned in +assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual +works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would +be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of +<i>Daphnis and Chloe </i> in the <i>Aminta</i> and <i>Pastor fido</i> than in the <i>Ameto</i> +or the <i>Arcadia</i>.</p> + +<p>In his pastoral romance, 'Ameto, ovvero Commedia delie ninfe fiorentine,' +Boccaccio set a fashion in literature, namely the intermingling for +purposes of narration of prose and verse[<a href="#fn49">49</a>], in which he was followed a +century and a half later by Pietro Bembo, the Socrates of Castiglione's +renaissance Symposium, in his dialogue on love entitled <i>Gli Asolani</i>, and +by Jacopo Sannazzaro in his still more famous <i>Arcadia</i>. The <i>Ameto</i> is +one of Boccaccio's early compositions, written about 1341, after his +return from Naples, but before he had gained his later mastery of +language. It is not unfairly characterized by Symonds as 'a tissue of +pastoral tales, descriptions, and versified interludes, prolix in style +and affected with pedantic erudition.' It is, however, possible to +underrate its merits, and it would be easy to overlook its historical +importance. Ameto is a rude hunter of the neighbourhood of Florence. One +day, while in the woods, he discovers a company of nymphs resting by a +stream, and overhears the song of the beautiful Lia. His rough nature is +touched by the sweetness of the music and he falls in love with the +singer. Their meetings are interrupted by the advent of winter, but he +finds her again at the feast of Venus, when shepherds, fauns, and nymphs +forgather at the temple of the goddess. In this company Lia proposes that +each of the nymphs present, seven in number, shall narrate the story of +her love. This they in turn do, each ending with a song of praise to the +gods; and Ameto feels his love burn for each in turn as he listens to +their tales. When the last has ended a sudden brightness shines around and +'there descended with wondrous noise a column of pure flame, even such as +by night went before the Israelitish people in the desert places,' Out of +the brightness cornes the voice of Venus:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Io son luce del cielo unica e trina,<br /> + Principio e fine di ciascuna cosa,<br /> + Del quai men fù, nè fia nulla vicina.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ameto, though half blinded by the heavenly effulgence, sees a new joy and +beauty shine upon the faces of the nymphs, and understands that the +flame-shrouded presence is that, not of the wanton <i>mater cupidinum</i>, but +of the goddess of divine fire who comes to reveal to him the mysteries of +love. Cleansed of his grosser nature by a baptismal rite, in which each of +the nymphs performs some symbolic ceremonial, he feels heavenly love +replacing human in his heart, and is able to bear undazzled the radiance +of the divine purity. He salutes the goddess with a song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O diva luce, quale in tre persone<br /> + Ed una essenza il ciel governi e 'l mondo<br /> + Con giusto amore ed eterna ragione,<br /> + Dando legge alle stelle, ed al ritondo<br /> + Moto del sole, principe di quelle,<br /> + Siccome discerniamo in questo fondo[<a href="#fn50">50</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>Various interpretations have been suggested for this work, with its +preposterous mixture of pagan and Christian motives. This peculiarity, +which we have already met with in Boccaccio's eclogues, and in his +<i>Ninfale fiesolano</i>, was indeed one of the most persistent as it was one +of the least admirable characteristics of pastoral composition. Francesco +Sansovino, who edited the <i>Ameto</i> in 1545, discovered real personages +underlying the characters of the romance. Fiammetta is introduced by name, +and her lover Caleone can hardly be other than Boccaccio. More recent +commentators are probably right in detecting an allegorical intention. The +seven nymphs, according to them, represent the four cardinal and three +theological virtues, and their stories are to be interpreted symbolically. +This view derives support from the baptismal ceremony, in which after the +public lustration one of the nymphs removes the scales from Ameto's eyes, +while another, 'breathing between his lips, kindled within him a flame +such as he had never felt before.' In these ministrants it is not +difficult to recognize the virtues respectively of faith and love. Ameto +may be taken as typical of humanity, tamed of its savage nature by love, +and through the service of the virtues led to the knowledge of the divine +essence. The conception of love as a civilizing and humanizing power +already underlay the sensuous stanzas of the <i>Ninfale fiesolano</i>, while +the later part of the romance was not uninfluenced by recollections of the +<i>Divine Comedy</i>[<a href="#fn51">51</a>]. It is true that a modern mind will with difficulty be +able to reconcile the amorous confessions of the nymphs with the +characteristics of the virtues, but in Boccaccio's day the tradition of +the <i>Gesta Romanorum</i> was still strong, and the age that mysticized +Vergil, and moralized Ovid, was capable of much in the way of allegorical +interpretation[<a href="#fn52">52</a>].</p> + +<p>The point to which this allegorical interpretation can legitimately be +carried need not trouble us here. Having set himself to characterize the +virtues, it is moreover likely enough that Boccaccio sought at the same +time to connect his figures more or less definitely with actual persons. +It is sufficient for our present purpose if we recognize in the <i>Ameto</i> +something of the same triple intention which, not to put too fine a +metaphysical point upon the parallel, we meet with in Dante and in the +<i>Faery Queen</i>. Having fashioned in accordance with these motives the +framework of his book, Boccaccio further concerned himself but little with +this philosophical intention, and the allegorical setting having served +its artistic purpose of linking them together into one connected whole, it +was upon the detail of the narratives themselves that the author's +attention was concentrated. It is, however, just in this artistic purpose +of the setting that one of the chief interests of the <i>Ameto</i> lies; for if +in the mingling of verse and prose it is the forerunner of the <i>Arcadia</i>, +in the linking together of a series of isolated stories it anticipates +Boccaccio's own <i>Decameron</i>.</p> + +<p>While there is little that is distinctly bucolic about the <i>Ameto</i>, the +atmosphere is eminently pastoral in the wider sense. Nymphs and shepherds, +foresters and fauns meet at the temple of Venus; the limpid fountains and +shady laurels belong essentially to the conventional landscape, whether of +Sicily, of Arcadia, or of the hills overlooking the valley of the Arno. +The Italian imagination was not careful to differentiate between field and +forest: <i>favola boschereccia</i> was used synonymously with <i>commedia +pastorale</i>; <i>drammi dei boschi</i> is a term which covers the whole of the +pastoral drama. But what really gives the <i>Ameto</i> its importance in the +history of pastoral literature is the manner in which, undisturbed by its +religions and allegorical machinery, it introduces us to a purely sensual +and pagan paradise, in which love with all its pains and raptures reigns +supreme.</p> + +<p>The narratives of the nymphs, and indeed the whole of the prose portions +of the work, are composed in a style of surcharged and voluptuous beauty, +congested with lengthy periods, and accumulated superlatives and relative +clauses, which, in its endeavour to maintain itself and its subject at the +highest possible pitch, only succeeds in being intensely and almost +uniformly monotonous and dull. It is perfectly true that the work +possesses some at least of the qualities of its defects. There are +passages which argue a feeling for beauty, none the less real for being of +a somewhat conventional order, while we not seldom detect a certain rich +luxuriance about the descriptions; but it must be admitted that on the +whole the style exhibits most of Boccaccio's faults and few of his merits. +The verse interspersed throughout is in <i>terza rima</i>, and offers small +attraction to the ordinary reader: 'meschinissima cosa' is a verdict +which, if somewhat severe, will probably find few to contradict it.</p> + +<p>In a certain passage, speaking of Poliziano's <i>Orfeo</i>, Symonds remarks +that 'while Arcady became the local dreamland of the new ideal, Orpheus +took the place of its hero.' Without inquiring too closely how far the +writers of the renaissance actually connected the hero of music, as a +power of civilization, with their newly discovered country, it is +interesting to note that the earliest work in the Italian language +containing in however amoebean a state the pastoral ideal opens with an +allusion to Orpheus.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Quella vertù, che già l'ardito Orfeo<br /> + Mosse a cercar le case di Plutone,<br /> + Allor che forse lieta gli rendeo<br /> + La cercata Euridice a condizione,<br /> + E dal suon vinto dell' arguto legno,<br /> + E dalla nota della sua canzone,<br /> + Per forza tira il mio debile ingegno<br /> + A cantar le tue Iode, o Citerea,<br /> + Insieme con le forze del tuo regno[<a href="#fn53">53</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>Orpheus, however, does not stand alone. Venus, Phoebus, Mars, Cupid, and +finally Jove, are each in turn invoked, to say nothing of the incidental +mention of Aeneas, Mirra, and Europa. This love of mythology in and out of +season is one of the most prominent features of the work. One of the +nymphs describes her youth in the following words:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + il padre mio .... visse eccellentissimo ne' beni pubblici tra' reggenti, + e de' beni degli iddii copioso: me a lui donata da loro, nominò Mopsa, e + vedentemi nella giovanetta età mostrante già bella forma, ai servigi + dispose di Pallade, la quale me benivola ricevente nelle sante grotte + del cavallo Gorgoneo, tra le sapientissime Muse commise, là dov' io + gustai l'acque Castalie, e l'altezza di Cirra tentante, le stelle cercai + con ferma mano; e i pallidi visi, quelli luoghi colenti, sempre con + riverenza seguii; e molte volte sonando Apollo la cetera sua, lui nel + mezzo delle nove Muse ascoltai[<a href="#fn54">54</a>]. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>She continues for pages in the same strain with illustrative allusions to +Caius Julius, Claudius, and Britannicus.</p> + +<p>At the risk of devoting to the <i>Ameto</i> an altogether disproportionate +amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to +give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all +the more so as it is little known except to students. With this object I +have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[<a href="#fn55">55</a>].</p> + +<blockquote><p> + I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due + devotion, I began thus to pray: 'O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess + whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto + my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet + ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a + chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy + followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that + in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my + wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of + thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.' I know not + whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and + sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether, + indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is + that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming + chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below + I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers + thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind + the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I + beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by + the sound of Amphion's lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant + Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the + spotless birds. Whereon having alighted I went straying, alike uncertain + of the way and of the fortune that might await me, when, as to Aeneas + upon the Afric shore, so to me there amid the myrtles there appeared the + goddess I had invoked, and I was filled with wonder such as I had never + known before. She was disrobed except for the thinnest purple veil, + which hid but little of her form, falling in double curve with many + artful foldings over her left side; her face shone even as the sun, and + her head was adorned with great length of golden hair rippling down over + white shoulders; her eyes flashed with light never seen till then. Why + should I labour to tell the loveliness of her mouth and of her snowy + neck, of her marble breast and of her every part, since to do so lies so + far beyond my powers, and even where I able, hardly should my words gain + credence? But whereas she was now at hand I bowed my knees before her + godhead, and with such voice as I could command, repeated my petition in + her presence. She listened thereto, and approaching bade me rise, + saying, 'Follow me; thy prayer is heard, thy desire granted,' and + thereupon withdrew me to a somewhat loftier spot. There hidden amidst + the dense foliage she discovered to me her only son, upon whom gazing in + admiration, I found his beauty such that in all things did he appear + fashioned like unto her, except in so far as being he a god and she a + goddess. O how oft, remembering Psyche, I counted her happy and unhappy; + happy in the possession of such a husband, unhappy in his loss, most + happy in receiving him again from Jove. But even as I gazed, he, beating + the air with his sacred wings that gleamed with clearest gold, departed + with his load of newly fashioned arrows from those parts, and at the + bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper + his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters, + gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a + growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by + the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's + distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my + own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of + mud[<a href="#fn56">56</a>]. The goddess, for that the hour was already hot, had doffed her + transparent veil and plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded + me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet + disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and + gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and + shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred + water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should + behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to hide my + unwonted blushes. And in like manner at the sight of me he too changed + colour and was troubled; he stayed his steps and advanced no further. + Then at the pleasure of the goddess leaving the water we resumed our + apparel, and crowned with myrtle sought a neighbouring glade, full of + finest grass and diapered with many flowers, where in the freshness we + stretched our limbs to rest. Thereupon the goddess, having called the + youth to us, began to speak in these words: 'Agape, most dear to me, + this youth, Apyros by name, whom thou seest thus shy amid our glades, + shall satisfy thy longing; but see that with care thou preserve + inviolate our fires, which in thy heart thou shalt bear with thee + hence.' I was about to make answer when my tender breast was of a sudden + pierced by the flying arrow loosed by the strong hand of the son of her + who added these unto her former words: 'We give him thee as thy first + and only servant; he lacks nought but our fires, which, kindled even now + by thee in him, be it thy care to nourish, that the frost that bound him + like to Aglauros being driven from his heart, he may burn with the + divine fire no less than father Jove himself.' She ceased; and I, + trembling yet with fear, no sooner opened my lips to assent to her + command, than I found myself once more in prayer before her altars; + whereat marvelling not a little, and casting my eyes around in search of + Apyros, I became aware of the golden arrow in my breast, and near me the + pale youth, his intent gaze fixed upon me, and like me wounded by the + god; and so seeing him inflamed with a passion no other than that which + burned in me, I laughed, and filled with contentment and desire, made + sign to him to be of hopeful cheer. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The advance in style that marks the transition from the <i>Ameto</i> to the +<i>Arcadia</i> must be largely accredited to Boccaccio himself. The language of +the <i>Decameron</i> became the model of <i>cinquecento</i> prose. Sannazzaro, +however, wrote in evident imitation not of the structural method only, but +of the actual style of the <i>Ameto</i>. Something, it is true, he added beyond +the greater mastery of literary form due to training. Even in his most +luxuriant descriptions and most sensuous images we find that grace and +clearness of vision which characterize the early poetry of the +Renaissance proper, and combine in literature the luminous purity of +Botticelli and the gem-like detail of Pinturicchio. The mythological +affectation of the elder work appears in the younger modified, refined, +subordinated; there is the same delight in detailed description, but +relieved by greater variety of imagination; while, even in the most +laboured passages, there is a poetical feeling as well as a more +subjective manner, which, combined with a remarkable power of +visualization, saves them from the danger of the catalogue. Again, there +is everywhere visible the same artificiality of style which characterizes +the <i>Ameto</i>, but purged of its more extravagant elements and less affected +and conceited than it became in the works of Lyly and Sidney. Like the +<i>Ameto</i>, lastly, but unlike its Spanish and English successors, the +<i>Arcadia</i> is purely pastoral, free from any chivalric admixture.</p> + +<p>The narrative interest in the <i>Arcadia</i> is of the slightest. It opens with +a description of the 'dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso,' +lying at the summit of Parthenium, 'non umile monte della pastorale +Arcadia,' which was henceforth to be the abode sacred to the +shepherd-folk. There, as in Vergil's Italy and in Browne's Devon, in +Chaucer's dreamland, and in the realm of the Faery Queen, 'son forse +dodici o quindici alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che +chiunque li vedesse, giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con +sommo diletto studiata in formarli.'[<a href="#fn57">57</a>] The shepherds, who are assembled +with their flocks, are about to seek their homes at the approach of night, +when they meet Montano playing upon his pipe, and a musical contest ensues +between him and Uranio. Next day is celebrated the feast of Pales, an +account of which is given at length, and is followed by a song in which +Galicio sings the praises of his mistress Amaranta, of whom the narrator +proceeds to give a minute description. After another singing-match between +Logisto and Elpino the company betake themselves to the tomb of Androgeo, +whose praises are set forth in prose and rime. There follows a song by the +old shepherd Opico, on the superiority of the 'former age'; after which +Carino asks the narrator, Sincero--the pseudonym under which Sannazzaro +travelled in the realm of shepherds--to recount his history, which he +does at length, ending with a lament in <i>sestina</i> form. By way of +consoling him in his exile Carino, in return, tells the tale of his own +amorous adventures. Next the reverend Opico is induced to discourse of the +powers of magic as the shepherds proceed to the sacred grove of Pan, who +shares with Pales the honours of Arcadian worship, and to the games held +at the tomb of sibyllic Massilia--a name under which Sannazzaro is said to +have commemorated his own mother. At this point the narrator is troubled +by a dream portending death to the lady of his love. As, tormented by this +thought, he wanders lonely in the chill dawn he meets a nymph, who leads +him through a marvellous cavern into the depths of the earth, where he +beholds the springs of many famous rivers, and finally, following the +course of the Sabeto, arrives at his native city of Naples, where he +learns the truth of his sorrowful forebodings.</p> + +<p>The form has been systematized since Boccaccio wrote, the whole being +divided into twelve <i>Prose</i>, alternating with as many <i>Ecloghe</i>, preceded +by a <i>Proemio</i> and followed by an address <i>Alla sampogna</i>, both in prose. +The verse is mediocre, and several of the eclogues are composed in the +unattractive <i>sestina</i> form, while others affect the wearisome <i>rime +sdrucciole</i>.[<a href="#fn58">58</a>] The most pleasing is Ergasto's lament at Androgeo's tomb, +beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Alma beata e bella,<br /> + Che da' legami sciolta<br /> + Nuda salisti ne' superni chiostri,<br /> + Ove con la tua stella<br /> + Ti godi insieme accolta;<br /> + E lieta ivi schernendo i pensier' nostri,<br /> + Quasi un bel sol ti mostri<br /> + Tra li più chiari spirti;<br /> + E coi vestigi santi<br /> + Calchi le stelle erranti;<br /> + E tra pure fontane e sacri mirti<br /> + Pasci celesti greggi;<br /> + E i tuoi cari pastori indi correggi. (<i>Ecloga</i> V.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>One would hardly turn to the artificiality of the <i>Arcadia</i> for +representations of nature, and yet there is in the romance a genuine love +of the woods and the fields, and of the rustic sports of the season. +'Sogliono il più delle volte gli alti e spaziosi alberi negli orridi monti +dalla natura prodotti, più che le coltivate piante, da dotte mani +espurgate negli adorni giardini, a' riguardanti aggradare,' remarks +Sannazzaro at the outset. Elsewhere he furnishes us with an entertaining +description of the various ways in which birds may be trapped, introduced +possibly in pursuance of a hint from Longus.[<a href="#fn59">59</a>] Yet, in spite of his +professed love of savage scenery and his knowledge of pastoral sports, it +is after all in a very artificial and straitened form that nature filters +to us through Sannazzaro's pages. Rather do we turn to them for the sake +of the paintings on the temple walls, of Amaranta's lips, 'fresh as the +morning rose,' of her wild lapful of flowers, and of a hundred other +incidental pictures, one of the most charming of which, interesting on +another score also, I make no apology for here transcribing.</p> + +<blockquote><p> + Subito ordinò i premi a coloro, che lottare volessero, offrendo di dare + al vincitore un bel vaso di legno di acero, ove per mano del Padoano + Mantegna, artefice sovra tutti gli altri accorto ed ingegnosissimo, eran + dipinte molte cose: ma tra l' altre una ninfa ignuda, con tutti i membri + bellissimi, dai piedi in fuori, che erano come quelli delle capre; la + quale, sovra un gonfiato otre sedendo, lattava un picciolo satirello, e + con tanta tenerezza il mirava, che parea che di amore e di carità tutta + si struggesse: e 'l fanciullo nell' una mammella poppava, nell' altra + tenea distesa la tenera mano, e con l' occhio la si guardava, quasi + temendo che tolta non gli fosse. Poco discosto da costoro si vedean due + fanciulli pur nudi, i quali avendosi posti due volti orribili di + maschere cacciavano per le bocche di quelli le picciole mani, per porre + spavento a duo altri, che davanti loro stavano; de' quali l' uno + fuggendo si volgea in dietro, e per paura gridava; l' altro caduto già + in terra piangeva, e non possendosi altrimenti aitare, stendeva la mano + per graffiarlo. (<i>Prosa</i> XI.) +</p></blockquote> + +<p>I shall make no attempt at translation. Some versions, really wonderful +in the success with which they reproduce the style of the original, will +be found in Symonds' <i>Italian Literature</i>[<a href="#fn60">60</a>]. It is probably unnecessary +to put in a warning that the <i>Arcadia</i> is a work of which extracts are apt +to give a somewhat too favourable impression. In its long complaints, +speeches, and descriptions it is at whiles intolerably prolix and dull, +but it caught the taste of the age and went through a large number of +editions, many with learned annotations, between the appearance of the +first authorized edition and the end of the sixteenth century[<a href="#fn61">61</a>], There +were several imitations later, such as the <i>Accademia tusculana</i> of +Benedetto Menzini; Firenzuola imitated the third <i>Prosa</i> in his +<i>Sacrifizio pastorale</i>; while collections of tales and <i>facetiae</i> such as +the <i>Arcadia in Brenta</i> of Giovanni Sagredo equally sought the prestige of +the name. A French translation published in 1544 went through three +editions, and another appeared in 1737, while it was translated into +Spanish in 1547, and again in 1578. It may have been due to the existence +of Sidney's more ambitious work of the same name that no translation ever +appeared in English.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Our survey of Italian pastoralism, in spite of the fact that its most +important manifestation has been reserved for separate treatment later, +has of necessity been lengthy. It was at Italian breasts that the infant +ideal, reborn into a tumultuous world, was nursed. The other countries of +continental Europe borrowed that ideal from Italy, though each in turn +contributed characteristics of its own. It was to Italy that England too +was directly indebted, while at the same time it absorbed elements +peculiar to France and Spain. It will therefore be necessary briefly to +review the forms that flourished in those countries respectively, though +they need detain us but a brief space in comparison with the Italian +fountain-head.</p> + +<p>Before proceeding, however, it may be worth while to pause for a moment in +order to take a general survey of the nature of the ideal, we might almost +say the religion, of pastoralism, which reached its maturity in the work +of Sannazzaro. Its location in the uplands of Arcadia may be traced to +Vergil, who had the worship of Pan in mind, but the selection of the +barren mountain district of central Peloponnesus as the seat of pastoral +luxuriance and primitive culture is not without significance in respect of +the severance of the pastoral ideal from actuality.[<a href="#fn62">62</a>] In it the +world-weary age of the later renaissance sought escape from the +materialism that bound it. Italy had turned its back upon mysticism in +religion, and upon chivalry in love; its literature was the negation of +what the northern peoples understand by romance. Yet it needed some relief +from the very saneness of its rationalism, and it found the antidote to +its vicious court life in the crystal springs of Castaly. What the pietism +of Perugino's saints is to the feuds of the Baglioni, such is the Arcadian +dream to the intellectual cynicism of Italian politics.</p> + +<p>When children weave fancies of wonderland they use the resources of the +imagination with economy; uninterrupted sunshine soon cloys. So too with +these other children of the renaissance. Their wonderland is a place +whither they may escape from the pressure of the world that is too much +with them; they seek in it at least the virtue that its evils shall be the +opposite of those from which they fly. They could not, it is true, believe +in an Arcadia in which all the cares of this world should end--the golden +age is always a time to be sung and remembered, or else to be dreamed of, +in the years to come, it is never the present--but if they cannot escape +from the changes and chances of this mortal life, if death and unfaith +are still realities in their dreamland as on earth, they will at least +utter their grief melodiously, and water fair pastures with their tears. +Like the garden of the Rose which satisfied the middle age before it, the +Arcadian ideal of the renaissance degenerated, as every ideal must. The +decay of pastoral, however, was in this unique, that it tended less to +exaggerate than to negative the spirit that gave it birth. Theocritus +turned from polite society and sought solace in his no doubt idealized +recollections of actual shepherd life. On the other hand, to the +allegorical pastoralists from Vergil to Spagnuoli, the shepherd-realm +either reflects, or is made directly to contrast with, the interests and +vices of the actual world; in their work the note of longing for escape to +an ideal life is heard but faintly or not at all. In the songs of the late +fifteenth century and in Sannazzaro there is a genuine pastoral revival; +the desire of freedom from reality is strong upon men in that age of +strenuous living. It has been happily said that Mantuan's shepherds meet +to discuss society, Sannazzaro's to forget it. And yet, after all, these +men are too strongly bound by the affections of this world to be able +wholly to sacrifice themselves to the joys of the ideal. Fiammetta must +have her place in Boccaccio's strange apotheosis of love; the foreboding +of Carmosina's death has power to draw her lover from his newly discovered +kingdom along the untrodden paths of the waters of the earth. And so when +Arcadia ceased to be a necessity of sentiment and became one of fashion, +where poets were no longer content to wander with their mistresses in the +land of fancy, alone, 'at rest from their labour with the world gone by,' +there appeared a tendency to return to the allegorical style, and to make +Arcadia what Sicily had already become--the mirror of the polite society +of the Italian courts. Thus it is that in the crowning jewels of Italian +pastoralism, in the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor fido</i>, we trace a yearning +towards a simpler, freer, and more genuine life, side by side with such +incompatible and antagonistic elements as the reproduction in pastoral +guise of the personages and surroundings of the circle of Ferrara. Not +content with the pure ideal, the poets endeavoured, like Faust at the +sight of Helena, to find in it a place for the earthly affections that +bound them, and at the touch of reality the vision dissolved in mist.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-7"> +<h3>VII</h3> + + +<p>When we turn to the literature of the western peninsula during the early +years of the sixteenth century, we find it characterized by a temporary +but very complete subjection to Italian models. This phenomenon, which is +particularly marked in pastoral, is readily explained by the fact that the +similarity of the dialects made the transference of poetic forms from +Italian to Spanish an easy matter. Thus when among the nations of Europe +Italy awoke to her great task of recovering an old and discovering a new +world of arts and letters, it was upon Spanish verse that she was able to +exercise the most immediate and overpowering influence. Under these +circumstances it was impossible but that she should drag the literature of +that country, for a while at least, in her train, away from its own proper +genius and natural course of development. Other countries were saved from +servitude by the very failure of their attempts to imitate the new Italian +style; and Spain herself, it must be remembered, was not long in +recovering her individuality and in endowing Europe with one of the +richest national literatures of the world.</p> + +<p>It is important, however, to distinguish from the pastoral work produced +under this dominating Italian influence certain other work in the kind, +which, while to some extent dependent for its form upon foreign models, +bears at the same time strong marks of native inspiration. In this earlier +and more popular tradition the tendencies of the national literature, the +pastoral possibilites of which appear at times in the ballads, mingle more +or less with elements of convention and allegory drawn from Vergil or his +humanistic followers. Little influence of this popular tradition can as a +rule be traced in the later pastoral work, but it acquires a certain +incidental interest in connexion with another branch of literature. It is, +namely, the remarkable part it played in the evolution of the national +drama that makes it worth while mentioning a few of its more important +examples in this place.[<a href="#fn63">63</a>]</p> + +<p>An isolated composition, in which lay not so much the germ of the future +drama as the index of its possibility, is the <i>Coplas de Mingo Revulgo</i>, +the composition of an unknown author. It is an eclogue in which two +shepherds, representing respectively the upper and lower orders of Spanish +society, discourse together on the causes of national discontent and +political corruption prevalent about 1472, at the latter end of the weak +reign of Enrique IV. In this poem we find the king's infatuation for his +Portuguese mistress treated much as Petrarch had treated the relations of +Clement VI with the allegorical Epi, except for the striking difference +that the Latin of the Italian poet is replaced by straightforward and +vigorous vernacular. Of far greater importance in the history of +literature are certain poems--<i>Éclogas</i> they are for the most part +styled--of Juan del Encina, which belong roughly to the closing years of +the fifteenth and opening years of the sixteenth century. Numbering about +a dozen, and composed with one exception in the short measures of popular +poetry, these dramatic eclogues, or amoebean plays, supply the connecting +link between the early popular and religious shows and the regular drama. +About half are religious in character; of the rest, three treat some +romantic episode, one is a study of unrequited passion ending in suicide, +and one is a market-day farce, the personae being in each case rude +herdsmen. Contemporary with, though a disciple of, Encina, is the +Portuguese Gil Vicente, who wrote in both dialects, and whose <i>Auto +pastoril castelhano</i> may be cited as carrying on the tradition between his +master and Lope de Vega.</p> + +<p>With Lope's dramatic production as a whole we are not, of course, +concerned. He lies indeed somewhat off our track; the pastoral influence +in his work is capricious. It will be sufficient to note that the +influence, where it exists, is external; it is nowhere the outcome of +Christian allegory, nor does it arise out of the nature of the subject as +such titles as the <i>Pastores de Belén</i> might suggest. It is found equally +in the religious or quasi-religious plays--such as the <i>Vuelta de Egypto</i> +with its shepherds and gypsies, and the <i>Pastor lobo</i>, an allegorical +satire on the church Lope afterwards entered--and in such purely secular, +amorous, and on the whole less dramatic pieces as the <i>Arcadia</i>--not to be +confused with his romance of the same name--and the <i>Selva sin amor</i>, a +regular Italian pastoral in miniature, both of which were acted, besides +many others intended primarly for reading, though they may possibly have +been recited after the manner of Castiglione's <i>Tirsi</i>.</p> + +<p>While on the subject of the drama I may mention translations of the +<i>Aminta</i> and <i>Pastor fido</i>. Tasso's piece was rendered into Castilian by +Juan de Jauregui, and first printed at Rome in 1607, a revised edition +appearing among the author's poems in 1618. The <i>Pastor fido</i> was +translated by Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa, the best version being that +printed at Valentia in 1609, from which Ticknor quotes a passage as +typical as it is successful. It was to these two versions of the +masterpieces of Italian pastoral that Cervantes accorded the highest meed +of praise, declaring that 'they haply leave it doubtful which is the +translation or original.'[<a href="#fn64">64</a>] There likewise exists a poor adaptation of +Guarini's play, said to be the work of Solis, Coello, and Calderon[<a href="#fn65">65</a>]. +The pastoral appears, however, never to have gained a very firm footing +upon the mature Spanish stage, no doubt for the same reason that led to a +similar result in England, namely, that the vigorous national drama about +it overpowered and choked its delicate and exotic growth[<a href="#fn66">66</a>].</p> + +<p>Apart from the dramatic or semi-dramatic work we have been reviewing, the +pastoral verse which possesses the most natural and national character, +though it may not be the earliest in date, is to be found in the poems of +Francisco de Sâ de Miranda[<a href="#fn67">67</a>]. He appears to have begun writing +independently of the Italian school, and, even after he came under the +influence of Garcilaso, to have preserved much of his natural simplicity +and genuineness of feeling. He probably had some direct knowledge of the +Italians, for he writes:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Liamos.... <br /> + .... os pastores italianos<br /> + Do bom velho Sanazarro.</p></blockquote> + +<p>He may also have been influenced by Encina, most of whose work had already +appeared.</p> + +<p>The first and foremost of those who deliberately based their style on the +Italian was Garcilaso de la Vega, whose pastoral work dates from about +1526. To him, in conjunction with Boscán and Mendoza, the vogue was due. +At his best, when he really assimilates the foreign elements borrowed from +his models and makes their style his own, he writes with the true genius +of his nation. The first of his three eclogues, which was probably +composed at Naples and is regarded as his best work, introduces the +shepherds Salico and Nemoroso, of whom the first stands for the author, +while in the other it is not hard to recognize his friend Boscán. This +poem, a portion of which is translated by Ticknor, should of itself +suffice to place Garcilaso in the front rank of pastoral writers. Yet he +does not appear to occupy any isolated eminence among his fellows, and +Ticknor may be right in thinking that, throughout, the regular pastoral +showed fewer of its defects in Spain than elsewhere. It is also true that +it appears to have been endowed with less vital power of development.</p> + +<p>Garcilaso's followers were numerous. Among them mention may be made of +Francisco de Figueroa, the Tirsi of Cervantes' <i>Galatea</i>; Pedro de +Encinas, who attempted religious eclogues; Lope de Vega; Alonso de Ulloa, +the Venetian printer, who is credited with having foisted the Rodrigo +episode into Montemayor's <i>Diana</i>; Gaspar Gil Polo, one of the +continuators of that work; and Bernardo de Balbuenas, one of its many +imitators, who incorporated in his <i>Siglo de Oro</i> a number of eclogues +which in their simple and rustic nature appear to be studied from +Theocritus rather than Vergil.</p> + +<p>In spite of the fashion of writing in Castilian which prevailed among +Portuguese poets, we are not without specimens of pastoral verse composed +in the less important dialect. Sâ de Miranda has been mentioned above. +Ribeiro too, better known for his romance, left a series of five +autobiographical eclogues[<a href="#fn68">68</a>] dating from about 1516-24, and consequently +earlier than Garcilaso's. They are composed, like some of Sâ de Miranda's, +in the short measures more natural to the language than the <i>terza rima</i> +and intricate stanzas of the Italianizing poets. Later on Camoens wrote +fifteen eclogues, four of which are piscatorial, and in one, a dialogue +between a shepherd and a fisherman, refers in the following terms to +Sannazzaro:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O pescador Sincero, que amansado<br /> + Tém o pégo de Prochyta co' o canto<br /> + Por as sonoras ondas compassado.<br /> + D'este seguindo o som, que póde tanto, <br /> + E misturando o antigo Mantuano, <br /> + Façamos novo estylo, novo espanto.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Whereas in the case of the verse pastoral the Italian fashion passed from +Spain into Portugal, exactly the reverse process took place with regard to +the prose romance more or less directly founded upon Sannazzaro. The first +to imitate the <i>Arcadia</i> was the Portuguese Bernardim Ribeiro, who during +a two-years' residence in Italy composed the 'beautiful fragment,' as +Ticknor styles it, entitled from the first words of the text <i>Menina e +moça</i>. This unfinished romance first appeared, in the form of an octavo +charmingly printed in gothic type, at Ferrara in 1554, though it must +have been written at least thirty years earlier. It differs considerably +from its model, the verse being purely incidental, and the intricacy of +the story anticipating later examples, as does likewise the admixture of +chivalric adventure. It is, indeed, to a large extent what might have +arisen spontaneously through the elaboration of the pastoral element +occasionally to be met with in the old chivalric romances themselves. On +the other hand it resembles the Italian pastoral in the introduction of +real characters, which, though their identity was concealed under anagrams +and all manner of obscurity, appear to have been traceable by the keen eye +of authority, for the book was placed on the Index. Such knowledge of +Sannazzaro's writings as Ribeiro possessed was of course direct, but +before his fragment saw the light there appeared, in 1547, a Spanish +translation of the <i>Arcadia</i>. It must be remembered that Sannazzaro was +himself of Spanish extraction, and that he may have had relations with the +land of his fathers of a nature to facilitate the diffusion of his works.</p> + +<p>The next and by far the most important contribution made by the peninsula +to pastoral literature was the work of an hispaniolized Portuguese, who +composed in Castilian dialect the famous <i>Diana</i>. 'Los siete libres de la +Diana de Jorge de Montemayor'--the Spanish form of Montemôr's name and +that by which he became familiar to subsequent ages--appeared at Valencia, +without date, but about 1560.[<a href="#fn69">69</a>] As in the case of its Italian and +Portuguese predecessors, some at least of the characters of the romance +represent real persons. Sireno the hero, who stands for the author, is in +love with the nymph Diana, of whose identity Lope de Vega claimed to be +cognizant, though he withheld her name. The scene is laid in Spain, and +actual and ideal geography are intermixed in a bewildering fashion. Sireno +is obliged, for reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and +on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival +Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, +and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance +of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is +interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, +pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second +part, which however never came to be written, the author, as it appears, +being either murdered or killed in duel at Turin in 1561.</p> + +<p>Thanks probably to the combination in its pages of the popular chivalric +tradition with the fashionable Italian pastoral, and also to certain +graces of style which it possesses, the <i>Diana</i> held the field until the +picaresque romance developed into a recognized <i>genre</i>, and exercised a +very considerable influence on pastoral writers even beyond the frontiers +of Spain. Googe imitated passages from it in his eclogues; Sidney +translated some of its songs, and took it as the model of his own romance; +Shakespeare borrowed from it the plot of the <i>Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>. In +the land of its birth its popularity was shown by the number of +continuations and imitations to which it gave rise. Irresponsible +publishers swelled the bulk of their editions with matter purloined from +less popular authors. The year 1564 saw the appearance of two second +parts. One in eight books, by the physician Alonzo Pérez, only got so far +as disposing of Delio, and appears to exaggerate all the faults of the +original in compensation for the lack of its merits. The other, from the +pen of Gaspar Gil Polo, is in five books, and narrates, in a style +scarcely inferior to its model, the faithlessness and death of Delio, and +Sireno's marriage with Diana. Both alike promise continuations which never +appeared. A third part was, however, published so late as 1627, as the +work of Jerónimo de Texeda, but it is nothing more than a <i>rifacimento</i> +of Gil Polo's continuation, altered apparently with a view to its forming +a sequel to Pérez' work. Furthermore, in 1599 there appeared a religions +parody by Fra Bartolomé Ponce, and there are said to be no less than six +French, two English, and two German translations, not to mention a Latin +one of Gil Polo's portion at least.</p> + +<p>Besides continuations, there are extant nearly a score of imitations of +varying interest and merit. In 1584 appeared the <i>Galatea</i> of Cervantes, +imitated from Ribeiro and Montemayor; which in its turn is supposed to +have suggested the <i>Arcadia</i>, written a few years later at the instigation +of the Duke of Alva by Lope de Vega, and published in 1598. Each is more +or less autobiographic or else historical in outline: 'many of its +shepherds and shepherdesses are such in dress alone,' Cervantes confesses +of his romance, while Lope announces that 'the <i>Arcadia</i> is a true +history.' Lastly may be mentioned the Portuguese <i>Primavera</i> of Francisco +Rodrígues de Lobo, which appeared in three long parts between 1601 and +1614, and is pronounced by Ticknor to be 'among the best full-length +pastoral romances extant.'</p> + +<p>All these works resemble one another in their general features. The +characteristics of the <i>genre</i> as found in Spain, in spite of a real +feeling for rural life traceable in the national character, are the +elements it borrows from the older chivalric tradition, combined with an +adherence to the circumstances of actual existence even closer than was +the case in Italy. Sannazzaro was content to transfer certain personages +from real life into his imaginary Arcadia, while in the Spanish romances +the whole <i>mise en scène</i> consists of the actual surroundings of the +author disguised but little under the veil of pastoralism. Thus the ideal +element, the desire to escape from the world, is no less absent from these +works than from the Latin eclogues of the renaissance, and the chivalric +pastoral in Spain advances far along the road towards the fashionable +pastoral of France. Not only are knightly adventures freely introduced, +and the devices of disguise and recognition employed, but the hint of +magic in Sannazzaro is developed and made to play a prominent part in the +tales, while the nymphs and shepherds display throughout an alarming +knowledge of literature, metaphysics, and theology. The absurdities of the +style were patent, and did not escape uncomplimentary notice from the +writers of the day, for both Cervantes and Lope de Vega, in spite of their +own excursions into this kind, pilloried the fashion in their more serious +and enduring works.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch01-8"> +<h3>VIII</h3> + + +<p>In France the interest of pastoralism, from our present point of view, is +summed up in the work of one man--Clément Marot. It is he who forms the +central figure on the stage of French poetry between the final collapse of +the medieval tradition and the ceasing of Villon's song earlier, and later +the full burst of the renaissance in the work of the Pléiade. While +belonging ostensibly to the literary circle of Margaret of Navarre, Marot +appears to have combined in his own person a strange number of conflicting +tendencies. His patroness followed the pastoral tradition in her imitation +of Sannazzaro's <i>Salices</i> and her lament on the death of her brother +François I, and rehandled an already favourite theme in her <i>comédie</i> of +human and divine love. Marot, on the other hand, while equally interested +in pastoral, betrayed in his verse little direct influence of the +Italians, and invariably impressed his own individuality upon his subject. +In his early work he continued the tradition of the <i>Romance of the Rose</i>; +later he voiced, somewhat crudely may be, the ideals of the renaissance. +By nature an easy-going <i>bon vivant</i>, his only real affection appears to +have been for the faithless mistress of his early years, whom a not very +probable tradition identifies with Diane de Poitiers. He had no higher +ambition than to retain unmolested a comfortable post at the court of +Francis. Yet he was destined by a strange irony of fate to pass his days +as a wanderer on the face of the earth, the homeless pilgrim of a cause he +no wise had at heart. He was accused by the Sorbonne, and ultimately +driven into the profession, of the heresy of Calvinism. Expelled from the +bosom of the church, he sought an uncongenial refuge among the apostles of +the new faith, only to be thrust forth from the city, for no more heinous +offence apparently than that playing back-gammon with the Prisoner of +Chillon. He died at Turin in 1544.</p> + +<p>But, however fascinating Marot may be as an historical figure, he was in +no sense a great poet. His chief merit in literature, apart from his often +delicate epigrams, his <i>élégant badinage</i> and his graceful if at times +facile verse, lies in the power he possesses, in common with Garcilaso and +Spenser, of treating the allegorical pastoral without entirely losing the +charm of naïve simplicity and genuine feeling. In his <i>Éclogue au Roi</i> he +addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the <i>Pastoureau +chrestien</i> he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there +is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse +from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy. His chief claim to +notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death +of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than +any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby +acquired the importance he possesses for our present inquiry.</p> + +<p>Marot, however, whose inspiration, in so far as it was not born of his own +genius, appears to be chiefly derived from Vergil, whose first eclogue he +translated in his youth, was far from being the only poet who wrote +bucolic verse or bore other witness to pastoral influence. France was not +behind other nations in embracing the Italian models. Margaret, as I have +said, imitated Sannazzaro in her <i>Histoire des satyres et nymphes de +Diane</i>. The <i>Arcadia</i> was translated in 1544. Du Bellay was familiar with +the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even +a respectful mention of it in his famous <i>Défense</i>. Elsewhere he asks:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Qui fera taire la musette<br /> + Du pasteur néapolitain?</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first part of Belleau's <i>Bergerie</i> appeared in 1565, the complete +work, including a piscatory poem, in 1572. On the stage Nicolas Filleul +anticipated the regular Italian drama in a dramatized eclogue entitled +<i>Les Ombres</i> in 1566. Later Nicolas de Montreux, better known under the +name of Ollenix du Mont-Sacré, a writer of a religious cast, and author +of a romantic comedy on the story of Potiphar's wife, composed three +pastoral plays, <i>Athlette</i>, <i>Diane</i>, and <i>Arimène</i>, which appeared in +1585, 1592, and 1597 respectively. They are conventional pastorals on the +Italian model, futile in plot and commonplace in style. He was also the +author of the <i>Bergerie de Juliette</i>, a romance published in 1592, which +Robert Tofte is credited with having translated in his <i>Honour's +Academy</i>,' or the Famous Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta,' which +appeared at London in 1610. Tofte's work, however, while purporting to be +'done into English,' makes no mention of the original author, and though +indebted for its form and title to Nicholas' romance does not appear to +bear much further resemblance to it. A far more important work in itself, +but one which does not much concern us here, is Honoré d'Urfé's <i>Astrée</i>, +an autobiographic compilation in which the fashionable pastoral romance +found its most consummate example. The work was translated into English as +early as 1620, but the history of its influence in this country belongs +almost exclusively to the French vogue, which began about the middle of +the century, and formed such an important element in the literature of the +restoration.</p> + +<p>The comparatively small influence exerted by the French pastoral of the +renaissance on that of England must excuse the scanty summary given in the +preceding paragraphs. It remains to be said that there had existed at an +earlier period in France another and very different tradition, which +supplied one of the regular forms of composition in vogue among +<i>trouvères</i> and <i>troubadours</i> alike. The <i>pastourelle</i> has sometimes been +described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine +wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is +easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is +scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. +Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention +on the part of the individual poet, the general type is rigidly fixed. The +narrator, who is a minstrel and usually a knight, while riding along meets +a shepherd-girl, to whom he pays his court with varying success. This is +the simple framework on which the majority are composed. A few, on the +other hand, depart from the type and depict purely rustic scenes. +Others--and the fact is at least significant--serve to convey allusions, +political, personal or didactic: a variety found as early as the twelfth +century in Provençal, and about the fourteenth in northern French. +Wandering scholars adopted the form from the knightly singers and produced +a plentiful crop of Latin <i>pastoralia</i>, usually of a somewhat burlesque +nature. An idea of the general style of these may be gathered from such +lines as the following, which contain the reply of a country girl +hesitating before the advances of a merry student:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Si senserit meus pater<br /> + uel Martinus maior frater, <br /> + erit mihi dies ater; <br /> + uel si sciret mea mater, <br /> + cum sit angue peior quater: <br /> + uirgis sum tributa.[<a href="#fn70">70</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>Appropriated, lastly, and refashioned by the hand of an original genius, +the <i>pastourelle</i> gave to German poetry the crowning jewel of its +<i>Minnesang</i> in Walther's 'Under der linden,' with its irrepressibly +roguish refrain:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Kuster mich? wol tûsentstunt: <br /> + tandaradei, <br /> + seht wie rôt mir ist der munt!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Connected with the <i>pastourelles</i> of the <i>langue d'oïl</i> is an isolated +dramatic effort, of a primitive and naïve sort, but of singular grace and +charm. <i>Li jus Robins et Marion</i>, the work of Adan le Bochu or de le Hale, +is in fact a dramatized <i>pastourelle</i> of some eight hundred lines +beginning with the rejection by a shepherdess of the advances of a knight +and ending with the rustic sports of the shepherds on the green. +Unsophisticated nature and playful cunning unite in no ordinary degree to +lend delicacy and savour to the work, while the literary quality of Adan's +verse is evident in such incidental songs as Marion's often quoted:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Robins m'aime, Robins m'a, + Robins m'a demandee, si m'ara.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In spite, however, of the genuine <i>naïveté</i> and natural realism of the +piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of +gentle raillery that sparkles in the graceful octaves of Lorenzo's +<i>Nencia</i>.</p> + +<p>A real and lively love of the country, rather than any idealization of the +actual shepherd class, is reflected in a poem written about 1460 by René +of Anjou, ex-king of Naples, describing in pastoral guise the rustic +retreat which he enjoyed in company with his wife, Jeanne de Laval, on the +banks of the Durance. The conventional pastoralism that veils the identity +of the shepherd and shepherdess is scarcely more than a pretence, for at +the end of the manuscript we find blazoned the arms of the royal pair, +with the inscription:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Icy sont les armes, dessoubz ceste couronne, + Du bergier dessus dit et de la bergeronne.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have now completed the first section of our introductory survey of +pastoral literature. We have passed in review, in a necessarily rapid and +superficial, but, it is to be hoped, not altogether inadequate, manner, +the varions manifestations of the kind in the non-dramatic literature of +continental Europe. The Italian pastoral drama has been reserved for +separate and more detailed consideration in close connexion with that of +this country. It must, however, be borne in mind that in such a survey as +the present many of the byways and more or less obscure and devious +channels by which pastoral permeated the wide fields of literature have of +necessity been left unexplored. Nothing, for instance, has been said about +the pastoral interludes which occupy a not inconspicuous place in the +martial cantos both of the <i>Orlando</i> and the <i>Gerusalemme</i>. Before passing +on, however, I should like to say a few words concerning one particular +department of renaissance literature, and that chiefly by way of +illustrating the limitations of the tradition of literary pastoral. I +refer to the <i>novelle</i> or <i>nouvelles</i>, in which, although pastoral +subjects are occasionally introduced, the treatment is entirely +independent of conventional tradition. Without making any pretence at +covering the whole field of the <i>novellieri</i>, I may instance a tale of +Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, +of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are +represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own +business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their +literary fellows. More exclusively rustic in setting is an anecdote +concerning the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, told with broad +humour in the <i>Cent Nouvelles nouvelles</i> and elaborated with +characteristic gusto and extraordinarily graphic art by Pietro Fortini. +The crude obscenity of the subject alone serves to show how free the +writer was from any influence of the pastoral of polite literature.[<a href="#fn71">71</a>] +Numerous other stories concerning shepherds or <i>villani</i> might be cited, +from Boccaccio to Bandello, the point of which, whether openly licentious +or ostensibly moral, is brought home with a brutal and physical directness +utterly foreign to the spirit of the regular pastoral. This is, on the +whole, what one would expect. The coarse realism that gave life and +vitality to the novel, that characteristic product of middle-class +cynicism and humour, finds no place in the pastoral of literary tradition. +The conventional grace of the pastoral could offer no material to the +novel. It is true that when we speak of the <i>bourgeois</i> spirit of the +<i>novella</i> on the one hand, and the 'ideal' pastoral on the other, it is +well to remember that the author of the <i>Decameron</i> also wrote the first +modern pastoral romance; that the century and country which saw the +publication of the <i>Arcadia</i>, the <i>Aminta</i>, and the <i>Pastor fido</i>, also +welcomed the work of Fortini, Giraldi, and Bandello; and that to Margaret +of Navarre, the imitator of Sannazzaro and patroness of Marot, we are +likewise indebted for the <i>Heptameron</i>. Nevertheless the tendencies, +though sometimes united in the person of a single author, yet keep +distinct. Both alike had become a fashion, both alike followed a more or +less conventional type. The novel remained coarse and realistic; the +pastoral, whatever may be said of its morality, remained refined and at a +conscious remove from real life. To examine thoroughly the cause of this +disseverance from actuality which haunted the pastoral throughout its many +transformations would lead us beyond all possible bounds of this inquiry. +One important point may, however, here be noted. The pastoral, whatever +its form, always needed and assumed some external circumstance to give +point to its actual content. The interest seldom arises directly from the +narrative itself. In Theocritus and Sannazzaro this objective point is +supplied by the delight of escape from the over-civilization of the city; +in Petrarch and Mantuan, by their allegorical intention; in Sacchetti and +Lorenzo, by the contrast of town and country, with all its delicate +humour; in Boccaccio and Poliziano, by the opening it gave for golden +dreams of exquisite beauty or sensuous delight; in Tasso, by the desire of +that freedom in love and life which sentimental philosophers have always +associated with a return to nature. In all these cases the content <i>per +se</i> may be said to be matter of indifference; it only receives meaning in +relation to some ulterior intention of the author. Realism under these +circumstances was impossible. Nor could satire call it forth, for no one +would be at pains to satirize actual rusticity. The only loophole left by +which a realistic treatment could find its way into pastoral was when, as +in Folengo's macaronics, it was not the actual rustic life but the +conventional representation of it that was the object of satire. But this +case was naturally a rare one.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch02"> +<h2>Chapter II.</h2> + +<h3>Pastoral Poetry in England</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch02-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>We have seen how there arose in the Italian songs of the fourteenth +century a spontaneous form of pastoral independent of the regular +tradition, and somewhat similar examples are furnished by the dramatic +eclogues of Spain. In the former case, however, pastoral was never more +than a passing note; while in the latter, the impulse, though possessing +some vitality, was early overwhelmed by the rising tide of Italian +influence. In England it was otherwise. On the one hand the spontaneous +and popular impulse towards a form of pastoralism appears to have been +stronger and more consistent than elsewhere; on the other the foreign and +literary influence never acquired the same supreme importance. As a resuit +the earlier native fashion affected in a noticeable degree later pastoral +work, colouring and blending with instead of being overpowered by the +regular tradition. Thus it is possible to trace two distinct though +mutually reacting tendencies far down the stream of English literature, +and to this double origin must be referred many of the peculiar phenomena +of English pastoral work. There was furthermore a constant struggle for +supremacy between the two traditions, in which now one now the other +appeared likely to go under. The greatest poets of their day, Spenser and +Milton, threw the weight of their authority on to the side of pastoral +orthodoxy. Spenser, however, was himself too much influenced by the +popular impulse for his example to be decisive in favour of the regular +tradition, while, by the time Milton wrote, a hybrid form had established +itself on a more or less secure basis and a <i>modus vivendi</i> had already +been achieved. Meanwhile the bulk of pastofal poets affected a less +weighty and more spontaneous song, whether they wrote in the light +fanciful mood of Drayton or the more passionate and romantic spirit of +Browne.</p> + +<p>To this double origin may be ascribed a certain noticeable vitality that +characterizes English pastoral composition. Since this quality has been +habitually overlooked by literary historians, I may be excused for +dwelling on it somewhat in this place. The stigma which, not altogether +undeservedly, attaches to pastoral as a whole has tempted critics to +confine their attention to the more notable examples of the kind, and to +treat these as more or less sporadic manifestations. Thus they have +failed, on the whole, to appreciate the relation in which these works +stand to the general pastoral tradition, which was mainly carried on in +works of little individual interest. It is no blame to them if they +considered that these undistinguished productions were of small importance +in the general history of literature: any one who goes through them with +care will probably arrive at a not very dissimilar conclusion. +Nevertheless the fact remains that the neglect of them has obscured both +the relative positions of the greater and more enduring works, and also +the general nature of the pastoral tradition in this country. That +tradition I believe to have been of a far more noteworthy character than +has hitherto been realized. I am not, of course, prepared to maintain that +pastoral composition in England ever attained, as a whole, to the rank of +great literature, or that it formed such a remarkable body of work as we +find, for example, in the Arcadian drama of Italy. But when we come to +regard the pastoral production of this country in the light of a more or +less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the +originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as +a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it +evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other +countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of +the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in +this chapter. When I come to deal with the main subject of this inquiry it +will be necessary to determine how far similar considerations apply in the +case of the pastoral drama.</p> + +<p>In the first place we have to consider what was produced on the one hand +by the purely native impulse, and on the other under the sole inspiration +of foreign tradition, at a period when these two influences had not yet +begun to interact. As an argument in favour of the spontaneous and genuine +nature of the earlier fashion may be noticed its appearance in that +miscellaneous body of anonymous literature which, whatever may be its +origin--and it is impossible to enter on so controversial a subject in +this place--is at least 'popular' in the sense of having been long handed +down from generation to generation in the mouths of the people. The +acceptance of pastoral ballads into this great mass of traditional +literature is at least as good evidence of their popular character as that +of authorship could be. In such a body of literature it would indeed be +surprising had the <i>pastourelle</i> motive not found entrance; but it is +noteworthy that whereas the French and Latin poems are habitually written +from the point of view of the lover, the English ballads adopt that of the +peasant maiden to whom the high-born suitor pays his court. At once the +simplest and most poetical of the ballads on this model is that printed by +Scott as <i>The Broom of Cowdenknows</i>, a title to which in all probability +it has little claim. It is a delightful example of the minor ballad +literature, and I am by no means inclined to regard it as a mere +amplification of the much shorter and rather abrupt <i>Bonny May</i> of Herd's +collection, though the latter, so far as it goes, probably offers a less +sophisticated text. In either case a gentleman riding along meets a girl +milking, obtains her love, and ultimately returns and marries her. A +similar incident, in which, however, the seducer marries the girl under +compulsion and then discovers her to be of noble parentage, is told in a +ballad, of which a number of versions have been collected in Scotland +under the title of <i>Earl Richard</i> or <i>Earl Lithgow</i>, and of which an +English version was current in the seventeenth century and was quoted more +than once by Beaumont and Fletcher.[<a href="#fn72">72</a>] This was printed by Percy in the +<i>Reliques</i>, and two broadsides of it dating from the restoration are +preserved in the Roxburghe collection. It is inferior to the northern +versions, but both are probably late, and contain stanzas belonging to or +copied from other ballads, notably the <i>Bonny Hynd</i> of the Herd manuscript +and <i>Burd Helen</i> (the Scotch version of <i>Child Waters</i>). The title of the +broadsides is interesting as betraying the influence of the regular +pastoral tradition: 'The beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia. A new +pastarell Song of a courteous young Knight, and a supposed Shepheards +Daughter.'[<a href="#fn73">73</a>] Again, apparently from the Aberdeen district, comes a +ballad on the marriage of a shepherd's daughter to the Laird of Drum. On +the other hand we find three somewhat similar ballads, <i>Lizie Lindsay</i> or +<i>Donald of the Isles, Lizie Baillie</i>, and <i>Glasgow Peggie</i>, recording the +elopement of a town girl with a highland gentleman in the disguise of a +shepherd. These are obviously late, though a certain resemblance in style +with <i>Johnie Faa</i> makes it possible that they are as old as the middle of +the seventeenth century. None of the pastoral ballads, indeed, can show +any credentials which would suggest an earlier date than the second half +of the sixteenth century, nor can any of them lay claim to first-rate +poetic merit.[<a href="#fn74">74</a>]</p> + +<p>Another example of native pastoral, earlier and far more genuine in +character, is to be found in the religious drama. The romantic +possibilities of peasant life were to some extent reflected in the +ballads; it is the burlesque aspect that is preserved to us in the +'shepherd' plays of the mystery cycles. We possess the plays on the +adoration of the shepherds belonging to the four extant series, a +duplicate in the Towneley plays, and one odd specimen, making six in all. +The rustic element varies in each case, but it assumed the form of +burlesque comedy in all except the purely didactic 'Coventry' cycle of the +Cotton manuscript. Here, indeed, the treatment of the situation is +decorously dull, but in the others we can trace a gradual advance in +humorous treatment leading up to the genuine comedy of the alternative +Towneley plays. Thus, like Noah and his wife, the shepherds of the +adoration early became recognized comic characters, and there can be +little doubt of the influence exercised by these scenes upon the later +interludes. With the general evolution of the drama we are of course in no +wise here concerned: what it imports us to notice is that just as it was +the picture of the young gallant riding along on the mirk evening by the +fail dyke of the 'bought i' the lirk o' the hill' that caught the +imagination of the north-country milkmaids, so it was the rough +representation of rustic manners, with which they must have been familiar +in actual life, that appealed to the villagers flocking to York, +Leicester, Beverley, or Wakefield to witness the annual representation of +the guild cycle.[<a href="#fn75">75</a>]</p> + +<p>It will be worth while to give some account of the form taken by this +genuine pastoral comedy, as we find it in its highest development in the +two Towneley plays. These belong to the latest additions to the cycle, and +were probably first incorporated when the repertory underwent revision in +the early years of the fifteenth century.[<a href="#fn76">76</a>] Each play falls into three +portions: first, a rustic farce; secondly, the apparition and announcement +of the angels; and thirdly, the adoration. The two latter do not +particularly concern us. Though in the Chester cycle the shepherds show +themselves amusingly ignorant of the meaning of the <i>Gloria</i>, in the +Towneley plays they are apt to fall out of character, and certainly +display a singular knowledge of the prophets,[<a href="#fn77">77</a>] for</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Abacuc and ely prophesyde so, <br /> + Elezabeth and zachare and many other mo, <br /> + And david as veraly is witnes thereto, <br /> + Iohn Bapyste sewrly and daniel also.</p></blockquote> + +<p>More remarkable still is one shepherd's familiarity with the classics:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Virgill in his poetre sayde in his verse, <br /> + Even thus by gramere as I shall reherse; <br /> + 'Iam nova progenies celo demittitur alto, <br /> + Iam rediet virgo, redeunt saturnia regna.'[<a href="#fn78">78</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is perhaps no matter for surprise that one of his less learned fellows +should break out with more force than delicacy:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Weme! tord! what speke ye here in myn eeres? <br /> + Tell us no clerge I hold you of the freres.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is one of the little ironies of literature that in the earliest picture +of pastoral life in England the greatest pastoral writer of Rome should be +quoted, not as a pastoralist, but as a magician.</p> + +<p>Before the appearance of the angels, however, there is nothing to lead one +to expect this strange display of learning. A rougher, simpler set of +countrymen it would have been hard to find in the England of Chaucer and +Langland. In the shepherd-play known as <i>prima pastorum</i> the comic element +consists mostly in quarrels and feasting among the shepherds, but in the +<i>secunda pastorum</i> it constitutes a regular little three-scene farce, +which at its date was absolutely unique in literature. It is thence only a +step, and a very short one, to John Heywood's interludes--though it is a +step that took more than a century to accomplish.</p> + +<p>The first shepherd comes in complaining of the hard weather; his fingers +are chapped, the storms blow from every quarter in turn. 'Sely shepardes,' +moreover, are put upon by any rich upstart and have no redress. A second +shepherd appears with another grumble: 'We sely wedmen dre mekyll wo.' +Some men, indeed, have been known to desire two wives or even three, but +most would sooner have none at all. Whereupon enters Daw, a third +shepherd, complaining of portents 'With mervels mo and mo.' 'Was never syn +noe floode sich floodys seyn'; even 'I se shrewys pepe'--apparently a +portentous omen. At this point Mak comes on the scene. He is a notorious +bad character of the neighbourhood, who boasts himself 'a yoman, I tell +you, of the king,' and complains that his wife eats him out of house and +home. The shepherds suspect him of designs upon their flocks, so when they +lie down to rest they place him the middle man of three. As soon, however, +as the shepherds are asleep--'that may ye all here'--Mak borrows a sheep +and makes off. Arrived at home he would like to eat the sheep at once, but +he is afraid of being followed, so the animal is put in the cradle and +wrapped up to resemble a baby, and Mak goes back to take his place among +the shepherds. Before long these awake and rouse Mak, who, pretending he +has dreamt that Gill his wife has been brought to bed of another child, +goes off home. The shepherds miss one of their sheep and, following him, +find Gill on the bed while Mak sings a lullaby at the cradle. They proceed +to search the house, Gill the while praying she may eat the child in the +cradle if ever she deceived them. They find nothing, and are about to +depart when Daw insists on kissing the new baby. Gill vows she saw the +child changed by an elf as the clock struck midnight, but Mak pleads +guilty and gets off with a blanketing.</p> + +<p>So far, intentionally in the case of the drama, and if not intentionally +at least practically in that of the ballads, the appeal of the native +pastoral impulse--tradition it could hardly yet be called--was to an +audience little if at all removed from the actual condition of life +depicted. This ensured at least essential reality, for though in the one +case there may be idealization in a romantic and in the other in a +burlesque direction, either implies that familiarity with the actual world +which appears to underlie all vital art.[<a href="#fn79">79</a>] It was not long, however, +before the pastoral began to address itself to a more cultivated society, +and in so doing sacrificed that wholesome corrective of a genuinely +critical audience which is needed in the long run to keep any literary +form from degeneration. The impulse is still, however, found in all its +freshness and genuineness in such a poem as the following +fifteenth-century nativity carol, which, in its blending of piety and +humorous rusticity, is strongly reminiscent of the dramatic productions we +have just been reviewing:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The shepherd upon a hill he sat, <br /> + He had on him his tabard and his hat, <br /> + His tar-box, his pipe, and his flagat, <br /> + His name was called Jolly, Jolly Wat!<br /> + For he was a good herds-boy,<br /> + Ut hoy!<br /> + For in his pipe he made so much joy.<br /> + Can I not sing but hoy.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> The shepherd on a hill he stood, <br /> + Round about him his sheep they yode, <br /> + He put his hand under his hood, <br /> + He saw a star as red as blood.<br /> + Ut hoy! &c.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> Now must I go there Christ was born, <br /> + Farewell! I come again to-morn, <br /> + Dog, keep well my sheep fro the corn! <br /> + And warn well Warroke when I blow my horn!<br /> + Ut hoy! &c.[<a href="#fn80">80</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>So, again, in the delightful poem that has won for Robert Henryson the +title of the first English pastoralist the warm blood of natural feeling +yet runs full. <i>Robene and Makyne</i> stands on the threshold of the +sixteenth century, a modest and pastoral counterpart of the <i>Nut-Brown +Maid</i>, as evidence that there were poets of purely native inspiration +capable of writing verses every whit as perfect in form as anything +produced by the Italianizers of the next generation, and commonly far more +genuine in feeling. Even in the work of Surrey and Wyatt themselves we +find poems which, were it not for the general tradition to which they +belong, one would have no difficulty in regarding as a natural development +and conventionalization of the native tendency. Such is the <i>Harpelus' +Complaint</i> of 'Tottel's Miscellany.' This was originally printed among +the poems of uncertain authors, but when it re-appeared in <i>England's +Helicon</i>, in 1600, it was subscribed with Surrey's name. The ascription +does not carry with it much authority, but is in no way inherently +improbable.[<a href="#fn81">81</a>] The opening stanzas may be quoted as conveying a fair idea +of the whole, which sustains its character of sprightly elegance for over +a hundred lines, ending with the luckless Harpelus' epitaph:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Phylida was a fayer mayde,<br /> + And fresh as any flowre: <br /> + Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed<br /> + To be his paramour.</p> + +<p> Harpalus and eke Corin<br /> + Were herdmen both yfere: <br /> + And Phillida could twist and spin<br /> + And therto sing full clere.</p> + +<p> But Phillida was all to coy<br /> + For Harpelus to winne. <br /> + For Corin was her onely joye,<br /> + Who forst her not a pynne.[<a href="#fn82">82</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>The relation of the early Italianizers to pastoral is rather strange. +Pastoral names, imagery and conventions are freely scattered throughout +their works, yet with the exception of the above there is scarcely a poem +to which the term pastoral can be properly applied. They borrowed from +their models a kind of pastoral diction merely, not their partiality for +the form: 'shepherd' is with them merely another word for lover or poet, +while almost any act of such may be described as 'folding his sheep' or +the like. Allegory has reduced itself to a few stock phrases. In this +fashion Surrey complains to his fair Geraldine, and a whole company of +unknown lovers celebrate the cruelty and beauty of their ladies. It is +rarely that we catch a note of fresher reminiscence or more spontaneous +song as in Wyatt's:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ah, Robin!<br /> + Joly Robin! <br /> + Tell me how thy leman doth!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Happily the seed of Phillida's coyness bore fruit, and the amorous +pastoral ballad or picture, a true <i>idyllion</i>, became a recognized type in +English verse. It certainly owed something to foreign pastoral models, +and, like the bulk of Elizabethan lyrics, a good deal to Italian poetry in +general; but in its freshness and variety, as in its tendency to narrative +form, it asserts its independence of any rigid tradition, and justifies us +in regarding it as an outcome of that native impulse which we have already +noticed. Such a poem is Nicholas Breton's ever charming <i>Phyllida and +Corydon</i>, printed above his signature in <i>England's Helicon</i>.[<a href="#fn83">83</a>] Although +we are thereby anticipating, it may be quoted as a representative specimen +of its kind:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> In the merry month of May, + In a morn by break of day, <br /> + Forth I walk'd by a wood-side, <br /> + When as May was in his pride: <br /> + There I spièd all alone, <br /> + Phyllida and Corydone. <br /> + Much ado there was, God wot! <br /> + He would love and she would not. <br /> + She said, never man was true; <br /> + He said, none was false to you. <br /> + He said, he had loved her long; <br /> + She said, Love should have no wrong. <br /> + Corydon would kiss her then; <br /> + She said, maids must kiss no men, <br /> + Till they did for good and all; <br /> + Then she made the shepherd call<br /> + All the heavens to witness truth<br /> + Never loved a truer youth. <br /> + Thus with many a pretty oath, <br /> + Yea and nay, and faith and troth, <br /> + Such as silly shepherds use<br /> + When they will not Love abuse, <br /> + Love which had been long deluded<br /> + Was with kisses sweet concluded; <br /> + And Phyllida, with garlands gay, <br /> + Was made the lady of the May.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We must now turn to the beginnings of regular pastoral tradition in this +country, springing up under direct foreign influence and in conscious and +avowed imitation of specific foreign models. Passing over the Latin +eclogues of Buchanan and John Barclay, as belonging properly to the sphere +of humanistic rather than of English letters, we come to the pretty +thoroughly Latinized pastorals of Alexander Barclay and Barnabe Googe. +Their preoccupation with the humanistic poets is, in Barclay's case at any +rate, no less dominant a factor than in that of the regular translators, +from whom it is neither very easy nor clearly desirable to distinguish +them. Of the professed translators themselves it may be well to say a few +words in this place and allow them at once to resume their veil of +well-deserved oblivion. Their influence may be taken as non-existent, and +their only interest lies in the indication they afford of the trend of +literary fashion. The earliest was George Turberville, who in 1567 +translated the first nine of Mantuan's eclogues into English fourteeners. +The verse is fairly creditable, but the exaggeration of style, +endeavouring by sheer brutality of phrase to force the moral judgement it +lacks the art of more subtly stimulating, produces neither a very pleasing +nor a very edifying effect. This translation went through three editions +before the end of the century. The whole ten eclogues did not find a +translator till 1656, when Thomas Harvey published a version in +decasyllabic couplets. The next poet to appear in English dress was +Theocritus, of whose works 'Six Idillia, that is, Six Small, or Petty, +Poems, or Aeglogues,' were translated by an anonymous hand and dedicated +to E. D.--probably or possibly Sir Edward Dyer--in 1588. As before, the +verse, mostly fourteeners, is far from bad, but the selection is not very +much to our purpose. Three of the pieces, a singing match, a love +complaint, and one of the Galatea poems, are more or less pastoral; but +the rest--among which is the dainty conceit of Venus and the boar well +rendered in a three-footed measure--do not belong to bucolic verse at all. +Incidental mention may be also made of a 'dialogue betwixt two sea nymphs, +Doris and Galatea, concerning Polyphemus, briefly translated out of +Lucian,' by Giles Fletcher the elder, in his <i>Licia</i> of 1593; and a +version of 'The First Eidillion of Moschus describing Love,' in Barnabe +Barnes' <i>Parthenophil and Parthenophe</i>, which probably appeared the same +year. Lastly we have the Bucolics and Georgics of Vergil, translated in +1589 by Abraham Fleming into rimeless fourteeners.[<a href="#fn84">84</a>] Besides these there +are a few odd translations from Vergil among the experiments of the +classical versifiers. Webbe, in his <i>Discourse of English Poetry</i> (1586), +gives hexametrical translations of the first and second eclogues, while +another version of the second in the same metre appears first in Fraunce's +<i>Lawyer's Logic</i> (1588), and again with corrections in his <i>Ivychurch</i> +(1591).[<a href="#fn85">85</a>] Several further translations followed in the seventeenth +century.</p> + +<p>But one step, and that a short one, removed from these writers is +Alexander Barclay, translater of Brandt's <i>Stultifera Navis</i>, priest and +monk successively of Ottery St. Mary, Ely, and Canterbury. It seems to +have been about 1514, when at the second of these houses, that he composed +at least the earlier and larger portion of his eclogues. They appeared at +various dates, the first complete edition being appended, long after the +writer's death, to the <i>Ship of Fools</i> of 1570.[<a href="#fn86">86</a>] They are there headed +'Certayne Egloges of Alexander Barclay Priest, Whereof the first three +conteyne the misereyes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in +generall, Gathered out of a booke named in Latin, Miseriae Curialium, +compiled by Eneas Silvius[<a href="#fn87">87</a>] Poet and Oratour.' This sufficiently +indicates what we are to expect of Barclay as of the Latin eclogists of +the previous century. The interlocutors in these three poems are Coridon, +a young shepherd anxious to seek his fortune at court, and the old Cornix, +for whom the great world has long lost its glamour. The fourth eclogue, +'treating of the behavour of Rich men against Poets,' is similarly 'taken +out of' Mantuan. In it Barclay is supposed to have directed a not very +individual but pretty lusty satire against Skelton.[<a href="#fn88">88</a>] He also +introduces, as recited by one of the characters, 'The description of the +Towre of vertue and honour, into which the noble Howarde contended to +enter by worthy actes of chivalry,' a stanzaic composition in honour of +Sir Edward Howard, who died in 1513. The fifth eclogue, 'of the +disputation of Citizens and men of the Countrey,' or the <i>Cytezen and +Uplondyshman</i>, as it was originally styled, again presents us with a +familiar theme treated in the conventional manner, and closes the series. +These poems are written in what would be decasyllabic couplets were they +reducible to metre--in other words, in the barbarous caesural jangle in +which many poets of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries +imagined that they reproduced the music of Chaucer, and which, refashioned +however almost beyond recognition by a born metrist, we shall meet again +in the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>. The following lines from the fifth eclogue +may serve to illustrate Barclay's style:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I shall not deny our payne and servitude, <br /> + I knowe that plowmen for the most part be rude, <br /> + Nowe shall I tell thee high matters true and olde, <br /> + Which curteous Candidus unto me once tolde, <br /> + Nought shall I forge nor of no leasing bable, <br /> + This is true history and no surmised fable.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is in justice due to Barclay to say that the fact of his composing this +eclogue in the vernacular should possibly be counted to him as an original +step. The step had, indeed, been taken in Italy before he was born, but of +this he may, in spite of his travels, have been ignorant. Such credit as +attaches to the innovation should be allowed him.</p> + +<p>A somewhat more independent writer is Barnabe Googe--writer, indeed, as +original, may be, as the lesser Latin pastoralists of the renaissance. The +fact of his altering the conventional forms to fit the mood of a sturdy +protestantism, of a protestantism still bitter from the Marian +persecutions, is scarcely to be regarded so much as evidence of his +invention as of the stability of literary tradition under the varying +forms imposed by external circumstances. The collection of his poems, +'imprinted at London' in 1563,[<a href="#fn89">89</a>] includes eight eclogues written in +fourteeners, the majority of which may fairly be said to represent Mantuan +adjusted to the conditions of contemporary life in reformation England. +Others show the influence of the author's visit to Spain in 1561-3. The +best that can be said for the verse and style is that they pursue their +'middle flight' on the whole modestly, and that the diction is at times +not without a touch of simple dignity. There are, moreover, moments of +genuine feeling when the author recalls the fires of Smithfield, and of +generous if naïve appreciation when he speaks of his predecessors in +English song. A brief summary of contents will give some idea of the +nature of these poems. The first recounts the pains of love; in the second +Dametas rails on the blind boy and ends his song by dying. The third +treats of the vices of the city, not the least of them being religious +persecution. In the next Melibeus relates how Dametas, having as we now +learn killed himself for love, appeared to him amid hell-fire. Eclogue V +contains the pitiful tale of Faustus who courted Claudia through the +agency of Valerius. Claudia unfortunately fell in love with the messenger, +and finding him faithful to his master slew herself. This is imitated, in +part closely, from the tale of the shepherdess Felismena in the second +book of Montemayor's <i>Diana</i>, the identical story upon which Shakespeare +is supposed ultimately to have founded his <i>Two Gentlemen of Verona</i>, +though it is difficult at first sight to trace much resemblance between +the play and Googe's poem. In the sixth eclogue Faustus--the Don Felix of +the Spanish and the Proteus of Shakespeare--himself appears, for no better +reason it would seem than to give his interlocutor an opportunity of +enlarging on the delights of country life and introducing the remarks on +fowling borrowed from Sannazzaro by way of Garcilaso's second eclogue. The +next is a discussion somewhat after the manner of the <i>Nut-Brown Maid</i>, +again paraphrased from the <i>Diana</i> (Book I); while the eighth, lastly, is +a homily on the superiority of Christianity over Roman polytheism, in +which under obsolete forms the author no doubt intended an allusion to +contemporary controversies. Thus it will be seen that Googe follows Latin +and Spanish traditions almost exclusively: the only point in which it is +possible to see any native inspiration is in his partiality for some sort +of narrative ballad motive as the subject of his poems.</p> + +<p>So far the literary quality to be registered has not been high among those +owing allegiance to the regular pastoral tradition. The next step to be +taken is a long one. The pastoral writings of Spenser not only themselves +belong to a very different order of work, but likewise brings us face to +face with literary problems of a most complex and interesting kind.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>In the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> we have the one pastoral composition in +English literature which can boast first-rate historical importance. There +are not a few later productions in the kind which may be reasonably held +to surpass it in poetic merit, but all alike sink into insignificance by +the side of Spenser's eclogues when the influence they exercised on the +history of English verse is taken into account. The present is not of +course the place to discuss this wider influence of Spenser's work: it is +with its relation to pastoral tradition and its influence upon subsequent +pastoral work that we are immediately concerned. This is an aspect of the +<i>Shepherd's Calender</i> to which literary historians have naturally devoted +less attention. These two reasons--namely, the intrinsic importance of the +work and the neglect of its pastoral bearing--must excuse a somewhat +lengthy treatment of a theme that may possibly be regarded as already +sufficiently familiar.</p> + +<p>The <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>[<a href="#fn90">90</a>], which first appeared in 1579, was published +without author's name, but with an envoy signed 'Immerito.' It was +dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and contained a commentary by one E. K., +who also signed an epistle to Master Gabriel Harvey, fellow of Pembroke +College, Cambridge. 'Immerito' was a name used by Spenser in his familiar +correspondence with Harvey, and can in any case have presented no mystery +to his Cambridge friends. Among these must clearly be reckoned the +commentator E. K., who may be identified with one Edward Kirke with all +but absolute certainty.[<a href="#fn91">91</a>] Within certain well defined limits we may also +accept E. K. as a competent exponent of his friend's work, and his +identity, together with that of Rosalind and Menalcas, being matters of +but indirect literary interest, may be left to Spenser's editors and +biographers to fight over. It will be sufficient to add in this place that +however 'literary' may have been Spenser's attachment to Rosalind there is +no reason to suppose that she was not a real person, while however little +response his advances may have met with there <i>is</i> reason to suppose that +his sorrow at their rejection was not wholly conventional.</p> + +<p>Spenser's design in turning his attention to the pastoral form would not +seem hard to apprehend. Less readily may we suppose that any deep +philosophical impulse directed his mind towards certain modes of +expression, than that in an age of catholic experiment he turned from the +penning of impossible iambic trimeters, 'minding,' as E. K. directly +informs us, 'to furnish our tongue with this kind, wherein it faulteth.' +He was qualified for the task by a wide knowledge of previous pastoral +writers from Theocritus and Bion down to Marot, and deliberately ranged +himself in line with the previous poets of the regular pastoral +tradition. Yet we find side by side in his work two distinct and +apparently antagonistic though equally conscious tendencies; the one +towards authority, leading him to borrow motives freely and even to resort +to direct paraphrase; the other towards individuality, nationality, +freedom, informing his general scheme and regulating the language of his +imaginary swains. It is this double nature of his pastoral work that +justifies us as regarding him, in spite of his alleged orthodoxy, as in +reality the first of a series of English writers who combined the +traditions of regular pastoral with the wayward graces of native +inspiration. It is true that in Spenser the natural pastoral impulse has +lost the spontaneity of the earlier examples, and has passed into the +realm of conscious and deliberate art; but it is none the less there, +modifying the conventional form. The individual debts owed by Spenser to +earlier writers have been collected with admirable learning and industry +by scholars such as Kluge and Reissert[<a href="#fn92">92</a>], but the investigation of his +originality presents at once a more interesting and more important field +of inquiry. So, indeed, Spenser himself appears to have thought, for the +only direct acknowledgement he makes in the work is to Chaucer, although, +as a writer to whom the humours of criticism are ever present has +remarked, 'it might almost seem that Spenser borrowed from Chaucer nothing +but his sly way of acknowledging indebtedness chiefly where it was not +due.'</p> + +<p>The chief point of originality in the <i>Calender</i> is the attempt at linking +the separate eclogues into a connected series. We have already seen how +with Googe the same characters recur in a sort of shadowy story; but what +was in his case vague and almost unintentional becomes with Spenser a +central artistic motive of the piece. The eclogues are arranged with no +small skill and care on somewhat of an architectural design, or perhaps we +should rather say with somewhat of the symmetry of a geometrical pattern. +This will best be seen in a brief analysis of the several eclogues, +'proportionable,' as the title is careful to inform us, 'to the twelve +monethes.'</p> + +<p>In the 'January,' a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin +Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his +advances with scorn. He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is +introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol. The 'February' is a +disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and Thenot. It +introduces the fable of the oak and the briar, in which, since he ascribes +it to Tityrus, a name he transferred from Vergil to Chaucer, Spenser +presumably imagined he was imitating that poet, though it is really no +more in the style of Chaucer than is the roughly accentual measure in +which the eclogue is composed. For the 'March' Spenser recasts in English +surroundings Bion's fantasy of the fight with Cupid, without however +achieving any conspicuous success. In the April eclogue Hobbinol recites +to the admiring Thenot Colin's lay</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Of fayre Eliza, Queene of shepheardes all, <br /> + Which once he made as by a spring he laye,<br /><br /> + And tuned it unto the Waters fall.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This lay is in an intricate lyrical stanza which Spenser shows +considerable skill in handling. The following lines, for instance, already +show the musical modulation characteristic of much of his best work:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> See, where she sits upon the grassie greene,<br /> + (O seemely sight!) <br /> + Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,<br /> + And ermines white: <br /> + Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, <br /> + With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:<br /> + Bay leaves betweene,<br /> + And primroses greene, <br /> + Embellish the sweete Violet.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the 'May' we return to the four-beat accentual measure, this time +applied to a discussion by the herdsmen Palinode and Piers of the +lawfulness of Sunday sports and the corruption of the clergy. Here we have +a common theme treated from an individual point of view. The eclogue is +interesting as showing that the author, whose opinions are placed in the +mouth of the precise Piers; belonged to what Ben Jonson later styled 'the +sourer sort of shepherds.' A fable is again introduced which is of a +pronounced Aesopic cast. In the 'June' we return to the love-motive of +Rosalind, which, though alluded to in the April eclogue, has played no +prominent part since January. It is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, +in which the former recounts his final defeat and the winning of Rosalind +by Menalcas. This eclogue contains Spenser's chief tribute to Chaucer:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The God of shepheards, Tityrus, is dead, <br /> + Who taught me homely, as I can, to make; <br /> + He, whilst he lived, was the soveraigne head<br /> + Of shepheards all that bene with love ytake: <br /> + Well couth he wayle his Woes, and lightly slake<br /> + The flames which love within his heart had bredd, <br /> + And tell us mery tales to keepe us wake<br /> + The while our sheepe about us safely fedde.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The July eclogue again leads us into the realm of ecclesiastical politics. +It is a disputation between upland and lowland shepherds, the descendant +therefore of Mantuan and Barclay, though the use of 'high places' as +typifying prelatical pride appears to be original. The confusion of things +Christian and things pagan, of classical mythology with homely English +scenery, nowhere reaches a more extravagant pitch than here. Morrell, the +advocate of the old religion, defends the hills with the ingeniously +wrong-headed argument:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And wonned not the great God Pan<br /> + Upon mount Olivet, <br /> + Feeding the blessed flocke of Dan,<br /> + Which dyd himselfe beget?</p></blockquote> + +<p>or else, gazing over the Kentish downs, he announces that</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Here han the holy Faunes recourse,<br /> + And Sylvanes haunten rathe; <br /> + Here has the salt Medway his source,<br /> + Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the 'August' Spenser again handles a familiar theme with more or less +attempt at novelty. Willie and Peregot meeting on the green lay wagers in +orthodox fashion, and, appointing Cuddie judge, begin their singing +match. The 'roundel' that follows, a song inserted in the midst of +decasyllabic stanzas, is composed of alternate lines sung by the two +competitors. The verse is of the homeliest; indeed it is only a rollicking +indifference to its own inanity that saves it from sheer puerility and +gives it a careless and as it were impromptu charm of its own. Even in an +age of experiment it must have needed some self-confidence to write the +dialect of the <i>Calender</i>; it must have required nothing less than +assurance to put forth such verses as the following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It fell upon a holy eve,<br /> + Hey, ho, hollidaye! <br /> + When holy fathers wont to shrieve;<br /> + Now gynneth this roundelay. <br /> + Sitting upon a hill so hye,<br /> + Hey, ho, the high hyll! <br /> + The while my flocke did feede thereby;<br /> + The while the shepheard selfe did spill. <br /> + I saw the bouncing Bellibone,<br /> + Hey, ho, Bonibell! <br /> + Tripping over the dale alone,<br /> + She can trippe it very well.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Many a reader of the anonymous quarto of 1579 must have joined in Cuddie's +exclamation:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sicker, sike a roundel never heard I none!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sidney, we know, was not altogether pleased with the homeliness of the +verses dedicated to him; and there must have been not a few among +Spenser's academic friends to feel a certain incongruity between the +polished tradition of the Theocritean singing match and the present poem. +Moreover, as if to force the incongruity upon the notice of the least +sensitive of his readers, Spenser followed up the ballad with a poem which +is not only practically free from obsolete or dialectal phrasing, but +which is composed in the wearisomely pedantic <i>sestina</i> form. This song is +attributed to Colin, whose love for Rosalind is again mentioned.</p> + +<p>Passing to the 'September' we find an eclogue of the 'wise shepherd' type. +It is composed in the rough accentual metre, and opens with a couplet +which roused the ire of Dr. Johnson:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Diggon Davie! I bidde her god day; <br /> + Or Diggon her is, or I missaye.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Diggon is a shepherd, who, in hope of gain, drove his flock into a far +country, and coming home the poorer, relates to Hobbinol the evil ways of +foreign shepherds among whom,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> playnely to speake of shepheards most what, <br /> + Badde is the best.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The 'October' eclogue belongs to the stanzaic group, and consists of a +dialogue on the subject of poetry between the shepherds Piers and Cuddie. +It is one of the most imaginative of the series, and in it Spenser has +refashioned time-honoured themes with more conspicuous taste than +elsewhere. The old complaint for the neglect of poetry acquires new life +through the dramatic contrast of the two characters in which opposite +sides of the poetic temperament are revealed. In Cuddie we have a poet for +whom the prize is more than the praise[<a href="#fn93">93</a>], whose inspiration is cramped +because of the indifference of a worldly court and society. Things were +not always so--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> But ah! Mecaenas is yclad in claye, <br /> + And great Augustus long ygoe is dead, <br /> + And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, <br /> + That matter made for Poets on to play.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And in the same strain he laments over what might have been his song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage, <br /> + O! if my temples were distaind with wine, <br /> + And girt with girlonds of wild Yvie twine, <br /> + How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, <br /> + And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, <br /> + With queint Bellona in her equipage!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Reading these words to-day they may well seem to us the charter of the new +age of England's song; and the effect is rendered all the more striking +by the rhythm of the last line with its prophecy of Marlowe and mighty +music to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is +a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more +reverentially than his Bacchic comrade. When Cuddie, acknowledging his own +unworthiness, adds:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne; <br /> + He, were he not with love so ill bedight, <br /> + Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne;</p></blockquote> + +<p>Piers breaks out in words fitting the poet of the <i>Hymnes</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ah, fon! for love doth teach him climbe so hie, <br /> + And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And throughout this high discourse the homely names of Piers and Cuddie +seem somehow more appropriate, or at least touch us more nearly, than +Mantuan's Sylvanus and Candidus, as if, in spite of all Spenser owes to +foreign models, he were yet conscious of a latent power of simple native +inspiration, capable, when once fully awakened, of standing up naked and +unshamed in the presence of Italy and Greece. One might well question +whether there is not more of the true spirit of prophecy in this poem of +Spenser's than ever went to the composition of Vergil's <i>Pollio</i>.</p> + +<p>The 'November,' like the 'April,' consists for the most part of a lay +composed in an elaborate stanza--there a panegyric, here an elegy. This +time it is sung by Colin himself, and we again find reference to the +Rosalind motive. The subject of the threnody is a nymph of the name of +Dido, whose identity can only be vaguely conjectured. The chief point of +external form in which Spenser has departed from his model, namely Marot's +dirge for Loyse de Savoye, and from other pastoral elegies, is in the use +of a different form of verse in the actual lament from that in which the +setting of the poem is composed. Otherwise he has followed tradition none +the less closely for having infused the conventional form with a poetry of +his own. The change by which the lament passes into the song of rejoicing +is traditional--and though borrowed by Spenser from Marot, is as old as +Vergil. Both Browne and Milton later made use of the same device. Spenser +writes:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Why wayle we then? why weary we the Gods with playnts, <br /> + As if some evill were to her betight? <br /> + She raignes a goddesse now emong the saintes, <br /> + That whilome was the saynt of shepheards light, <br /> + And is enstalled nowe in heavens hight.<br /> + I see thee, blessed soule, I see<br /> + Walke in Elisian fieldes so free.<br /> + O happy herse! <br /> + Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!)<br /> + O joyfull verse!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Although some critics, looking too exclusively to the poetic merit of the +<i>Calender</i> as the cause of its importance, have perhaps overestimated the +beauty of this and the April lyrics, the skill with which the intricate +stanzas are handled must be apparent to any careful reader. As the +<i>Calender</i> in poetry generally, so even more decidedly in their own +department, do these songs mark a distinct advance in formal evolution. +Just as they were themselves foreshadowed in the recurrent melody of +Wyatt's farewell to his lute--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> My lute, awake! perform the last + Labour that thou and I shall waste,<br /> + And end that I have now begun; <br /> + For when this song is sung and past,<br /> + My lute, be still, for I have done--</p></blockquote> + +<p>so they in their turn heralded the full strophic sonority of the +<i>Epithalamium</i>.</p> + +<p>Lastly, in the 'December' we have the counterpart of the January eclogue, +a monologue in which Colin laments his wasted life and joyless, for</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath,<br /> + And after Winter commeth timely death.</p> + +<p> Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; <br /> + Adieu, my deare, whose love I bought so deare; <br /> + Adieu, my little Lambes and loved sheepe; <br /> + Adieu, ye Woodes, that oft my witnesse were:<br /> + Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true,<br /> + Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu.[<a href="#fn94">94</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>It will be seen from the above analysis that the architectonic basis of +Spenser's design consists of the three Colin eclogues standing +respectively at the beginning, in the middle, and at the close of the +year. These are symmetrically arranged: the 'January' and 'December' are +both alike monologues and agree in the stanza used, while the 'June' is a +dialogue and likewise differs in metrical form. This latter is supported +as it were by two subsidiary eclogues, those of April and August, in both +of which another shepherd sings one of Colin's lays and refers +incidentally to his passion for Rosalind. It is upon this framework that +are woven the various moral, polemical, and idyllic themes which Spenser +introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric +is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral +composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts +so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, +and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more +strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a +moment. The chief and most obvious device is that suggested by the +title--<i>The Shepherd's Calender</i>--'Conteyning twelve Aeglogues +proportionable to the twelve monethes.' This might, indeed, have been no +more than a fanciful name for any series of twelve poems;[<a href="#fn95">95</a>] with Spenser +it indicates a conscious principle of artistic construction. It suggests, +what is moreover apparent from the eclogues themselves, that the author +intended to represent the spring and fall of the year as typical of the +life of man. The moods of the various poems were to be made to correspond +with the seasons represented; or, conversely, outward nature in its cycle +through the year was to reflect and thereby unify the emotions, thoughts, +and passions of the shepherds. This was a perfectly legitimate artistic +device, and one based on a fundamental principle of our nature, since the +appearance of objective phenomena is ever largely modified and coloured by +subjective feeling. Nor can it reasonably be objected against the device +that in the hands of inferior craftsmen it degenerates but too readily +into the absurdities of the 'pathetic fallacy,' or that Spenser himself is +not wholly guiltless of the charge.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, <br /> + And after Winter commeth timely death.</p></blockquote> + +<p>These lines bear witness to Spenser's intention. But the conceit is not +fully or consistently carried out. In several of the eclogues not only +does the subject in no way reflect the mood of the season--the very nature +of the theme at times made this impossible--but the time of year is not so +much as mentioned. This is more especially the case in the summer months; +there is no joy of the 'hygh seysoun,' and when it is mentioned it is +rather by way of contrast than of sympathy. Thus in June Colin mourns for +other days:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Tho couth I sing of love, and tune my pype<br /> + Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made: <br /> + Tho would I seeke for Queene-apples unrype, <br /> + To give my Rosalind; and in Sommer shade<br /> + Dight gaudy Girlonds was my common trade, <br /> + To crowne her golden locks: but yeeres more rype, <br /> + And losse of her, whose love as lyfe I wayd, <br /> + Those weary wanton toyes away dyd wype.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the same eclogue we may trace a deliberate contrast between various +descriptive passages. Thus Hobbinol feels the magie of the summer woods--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes, <br /> + Which thou were wont on wastfull hylls to singe, <br /> + I more delight then larke in Sommer dayes: <br /> + Whose Echo made the neyghbour groves to ring, <br /> + And taught the byrds, which in the lower spring<br /> + Did shroude in shady leaves from sonny rayes, <br /> + Frame to thy songe their chereful cheriping, <br /> + Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy swete layes.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Closely following upon this stanza we have Colin's lament, 'The God of +shepheards, Tityrus, is dead,' containing the lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> But, if on me some little drops would flowe<br /> + Of that the spring was in his learned hedde, <br /> + I soone would learne these woods to wayle my woe, <br /> + And teache the trees their trickling teares to shedde.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have here a specifie inversion of the 'pathetic fallacy.' The moods of +nature are no longer represented as varying in sympathy with the passions +of man, but are deliberately used to heighten an effect by contrast. Even +this inverted correspondence, however, is for the most part lacking in the +subsequent eclogues, and it must be admitted that in so far as Spenser +depended on a cyclic correlation for the unifying of his design, he +achieved at best but partial effect. Another means by which he sought, +consciously or unconsciously, to produce unity of impression was by +consistently pitching his song in the minor key. This accounts for the +inverted correspondence just noted, and for the fact that even the +polemics have an undercurrent of regret in them. In this case the poet has +undoubtedly succeeded in carrying out the prevailing mood of the central +motive--the Rosalind drama--in the subsidiary scenes. Or should we not +rather say that he has extracted the general mood of the whole +composition, and infused it, in a kind of typical form, into the three +connected poems placed at critical points of the complex structure? The +unity, however, thus aimed at, and achieved, is very different from the +cyclic or architectonic unity described above, and of a much less definite +character.</p> + +<p>It remains to say a few words concerning the language of the <i>Calender</i> +and the rough accentual metre in which parts of it are composed, since +both have a particular bearing upon Spenser's attitude towards pastoral in +general.</p> + +<p>Ben Jonson, in one of those utterances which have won for him the +reputation of churlishness, but which are often marked by acute critical +sense, asserted that Spenser 'in affecting the Ancients writ no +Language.'[<a href="#fn96">96</a>] The remark applies first and foremost, of course, to the +<i>Calender</i>, and opens up the whole question of archaism and provincialism +in literature. This is far too wide a question to receive adequate +treatment here, and yet it appears forced upon us by the nature of the +case. For Spenser's archaism, in his pastoral work at least, is no +unmeaning affectation as Jonson implies. He perceived that the language of +Chaucer bore a closer resemblance to actual rustic speech than did the +literary language of his own day, and he adopted it for his imaginary +shepherds as a fitting substitute for the actual folk-tongue with which he +had grown familiar, whether in the form of rugged Lancashire or +full-mouthed Kentish. And the homely dialect does undoubtedly naturalize +the characters of his eclogues, and disguise the time-honoured platitudes +that they repeat from their learned predecessors. With our wider +appreciation of literary effect, and our more historical and less +authoritative manner of judging works of art, we can no longer endorse +Sidney's famous criticism:[<a href="#fn97">97</a>] 'That same framing of his stile, to an old +rustick language, I dare not alowe, sith neyther Theocritus in Greeke, +Virgill in Latine, nor Sanazar in Italian, did affect it.'[<a href="#fn98">98</a>] If a writer +finds an effective and picturesque word in an old author or in a homely +dialect it is but pedantry that opposes its use, and it matters little +moreover from what quarter of the land it may hail, as Stevenson knew when +he claimed the right of mingling Ayrshire with his Lothian verse. Even +such archaisms as 'deemen' and 'thinken,' such colloquialisms as the +pronominal possessive, need not be too severely criticized. What goes far +towards justifying Jonson's acrimony is the wanton confusion of different +dialectal forms; the indiscriminate use for the mere sake of archaism of +such variants as 'gate' beside the usual 'goat,' of 'sike' and 'sich' +beside 'such'; the coining of words like 'stanck,' apparently from the +Italian <i>stanco</i>; and lastly, the introduction of forms which owe their +origin to mere etymological ignorance, for instance, 'yede' as an +infinitive, 'behight' in the same sense as the simple verb, 'betight,' +'gride,' and many others--all of which do not tend to produce the homely +effect of mother English, but reek of all that is pedantic and +unnatural.[<a href="#fn99">99</a>]</p> + +<p>The influence of Chaucer was not confined to the language: from him +Spenser borrowed the metre of a considerable portion of the <i>Calender</i>. It +may at first sight appear strange to attribute to imitation of Chaucer's +smooth, carefully ordered verse the rather rugged measure of, say, the +February eclogue, but a little consideration will, I fancy, leave no doubt +upon the subject. This measure is roughly reducible to four beats with a +varying number of syllables in the <i>theses</i>, being thus purely accentual +as distinguished from the more strictly syllabic measures of Chaucer +himself on the one hand and the English Petrarchists on the other. Take +the following example:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine, <br /> + That, once sea-beate, will to sea againe: <br /> + So loytring live you little heardgroomes, <br /> + Keeping you beastes in the budded broomes: <br /> + And, when the shining sunne laugheth once, <br /> + You deemen the Spring is come attonce; <br /> + Tho gynne you, fond flyes! the cold to scorne, <br /> + And, crowing in pypes made of greene corn, <br /> + You thinken to be Lords of the yeare; <br /> + But eft, when ye count you freed from feare, <br /> + Cornes the breme Winter with chamfred browes, <br /> + Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes, <br /> + Drerily shooting his stormy darte, <br /> + Which cruddles the blood and pricks the harte: <br /> + Then is your carelesse corage accoied, <br /> + Your careful heards with cold bene annoied: <br /> + Then paye you the price of your surquedrie, <br /> + With weeping, and wailing, and misery.[<a href="#fn100">100</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>The syllabic value of the final <i>e</i>, already weakening in the London of +Chaucer's later days, was more or less of an archaism even with his most +immediate followers, none of whom use it with his unvarying correctness, +and it soon became literally a dead letter. The change was a momentous +one for English prosody, and none of the fifteenth-century writers +possessed sufficient poetic genius to adapt their verse to the altered +conditions of the language. They lived from hand to mouth, as it were, +without arriving at any systematic tradition. Thus it was that at the +beginning of the sixteenth century Hawes could write such verse as:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Of dame Astronomy I dyd take my lycence<br /> + For to travayle to the toure of Chyvalry; <br /> + For al my minde, wyth percyng influence, <br /> + Was sette upon the most fayre lady<br /> + La Bell Pucell, so muche ententyfly, <br /> + That every daye I dyd thinke fyftene, <br /> + Tyl I agayne had her swete person sene.[<a href="#fn101">101</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is this prosody, dependent usually upon a strong caesural pause to +differentiate it from prose, which may account for the harshness of some +of Wyatt's verse, and which rendered possible the barbarous metre of +Barclay. It was obviously impossible for a poet with an ear like Spenser +to accept such a metrical scheme as this; but his own study of Chaucer +produced a somewhat strange result. The one point which the late +Chaucerians preserved of their master's metric was the five-stress +character of his decasyllabic line; but in Spenser's day all memory of the +syllabic <i>e</i> had long since vanished, and the only rhythm to be extracted +from Chaucer's verse was of a four-stress type. Professor Herford quotes a +passage from the Prologue of the <i>Canterbury Tales</i> as it appears in +Thynne's second edition (1542), which Spenser would inevitably have read +as follows:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When zéphirus éke wyth hýs sote bréth<br /> + Enspýred hath évery hólte and héth, <br /> + The téndre cróppes, and the yóng sónne<br /> + Háth in the Rám halfe hys cóurse yrónne, <br /> + And smále foules máken mélodýe<br /> + That slépen al nýght with ópen éye, &c.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This certainly bears on the face of it a close resemblance to Spenser's +measure. There are, moreover, occasional difficulties in this method of +scansion, some lines refusing to accommodate themselves to the Procrustean +methods of sixteenth-century editors, and exactly similar anomalies are to +be found in Spenser. Such, for instance, are the lines in the May eclogue:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Tho opened he the dore, and in came<br /> + The false Foxe, as he were starke lame.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Now these lines may be written in strict Chaucerian English thus:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Tho openëd he the dore, and innë came<br /> + The falsë fox, as he were starkë lamë,</p></blockquote> + +<p>and they at once become perfectly metrical. Under these circumstances +there can, I think, be little doubt as to the literary parentage of +Spenser's accentual measure.[<a href="#fn102">102</a>]</p> + +<p>Like the archaic dialect, this homely measure tends to bring Spenser's +shepherds closer to their actual English brethren. And hereby, it should +be frankly acknowledged, the incongruity of the speakers and their +discourse is emphasized and increased. That discourse, it is true, runs on +pastoral themes, but the disguise and allegory have worn thin with +centuries of use. We can no longer separate the words from the allusions, +and consequently we can no longer accept the speakers in their +unsophisticated shepherd's rôle. Yet it was precisely the desire to give +reality to these transparent phantasms that led Spenser to endow them with +a rustic speech. Whether he failed or succeeded the paradox of the form +remains about equal.[<a href="#fn103">103</a>]</p> + +<p>The importance of the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> was early recognized, not +only by friendly critics, but by the general public likewise, and six +editions were called for in less than twenty years. Not long after its +appearance John Dove, a Christ Church man, who appears to have been +ignorant of the authorship, turned the whole into Latin verse, dedicating +the manuscript to the Dean.[<a href="#fn104">104</a>] Another Latin version is found in +manuscript in the British Museum copy of the edition of 1597, and after +undergoing careful revision finally appeared in print in 1653. This was +the work of one Bathurst, a fellow of Spenser's own college of Pembroke at +Cambridge.[<a href="#fn105">105</a>]</p> + +<p>The <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> was Spenser's chief contribution to pastoral; +indeed it was by so much his most important contribution that it would +hardly be worth while examining the others did they not bear witness to a +certain change in his attitude towards the pastoral ideal.</p> + +<p>The first of these later works is the isolated but monumental eclogue +entitled <i>Colin Clouts come Home again</i>, of which the dedication to +Raleigh is dated 1591, though it was not published till four years later. +This, perhaps the longest and most elaborate eclogue ever written, +describes how the Shepherd of the Ocean, that is Raleigh, induced Colin +Clout, who as before represents Spenser, to leave his rustic retreat in</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> the cooly shade<br /> + Of the greene alders by the Mallaes shore,</p></blockquote> + +<p>and try his fortune at the court of the great shepherdess Cynthia, and how +he ultimately returned to Ireland. The verse marks, as might be expected, +a considerable advance in smoothness and command of rhythm over the +non-lyrical portions of the <i>Calender</i>, and the dialect, too, is much less +harsh, being far advanced towards that peculiar poetic diction which +Spenser adopted in his more ambitions work. On the other hand, in spite of +a certain <i>allegrezza</i> in the handling, and in spite of the Rosalind wound +being at least partially healed, the same minor key prevails as in the +earlier poems. In the spring of the great age of English song Spenser's +note is like the voice of autumn, not the fruitful autumn of cornfield and +orchard, but a premature barrenness of wet and fallen leaves--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus though time has purged the bitterness of his sorrow, the regret +remains; his early love is still the mistress of his thoughts, but years +have softened his reproaches, and he admits:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> who with blame can justly her upbrayd, <br /> + For loving not; for who can love compell?--</p></blockquote> + +<p>a petard, it may be incidentally remarked, which, sprung within the bounds +of pastoral, is of power to pulverize in an instant the whole artificial +system of amatory ethics.</p> + +<p>The most notable points in the poem are the loves of the rivers Bregog and +Mulla, the famous list of contemporary poets, and the presentation of the +seamy side of court life, recalling the more direct satire of the probably +contemporary <i>Mother Hubberd's Tale</i>. The first of these belongs to the +class of Ovidian myths already noticed in such works as Lorenzo's <i>Ambra</i>. +The subject, however, is treated in a more subtly allegorical manner than +by Ovid's direct imitators, and this mode of presentment likewise +characterizes Spenser's tale of Molanna in the fragment on +Mutability.[<a href="#fn106">106</a>] Browne returned to a more crudely metamorphical tradition +in the loves of Walla and Tavy, while a similarly mythological +<i>Naturanschauung</i> may be traced in Drayton's chorographical epic.</p> + +<p>Of the miscellaneous <i>Astrophel</i>, edited and in part composed by Spenser, +which was appended to <i>Colin Clout</i>, and of the <i>Daphnaïda</i> published in +1596, though, like the former volume, containing a dedication dated 1591, +a passing mention must suffice. The former is chiefly remarkable as +illustrating the uniformly commonplace character of the verse called forth +by the death of one who, while he lived, was held the glory of Elizabethan +chivalry. It contains, beside other verse, pastoral elegies from the pens, +certainly of Spenser, and probably of the Countess of Pembroke, Matthew +Roydon, and Lodowick Bryskett. The last-named, or at any rate a +contributor with the same initiais, also supplied a 'Pastorall Aeglogue' +on the same theme. <i>Daphnaïda</i> is a long lament in pastoral form on the +death of Douglas Howard, daughter of the Earl of Northampton.</p> + +<p>Of far greater importance for our present purpose is the pastoral +interlude in the quest of Sir Calidore, which occupies the last four +cantos of the sixth book of the <i>Faery Queen</i>.[<a href="#fn107">107</a>] Here is told how Sir +Calidore, the knight of courtesy, in his quest of the Blatant Beast came +among the shepherd-folk and fell in love with the fair Pastorella, reputed +daughter of old Meliboee; how he won her love in return through his valour +and courtesy; how while he was away hunting she was carried off by a band +of robbers; how he followed and rescued her; and finally, how she was +discovered to be the daughter of the lord of Belgard--at which point the +poem breaks off abruptly. The story has points of resemblance with the +Dorastus and Fawnia, or Florizel and Perdita, legend; but it also has +another and more important claim upon our attention. For as Shakespeare in +<i>As You Like It</i>, so Spenser in this episode has, as it were, passed +judgement upon the pastoral ideal as a whole. He is acutely sensitive to +the charm of that ideal and the seductions it offers to his hero--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ne, certes, mote he greatly blamed be,</p></blockquote> + +<p>says the poet of the <i>Faery Queen</i> recalling the days when he was plain +Colin Clout--but the</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> perfect pleasures, which do grow<br /> + Amongst poore hyndes, in hils, in woods, in dales,</p></blockquote> + +<p>are not allowed to afford more than a temporary solace to the knight; the +robbers break in upon the rustic quietude, rapine and murder succeed the +peaceful occupations of the shepherds, and Sir Calidore is driven once +again to resume his arduous quest. The same idea may be traced in the +knight's visit to the heaven-haunted hill where he meets Colin Clout. In +the</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> hundred naked maidens lilly white + All raunged in a ring and dauncing in delight</p></blockquote> + +<p>to the sound of Colin's bagpipe, and who, together with the Graces and +their sovereign lady, vanish at the knight's approach, it is surely not +fanciful to see the gracious shadows of the idyllic poet's vision trooping +reluctantly away at the call of a more lofty theme. With this sense of +regret at the vanishing of an ideal long cherished, but at last +deliberately abandoned for matters of deeper and more real import, we may +turn from the work of the most important figure in English pastoral poetry +to his less famous contemporaries.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>Besides its wider influence on English verse, and the stimulus it gave to +pastoral composition as a whole, the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> called forth a +series of direct imitations. Of these the majority are but of accidental +and ephemeral interest and of inconspicuous merit; and it is probable that +Spenser himself lived to see the end of this over-direct school of +discipleship. Several examples appeared in Francis Davison's famous +miscellany known as the <i>Poetical Rhapsody</i>, the first edition of which, +though it only appeared in 1602, contained the gleanings of the entire +sixteenth century.[<a href="#fn108">108</a>] Of these imitations, four in number, the first, +the work of the editor himself, is a very poor production. It is a love +lament, and the insertion of a song in a complicated lyrical measure in a +plain stanzaic setting is evidently copied from the <i>Calender</i>. The other +three poems are ascribed, either in the <i>Rhapsody</i> itself or in Davison's +manuscript list, to a certain A. W., who so far remains unidentified, if, +indeed, the letters conceal any individuality and do not merely stand for +'Anonymous Writer,' as has been sometimes thought. The three eclogues at +any rate bear evidence of coming from the same pen, and the following +lines show that the writer was no incompetent imitator, and at the same +time argue some genuine feeling:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thou 'ginst as erst forget thy former state,<br /> + And range amid the busks thyself to feed: <br /> + Fair fall thee, little flock! both rathe and late;<br /> + Was never lover's sheep that well did speed.<br /> + Thou free, I bound; thou glad, I pine in pain;<br /> + I strive to die, and thou to live full fain.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first of these poems is a monologue 'entitled Cuddy,' modelled on the +January eclogue. The second is a lament 'made long since upon the death of +Sir Philip Sidney,' in which the writer wonders at Colin's silence, and +which consequently must, at least, date from before the appearance of +<i>Astrophel</i> in 1595, and is probably some years earlier. It is in the form +of a dialogue between two shepherds, one of whom sings Cuddy's lament in +lyrical stanzas, thus recalling Spenser's 'November.' These stanzas do not +reveal any great metrical gift. The last poem is a fragment 'concerning +old age,' which connects itself by its theme with the February eclogue, +though the form is stanzaic.[<a href="#fn109">109</a>] Again we find mention of Cuddy, a name +evidently assumed by the author, though whether he can be identified with +the Cuddie of the <i>Calender</i> it is impossible to say. Whoever he was, he +shows more disposition than most of his fellow imitators to preserve +Spenser's archaisms.</p> + +<p>But undoubtedly the greatest poet who was content to follow immediately +in Spenser's footsteps was Michael Drayton, who in 1593 published a volume +entitled 'Idea The Shepheards Garland, Fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands +Sacrifice to the nine Muses.' This connexion between the number of the +eclogues and the muses is purely fanciful; Rowland is Drayton's pastoral +name, and Idea, which re-appeared as the title of the 1594 volume of +sonnets, is that of his poetic mistress.[<a href="#fn110">110</a>] It can hardly be said that +the verse of these poems attains any very high order of merit, but the +imitation of Spenser is evident throughout. In the first eclogue Rowland +bewails, in the midst of spring, 'the winter of his grief.' In this and +the corresponding monologue at the end he clearly follows Spenser's +arrangement and likewise adopts his minor key--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Fayre Philomel, night-musicke of the spring,<br /> + Sweetly recordes her tunefull harmony, <br /> + And with deepe sobbes, and dolefull sorrowing,<br /> + Before fayre Cinthya actes her Tragedy.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In Eclogue II a 'wise' shepherd warns a youth against love, and draws a +somewhat gruesome picture of human fate--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And when the bell is readie to be tol'd<br /> + To call the wormes to thine Anatomie,<br /> + Remember then, my boy, what once I said to thee!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Even this, however, fails to shake the lover's faith in the gentle +passion, and his enthusiasm finds vent in an apostrophe borrowed from +Spenser:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh divine love, which so aloft canst raise,<br /> + And lift the minde out of this earthly mire.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next eclogue, containing a panegyric on Elizabeth under the name of +Beta, is closely modelled on the 'April,' and abounds with such +reminiscences as the following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Make her a goodly Chapilet of azur'd Colombine, <br /> + And wreath about her Coronet with sweetest Eglantine:<br /> + Bedeck our Beta all with Lillies,<br /> + And the dayntie Daffadillies, <br /> + With Roses damask, white, and red, and fairest flower delice, <br /> + With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloves of Paradice.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here, however, Drayton shows himself more skilful in dealing with a +lyrical stanza than most of his fellow imitators. In the fourth eclogue +two shepherds sing a dirge made by Rowland on the death of Elphin, that is +Sidney. In the next Rowland himself sings the praises of Idea; and in the +sixth Perkin those of Pandora, doubtless the Countess of Pembroke. The +seventh is a singularly unentertaining dispute, in which typical +representatives of age and youth abuse one another by turns; the eighth is +a description of the golden age, a theme Spenser had omitted; and lastly, +in the ninth we return to the opening love-motive, this time, as in the +<i>Calender</i>, amid the frosts of winter.</p> + +<p>These eclogues were reprinted in a different order in the 'Poems Lyric and +Pastoral' (<i>c.</i> 1606) with one additional poem there numbered the ninth. +This describes a rustic gathering of shepherds and nymphs, and contains +several songs. The verse exhibits no small advance on the earlier work, +and one song at least is in the author's daintiest manner. He seldom +surpassed the graceful conceit of the lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Through yonder vale as I did passe,<br /> + Descending from the hill, <br /> + I met a smerking bony lasse;<br /> + They call her Daffadill:</p> + +<p> Whose presence as along she went,<br /> + The prety flowers did greet, <br /> + As though their heads they downward bent<br /> + With homage to her feete.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Spenser, in spite of the warning he addressed to his book--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Dare not to match thy pype with Tityrus his style, <br /> + Nor with the Pilgrim that the Ploughman playde awhyle--</p></blockquote> + +<p>could nevertheless assert in semi-burlesque rime:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It shall continewe till the worlds dissolution;</p></blockquote> + +<p>and his disciple is not to be outdone. Never was truer lover or sweeter +singer--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oenon never upon Ida hill<br /> + So oft hath cald on Alexanders name, <br /> + As hath poore Rowland with an Angels quill<br /> + Erected trophies of Ideas fame: <br /> + Yet that false shepheard, Oenon, fled from thee; <br /> + I follow her that ever flies from me.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus Drayton endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of a greater than he, +and small success befell him in his uncongenial task. He knew little and +cared less about the moral and philosophical rags that clung yet about the +pastoral tradition. He sang, in his lighter vein at least, for the mere +pleasure that his song could afford to himself and others: the Spenserian +and traditional garb fits him ill. His golden age is rather amorous than +philosophical; he is more concerned that love should be free and true than +that the earth should yield her fruits unwounded of the plough; and even +so he hastens away from that colourless age to troll the delightful ballad +of Dowsabel. The inspiration for this he found, not in Spenser and his +learned predecessors, but in the popular romances, and in it we hear for +the first time the voice of the real Michael Drayton, the accredited bard +to the court of Faery. So again in the barren dispute of the seventh +eclogue, he turns aside from his theme as the shadow of the winged god +flits across his path--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> That pretie Cupid, little god of love,<br /> + Whose imped winges with speckled plumes been dight, <br /> + Who striketh men below and Gods above,<br /> + Roving at randon with his feathered flight, <br /> + When lovely Venus sits and gives the ayme, <br /> + And smiles to see her little Bantlings game.</p></blockquote> + +<p>If these eclogues formed Drayton's only claim upon our attention as a +pastoral poet there would be no excuse for lingering over him. He left +other work, however, which, if but slightly pastoral in subject, is at +least thoroughly so in form and spirit. The <i>Muses Elizium</i> did not appear +till 1630, and it is consequently not a little premature to speak of it in +this place. It is, however, so important as illustrating the freer and +more spontaneous vein traceable in many English pastoralists from Henryson +onwards, that it is worth while to place it for comparison side by side +with the more orthodox tradition as exemplified, in spite of his +originality, in the work of Spenser.</p> + +<p>The <i>Muses Elizium</i> is in truth the culmination of a long sequence of +pastoral work. Of this I have already discussed the beginnings when +dealing with the native pastoral impulse; and however much it was +influenced at a later date by foreign models it never submitted to the +yoke of orthodox tradition, and to the end retained much of its freshness. +The early anthologies are full of this sort of verse, the song-books are +full of it, and so are the romances and the plays. To this lyrical +tradition belong Breton's songs, of which one has already been quoted; +there was hardly a poet of note at the end of the sixteenth century who +did not contribute his quota. We find it once more, intermingling with a +certain formal strain, in Drayton's <i>Shepherds' Sirena</i> containing the +delightful song, with its subtle interchange of dactylic and iambic +rhythms, so admirably characteristic of the author of the <i>Agincourt</i> +ballad:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Neare to the Silver Trent<br /> + Sirena dwelleth, <br /> + Shee to whom Nature lent<br /> + All that excelleth; <br /> + By which the Muses late<br /> + And the neate Graces, <br /> + Have for their greater state<br /> + Taken their places: <br /> + Twisting an Anadem<br /> + Wherewith to Crowne her, <br /> + As it belong'd to them<br /> + Most to renowne her.<br /> + On thy Bancke,<br /> + In a Rancke<br /> + Let thy Swanes sing her<br /> + And with their Musick<br /> + along let them bring her.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In this pervading impulse of pure and spontaneous pastoral the soul of +what is sweet and winning in things common and familiar as our household +fairies blends with the fresh glamour of early love and the dainty +delights of an ideal world, where despair is only less sweet than +fruition, and love only less divine than chastity, where, as Drayton +frankly tells us,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The winter here a Summer is,<br /> + No waste is made by time, <br /> + Nor doth the Autumne ever misse<br /> + The blossomes of the Prime;</p> + +<p> The flower that July forth doth bring,<br /> + In Aprill here is seene, <br /> + The Primrose, that puts on the Spring,<br /> + In July decks each Greene,</p></blockquote> + +<p>a world, in short, in which the nymphs may strew the laureate hearse, not +only with all the flowers and fruits of earth, but with the Amaranth of +paradise and the stars of heaven if the fancy takes them. Of a spirit +compounded of these elements and of its quintessence are the 'Nymphals' of +the <i>Muses Elizium</i>. There are portions of the work, it is true, in which +the more vulgar strains of the conventional pastoral make themselves +heard, as in the satires of the fourth and tenth Nymphals; but for the +most part we are allowed to wander undisturbed among the woods and +pastures of an earthly paradise, and revel in the fairy laureate's most +imaginative work. There we meet Lirope, of whom</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Some said a God did her beget,<br /> + But much deceiv'd were they, <br /> + Her Father was a Rivelet,<br /> + Her Mother was a Fay. <br /> + Her Lineaments so fine that were<br /> + She from the Fayrie tooke, <br /> + Her Beauties and Complection cleere<br /> + By nature from the Brooke.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There Naiis sings, roguishly enough, in the martial metre of <i>Agincourt</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> 'Cloe, I scorne my Rime + Should observe feet or time, <br /> + Now I fall, then I clime,<br /> + What is't I dare not?'</p> + +<p> 'Give thy Invention wing,<br /> + And let her flert and fling, <br /> + Till downe the Rocks she ding,<br /> + For that I care not';</p></blockquote> + +<p>the song then breaking off into gamesome anapaests:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The gentle winds sally + Upon every Valley, <br /> + And many times dally<br /> + And wantonly sport, <br /> + About the fields tracing, <br /> + Each other in chasing, <br /> + And often imbracing,<br /> + In amorous sort.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There, again, we listen to the litany of the Muses, with the response:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sweet Muse, perswade our Phoebus to inspire + Us for his Altars with his holiest fire, <br /> + And let his glorious, ever-shining Rayes<br /> + Give life and growth to our Elizian Bayes;</p></blockquote> + +<p>or else hear the fairy prothalamium, most irrepressible and inimitable of +bridal songs--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> For our Tita is this day<br /> + Married to a noble Fay.</p></blockquote> + +<p>There, lastly, we behold the flutter of tender breasts half veiled when +Venus and her wayward archer are abroad, and listen as fair Lelipa reads +the decree:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To all th' Elizian Nimphish Nation, <br /> + Thus we make our Proclamation<br /> + Against Venus and her Sonne, <br /> + For the mischeefe they have done: <br /> + After the next last of May, <br /> + The fixt and peremptory day, <br /> + If she or Cupid shall be found<br /> + Upon our Elizian ground, <br /> + Our Edict mere Rogues shall make them, <br /> + And as such, who ere shall take them, <br /> + Them shall into prison put; <br /> + Cupids wings shall then be cut, <br /> + His Bow broken, and his Arrowes<br /> + Given to Boyes to shoot at Sparrowes; <br /> + And this Vagabond be sent, <br /> + Having had due punishment, <br /> + To mount Cytheron, which first fed him, <br /> + Where his wanton Mother bred him, <br /> + And there, out of her protection, <br /> + Dayly to receive correction. <br /> + Then her Pasport shall be made, <br /> + And to Cyprus Isle convayd, <br /> + And at Paphos, in her Shryne, <br /> + Where she hath beene held divine, <br /> + For her offences found contrite, <br /> + There to live an Anchorite.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have here the very essence of whatever most delicately and quaintly +exquisite the half sincere and half playful ideal of pastoral had +generated since the days of Moschus.</p> + +<p>How is it then, we may pause a moment to inquire, that in spite of its +crudities of language and even of metre, in spite of its threadbare themes +but half repatched with homelier cloth, in spite of its tedious +theological controversies, its more or less conventional loves and more or +less exaggerated panegyrics--how is it that in spite of all this we still +regard the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> as serious literature; while with all its +exquisite justness, as of ivory carved and tinted by the hand of a master +and encrusted with the sparkle of a thousand gems, the <i>Muses' Elizium</i> +remains a toy? It is not merely the prestige of the author's name: it is +not merely that we tend to accept the work of each at his own valuation. +We have to seek the explanation of the phenomenon in the fact that not +only has the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> behind it a vast tradition, reverend if +somewhat otiose--the devotion of men counts for something--but also that, +however stiffly laced in an unsuitable garb, it sought to deal with +matters of real import to man, or at any rate with what man has held as +such. It treated questions of religious policy which touched the majority +of men more nearly then than now; with moral problems calculated to +interest the mind of an age still tinged with medievalism; with +philosophical theories of human and divine love. In other words, the +<i>Shepherd's Calender</i> lay in the main stream of literature, and reflected +the mind of the age, while the <i>Muses' Elizium</i>, in common with so much +pastoral work, did not. These considerations open up an interesting field +of speculation. Are we to suppose that there is indeed a line of +demarcation between great art and little art wholly independent of that +which divides good art from bad art? Are we to go further, and assume that +these two lines of division intersect, so that a work may be akin to +great art though it be not good art, while, however perfect a work of art +may be, it may remain little art for some wholly non-aesthetic reason? But +we digress.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-4"> +<h3>IV</h3> + + +<p>It will be convenient, in dealing with the considerable volume of English +pastoral verse which has come down to us from the late sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, to divide it into two portions, according as it +tends to attach itself to orthodox foreign tradition on the one hand, or +to the more spontaneous native type on the other. To the former division +belong in the main the more ambitious set pieces and eclogue-cycles, to +the latter the lighter and more occasional verse, the pastoral ballads and +the lyrics. The division is necessarily somewhat arbitrary, for the two +traditions act and react on one another incessantly, and the types merge +almost imperceptibly the one into the other; but that does not prevent the +spirit that manifests itself in Drayton's eclogues being essentially +different from that which produced Breton's songs. I shall not, however, +try to draw any hard and fast line between the two, but shall rather deal +first with those writers whose most important work inclines to the more +formal tradition, and shall then endeavour to give some account of the +lighter pastoral verse of the time.</p> + +<p>After the appearance of the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> some years elapsed +before English poetry again ventured upon the domain of pastoral, at least +in any serious composition. In 1589, however, appeared a small quarto +volume, with the title: 'An Eglogue. Gratulatorie. Entituled: To the right +honorable, and renowmed Shepheard of Albions Arcadia: Robert Earle of +Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from Portugall. Done by George +Peele. Maister of arts in Oxon.' Like the 'A. W.' of the <i>Rhapsody</i>, Peele +followed Spenser more closely than most of his fellow imitators in the use +of dialect, but his eclogue on the not particularly glorious return of +Essex has little interest. His importance as a pastoralist lies elsewhere.</p> + +<p>The following year the poet of the <i>Hecatompathia</i>, Thomas Watson, a +pastoralist of note according to the critics of his own age, but whose +work in this line is chiefly Latin, published his 'Ecloga in Obitum +Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami, Equitis aurati, Divae +Elizabethae a secretis, & sanctioribus consiliis,' entitled <i>Meliboeus</i>, +and also in the same year a translation of the piece into English. The +latter is considerably shorter than the original, but still of tedious +length. The usual transition from the dirge to the paean is managed with +more than the usual lack of effect. The eclogue contains a good deal +beyond its immediate subject; for instance, a lament for Astrophel, a +passage in praise of Spenser, and a panegyric on</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Diana, matchless Queene of Arcadie--</p></blockquote> + +<p>all subjects hardly possible for a poet to escape, writing <i>more +pastorali</i> in 1590. Watson also left several other pastoral compositions +in the learned tongue, which, from their eponymous hero, won for him the +shepherd-name of Amyntas. Thus in 1585 he published a work in Latin +hexameter verse with the title 'Amyntas Thomae Watsoni Londinensis I. V. +studiosi,' divided into eleven 'Querelae,' which was 'paraphrastically +translated' by Abraham Fraunce into English hexameters, and published +under the title 'The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis' in +1587. This translation, 'somewhat altered' to serve as a sequel to an +English hexametrical version of Tasso's <i>Aminta</i>, was republished in 'The +Countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch' of 1591. Again in 1592 Watson produced +another work entitled <i>Amintae Gaudia</i>, part of which was translated under +the title <i>An Old-fashioned Love</i>, and published as by I. T. in 1594.[<a href="#fn111">111</a>]</p> + +<p>Next in order--passing over Drayton, with whom we have been already +sufficiently concerned--is a writer who, without the advantage of original +genius or brilliant imagination, succeeded by mere charm of poetic style +and love of natural beauty, in lifting his work above the barren level of +contemporary pastoral verse. Richard Barnfield's <i>Affectionate Shepherd</i>, +imitated, as he frankly confesses, from Vergil's <i>Alexis</i>, appeared in +1594. Appended to it was a poem similar in tone and spirit, entitled <i>The +Shepherd's Content</i>, containing a description of country life and scenery, +together with a lamentation for Sidney, a hymn to love, a praise of the +poets, and other similar matters. The easy if somewhat monotonous grace +which pervades both these pieces is seen to better advantage in the +delightful <i>Shepherd's Ode</i>, which appeared in his <i>Cynthia</i> of 1595, and +begins:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Nights were short and days were long, <br /> + Blossoms on the hawthorn hong, <br /> + Philomel, night-music's king, <br /> + Told the coming of the spring;</p></blockquote> + +<p>or in the yet more perfect song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> As it fell upon a day<br /> + In the merry month of May, <br /> + Sitting in a pleasant shade<br /> + Which a group of myrtles made, <br /> + Beasts did leap and birds did sing, <br /> + Trees did grow and plants did spring, <br /> + Everything did banish moan, <br /> + Save the nightingale alone; <br /> + She, poor bird, as all forlorn, <br /> + Lean'd her breast against a thorn, <br /> + And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, <br /> + That to hear it was great pity.... <br /> + Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, <br /> + None takes pity on thy pain. <br /> + Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee; <br /> + Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; <br /> + King Pandion he is dead, <br /> + All thy friends are lapp'd in lead[<a href="#fn112">112</a>]; <br /> + All thy fellow birds do sing, <br /> + Careless of thy sorrowing; <br /> + Even so, poor bird, like thee, <br /> + None alive will pity me[<a href="#fn113">113</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>No particular interest attaches to the four eclogues included in Thomas +Lodge's <i>Fig for Momus</i>, published in 1595, but they serve to throw light +on a kind of pastoral freemasonry that was springing up at this period. +Spenser and Sidney, under the names of Colin and Astrophel, or more rarely +Philisides, were firmly fixed in poetic tradition; Barnfield, by coupling +them with these, made Watson and Drayton free of the craft in his +complaint to Love in the <i>Shepherd's Content</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> By thee great Collin lost his libertie,<br /> + By thee sweet Astrophel forwent his joy, <br /> + By thee Amyntas wept incessantly,<br /> + By thee good Rowland liv'd in great annoy.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Now we find Lodge dedicating his four eclogues respectively to Colin, +Menalcus, Rowland, and Daniel. Who Menalcus was is uncertain; not, it +would seem, a poet. The themes are serious, even weighty according to the +estimation of the author, and befit the mood of the poet who first sought +to acclimatize the classical satire[<a href="#fn114">114</a>]. These eclogues do not, however, +testify to any high poetic gift, any more than do the couple in a lighter +vein found in the <i>Phillis</i> of 1593. Lodge was happier in the lyric verses +with which he strewed his romances--such for instance as the lines to +Phoebe in <i>Rosalynde</i>, though these did certainly lay themselves open to +parody[<a href="#fn115">115</a>]. In the same romance Lodge rose for once to a perfection of +delicate conceit unsurpassed from his day to ours:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Love in my bosom like a bee<br /> + Doth suck his sweet; <br /> + Now with his wings he plays with me,<br /> + Now with his feet.</p> + +<p> Within mine eyes he makes his nest, <br /> + His bed amidst my tender breast; <br /> + My kisses are his daily feast, <br /> + And yet he robs me of my rest.<br /> + Ah, wanton, will ye?</p></blockquote> + +<p>The year 1595 also saw the publication of Francis Sabie's <i>Pan's Pipe</i>, +which contains, according to the not wholly accurate title-page, 'Three +Pastorall Eglogues, in English Hexameter.' These constituted the first +attempt in English at writing original eclogues in Vergilian metre, and +the injudicious experiment has not, I believe, been repeated. The subjects +present little novelty of theme, but the treatment illustrates the natural +tendency of English pastoral writers towards narrative and the influence +of the romantic ballad motives. The same volume contains another work of +Sabie's, namely, the <i>Fishermaris Tale</i>, a blank-verse rendering of +Greene's <i>Pandosto</i>[<a href="#fn116">116</a>].</p> + +<p>The three pastoral elegies of William Basse, published in 1602, the last +work of the kind to appear in Elizabeth's reign, form in reality a short +pastoral romance. The court-bred Anander falls in love with the +shepherdess Muridella, and charges the sheep-boy Anetor to convey to her +the knowledge of his passion. His love proving unkind he turns shepherd, +and resolves to remain so until his suit obtains better grace. More than +half a century later, namely in 1653, Basse prepared for press a +manuscript containing a series of pastorals headed 'Clio, or The first +Muse in 9 Eglogues in honor of 9 vertues,' and arranged according to the +days of the week. The whole composition is singularly lacking alike in +interest and merit.[<a href="#fn117">117</a>]</p> + +<p>It is not surprising to find the eclogues of the early years of James' +reign reflecting current events. In 1603 appeared a curious compilation, +the work of Henry Chettle, bearing the title: 'Englandes Mourning Garment: +Worne here by plaine Shepheardes; in memorie of their sacred Mistresse, +Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue while shee lived, and Theame of Sorrow, being +dead. To which is added the true manner of her Emperiall Funerall. After +which foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for entertainement of King +James our most potent Soveraigne. Dedicated to all that loved the deceased +Queene, and honor the living King.' The book is a strange medley of verse +and prose, elegies on Elizabeth in the form of eclogues, and political +lectures written in the style of the pastoral romance. The most +interesting passage is an address to contemporary poets reproaching them +for their neglect of the praises of the late queen. The pastoral names +under which they are introduced appear to be merely nonce appellations, +but are worth recording as they refer to a set outside the usual pastoral +circle. Thus Corin is Chapman; Musaeus, of course Marlowe; English Horace, +no doubt Jonson; Melicert, Shakespeare; Coridon, Drayton; Anti-Horace, +most likely Dekker, and Moelibee, mentioned with him, possibly Marston. To +Musidore, 'Hewres last Musaeus' (no doubt corrupt), and the 'infant muse,' +it is more difficult to assign an identity.[<a href="#fn118">118</a>] Throughout Chettle +assumes to himself Spenser's pastoral title.</p> + +<p>To the same or the following year belong the twelve eclogues by Edward +Fairfax, the translater of Tasso's <i>Gerusalemme</i>, which are now for the +most part lost. One, the fourth, was printed in 1737 from the original +manuscript, another in 1883 from a later transcript in the Bodleian, while +a third is preserved in a fragmentary state in the British Museum.[<a href="#fn119">119</a>] +All three deal chiefly with contemporary affairs, the two former being +concerned with the abuses of the church, while the last is a panegyric of +the 'present age,' and especially of English maritime adventure. This is +certainly the most pleasing of the three, though the style is at times +pretentious and over-charged with far-fetched allusions. There are, +however, fine passages, as for instance the lines on Drake:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And yet some say that from the Ocean maine, <br /> + He will returne when Arthur comes againe.</p></blockquote> + +<p>More directly concerned with the political events of the day is the +curious eclogue Δάφνις Πολυστέφανος by Sir George Buc, published +in 1605, in praise of the Genest crown, the royal right by Apollo's divine +decree of a long line of English kings, who are passed in review by way of +introduction to the praises of their latest representative. The work was +revised by an unknown hand for the accession of Charles, and republished +under the title of <i>The Great Plantagenet</i> in 1635, as by 'Geo. Buck, +Gent.' Sir George held the post of Master of the Revels from 1608 to 1622, +and died the following year.</p> + +<p>In 1607 appeared a poem 'Mirrha the Mother of Adonis,' by William +Barksted, to which were appended three eclogues by Lewes Machin.[<a href="#fn120">120</a>] Of +these, one describes the love of a shepherd and his nymph, while the other +two treat the theme of Apollo and Hyacinth. Composed in easy verse of no +particular distinction these poems belong to that borderland between the +idyllic and the salacious on which certain shepherd-poets loved to dally.</p> + +<p>The years 1614 and 1615 saw the appearance of works of considerably +greater interest from every point of view, among others from that of what +I have described as pastoral freemasonry. In the former year there +appeared a small octavo volume entitled <i>The Shepherd's Pipe</i>. The chief +contributor was William Browne of Tavistock, the first book of whose +pastoral epic, <i>Britannia's Pastorals</i>, had appeared the previous year. +Besides seven eclogues from his pen, the volume contained one by +Christopher Brooke, one by Sir John Davies, and two by George Wither. +These last two were republished in 1615, with three additional pieces, in +Wither's collection entitled <i>The Shepherd's Hunting</i>. With the exception +of one or two of Browne's, these fourteen eclogues all deal with the +personal relation of the friends who disguise themselves respectively, +Browne as Willy, Wither as Roget (a name later exchanged for that of +Philarete), Brooke as Cuddie, and Davies as Wernock. Wither's were +written, as we learn from the title-page of the 1615 volume, while the +author was in prison in the Marshalsea for hunting vice with a pack of +satires in full cry, that is, the <i>Abuses Stript and Whipt</i> of 1611. The +verse seldom rises above an amiable mediocrity, the best that can be said +for it being that it carries on, in a not wholly unworthy manner, the +dainty tradition of the octosyllabic couplet between the <i>Faithful +Shepherdess</i> and Milton's early poems. Browne's eclogues are chiefly +remarkable for the introduction into the first of a long and rather +tedious tale derived from a manuscript of Thomas Occleve's. The last of +the series, an elegy on the death of Thomas, son of Sir Peter Manwood, has +been quoted as the model of <i>Lycidas</i>, but the resemblance begins and ends +with the fact that in either case the subject of the poem met his death by +drowning--a resemblance which will scarcely support a charge of +plagiarism[<a href="#fn121">121</a>].</p> + +<p>In 1621 appeared six eclogues under the title of <i>The Shepherd's Tales</i> by +the prolific miscellaneous writer Richard Brathwaite. Each in its turn +recounts the amorous misfortunes of some swain, which usually arise out of +the inconstancy of his sweetheart, and the prize of infelicity having been +adjudged, the author, not perhaps without a touch of malice, sends the +whole company off to a wedding. The <i>Tales</i> are noteworthy for the very +pronounced dramatic gift they reveal, being in this respect quite unique +in their kind. The same year saw the publication of the not very +successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative +in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.' Brathwaite +had already in 1614 published the <i>Poet's Willow</i>, containing a +'Pastorall' which recounts the unsuccessful love of Berillus, an Arcadian +shepherd, for the nymph Eliza[<a href="#fn122">122</a>].</p> + +<p>Pursuing the chronological order we come next to Phineas Fletcher's +'Piscatorie Eclogs' appended to his <i>Purple Island</i> in 1633. Except that +the scene is laid on the banks of a river instead of in the pastures, and +that the characters spend their time looking after boats and nets instead +of tending flocks, they differ in nought from the strictly pastoral +compositions. They are seven in number, and deal either with personal +subjects or with conventional themes. As an imitation of the <i>Shepherd's +Calender</i>, without its uncouthness whether of subject or language, and +equally without its originality or higher poetic value, the work is not +wanting in merit, but it is most decidedly wanting in all power to arrest +the reader's attention.</p> + +<p>The last collection that will claim our notice is that of Francis Quarles, +which appeared posthumously in 1646 under the title of 'The Shepheards +Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues[<a href="#fn123">123</a>]. The interest of the volume +lies not so much in its poetic merit, which however is considerable, as in +the fact that it deals with almost every form of religious controversy at +a critical point in English history. Quarles was a stanch Anglican, and he +lashes Romanists and Precisians with impartial severity. One of the +eclogues opens with a panegyric on Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of +which a messenger enters bearing the news of his death, thus fixing the +date of the poem in all probability in the winter of 1632-3. In the +eleventh and last the Puritan party is mercilessly satirized in the person +of Anarchus, in allusion to the supposed socialistic tendency of its +teaching. He is thus described in a dialogue between Philarchus and +Philorthus (the lovers of order and justice presumably):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Philor.</i> How like a Meteor made of zeal and flame<br /> + The man appears!</p> + +<p> <i>Philar.</i> Or like a blazing Star<br /> + Portending change of State, or some sad War, <br /> + Or death of some good Prince.</p> + +<p> <i>Philor.</i> He is the trouble<br /> + Of three sad Kingdoms.</p> + +<p> <i>Philar.</i> Even the very Bubble, + The froth of troubled waters.</p> + +<p> <i>Philor.</i> Hee's a Page<br /> + Fill'd with Errata's of the present Age.</p> + +<p> <i>Philar.</i> The Churches Scourge--</p> + +<p> <i>Philor.</i> The devils <i>Enchiridion</i>--</p> + +<p> <i>Philar.</i> The Squib, the <i>Ignis fatuus</i> of Religion.</p></blockquote> + +<p>To their address Anarchus replies in a song which it would be easy to +illustrate from the dramatic literature of the time, and which well +indicates the estimation in which the faction was popularly held. Here is +one verse:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Wee'l down with all the Varsities,<br /> + Where Learning is profest, <br /> + Because they practise and maintain<br /> + The Language of the Beast: <br /> + Wee'l drive the Doctors out of doores,<br /> + And Arts what ere they be, <br /> + Wee'l cry both Arts, and Learning down,<br /> + And, hey! then up goe we.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The whole song for sheer rollicking hypocrisy is without parallel in the +language. The date of the poem is doubtful, but Quarles lived till 1644, +and after two years of civil strife the terms which the interlocutors in +the above passage apply to the Puritan party can hardly be regarded as +prophetic.</p> + +<p>Besides the works we have examined above, several others are known to have +existed, though they are not now traceable. Thus 'The sweete sobbes, and +amorous Complaintes of Shepardes and Nymphes in a fancye confusde by An +Munday' was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company on August 19, +1583. Two years earlier, on August 3, 1581, had been entered 'A Shadowe of +Sannazar.' Again we know, alike from Wood's <i>Athenae</i> and Meres' <i>Palladis +Tamia</i>, that Stephen Gosson left works of the kind of which we have now no +trace; while Puttenham in his <i>Art of English Poesy</i> mentions an eclogue +of his own, addressed to Edward VI, and entitled <i>Elpine</i>. Puttenham and +Meres in dealing with pastoral writers also mention one Challener, no +doubt the Thomas Chaloner who contributed to the <i>Mirror for Magistrates</i>, +and Nashe in his preface to <i>Menaphon</i> adds Thomas Atchelow, who may be +plausibly identified with the Thomas Achelly who contributed verses to +Watson's <i>Hecatompathia</i> and various sententious fragments to <i>England's +Parnassus</i>, among them a not very happy rendering of those lines of +Catullus which might almost be taken as a motto to pastoral poetry as a +whole:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The sun doth set, and brings again the day, <br /> + But when our light is gone, we sleep for aye.</p></blockquote> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-5"> +<h3>V</h3> + + +<p>It is not easy to arrange the mass of occasional lyric verse of a pastoral +nature in a manner to facilitate a general survey. We may perhaps divide +it roughly into general groups which possess certain points in common and +can be treated more or less independently. Little would be gained by +following a strictly chronological order, even were it possible to do so.</p> + +<p>We occasionally meet with translations, though from the nature of the case +these, as well as evidences of direct foreign influence, are less +prominent here than in the more formal type of pastoral verse. We have +already seen that Googe, besides borrowing from Garcilaso's version of a +portion of the <i>Arcadia</i>, himself paraphrased passages of the <i>Diana</i> in +his eclogues, and the latter work also supplied material for the pen of +Sir Philip Sidney. His debt consists in translations of two songs from +Montemayor's romance, printed among his miscellaneous poems[<a href="#fn124">124</a>]. About a +dozen translations from the same source appeared in <i>England's Helicon</i>, +the work of Bartholomew Yong. They are for the most part very inferior to +the general average of the collection, but the opening of one at least is +worth quoting:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> 'Guardami las vaccas,<br /> + Carillo, por tu fé.-- <br /> + Besami primero,<br /> + Yo te las guardaré.'</p> + +<p> I prithee keep my kine for me,<br /> + Carillo, wilt thou? tell.--<br /> + First let me have a kiss of thee,<br /> + And I will keep them well.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another translation is the poem headed 'A Pastorall' in Daniel's <i>Delia</i> +of 1592, a rendering of the famous chorus to the first act of Tasso's +<i>Aminta</i>.</p> + +<p>When we turn to original verse, the first group of poets to arrest our +attention is the court circle which gathered round Sir Philip Sidney. +There is a poem by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, preserved in +Davison's <i>Poetical Rhapsody</i>, and there headed 'A Dialogue between two +Shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astrea.' It was composed for the +entertainment of the queen, and was no doubt sung or recited in character. +Such was likewise the mode of production of Sir Philip's 'Dialogue between +two Shepherds, uttered in a pastoral show at Wilton,'[<a href="#fn125">125</a>] which is more +rustic in character. <i>Astrophel and Stella</i> supplies a graceful 'complaint +to his flock' against the cruelty of</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Stella, fiercest shepherdess,<br /> + Fiercest, but yet fairest ever; <br /> + Stella, whom the heavens still bless,<br /> + Though against me she persever.<br /> + Though I bliss inherit never.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The <i>Poetical Rhapsody</i> again preserves two others, the outcome of +Sidney's friendship with Greville and Dyer. The first is a song of +welcome; the second, headed 'Dispraise of a Courtly Life,' ends with the +prayer:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Only for my two loves' sake, + In whose love I pleasure take; <br /> + Only two do me delight<br /> + With the ever-pleasing sight; <br /> + Of all men to thee retaining, <br /> + Grant me with these two remaining.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the loyal admirer and biographer of +Sidney, who desired on his tomb no better passport to posterity than that +he had been Sir Philip's friend, we have among other works published in +1633 a series of so-called sonnets recording his love for the fair +Caelica. There is a thin veil of pastoralism over the whole, with here and +there a more definite note as in 'Sonnet' 75, a poem of over two hundred +lines lamenting his lady's cruelty--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Shepheardesses, yet marke well<br /> + The Martyrdome of Philocell.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of Sir Edward Dyer's works no early edition was published. Such isolated +poems as have survived were collected by Grosart in 1872 from a variety of +sources. If the piece entitled <i>Cynthia</i> is authentic, it gives him a +respectable place beside Greville among the minor pastoralists of his day. +Lastly, in connexion with Sidney we may note a curious poem which appeared +in the first edition of the <i>Arcadia</i> only.[<a href="#fn126">126</a>] It is a 'bantering' +eclogue, in which the shepherds Nico and Pas first abuse one another and +then fall to a comic singing match. It is evidently suggested by the fifth +Idyl of Theocritus, and is a fair specimen of a very uncommon class in +English. Akin to this is the burlesque variety, of which we have already +met with examples in Lorenzo's <i>Nencia</i> and Pulci's <i>Beca</i>, and which is +almost equally rare with us. A specimen will be found in the not very +successful eclogue in Greene's <i>Menaphon</i>. The following is as near as the +author was able to approach to Lorenzo's delicately playful tone:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Carmela deare, even as the golden ball<br /> + That Venus got, such are thy goodly eyes: <br /> + When cherries juice is jumbled therewithall, <br /> + Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It would, of course, be grossly unfair to judge Robert Greene, the +ever-sinning and ever-repentant, by the above injudicious experiment. His +lyrical powers appear in a very different light, for instance, in the +'Palmer's Ode' in <i>Never Too Late</i> (1590), one of the most charming of his +many confessions:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> As I lay and kept my sheepe, <br /> + Came the God that hateth sleepe, <br /> + Clad in armour all of fire, <br /> + Hand in hand with Queene Desire, <br /> + And with a dart that wounded nie, <br /> + Pearst my heart as I did lie, <br /> + That, when I wooke, I gan sweare<br /> + Phillis beautie palme did beare.</p></blockquote> + +<p>From the same romance I must do Greene the justice of quoting the +delightful, though but remotely pastoral, song of every loving nymph to her +bashful swain:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye--<br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- <br /> + Upon thy Venus that must die?<br /> + Je vous en prie, pity me: <br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel--<br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?</p> + +<p> See how sad thy Venus lies--<br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- <br /> + Love in heart and tears in eyes;<br /> + Je vous en prie, pity me: <br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel--<br /> + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is hard to refrain from quoting half a dozen other pieces. There is the +courting of Phillis in <i>Perimedes the Blacksmith</i> (1588), with its purely +idyllic close; or again the famous 'Shepherd's Wife's Song' from the +<i>Mourning Garment</i> (1590):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing, <br /> + As sweet unto a shepherd as a king;<br /> + And sweeter too, <br /> + For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, <br /> + And cares can make the sweetest love to frown:<br /> + Ah then, ah then, <br /> + If country loves such sweet desires do gain, <br /> + What lady would not love a shepherd swain?</p></blockquote> + +<p>No one not utterly callous to the pathos of human life, or warped by some +ethical twist beyond the semblance of a man, has ever been able to pass +unmoved by the figure of Robert Greene. We see him, the poet of all that +is truest and tenderest in human affection, abandoning his young wife and +child, drawn by the power of some fatal fascination into the whirlpool of +low life in London, and then, as if inspired by a sudden revelation of +objective vision, penning the throbbing lines of the forsaken mother's +song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, <br /> + When thou art old there's grief enough for thee.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We see him again amid the despair and squalor of his death-bed, warning +his friends against his own example, and addressing to the wife he had not +seen for years those words endorsed on a bill for ten pounds, words ever +memorable in the history of English letters: 'Doll, I charge thee by the +love of our youth, and by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man +paid; for if he and his wife had not succoured me I had died in the +streets.' Such are the scenes of sordid misery which underlie some of the +choicest of English songs. It is best to return to the surface.</p> + +<p>The lyric 'sequences' published towards the close of the sixteenth +century frequently contain more or less pastoral matter. Barnabe Barnes +appended some poems of this sort to his <i>Parthenophil and Parthenophe</i> (c. +1593), among others a version of Moschus' idyl of runaway love, a theme +which had long been a favourite one with pastoral writers. Poliziano's +Latin translation of Moschus[<a href="#fn127">127</a>] was commended by E. K. in his notes to +the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>, and the same original supplied Tasso with the +subject of his <i>Amore fuggitivo</i>, which served as epilogue to the +<i>Aminta</i>. William Smith's <i>Chloris</i> (1596), except for plentiful swearing +by pastoral deities, is less bucolic in spite of its dedication to Colin +Clout. The most important of the sequences from our present point of view +is Nicholas Breton's <i>Passionate Shepherd,</i> which was not published till +1604. It contains five pastorals in praise of Aglaia:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Had I got a kingly grace, <br /> + I would leave my kingly place<br /> + And in heart be truly glad<br /> + To become a country lad, <br /> + Hard to lie and go full bare, <br /> + And to feed on hungry fare, <br /> + So I might but live to be<br /> + Where I might but sit to see, <br /> + Once a day, or all day long, <br /> + The sweet subject of my song; <br /> + In Aglaia's only eyes<br /> + All my worldly paradise.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is a fair specimen of Breton's dainty muse, but his choicest work +appeared in that wonderful anthology published in 1600 under the title of +<i>England's Helicon</i>. To this collection Breton contributed such verses as +the following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> On a hill there grows a flower--<br /> + Fair befall the dainty sweet!-- <br /> + By that flower there is a bower,<br /> + Where the heavenly muses meet.</p> + +<p> In that bower there is a chair,<br /> + Fringèd all about with gold; <br /> + Where doth sit the fairest fair,<br /> + That ever eye did yet behold.</p> + +<p> It is Phyllis fair and bright,<br /> + She that is the shepherd's joy; <br /> + She that Venus did despite,<br /> + And did bind her little boy.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Good Muse, rock me asleep<br /> + With some sweet harmony; <br /> + The weary eye is not to keep<br /> + Thy wary company.</p> + +<p> Sweet Love, begone awhile,<br /> + Thou knowest my heaviness; <br /> + Beauty is born but to beguile<br /> + My heart of happiness.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another poem no less perfect has been already quoted at length. In its own +line, the delicate carving of fair images as in crystal or some precious +stone, Breton's work is unsurpassed. We cannot do better than take, as +examples of a very large class, some of the poems printed, in most cases +for the first time, in <i>England's Helicon</i>. Of Henry Constable, the poet +indicated doubtless by the initiais H. C., we have a charming song between +Phillis and Amaryllis, the counterpart and imitation of Spenser's +'Bonibell' ballad:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>P.</i> Fie on the sleights that men devise--<br /> + (Heigho, silly sleights!) <br /> + When simple maids they would entice.<br /> + (Maids are young men's chief delights.) <br /> + <i>A.</i> Nay, women they witch with their eyes--<br /> + (Eyes like beams of burning sun!) <br /> + And men once caught they do despise;<br /> + So are shepherds oft undone.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> <i>P.</i> If every maid were like to me--<br /> + (Heigho, hard of heart!) <br /> + Both love and lovers scorn'd should be.<br /> + (Scorners shall be sure of smart.) <br /> + <i>A.</i> If every maid were of my mind--<br /> + (Heigho, heigho, lovely sweet!) <br /> + They to their lovers should prove kind;<br /> + Kindness is for maidens meet[<a href="#fn128">128</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of Sir John Wotton, the short-lived half-brother of the more famous Sir +Henry, there is a spirited song, betraying unusual command over a +complicated rhythm:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Jolly shepherd, shepherd on a hill,<br /> + On a hill so merrily,<br /> + On a hill so cheerily, <br /> + Fear not, shepherd, there to pipe thy fill;<br /> + Fill every dale, fill every plain;<br /> + Both sing and say, 'Love feels no pain.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another graceful poet of <i>England's Helicon</i> is the 'Shepherd Tony,' whose +identity with Anthony Munday was finally established by Mr. Bullen. He +contributed, among other verses, a not very interesting reply to Harpelus' +complaint in 'Tottel's Miscellany,' and the well-known and exquisite:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Beauty sat bathing by a spring<br /> + Where fairest shades did hide her,</p></blockquote> + +<p>which reappears in his translation of the Castilian romance <i>Primelion</i>.</p> + +<p>In Marlowe's 'Passionate Shepherd to his Love,' of which <i>England's +Helicon</i> supplies one of three texts[<a href="#fn129">129</a>], we come to what is, with the +possible exception of <i>Lycidas</i> alone, the most subtly modulated specimen +of pastoral verse in English. So far as internal evidence is concerned the +poem has absolutely nothing but its own perfection to connect it with the +name of Marlowe; it is utterly unlike all other verse, dramatic, +narrative, or lyric, ascribed to him. An admirable eclectic text, which +exhibits to the full the delicacy of the rhythm, has been prepared by Mr. +Bullen in his edition of Marlowe's works. It would be impossible not to +quote the piece in full:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Come live with me and be my love, <br /> + And we will all the pleasures prove<br /> + That hills and vallies, dales and fields, <br /> + Woods or steepy mountain yields.</p> + +<p> And we will sit upon the rocks, <br /> + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks<br /> + By shallow rivers to whose falls<br /> + Melodious birds sing madrigals.</p> + +<p> And I will make thee beds of roses<br /> + And a thousand fragrant posies, <br /> + A cap of flowers and a kirtle<br /> + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.</p> + +<p> A gown made of the finest wool<br /> + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; <br /> + Fair-lined[<a href="#fn130">130</a>] slippers for the cold, <br /> + With buckles of the purest gold.</p> + +<p> A belt of straw and ivy-buds, <br /> + With coral clasps and amber studs; <br /> + And if these pleasures may thee move, <br /> + Come live with me, and be my love.</p> + +<p> The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing<br /> + For thy delight each May-morning: <br /> + If these delights thy mind may move, <br /> + Then live with me, and be my love.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The popularity of this poem was testified by its widespread influence on +the poets of the day. <i>England's Helicon</i> contains 'the Nymphs reply,' +commonly attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also a long imitation; +Donne wrote a piscatory version, and Herrick paid it the sincerest form of +flattery, while less distinct reminiscences are common in the poetry of +the time. Yet Kit Marlowe's verses stand unrivalled.</p> + +<p>The pastoral influence in Shakespeare's verse, both lyric and dramatic, is +too obvious to need more than passing notice. Every reader will recall +'Who is Sylvia,' from the <i>Two Gentlemen</i>, and 'It was a lover and his +lass,' the song of which, in Touchstone's opinion, 'though there was no +great matter in the ditty, yet the tune was very untuneable,' or again the +famous speech of the chidden king:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O God! methinks it were a happy life, <br /> + To be no better than a homely swain;<br /> + (3 <i>Henry VI</i>, II. v. 21.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and Arthur's exclamation:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> By my christendom<br /> + So I were out of prison and kept sheep, <br /> + I should be as merry as the day is long.<br /> + (<i>K. John</i>, IV. i. 16.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>One poem, bearing a certain resemblance to verses of Barnfield's already +discussed, may be quoted here. It was originally printed in the fourth +act of <i>Love's Labour's Lost</i> in 1598, reappeared in the <i>Passionate +Pilgrim</i> in 1599, and again in <i>England's Helicon</i> in 1600.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> On a day--alack the day!-- <br /> + Love, whose month was ever May, <br /> + Spied a blossom passing fair<br /> + Playing in the wanton air. <br /> + Through the velvet leaves the wind<br /> + All unseen gan passage find, <br /> + That the shepherd, sick to death, <br /> + Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. <br /> + Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; <br /> + Air, would I might triumph so! <br /> + But, alas, my hand hath sworn<br /> + Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; <br /> + Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, <br /> + Youth is apt to pluck a sweet. <br /> + [Do not call it sin in me<br /> + That I am forsworn for thee;] <br /> + Thou for whom Jove would swear<br /> + Juno but an Ethiope were, <br /> + And deny himself for Jove, <br /> + Turning mortal for thy love.[<a href="#fn131">131</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>Lastly, <i>England's Helicon</i> preserves two otherwise unknown poems of +Drayton's, one probably an early work, having little to recommend it +beyond the pretty though not original conceit:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> See where little Cupid lies<br /> + Looking babies in her eyes!</p></blockquote> + +<p>the other similar in style to the eclogue first published in the +collection of c. 1606. About contemporary possibly is the anonymous ballad +'Phillida flouts me,' which in command alike of rhythm and language is +remarkably reminiscent of some, and that some of the best, of Drayton's +work.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh, what a plague is love!<br /> + How shall I bear it? <br /> + She will unconstant prove,<br /> + I greatly fear it.</p> + +<p> It so torments my mind<br /> + That my strength faileth; <br /> + She wavers with the wind,<br /> + As the ship saileth. <br /> + Please her the best you may, <br /> + She looks another way; <br /> + Alas and well-a-day!<br /> + Phillida flouts me[<a href="#fn132">132</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>I have already had occasion to mention the mysterious A. W. in Davison's +<i>Poetical Rhapsody</i>, but I cannot refrain from calling attention to one +other poem of his. It is headed 'A fiction, how Cupid made a nymph wound +herself with his arrows,' and is perhaps the nearest thing in English to a +Greek <i>idyllion</i>, though in the manner of Moschus rather than of +Theocritus. The opening scene will give an idea of the style:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It chanced of late a shepherd's swain,<br /> + That went to seek a strayèd sheep, <br /> + Within a thicket on the plain,<br /> + Espied a dainty nymph asleep.</p> + +<p> Her golden hair o'erspread her face,<br /> + Her careless arms abroad were cast, + Her quiver had her pillow's place,<br /> + Her breast lay bare to every blast.</p> + +<p> The shepherd stood, and gazed his fill;<br /> + Nought durst he do, nought durst he say; <br /> + When chance, or else perhaps his will,<br /> + Did guide the god of love that way.</p></blockquote> + +<p>And so the long pageant troops by, not without its passages of dullness, +its moments of pedestrian gait, for it must be borne in mind that the +poems quoted above are for the most part the choice of what has survived +in a few volumes, and that this in its turn represents the gleanings from +a far larger body of verse that once existed. In spite of its perennial +freshness the charge of want of originality has not unreasonably been +brought even against the best compositions of the kind. It could hardly be +otherwise. Except in the rarest cases originality was impossible. The +impulse was to write a certain kind of amatory verse, for which the +fashionable medium was pastoral; not to write pastoral for its own sake. +The demand was for convention, the familiar, the expected; never for +originality or truth. The fault was in the poetic requirements of the age, +and must not be laid to the charge of those admirable craftsmen who gave +the age what it wanted; especially when in so doing they enriched English +poetry with some of its choicest gems.</p> + +<p>The pastoral lyric of the next two reigns is far too wide a subject to be +entered upon here. Grave or gay, satirical or idyllic, coy or wanton, +there is scarcely a poet of note or obscurity who did not contribute his +share. Nowhere is a rarer note of pastoral to be found than in +<i>L'Allegro</i>, with its</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> every shepherd tells his tale<br /> + Under the hawthorn in the vale.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Before, however, saying farewell to this, the lighter side of English +pastoral verse, I would call attention to a poem which perhaps more than +any other illustrates the spirit of <i>voluttà idillica</i>, characteristic of +so much that possesses abiding value in pastoral. Unfortunately Carew's +<i>Rapture</i> is almost throughout of a nature that forbids reproduction +except in a scientific edition, or an admittedly erotic collection. Though +its licence is coterminous with the bounds of natural desire, the candour +of its appeal to unvitiated nature saves it from reproach, and the +perfection of its form makes it an object of never-failing beauty. The +idea with which the poem opens, the escape to a land where all +conventional restrictions cease to have a meaning, was of course suggested +by the first chorus of the <i>Aminta</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> quel vano<br /> + Nome senza soggetto, <br /> + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno; <br /> + Quel che dal volgo insano<br /> + Onor poscia fu detto--<br /> + Che di nostra natura 'l feo tiranno.</p></blockquote> + +<p>I can only extract one short passage out of Tom Carew's poem, that which +describes how</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot<br /> + Which th' angry Gods had fast'ned with a root<br /> + To the fix'd earth, doth now unfetter'd run<br /> + To meet th' embraces of the youthful Sun. <br /> + She hangs upon him, like his Delphic Lyre; <br /> + Her kisses blow the old, and breath new, fire; <br /> + Full of her God, she sings inspired lays, <br /> + Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the Bays, <br /> + Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies<br /> + In Petrarch's learned arms, drying those eyes<br /> + That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow, <br /> + As made the world enamoured of his woe.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is not itself pastoral, but it belongs to that idyllic borderland +which we previously noticed in dealing with Italian verse. And again, as +in Italy, so in England, we find the same spirit infusing the mythological +tales. Did time and space allow it would be an interesting diversion to +trace how the pastoral spirit evinced itself in such works as Peele's +<i>Tale of Troy</i>, Lodge's <i>Scilla's Metamorphosis</i>, Drayton's <i>Man in the +Moon</i>, Brathwaite's <i>Narcissus Change</i> (in the <i>Golden Fleece</i>), and found +articulate utterance in the voluptuous cadences of <i>Venus and Adonis</i>.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-6"> +<h3>VI</h3> + + +<p>There are two specimens of English pastoral verse which I have reserved +for separate discussion in this place, namely, <i>Lycidas</i> and <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i>. The one is probably the most perfect example of the +allegorical pastoral produced since first the form was invented by Vergil, +the other the longest and most ambitious poem ever composed on a pastoral +theme.[<a href="#fn133">133</a>]</p> + +<p>Milton's poem was written on the occasion of the death of Edward King, +fellow of Christ's College, who was drowned on his way to Ireland during +the long vacation of 1637, and first appeared in a collection of memorial +verses by his Cambridge friends published in 1638. It gathers together +within its narrow compass as it were whole centuries of pastoral +tradition, fusing them into an organic whole, and inspiring the form with +a poetic life of its own.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more<br /> + Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sear, <br /> + I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, <br /> + And with forc'd fingers rude, <br /> + Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.</p></blockquote> + +<p>For Lycidas is dead and claims his meed of song.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, <br /> + That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; <br /> + Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Sing first their friendship, nursed upon the self-same hill, their youth +spent together. But oh! the heavy change; now the very caves and woods +mourn his loss. Where then were the Muses, that their loved poet should +die? And yet what could they do for Lycidas, who had no power to shield +Orpheus himself,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When by the rout that made the hideous roar, <br /> + His goary visage down the stream was sent, <br /> + Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.</p></blockquote> + +<p>What then avails the poet's toil? Were it not better to taste the sweets +of love as they offer themselves since none can count on reward in this +life? The prize, however, lies elsewhere--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But such thoughts are too lofty for the swains of Arethusa and Mincius. +Listen rather as the herald of the sea questions the god of winds about +the fatal wreck. It was no storm drove the ill-starred boat to +destruction:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine, <br /> + Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd,</p></blockquote> + +<p>sounds the reply. Next, footing slow, comes the tutelary deity of Alma +Mater, and in one sad cry mourns the promise of a life so soon cut short. +Lastly, 'The Pilot of the Galilean lake,' with denunciation of the +corrupt hirelings of a venal age, laments the loss of the church in the +death of Lycidas. As his solemn figure passes by, the gracious fantasies +of pastoral landscape shrink away: now</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past, <br /> + That shrunk thy streams,</p></blockquote> + +<p>bid the nymphs bring flowers of every hue,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies--</p></blockquote> + +<p>and yet indeed even this comfort is denied, we dally with false +imaginings,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas<br /> + Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurld, <br /> + Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, <br /> + Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide<br /> + Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world,</p></blockquote> + +<p>or on the Cornish coast,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Where the great vision of the guarded Mount<br /> + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But enough!</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more, <br /> + For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, <br /> + Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar, <br /> + So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, <br /> + And yet anon repairs his drooping head, <br /> + And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore, <br /> + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.</p></blockquote> + +<p>On this note the elegy ends, and there follow eight lines in which the +poet glances at his own pastoral self that has been singing, and realizes +that the world will go on even though Lycidas be no more, and that there +are other calls in life than that of piping on an oaten reed. These lines +correspond to the plain stanzaic frames in which Spenser set his lyrics in +the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th' Okes and rills, <br /> + While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, <br /> + He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, <br /> + With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: <br /> + And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, <br /> + And now was dropt into the Western bay; <br /> + At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: <br /> + To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The poem, in common with the whole class of allegorical pastorals, is +undoubtedly open to the charge of artificiality, since, in truth, the +pastoral garb can never illustrate, but only distort and obscure subjects +drawn from other orders of civilization. Yet none but a great master +could, to produce a desired effect, have utilized every association which +tradition afforded with the consummate skill observable in Milton's poem. +He has been blamed for the introduction of St. Peter, on the ground of +incongruity; but he has tradition on his side. St. Peter, as we have +already seen, figures, under the name of Pamphilus, in the eclogues of +Petrarch, and his introduction by Milton is in nicest keeping with the +spirit of the kind. The whole poem, and indeed a great deal more, must +stand or fall with the Pilot of the Galilean Lake, for to censure his +introduction here is to condemn the whole pastoral tradition of three +centuries, a judgement which may or may not be just, but which is not a +criticism on Milton's poem. So again with the flowers that are to be +strewn on the laureate hearse. Three kinds of berries and eleven kinds of +flowers are mentioned, and it has been pointed out with painful accuracy +that nine of the latter would have been over, and none of the former ripe +on August 11, when King was drowned; while all the flowers, with the +exception of the amaranth, if it were of the true breed, would have been +dead and rotten in November, when the poem was presumably written. It +would be foolish to quarrel with Milton on this point, since where all is +imaginary such licence is as natural as the strictest botany; yet it must +not be forgotten that it is just this disseverance from actuality that has +made the eclogue the type of all that is frigid and artificial in +literature. The dissatisfaction felt by many with <i>Lycidas</i> was voiced by +Dr. Johnson, when he wrote: 'It is not to be considered the effusion of +real passion, for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions.... Where there is leisure for fiction there is little +grief[<a href="#fn134">134</a>].' This is so absolutely true, with regard to the present poem +at all events, that it would appear hardly worth saying were it not that +there have always been found persons to maintain the contrary. There is no +reason whatever to suppose that Milton felt any keen personal grief at the +death of Edward King. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing, one might +almost say, genuine in the lament. This is indeed strictly irrelevant to +the question of its artistic merit, but it must nevertheless be admitted +that there is thus much justice in the censure, that the poem purports to +be the expression of an intimate sorrow, of the reality of which the +reader is never wholly convinced. In so far as it lacks this +'soul-compelling power,' it may be said, not unfairly, to fail of its own +artistic purpose.</p> + +<p>One further question, however, inevitably presents itself when we have to +consider such a work as <i>Lycidas</i>, a work, that is, in which art has +attained the highest perfection in one particular kind. Although the +objections urged against the individual poem may be shown to miss their +mark as criticisms on that poem, may they not have force as criticisms on +the class? The allegorical pastoral, though in one sense, as I have said, +created by Vergil, was yet, in another, a plant of slow growth, and +represents a tradition gradually evolved to meet the needs of a long line +of poets. Petrarch, Mantuan, Marot, Spenser were more than mere imitators +of Vergil or of one another; they wrote in a particular form because it +answered to particular requirements, and they fashioned it in the using. +Nevertheless it may be urged with undoubted force, that the requirements +were not primarily of an artistic nature, being ever governed by some +alien purpose, and that consequently the form which evolved itself in +answer to those requirements and to fulfil that purpose, was not by nature +calculated to yield the highest artistic results. And thus, though any +attempt to question the perfection of the art which Milton brought to the +composition of his elegy must needs be foredoomed to failure, the question +of the propriety of the form as an artistic medium remains open; and in so +far as critical opinion tends to give an unfavourable answer, in so far +does the form of pastoral instituted by Vergil and handed down without +break from the fourteenth century to Milton's own time stand condemned in +its most perfect flower.</p> + +<p>Few things could be less like <i>Lycidas</i> than the work which next claims +our attention. Unique of its kind, and, in spite of its shortcomings, +possessed of no small poetic interest, William Browne's <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i> may be regarded at pleasure either as a pastoral epic or as a +versified romance. It resembles the prose romances in being by nature +discursive, episodic and inconsequent, and like not a few it remained +unfinished. Little would be gained by giving any detailed analysis of the +plot developed through the leisurely amplitude of its 10,000 lines, while +any attempt to deal, however slightly, with the sources and literary +analogues of the work would lead us far beyond the scope of the present +chapter[<a href="#fn135">135</a>]. With regard to the latter, it must suffice to note that +among the works to which incidents can be directly traced are Tasso's +<i>Gerusalemme</i>, Montemayor's <i>Diana</i>, and Fletcher's <i>Faithful +Shepherdess</i>, while a more general indebtedness may in particular be +observed to Chaucer, <i>Piers Plowman</i>, and the <i>Faery Queen</i>. The plot +involves two more or less connected threads of action, the one dealing +with the adventures of the swains and shepherdesses, the other concerned +with the progress of Thetis and her court. This latter recalls the poetic +geography of Drayton's <i>Polyolbion</i>. The principal episodes in the former +are the loves of Celandine and Marina, and the allegorical story of Fida +and Aletheia, each of which leads to numerous ramifications. Indeed, so +far as the pastoral action is concerned, the whole is one string of barely +connected episodes.</p> + +<p>Celandine loves the shepherdess Marina, who is readily brought to return +his affection. To the love thus easily won he soon becomes indifferent, +and Marina in despair seeks to end her sorrows in a stream. Saved by the +god of the fountain, she is carried off to Mona, and there imprisoned in a +cave by the monster Limos (hunger). With her loss, Celandine's love +revives, and in his search for her he is led to visit the faery realm, +where he finds Spenser lying asleep. The poem ends abruptly in the midst +of his adventures. The story of Fida centres round the slaughter of her +pet hind by the monster Riot. From the mangled remains of the animal rises +the beautiful form of Aletheia (truth). The new-transformed nymph is the +daughter of Chronos (time), born, Pallas-like, without a mother. The +narrative of her rejection by the world gives occasion for some biting +satire on the ill-living of the religious orders, the vanity of the court, +and the dishonesty of the crafts. Meanwhile Riot, who from this point +ceases to be an embodiment of cruelty, and comes to typify fallen +humanity--the <i>Humanum Genus</i> of the moralities--passing successively by +Remembrance, Remorse, and Repentance, is purged of his foul shape, and +appears as the shepherd Amyntas, finally to be united in marriage with +Aletheia. With these adventures is interwoven the progress of Thetis, who +comes to view her dominions. From the Euxine and the Hellespont her train +sweeps on by Adriatic and Atlantic shores, past lands which call up the +names of a long line of poets--Vergil, Ovid, Ariosto, Petrarch, Tasso, Du +Bartas, Marot, Ronsard--till ultimately she arrives off the coast of +Devon--the Devon of Browne and Drake. Here the shepherds assemble to do +her honour, from Colin Clout down to Browne's immediate circle, Brooke, +Davies, and Wither, and here the poet entertains her with the tale of +Walla and Tavy, which forms a charming incidental piece. The nymph Walla +loved the river-god Tavy, and while gathering flowers to weave a garland +for him was surprised by a satyr, who pursued her into a wood. She sought +refuge in a cave, where, being overtaken by her pursuer, she prayed to +Diana, and in the last resort to Ina, by whom she was transformed into a +spring, which, after drowning the venturesome satyr, ran on to join its +waters with those of her beloved Tavy. Thus Browne wove the common names +of his familiar home into a romance of pastoral invention. The +metamorphosis of Arethusa pursued by Alpheus, of Ambra by Ombrone, of the +nymphs by the satyrs of the <i>Salices</i>, or as frescoed on the temple of +Pales in the <i>Arcadia</i>, the loves of Mulla and Mollana in Spenser, and the +mythological impersonations of the <i>Polyolbion</i>, find, as it were, a +meeting-place in Browne's lay of Walla.</p> + +<p>The three parts of <i>Britannia's Pastorals</i> did not appear together. Book +I was published during the winter of 1613-14, Book II in 1616, each +containing five songs; while the fragment of Book III, containing two +songs only, remained in manuscript till 1853, when it was discovered in +the Cathedral Library at Salisbury, and printed for the Percy +Society[<a href="#fn136">136</a>].</p> + +<p>The narrative, as may have been inferred from what has already been said, +is sufficiently fantastic. In the introduction of allegorical characters +Browne was probably influenced by Spenser, and in a lesser degree by the +masque literature of his day and by the study of Langland. Since the work +is unfinished, we may in charity suppose that had Browne completed his +design the whole would have presented a somewhat less incongruous +appearance; there is, however, a marked tendency towards the accumulation +of unexplained incidents, which may most plausibly be referred to the +influence of the Spanish romances, especially of the <i>Diana</i>, which was +already accessible in Yong's translation, and one incident of which Browne +did undoubtedly borrow.</p> + +<p>In style and poetic merit Browne's work is most astonishingly unequal, +though the general level of <i>Britannia's Pastorals</i> is distinctly higher +than that of the <i>Shepherd's Pipe</i>. The author passes at times abruptly +from careful and loving realism to the most stilted conventionality, and +from passages of impassioned eloquence to others grotesquely banal. In +some of his peculiarities, as in the perpetuai use of elaborate similes +and in the indulgence in inflated paraphrases, he anticipates some of the +worst faults of style cultivated by writers of the next century. There are +portions of the poem where the narrative is literally carried on through a +succession of highly wrought comparisons, each paragraph beginning with an +'As' followed by a correlative 'So' half a page further on. No such series +of pictures, however fairly wrought--and Browne's too often end in +bathos--can possibly convey the impression of continuons action. It is the +same with periphrasis. Used with discretion it may be one of the subtlest +ornaments of style, and even when fulfilling no particular purpose is +capable of imparting a luxuriant and somewhat rococo richness to the +verse. The effect, however, is frequently one of unrelieved frigidity, as +in the lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And now Hyperion from his glitt'ring throne<br /> + Sev'n times his quick'ning rays had bravely shown<br /> + Unto the other world, since Walla last<br /> + Had on her Tavy's head the garland plac'd; <br /> + And this day, as of right, she wends abroad<br /> + To ease the meadows of their willing load.<br /> + (II. iii. 855.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>At times it was Browne's moral preoccupation that curbed his muse, as in +his description of the golden age where, for the sensuous glow of Tasso +and for Carew's pagan paradise, he substitutes the insipid convention of a +philosophical age of innocence[<a href="#fn137">137</a>]. In his genuine mood as a loving +observer of country life he is a very different poet. His feeling is +delicate in tone and his observation keen; he was familiar with every tree +that grew in the woods, every fish that swam in the waters of his beloved +Devon; he entered tenderly into the homely life of the farm--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> By this had chanticleer, the village clock, <br /> + Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock, <br /> + And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stay'd, <br /> + That he might till those lands were fallow laid; <br /> + The hills and vailles here and there resound<br /> + With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound; <br /> + Each shepherd's daughter, with her cleanly peal,[<a href="#fn138">138</a>] <br /> + Was come afield to milk the morning's meal.<br /> + (I. iv. 483.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>When, however, naturalism of this kind is introduced into pastoral it is +already on the high road toward ceasing to be pastoral at all. Nor are +touches of higher poetic imagination wanting, as when Time is described as</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> a lusty aged swain, <br /> + That cuts the green tufts off th' enamell'd plain, <br /> + And with his scythe hath many a summer shorn<br /> + The plough'd-lands lab'ring with a crop of corn.<br /> + (I. iv. 307.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The love of his country is, however, the altar at which Browne's poetic +genius takes fire:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Hail, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot, <br /> + Whose equal all the world affordeth not! <br /> + Show me who can so many crystal rills, <br /> + Such sweet-cloth'd valleys or aspiring hills,.... <br /> + And if the earth can show the like again, <br /> + Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. <br /> + Time never can produce men to o'ertake<br /> + The fames of Grenville, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, <br /> + Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more<br /> + That by their power made the Devonian shore<br /> + Mock the proud Tagus, for whose richest spoil<br /> + The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil<br /> + Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost<br /> + By winning this, though all the rest were lost.<br /> + (II. iii. 601.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is after all in such a passage as this that we see the true William +Browne, with all his high-handedness and worthy enthusiasm, the poet who +not only loves his country with a lover's passion and cannot tolerate that +any should be compared to her in fairness of feature, in stateliness of +stature, or in virtue of mind; but who, first perhaps among English poets, +has that more local patriotism, narrower and more intimate, for his own +home, for its moors, its streams, its associations, all the actual or +imagined surroundings of his beloved Tavistock, and carries in his heart +for ever the cry of the wild west--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!</p></blockquote> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch02-7"> +<h3>VII</h3> + + +<p>Approaching the romance, as we do, from the point of view rather of the +development of the pastoral ideal than of the history of prose narrative +or of the novel, we may spare ourselves any detailed consideration of the +famous work of John Lyly. Although in the novel which has made 'Euphuism' +a word and a bye-word in the language he supplied the literary medium for +the work of subsequent pastoral writers such as Greene and Lodge, his +own compositions in this kind are confined entirely to the drama.</p> + +<p>The translations in this department are for the most part negligible. +There is, however, one notable exception, namely, the rendering by +Bartholomew Yong or Young of Montemayor's <i>Diana</i>, together with the +continuations of Ferez and Gil Polo. Completed as early as May, 1583, the +work remained in manuscript until 1598, when it was published in the form +of a handsome folio. Although, as we have already had occasion to notice, +the verse portions were not for the most part of a nature to add lustre to +an anthology such as <i>England's Helicon</i>, the whole forms a not unworthy +Tudor translation. We learn from Yong's preface that portions of the +romance had already been Englished by Edward Paston, a descendant of the +famous Norfolk letter-writers, who had family relations with Spain and +possessed an intimate knowledge of the language. Of this work nothing +further is known. Some two years, however, before Yong's version issued +from the press, the first book of Montemayor's portion was again +translated by Thomas Wilson, and of this a manuscript yet survives[<a href="#fn139">139</a>]. +Passing mention may also be made of Angel Day's translation of <i>Daphnis +and Chloe</i> containing the original insertion of the <i>Shepherd's Holiday</i> +with the praises of Elizabeth in verse, and of Robert Tofte's <i>Honours +Academy</i> (1610), distantly following Ollenix du Mont-Sacré's <i>Bergerie de +Juliette</i>, but which, as also John Pyper's version of d'Urfé's <i>Astrée</i> +(1620), have received sufficient notice in being recorded in connexion +with their originals.</p> + +<p>Earlier in date of publication and belonging to an elder tradition than +the <i>Arcadia</i>, though later in date of composition, and it may be at times +betraying a familiarity with Sidney's manuscript, the romances of the +Bohemian Robert Greene, and the buccaneer-physician Thomas Lodge, are +naturally the first to claim our attention.</p> + +<p>With the exception of <i>Menaphon</i>, Greene's romances offer little that is +important in pastoral, apart from the more notable works which they +inspired. And even <i>Menaphon</i>, in so far as the general conception is +concerned, can hardly be said necessarily to involve the existence of any +antecedent pastoral tradition. Greene's novel is, indeed, far from being +purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney's, to use Professor Herford's +happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta. In +this it undoubtedly resembles the Spanish romances, but the resemblance +does not appear to go much further; it is on the whole warlike without +being chivalric, the tone Greek, or what Greene considered such, rather +than medieval--indeed it might be argued that in its martial incidents it +rather recalls <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> than the <i>Diana</i>. There is certainly +nothing chivalric about King Democles, who, when some ten score shepherds +are besieging a castle, sends to the 'General of his Forces,' and not only +has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days' +notice--in itself a notable piece of strategy--but when they arrive on the +scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush! No wonder that when +the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, +they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain +masters of the situation.</p> + +<p>The plot might perhaps be considered improbable as well as intricate for +anything but a pastoral or chivalric romance: judged by the standards +prevailing in these species it is neither. Democles, king of Arcadia, has +a daughter Sephistia, who contrary to his wishes has contracted a secret +marriage with Maximus. When the birth of a son leads to discovery, +Democles has them placed in an oarless boat and so cast adrift. A storm +arising they are not unnaturally wrecked, and ultimately husband and wife +are cast upon different points of the Arcadian coast(!), where, either +supposing the other to have perished, they adopt the pastoral life, +assuming the names respectively of Melicertus and Samela. The young mother +has with her child Pleusidippus, but while still in early boyhood he is +carried off by pirates and presented as a gift to the King of Thessaly. In +the meantime Menaphon, 'the king's shepherd of Arcadia,' has fallen in +love with Samela, but while accepting his hospitality she meets her +husband in his shepherd's guise, and without recognizing one another +husband and wife again fall in love. Years pass on and Pleusidippus, who +has risen to fame at court, hears of the beauty of the shepherdess of +Arcadia, and must needs go to test the truth of the report himself. He +does so, and promptly falls in love with his own mother. Nor is this all, +for Democles equally hears of Samela's fame, and disguising himself as a +shepherd falls in love with his own daughter. He endeavours to command +Samela's affection by revealing to her his own identity, but Pleusidippus +is beforehand with more drastic measures, and with the help of a few +associates carries Samela off to a neighbouring castle, to which Democles +and the shepherds, headed by Melicertus, proceed to lay siege. A duel +between father and son is unceremoniously interrupted by the inroad of +Democles' soldiery. Upon this the identity of Samela is revealed by a +convenient prophetess, and all ends happily.</p> + +<p>In the relation of verse and prose Greene's work differs from that of +Sannazzaro and Sidney, the former being of considerably greater merit than +the latter. The style adopted exhibits a very marked Euphuism, and the +whole form of narrative is characterized by that fondness for petty +conceit which not seldom gives an air of puerility to the lighter +Elizabethan prose. Puerile in a sense it had every right to be, for modern +prose narration was then in its very infancy in this country. No artistic +form destined to contribute to the main current of literature is born +perfect into the world; the early efforts appear not only tentative, +uncouth, at times rugged, but often childish and futile, unworthy the +consideration of serions men. The substance of the <i>Gesta Romanorum</i> and +the style of the <i>Novellino</i> appear so, considered in relation to the +<i>Decameron</i>; the mystery plays are an obvious instance, not to be +explained by any general immaturity of medieval ideas. Traces of the +tendency may even be noticed where revival or acclimatization, rather than +original invention, is the aim; we find it in the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>, +nor was it absent in the days of the romantic revival, either from the +German <i>Lenores</i> or the English <i>Otrantos</i>. And so it is with the +novelists of the Elizabethan age. Renouncing the traditions of the older +romance, which was adult and perfect a hundred years before in Malory, but +had now fallen into a second childhood, and determined on the creation of +a new and genuine form of literary expression, they paid the price of +originality in the vein of childishness that runs through their writings.</p> + +<p>If, however, Greene was content in the main to adopt the style of the new +novel, he, as indeed Lyly too, could at times snatch a straightforward +thought or a vigorous phrase from current speech or controversial +literature, and invest it with all the greater effectiveness by +contrasting it with its surroundings. Here, as an example of euphuistic +composition, is Democles' address to the champions about to engage in +single combat:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + Worthy mirrors of resolved magnanimitie, whose thoughts are above your + fortunes, and your valour more than your revenewes, know that Bitches + that puppie in hast bring forth blind whelpes; that there is no herbe + sooner sprung up than the Spattarmia nor sooner fadeth; the fruits too + soone ripe are quickly rotten; that deedes done in hast are repented at + leisure: then, brave men in so weightie a cause,... deferre it some + three daies, and then in solemn manner end the combat[<a href="#fn140">140</a>]. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>With this we may contrast the closing sentence of the work:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + And lest there should be left any thing imperfect in this pastorall + accident, Doron smudged himselfe up, and jumped a marriage with his old + friend Carmela. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is, of course, intentionally cast in a homely style in contrast to +the courtliness of the main plot; but Greene, as some of his later works +attest, knew the value of strong racy English no less than his friend +Nashe, who, in the preface he prefixed to this very work, pushed +colloquialism and idiom to the verge of affectation and beyond.</p> + +<p>The incidental verse, on the other hand, though very unequal, is of +decidedly higher merit. Sephistia's famous song should alone suffice to +save any book from oblivion, while there are other verses which are not +unworthy of a place beside it. I may instance the opening of the +'roundelay' sung by Menaphon, the only character strictly belonging to +pastoral tradition, with its picture of approaching night:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When tender ewes brought home with evening Sunne<br /> + Wend to their foldes,<br /> + And to their holdes<br /> + The shepheards trudge when light of day is done.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such as it was, <i>Menaphon</i> appealed in no small degree to the taste of the +moment. We know how great was Greene's reputation as an author, how +publishers were ready to outbid one another for the very dregs of his wit. +Thomas Brabine was but voicing the general opinion when, in some verses +prefixed to <i>Menaphon</i>, he wrote, condescending to an inevitable pun, but +also to a less excusable mixed metaphor:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Be thou still Greene, whiles others glorie waine.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of his other romances it is sufficient in this place to mention that +<i>Pandosto</i>, which contains the pastoral loves of Dorastus and Fawnia, and +supplied Shakespeare with the outlines of the <i>Winter's Tale</i>, appeared +the year before <i>Menaphon</i>, while the year after saw his <i>Never Too Late</i>, +which is likewise of a generally pastoral character, but does not appear +to have suggested or influenced any subsequent work.</p> + +<p>The remarks that have been made concerning Greene apply in a large +measure also to his fellow euphuist Thomas Lodge. His earliest romance, +<i>Forbonius and Prisceria</i>, published in 1584, is partly pastoral in plot, +a faithful lover being driven by the opposition of his lady's father into +assuming the pastoral habit; but it is chiefly the connexion of his +<i>Rosalynde</i> of 1590 with Shakespeare's <i>As You Like It</i> that gives him a +claim upon our attention. <i>Rosalynde</i> is not only on this account the +best-known, but is also intrinsically the most interesting of his +romances. The story is too familiar to need detailing. Its origin, as is +also well known, is the <i>Tale of Gamelyn</i>, the story which Chaucer +intended putting into the mouth either of the cook, or more probably of +the yeoman, and the hero of which apparently belongs to the Robin Hood +cycle. The interest centres round the three sons of Sir John of Bordeaux, +who retains his name with Lodge and is Shakespeare's Sir Roland de Bois, +and whose youngest son, Lodge's Rosader and Shakespeare's Orlando, is +named Gamelyn, and the outlaw king, Lodge's king of France and +Shakespeare's Duke senior[<a href="#fn141">141</a>]. The entire pastoral element, as well as +the courtly scenes of the earlier portion of the novel, are Lodge's own +invention. His shepherds, whether genuine, as Coridon and Phoebe, or +assumed, as Rosalynde and Rosader, are all alike Italian Arcadians, +equally polished and poetical. Montanus, a shepherd corresponding to +Shakespeare's Silvius, is a dainty rimester, and is not only well posted +in the loves of Polyphemus and Galatea, but can rail on blind boy Cupid in +good French, and on his mistress too--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Son cuer ne doit estre de glace, + Bien que elle ait de Neige le sein.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus Lodge added to the original story the figures of the usurper, +Rosalynde, Alinda (Celia), and the shepherds Montanus (Silvius), Coridon +(Corin) and Phoebe, while to Shakespeare we owe Amiens, Jacques, +Touchstone, Audre, and a few minor characters; whence it appears that +Lodge's contribution forms the mainstay of the plot as familiar to modern +readers. Moreover, in spite of the stiltedness of the style where the +author yet remembers to be euphuistic, in spite of the long 'orations,' +'passions,' 'meditations' and the like, each carefully labelled and giving +to the whole the air of a series of rhetorical exercises, in spite of the +mediocre quality of most of the verses, if we except its one perfect gem, +the romance yet retains not a little of its silvan and idyllic sweetness.</p> + +<p>Before leaving the school of Lyly, which included a number of more or less +famous writers, I may take the opportunity of mentioning two authors +usually reckoned among them. One, John Dickenson, left two works of a +pastoral nature. His short romance entitled <i>Arisbas</i> appeared in 1594, +and may have supplied Daniel with a hint for the kidnapping of Silvia in +<i>Hymen's Triumph</i>. Another yet shorter work, entitled the <i>Shepherd's +Complaint</i>, which is undated, but was probably printed in the same year, +is remarkable for being composed more than half in verse, largely +hexameters. In it the author falls asleep and is transported in his dreams +to Arcady, where he listens to the lament of a shepherd for the love of +Amaryllis. The cruel nymph is, however, soon punished, for, challenging +Diana in beauty, she falls a victim to the shafts of the angry goddess, +and is buried with full bucolic honours, whereupon the author awakes. The +other writer is William Warner, well known from his <i>Albion's England</i>, +published in 1586, who left a work entitled <i>Pan his Syrinx</i>, which +appeared in 1584; but in this pastoralism does not penetrate beyond the +title-page.</p> + +<p>Of the books which everybody knows and nobody reads, <i>The Countess of +Pembroke's Arcadia</i> is perhaps the most famous[<a href="#fn142">142</a>]. Yet though an account +of the romance may be found in the pages of every literary textbook, the +history of how the work came to be printed has never been fully cleared +up[<a href="#fn143">143</a>]. The <i>Arcadia</i>, as it remained at Sidney's death, was +fragmentary. Two books and a portion of a third were all that had +undergone revision, and possibly represented the portion which Sidney +compiled while living with his sister at Wilton, after his retirement from +court in 1581--the portion for the most part actually written in his +sister's presence. Even of this trustworthy manuscripts were rare, most of +those that circulated being copies of the unrevised text. Sidney died on +October 17, 1586, and even before the end of the year we find his friend +Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, writing to Sidney's father-in-law, +Sir Francis Walsingham, to the effect that the bookseller, William +Ponsonby, had informed him that some one was about to print the <i>Arcadia</i>, +and that if they were acting without authority a notification of the fact +should be lodged with the archbishop. Greville proceeds to say that he had +sent to Walsingham's daughter, that is, Lady Sidney, the corrected +manuscript of the work 'don 4 or 5 years sinse, which he left in trust +with me; wherof there is no more copies, and fitter to be reprinted then +the first, which is so common[<a href="#fn144">144</a>].' A complaint was evidently lodged, and +the publication stayed, and we may assume that Ponsonby was rewarded for +his notification by being entrusted with the publication of the revised +manuscript mentioned by Greville, for it was from his house that issued +the quarto edition of 1590. Evidence that it was Greville who was +responsible for the publication of the <i>Arcadia</i> is found in the +dedication of Thomas Wilson's manuscript translation from the <i>Diana</i>, +where, addressing Greville, the translater speaks of Sir Philip's +<i>Arcadia</i>, 'w<sup>ch</sup> by yo<sup>r</sup> noble vertue the world so hapily enjoyes.' In +this edition, containing the first two and a half books only, the division +into chapters and the arrangement of the incidental verse were the work of +the 'over-seer of the print.' The text, however, was not considered +satisfactory, and when the romance was reprinted in 1593 the division into +chapters was discarded, certain alterations were made in the arrangement +of the verse, and there was added another portion of the third book, +together with a fourth and fifth, compiled by the Countess of Pembroke +from the loose sheets sent her from time to time by her brother. This +edition has been commonly regarded as the first published with due +authority, and the term 'surreptitious' has been quite unjustly applied to +the original quarto. The charge, indeed, receives colour from the preface, +signed H. S., to the second edition; but, whoever H. S. may have been, +there is nothing to make one suppose that he was speaking with authority. +The quarto of 1590 having been duly licensed on August 23, 1588, the +rights of the work were in Ponsonby's hands, and to him the publication of +the revised edition had to be entrusted. In 1598 a third edition, to which +other remains of the author were for the first time added, was also +published by Ponsonby. There still remained, however, a lacuna in Book +III, which was not remedied till 1621, when a supplement was added from +the pen of Sir William Alexander. In the edition of 1627 a sixth book was +appended, the work of one Richard Beling, whose initials alone, however, +appear. The early editors seem to have assumed that the unfinished state +of the work, or rather the unrevised state of the later portions, was due +to the author's early death, but most of it must have been written between +the years 1581 and 1583, and it may well be questioned whether in any case +Sidney would have bestowed any further attention upon it. Jonson, indeed, +has preserved the tradition that it had been Sir Philip's intention 'to +have transform'd all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthure[<a href="#fn145">145</a>],' +though how the transformation was to be accomplished he forbore to hint; +but the more familiar tradition of Sidney's having expressed on his +death-bed a desire that the romance should be destroyed assorts better +with what else we know of his regard for his 'idle worke.'</p> + +<p>For the name of his romance Sidney was no doubt indebted to Sannazzaro, +whom he twice mentions as an authority in his <i>Defence of Poesy</i>, but +there in all probability his direct obligation ends, since even the <i>rime +sdrucciole</i>, which he occasionally affected, may with equal probability be +referred to the influence of the <i>Diana</i>. It was, undoubtedly, +Montemayor's romance which served as a model for, or rather suggested the +character of, Sidney's work[<a href="#fn146">146</a>]. Thus the chivalric element, unknown to +Sannazzaro, is with Sidney even more prominent than with Montemayor and +his followers. It is, however, true that, like Greene's, his heroes are +rather of a classical than a medieval stamp, and he also chose to lay the +scene of the action in Greece rather than in his native land, as was the +habit of Spanish writers. The source upon which Sidney chiefly drew for +incidents was the once famous <i>Amadis of Gaul</i>, but a diligent reading of +the other French and Spanish romances of chivalry would probably lengthen +the list of recorded creditors. Heliodorus supplies several episodes, and +an acquaintance at least can be traced with both Achilles Tatius and +Chariton.</p> + +<p>The intricate plot, with its innumerable digressions, episodes, and +interruptions, need not here be followed in detail, especially as we shall +have ample opportunity of becoming familiar with its general features when +we come to discuss the plays founded upon it. Here it will be sufficient +to note one or two points. In the first place the romance contains no +really pastoral characters, the personae being all either shepherds in +their disguise only, or else, like Greene's Doron and Carmela, burlesque +characters of the rustic tradition. Secondly, it may be observed that the +amorous confusion is even greater than in <i>Menaphon</i>, Pyrocles disguising +himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved +Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in +his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, +while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected +his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part +innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion[<a href="#fn147">147</a>].</p> + +<p>In general the <i>Arcadia</i> is no more than it purports to be, the 'many +fancies' of Sidney's fertile imagination poured forth in courtly guise for +the entertainment of his sister, though his own more serious thoughts +occasionally find expression in its pages, and he even introduces himself +under the imperfect anagram of Philisides, and shadows forth his +friendship with the French humanist Languet. More than this it would be +rash to assert, and Greville did his friend an equivocal service when he +sought to find a deep philosophy underlying the rather formal characters +of the romance[<a href="#fn148">148</a>]. These characters, as we have seen, are for the most +part essentially courtly; the pastoral guise is a mere veil shielding them +from the crude uncompromising light of actuality, with its prejudice in +favour of the probable; while the few rustic personages merely supply a +not very successful comic antimasque.</p> + +<p>To the popularity of the <i>Arcadia</i> it is hardly necessary to advert. It +has been repeatedly printed, added to, imitated, abbreviated, modernized, +popularized; four editions appeared during the last decade of the +sixteenth century, nine between the beginning of the seventeenth and the +outbreak of the civil wars[<a href="#fn149">149</a>]. It was first published at a moment when +the public was beginning to tire of Euphuism, and when the heroic death of +the author had recently set a seal upon the brilliance of his fame. +Looking back in after years, writers who, like Drayton, had lived through +the movement from its very birth, could speak of Sidney as of the author +who</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> did first reduce<br /> + Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use,</p></blockquote> + +<p>and could praise his style as a model of pure English. In spite of the +generous, if misguided, efforts of occasional critics, posterity has not +seen fit to endorse this view. While finding in Sidney's style the same +historical importance as in Lyly's, we cannot but recognize that in itself +Arcadianism was little if at all better than Euphuism. It is just as +formal, just as much a trick, just as stilted and unpliable, just as +painful an illustration of the fact that a figure of rhetoric may be an +occasional ornament, but cannot by any degree of ingenuity be made to +serve as a basis of composition. In the same way as Euphuism is founded +upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the +use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and +metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural +history'; so Sidney's style in the <i>Arcadia</i> is based on a balance usually +obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, +together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the +pathetic fallacy. These last have been dangers in all periods of stylistic +experiment; the former, figures duly noted as ornaments by contemporary +rhetoricians, Sidney no doubt borrowed from Spain. There in one famous +example they were shortly to excite the enthusiasm of the knight of La +Mancha--'The reason of the unreason which is done to my reason in such +manner enfeebles my reason that with reason I lament your beauty'--a +sentence which one is sometimes tempted to imagine Sidney must have set +before him as a model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential +elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their +models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost +any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the +balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which +inclines perhaps towards Euphuism:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + I am no herald to enquire of mens pedegrees, it sufficeth me if I know + their vertues, which, if this young mans face be not a false witnes, doe + better apparrell his minde, then you have done his body. (1590, fol. + 8v.) +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or again, as an instance of the jingle of words, take the following from +the steward's narration:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + I thinke you thinke, that these perfections meeting, could not choose + but find one another, and delight in that they found, for likenes of + manners is likely in reason to drawe liking with affection; mens actions + doo not alwaies crosse with reason: to be short, it did so in deed. (ib. + fol. 20.) +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of Sidney's power of description the stock example is his account of the +Arcadian landscape (fol. 7), and it is perhaps the best and at the same +time the most characteristic that could be found; the author's peculiar +tricks are at once obvious. There are 'the humble valleis, whose base +estate semed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers,' and the +'thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so +to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds'; there are the +pastures where 'the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams +comfort,' where sat the young shepherdess knitting, whose 'voice comforted +her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices musick,' a +country where the scattered houses made 'a shew, as it were, of an +accompanable solitarines, and of a civil wildnes,' where lastly--<i>si sic +omnia</i>!--was the 'shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be +old.' It must not be supposed that these are occasional embroideries; they +are the very cloth of which the whole pastoral habit is made. The above +examples all occur within a few pages, and might even have been gathered +from a yet smaller plot. It is, however, on the prose, such as it is, that +the reputation of the <i>Arcadia</i> rests; a good deal of occasional verse is +introduced, but it has often been subject of remark how wholly unworthy of +its author most of it is.</p> + +<p>Given the widespread popularity of the work, the influence exercised by +the story on English letters is hardly a matter for wonder. Of its general +influence on the drama it will be my business to speak later; at present +we may note that while yet in manuscript it probably supplied Lodge with +certain hints for his <i>Rosalynde</i>, and so indirectly influenced <i>As You +Like It</i>. One of the best-known episodes, again, that of Argalus and +Parthenia, was versified by Quarles in 1632, and, adorned with a series of +cuts, went through a large number of editions before the end of the +century, besides being dramatized by Glapthorne. The incident of Pyrocles +heading the Zelots has been thought to have suggested the scene in the +<i>Two Gentlemen of Verona</i> in which Valentine consents to lead the robber +band, while to Sidney Shakespeare was likewise indebted, not only for the +cowards' fight in <i>Twelfth Night</i>, but in the 'story of the Paphlagonian +unkinde king,' for the original of the Gloster episode in <i>King Lear</i>. A +certain prayer out of the later portion of the romance was, as is well +known, a favourite with Charles I in the days of his misfortune, but the +controversial use made of the fact by Milton it is happily possible to +pass over in silence.</p> + +<p>Finally, it is worth mentioning as illustrating the vogue of Sidney's +romance, that it not only had the very singular honour of being translated +into French in the first half of the seventeenth century, but that two +translations actually appeared, the rivalry between which gave rise to a +literary controversy of some asperity[<a href="#fn150">150</a>].</p> + +<p>Thus we take leave of the pastoral novel or romance, a kind which never +attained to the weighty tradition of the eclogue, or the grace of the +lyric, nor was subjected to the rigorous artistic form of the drama[<a href="#fn151">151</a>]. +It remained throughout nerveless and diffuse, and, in spite of much +incidental beauty, was habitually wanting in interest, except in so far as +it renounced its pastoral nature. As Professor Raleigh has put it: 'To +devise a set of artificial conditions that shall leave the author to work +out the sentimental inter-relations of his characters undisturbed by the +intrusion of probability or accident is the problem; love <i>in vacuo</i> is +the beginning and end of the pastoral romance proper.' A similar attempt +is noticeable in the drama, but the conditions soon came to be recognized +as impossible for artistic use. The operation of human affection under +utterly imaginary and impossible conditions is not a matter of human +interest; the resuit was a purely fictitious amatory code, as absurd as it +was unhealthy, and, when sustained by no extrinsic interest of allegory or +the like, the kind soon disappeared. As it is, in the pastoral novel, it +is only when the enchanted circle is broken by the rough and tumble of +vulgar earthly existence that on the featureless surface of the waters +something of the light and shade of true romance replaces the steady +pitiless glare ot a philosophical or sentimental ideal.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> +<h2>Chapter III.</h2> + +<h3>Italian Pastoral Drama</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch03-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>We have now passed in review the main classes of non-dramatic pastoral +both abroad and in this country. Such preliminary survey was necessary in +order to obtain an idea of the history and nature of pastoral composition +in general. It was further rendered imperative by more particular +considerations which will appear in the course of the present chapter, for +we shall find that the pastoral drama comes into being, not through the +infusion of the Arcadian ideal into pre-existing dramatic forms, but +through the actual evolution of a new dramatic form from the pre-existing +non-dramatic pastoral.</p> + +<p>It is time to retrace our steps and to pick up the thread which we dropped +in a former chapter, the development, namely, of the vernacular eclogue in +Italy. If in so doing we are forced to enter at greater length upon the +discussion of individual works, we shall find ample excuse, not only in +their intrinsic merit, but likewise in their more direct bearing upon what +is after all the main subject of this volume. The pastoral drama of Italy +is the immediate progenitor of that of England. Further, it might be +pleaded that special interest attaches to the Arcadian pastoral as the +only dramatic form of conspicuous vitality for which Italy is the crediter +of European letters.</p> + +<p>The history of the rise of the pastoral drama in Italy is a complicated +subject, and one not altogether free from obscurity. Many forces were at +work determining the development of the form, and these it is difficult so +to present as at once to leave a clear impression and yet not to allow any +one element to usurp an importance it does not in reality possess. Any +account which gives a specious appearance of simplicity to the case +should be mistrusted. That I have been altogether successful in my +treatment I can hardly hope, but at least the method followed has not been +hastily adopted. I propose to consider, first of all and apart from the +rest, the early mythological drama, which while exercising a marked +influence over the spirit of the later pastoral can in no way be regarded +as its origin. Next, I shall trace the evolution of the pastoral drama +proper from its germ in the non-dramatic eclogue, by way of the <i>ecloghe +rappresentative</i>, and treat incidentally the allied rustic shows, which +form a class apart from the main line of development. Lastly, I shall have +to say a few words concerning the early pastoral plays by Beccari and +others before turning to the masterpieces of Tasso and Guarini, the +consideration of which will occupy the chief part of this chapter[<a href="#fn152">152</a>].</p> + +<p>The class of productions known as mythological plays, which powerfully +influenced the character of the pastoral drama, sprang from the union of +classical tradition with the machinery of native religious +representations, in Poliziano's <i>Favola d' Orfeo</i>. This was the first +non-religious play in the vernacular, and its dependence on the earlier +religious drama is striking. Indeed, the blending of medieval and +classical forms and conventions may be traced throughout the early secular +drama of Italy. Boiardo's <i>Timone</i>, a play written at some unknown date +previous to 1494, preserves, in spite of its classical models, much of the +allegorical character of the morality, and was undoubtedly acted on a +stage comprising two levels, the upper representing heaven in which Jove +sat enthroned on the seat of Adonai. The same scenic arrangement may well +have been used in the <i>Orfeo</i>, the lower stage representing Hades[<a href="#fn153">153</a>]; +while Niccolò da Correggio's <i>Cefalo</i> was evidently acted on a polyscenic +stage, the actors passing in view of the audience from one part to +another[<a href="#fn154">154</a>]. At a yet earlier period Italian writers in the learned +tongue had taken as the subjects of their plays stories from classical +legend and myth, and among these we find not only recognized tragedy +themes such as the rape of Polyxena dramatized by Lionardo Bruni, but +tales such as that of Progne put on the stage by Gregorio Corrado, both of +which preceded by many years the work of Politian and Correggio.</p> + +<p>The earliest secular play in Italian is, then, nothing but a <i>sacra +rappresentazione</i> on a pagan theme, a fact which was probably clearly +recognized when, in the early editions from 1494 onwards, the piece was +described as the 'festa di Orpheo[<a href="#fn155">155</a>].' It was written in 1471, when +Poliziano was about seventeen, and we learn from the author's epistle +prefixed to the printed edition that ît was composed in the short space of +two days for representation before Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. +From the same epistle we learn that the author desired, or at least +assumed the attitude of desiring, that his composition should share the +fate of the ill-fashioned Lacedaemonian children; 'Cognoscendo questa mia +figliuola essere di qualità da fare più tosto al suo padre vergogna che +onore; e più tosto atta a dargli malinconia che allegrezza.' The <i>favola</i> +as originally put forth continued to be reprinted without alteration, till +1776, when Ireneo Affò published the <i>Orphei Tragoedia</i> from a collation +of two manuscripts. This differs in various respects from the printed +version, among others in being divided, short as it is, into five acts, +headed respectively 'Pastorale,' 'Ninfale,' 'Eroico,' 'Negromantico,' and +'Baccanale.' It is now known to represent a revision of the piece made, +probably by Antonio Tebaldeo, for representation at Ferrara, and in it +much of the popular and topical element has been eliminated. The action +of the piece is based in a general manner upon the story given by Ovid in +the tenth book of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>.</p> + +<p>The performance begins with a prologue by Mercury which is nothing but a +short argument of the whole plot. 'Mercurio annunzia la festa' is the +superscription in the original, evidently suggested by the appearance of +'un messo di Dio' with which the religious <i>rappresentazioni</i> usually +open. At the end of this prologue a shepherd appears and finishes the +second octave with the couplet:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> State attenti, brigata; buono augurio; <br /> + Poi che di cielo in terra vien Mercurio.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the Ferrarese revision these stanzas appear as 'Argomento' without +mention of Mercury, while for the above lines are substituted the +astonishing doggerel:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or stia ciascuno a tutti gli atti intento, <br /> + Che cinque sono; e questo è l' argomento.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thereupon (beginning Act I of the revision) enters Mopso, an old shepherd, +meeting Aristeo, a youthful one, with his herdsman Tirsi. Mopso asks +whether his white calf has been seen, and Aristeo, who fancies he has +heard a lowing from beyond the hill, sends his boy to see. In the +meanwhile he detains Mopso with an account of his love for a nymph he met +the day before, and sings a <i>canzona</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ch' i' so che la mia ninfa il canto agogna[<a href="#fn156">156</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>It runs on the familiar themes of love: 'Di doman non c' è certezza.'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Digli, zampogna mia, come via fugge<br /> + Con gli anni insieme la bellezza snella;<br /> + E digli come il tempo ne distrugge,<br /> + Ne l' età persa mai si rinovella;<br /> + Digli che sappi usar sua forma bella,<br /> + Che sempre mai non son rose e viole... <br /> + Udite, selve, mie dolci parole,<br /> + Poi che la ninfa mia udir non vole.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The boy Tirsi now returns, having with much trouble driven the strayed +calf back to the herd, and narrates how he saw an unknown nymph of +wondrous beauty gathering flowers about the hill. Aristeo recognizes from +this description the object of his love, and, leaving Mopso and Tirsi to +shake their heads over his midsummer madness, goes off to find her.</p> + +<p>So far we might be reading one of the <i>ecloghe rappresentative</i> which we +shall have to consider shortly, but of which the earliest known examples +cannot well be less than ten or twelve years later than Poliziano's play. +With the exception, indeed, of one or two in Boccaccio's <i>Ameto</i>, it is +doubtful whether any vernacular eclogues had appeared at the time. The +character of Tirsi belongs to rustic tradition, and must be an experiment +contemporary with, if not prior to, Lorenzo's <i>Nencia</i>. The portion before +the <i>canzone</i> is in <i>terza rima</i>; that after it, like the prologue, in +octaves.</p> + +<p>The original proceeds without break to the song of Aristeo as he pursues +the flying Euridice (Act II in the revision):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Poi che 'l pregar non vale,<br /> + E tu via ti dilegui,<br /> + El convien ch' io ti segui. <br /> + Porgimi, Amor, porgimi or le tue ale.</p></blockquote> + +<p>While Aristeo is following Euridice, Orfeo enters upon the scene with a +Latin ode in Sapphic metre in honour of Cardinal Gonzaga. A note informs +us that this was originally sung by 'Messer Braccio Ugolino, attore di +detta persona d' Orfeo.' In place of this ode the revised text contains a +long 'Coro delle Driadi,' with two speeches in <i>terza rima</i> by the +choragus, announcing and lamenting the death of Euridice, who as she fled +from Aristeo has been stung in the foot by a serpent. After this the news +of her death is reported to Orfeo--by a shepherd in the original, by a +dryad in the revised version. That the substitution of the chorus for the +Sapphic ode is an improvement from the poetic point of view will hardly be +denied, yet this improvement has been attained at the cost of some +dramatic sacrifice. In the original Orfeo is introduced naturally enough +in his character of supreme poet and musician to do honour to the +occasion, and it is only after he has been on the stage some time that the +news of Euridice's death is brought. In the revision he is merely +introduced for the purpose of being informed of his wife's death--he has +hardly been so much as mentioned before. He thus loses the slight +opportunity previously afforded him of presenting a dramatic individuality +apart from the very essence of his tragedy.</p> + +<p>The announcement to Orfeo of Euridice's death begins the third act of the +revised text, which is amplified at this point by the introduction of a +satyr Mnesillo, who acts as chorus to Orfeo's lament. The character of a +friendly satyr is interesting in view of the role commonly assigned to his +species in pastoral.</p> + +<p>After this we have in the original the direction 'Orfeo cantando giugne +all' Inferno,' while in the revision there is again a new act, the fourth. +Symonds pointed out that the merits of the piece are less dramatic than +lyrical, and that fortunately the central scene was one in which the +situation was capable of lyrical expression. The pleading of Orfeo before +the gates of Hades and at the throne of Pluto forms the lyrical kernel of +the play, and gives it its poetic value. The bard appears before the +iron-bound portals of the nether world, and the pains of hell surcease. +'Who is he?' asks Pluto--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Chi è costui che con sì dolce nota<br /> + Muove l' abisso, e con l' ornata cetra?<br /> + Io veggo ferma d' Ission la rota,...<br /> + Nè più P acqua di Tantalo s' arretra;<br /> + E veggo Cerber con tre bocche intente,<br /> + E le furie acquietar il suo lamento.</p></blockquote> + +<p>At length he stands before Pluto's throne, the seat of the God of the +<i>sacre rappresentazioni</i>, the rugged rock-seat surrounded by the monstrous +demons of Signorelli's <i>tondo</i>[<a href="#fn157">157</a>]. Here in presence of the grim ravisher +and of his pale consort, in whom the passionate pleading of the Thracian +bard stirs long-forgotten memories of spring and of the plains of Enna, +Orfeo's song receives adequate expression. It is closely imitated from the +corresponding passage in Ovid, but the lyrical perfection and passionate +crescendo of the stanzas are Poliziano's own. Addressing Pluto, Orfeo +discovers the object of his quest:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Non per Cerber legar fo questa via, <br /> + Ma solamente per la donna mia.</p></blockquote> + +<p>May not love penetrate even the forbidden bounds of hell?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> se memoria alcuna in voi si serba<br /> + Del vostro celebrato antico amore, <br /> + Se la vecchia rapina a mente avete, <br /> + Euridice mia bella mi rendete.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Why should death grudge the few years at most which complete the span of +human life?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ogni cosa nel fine a voi ritorna;<br /> + Ogni vita mortal quaggiù ricade:<br /> + Quanto cerchia la luna con sue corna<br /> + Convien che arrivi alle vostre contrade--</p></blockquote> + +<p>or why reap amid the unmellowed corn?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Così la ninfa mia per voi si serba,<br /> + Quando sua morte gli darà natura.<br /> + Or la tenera vite e l' uva acerba<br /> + Tagliata avete con la falce dura.</p> + +<p> Chi è che mieta la sementa in erba<br /> + E non aspetti ch' ella sia matura? <br /> + Dunque rendete a me la mia speranza: <br /> + Io non vel chieggio in don, questa è prestanza.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Next he invokes the pity of the stern god by the name of Chaos whence the +world had birth, and by the dread rivers of the nether world, by Styx and +Acheron: 'E pel sonante ardor di Flegetonte'; and lastly, turning to 'the +faery-queen Proserpina,'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Pel pome che a te già, Regina, piacque, <br /> + Quando lasciasti pria nostro orizzonte. <br /> + E se pur me la niega iniqua sorte, <br /> + Io no vo' su tornar, ma chieggio morte![<a href="#fn158">158</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>Hell itself relents, and, as Boccaccio had written,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> forse lieta gli rendeo<br /> + La cercata Euridice a condizione--</p></blockquote> + +<p>the condition being that he shall not turn to behold her before attaining +once again to the land of the living. The condition, of course, is not +fulfilled. Orfeo seeks to clasp 'his half regain'd Eurydice,' with the +triumphant cry of Ovid holding the conquered Corinna in his arms:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ite triumphales circum mea tempora lauri.<br /> + Vicimus: Eurydice reddita vita mihi est. <br /> + Haec est praecipuo Victoria digna triumpho.<br /> + Hue ades, o cura parte triumphe mea[<a href="#fn159">159</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>He turns, and his unsubstantial love sinks back into the realm of shadows +with the cry:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oimè che 'I troppo amore<br /> + Ci ha disfatti ambe dua.<br /> + Ecco ch' io ti son tolta a gran furore,<br /> + Nè sono ormai più tua.</p> + +<p> Ben tendo a te le braccia; ma non vale, + Che indietro son tirata. Orfeo mio, <i>vale</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As he would follow her once more a fury bars the road.</p> + +<p>Desperate of his love, the bard now forswears for ever the company of +women (Act V of the revised text).</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Da qui innanzi vo corre i fior novelli ...<br /> + Ouesto è più dolce e più soave amore;<br /> + Non sia chi mai di donna mi favelli,<br /> + Poi che morta è colei ch' ebbe il mio core.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Now that she is dead, what faith abides in woman?--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Quanto è misero l' uom che cangia voglia<br /> + Per donna, o mai per lei s' allegra, o duole!...<br /> + Che sempre è più leggier ch' al vento foglia,<br /> + E mille volte il di vuole e disvuole.<br /> + Segue chi fugge; a chi la vuol, s' asconde,<br /> + E vanne e vien come alla riva l' onde.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The cry wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of +later pastorals. Upon this the scene is invaded by 'The riot of the tipsy +Bacchanals,' eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[<a href="#fn160">160</a>]. They +drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his 'gory +visage,' break out into the celebrated chorus 'full of the swift fierce +spirit of the god.' This gained considerably by revision, and in the later +text runs as follows:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te;<br /> + Bacco, Bacco, oè oè. <br /> + Di corimbi e di verd' edere<br /> + Cinto il capo abbiam così<br /> + Per servirti a tuo richiedere<br /> + Festeggiando notte e dì.<br /> + Ognun beva: Bacco è quì;<br /> + E lasciate here a me.<br /> + Ciascun segua, ec.</p> + +<p> Io ho vuoto già il mio corno:<br /> + Porgi quel cantaro in qua.<br /> + Questo monte gira intorno,<br /> + O 'l cervello a cerchio va:<br /> + Ognun corra in qua o in là,<br /> + Come vede fare a me.<br /> + Ciascun segua, ec.</p> + +<p> Io mi moro già di sonno:<br /> + Sono io ebra o sì o no?<br /> + Più star dritti i piè non ponno.<br /> + Voi siet' ebri, ch' io lo so;<br /> + Ognun faccia com' io fo;<br /> + Ognun succe come me.<br /> + Ciascun segua, ec.</p> + +<p> Ognun gridi Bacco, Bacco,<br /> + E poi cacci del vin giù;<br /> + Poi col sonno farem fiacco,<br /> + Bevi tu e tu e tu.<br /> + Io non posso ballar più;<br /> + Ognun gridi Evoè.[<a href="#fn161">161</a>]<br /> + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te;<br /> + Bacco, Bacco, oè oè.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Lyrical beauty rather than dramatic power was, it has already been +remarked, Poliziano's aim and achievement. The want of characterization in +the hero, the insignificance of the part allotted to Euridice, the total +inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author's power as a +dramatist. It is the lyrical passages--Aristeo's song, Orfeo's impassioned +pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus--that supply the firm supports of +art upon which rests the slight fabric of the play.</p> + +<p>The same simplicity of construction, a simplicity in nature rather +narrative than dramatic, characterizes Niccolò da Correggio's <i>Cefalo</i>. +The play was represented in state in the great courtyard of the ducal +palace at Ferrara, on the occasion of the marriage of Lucrezia d' Este +with Annibale Bentivogli, on January 21, 1487[<a href="#fn162">162</a>]. Like the <i>Orfeo</i>, the +piece exhibits traces of its origin in the religious shows, though, unlike +the original draft of Poliziano's play, it is divided into five acts each +of some length, and is provided with regular choruses on the classical +model. In spite of its inferiority to the <i>Orfeo</i> in lyric power and its +possibly even greater deficiency from a dramatic point of view, it will be +worth while giving some account of the piece in order to get as clear an +idea as possible of the nature and limitations of the mythological drama, +and also because it has never, I believe, been reprinted in modern times, +and is in consequence practically unknown to English readers.</p> + +<p>The author, a descendant of the princely house of Correggio, was born +about 1450, and married the daughter of the famous <i>condottiere</i> +Bartolommeo Colleoni. He lived for some years at Milan at the court of +Lodovico Sforza; later he migrated to that of the Estensi. In 1493 he sent +an allegorical eclogue to Isabella Gonzaga at Mantua, which may possibly +have been represented, though we have no note of the fact, and the poem +itself has perished[<a href="#fn163">163</a>]. He died in 1508.</p> + +<p>After a prologue which resembles that of the <i>Orfeo</i> in giving an argument +of the whole piece, the first act opens with a scene in which Aurora seeks +the love of Cefalo. Offended at finding her advances repulsed, the goddess +hints that the wife to whom Cefalo is so careful of his faith is, for her +part, more free of her favours; and upon Cefalo indignantly refusing +credence to the slander, suggests that he should himself in disguise make +trial of her fidelity. This the unfortunate youth resolves to do. He +approaches Procri in the habit of a merchant, with goods for sale, and +takes the opportunity thus afforded of declaring his love. She turns to +fly, but the pretended passion of his suit stays her, and she is brought +to lend an ear to his cunning. He retails the commonplaces of the +despairing lover:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Deh, non fuggire, e non si altiera in vista;<br /> + Odime alquanto, e scolta i preghi mei.<br /> + Che fama mai per crudeltà se acquista?<br /> + Bellissima sei pur, cruda non dei.<br /> + Non sai che Amor non vol che se resista<br /> + A colpi soi? così vinto mi dei<br /> + Subito ch' io ti viddi; eh, non fuggire,<br /> + Forza non ti farò; deh, stammi audire.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Not Jove or Phoebus he to assume strange shapes for her love; he is but +her slave, and can but offer his pedlar's pack; but he knows of hidden +treasure in the earth, and hers, too, shall be vesture of the fairest. +After gold and soft raiment comes the trump card of the seducer--secrecy:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cosa secreta mai non se riprende;<br /> + El tempo che si perde mai non torna;<br /> + Qui non serai veduta, or che se attende<br /> + Quel se ha a dolere, che al suo ben sogiorna.<br /> + Secreto è il loco, el sol pur non vi splende;<br /> + Bella sei tu, sol manca che sii adorna<br /> + Di veste come io intendo ultra il tesoro.<br /> + Deh, non mi tener più; vedi ch' io moro.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She is almost won; one last assault, and her defences fall. Why, indeed, +should she hesitate--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Poi ch' Amor dice, ogni secreta è casta?</p></blockquote> + +<p>This stroke of cynicism is put forward as it were but half intentionally, +and with no appreciation of its intense irony in the mouth of the husband. +Throughout the scene indeed he appears merely as a common seducer, and the +author seems wholly to have failed to grasp the real dramatic value of the +situation. On the other hand, the lesser art of the stage has been +mastered with some success, and there is an adaptation of language to +action which at least argues that the author had a vivid picture of the +staging of his play in his mind when he wrote.</p> + +<p>The moment Procri has consented to barter her honour, Cefalo discovers +himself, and the unhappy girl flies in terror. Seeing now, too late, the +resuit of his foolish mistrust, Cefalo follows with prayers and +self-reproaches--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Son ben certo<br /> + Che tu mi cognoscesti ancor coperto--</p></blockquote> + +<p>but in vain. The act ends with a song in which Aurora glories in the +success of her revenge--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Festegiam con tutto il core; <br /> + Biastemate hor meco Amore!</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the second act Procri, having recovered from her fright, is bent on +avenging herself for the deceit practised by Cefalo, upon whose supposed +love for Aurora she throws the blame in the matter. She seeks the grove of +Diana, where she is enrolled among the followers of the goddess. Cefalo, +who has followed her flight, rejoins her in the wood, and there renews his +prayers. She refuses to recognize him, denies being his wife, and is about +to renew her flight, when an old shepherd, attracted by Cefalo's +lamentation, stays her and forces her to hear her husband's pleading. +Other shepherds appear on the scene, and the act ends with an eclogue. In +the next we find her reconciled to Cefalo, to whom she gives the +wind-swift dog and the unerring spear which she had received as a nymph of +Diana. Cefalo at once sets the hound upon the traces of a boar, and goes +off in pursuit, while his wife returns home. He shortly reappears, having +lost boar and hound alike, and, tired with the chase, falls asleep. +Meanwhile a faun, finding Procri alone, tells her that he had seen Cefalo +meeting with his love Aurora in the wood--a piece of news in return for +which he seeks her love. She, however, resolves to go and surprise the +supposed lovers, and setting fire to the wood, herself to perish with them +in the flames. On Cefalo's return he is met with bitter reproaches, and +the act ends with a chorus of fauns and satyrs. The fourth contains the +catastrophe. Procri hides in the wood in hope of surprising her husband +with his paramour. Cefalo enters ready for the chase, and, seeing what he +takes to be a wild beast among bushes, throws the fatal spear, which +pierces Procri's breast. A reconciliation precedes her death, and the +close of the act is rendered effective by the successive summoning of the +Muses and nymphs in some graceful stanzas. With a little polishing, such +as Poliziano's bacchanalian chorus received in revision, the scene would +not be unworthy of the time and place of its production.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oimè sorelle, o Galatea, presto! <br /> + Donate al cervo ormai un poco pace; <br /> + Soccorrete al pianger quel caso mesto. <br /> + Oimè sorelle, Procri morta giace, <br /> + L' alma spirata, e il ciel guardando tace.</p></blockquote> + +<p>At Cefalo's desire Calliope summons her sister Muses, Phillis the nymphs, +after which all join in a choral ode calling upon the divinities of +mountain, wood, and stream to join in a universal lament:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Weep, spirits of the woods and of the hills,<br /> + Weep, each pure nymph beside her fountain-head,<br /> + And weep, ye mountains, in a thousand rills, <br /> + For the fair child who here below lies dead:<br /> + Mourn, all ye gods, the last of human ills,<br /> + Your sacred foreheads all ungarlanded.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here the traditional story of Cephalus and Procris, as founded on the +rather inferior version in the seventh book of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, ends. +There remains, however, a fifth act, in which Diana appears, raises +Procri, and restores her to her husband.</p> + +<p>The play, composed for the most part in octaves with choruses in <i>terza +rima</i>, is, from the dramatic point of view, open to obvious and fatal +objections. The preposterous <i>dea ex machina</i> of the last act; the +inconsequence of motive and inconsistency of character, partly, it is +true, inherent in the original story, but by no means made less obvious by +the dramatist; the insufficiency of the action to fill the necessary +space, and the inability of the author to make the most of his materials, +are all alike patent. On the other hand, we have already noticed a certain +theatrical ability displayed in the writing of the first act, and we may +further attribute the alteration by which Procri is represented as jealous +of Cefalo's original lover, Aurora, instead of the wholly imaginary Aura, +as in Ovid, to a desire for dramatic unity of motive.</p> + +<p>The extent to which either the <i>Orfeo</i> or <i>Cefalo</i> can be regarded as +pastoral will now be clear, and it must be confessed that they do not +carry us very far. The two fifteenth-century plays constitute a distinct +species which has attained to a high degree of differentiation if not of +dramatic evolution, and critics who would see in them the origin of the +later pastoral drama have to explain the strange phenomenon of the species +lying dormant for nearly three-quarters of a century, and then suddenly +developing into an equally individualized but very dissimilar form[<a href="#fn164">164</a>]. +It should, moreover, be borne in mind that contemporary critics never +regarded the Arcadian pastoral as in any way connected with the +mythological drama, and that the writers of pastoral themselves claimed no +kinship with Poliziano or Correggio, but always ranked themselves as the +followers of Beccari alone in the line of dramatic development. On the +other hand, there can be no reasonable doubt that such performances went +to accustom spectators to that mixture of mythology and idealism which +forms the atmosphere, so to speak, of the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor fido</i>. +This must be my excuse for lingering over these early works.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch03-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>When dealing with the Italian eclogue we saw how, at a certain point, it +began to assume a distinctly dramatic character, and in so doing took the +first step towards the possible evolution of a real pastoral drama. It +will be my task in the ensuing pages to follow up this clue, and to show +how the pastoral drama arose through a process of natural development from +the recited eclogue.</p> + +<p>The dramatic tendency was indeed inherent in the eclogue from the very +first. Throughout there is a steady growth in the use of dialogue: of the +Idyls of Theocritus only about a third contain more than one character; of +Vergil's Bucolics at least half; of Calpurnius' all but one; of the +eclogues of Petrarch and Boccaccio all without exception. This tendency +did not escape Guarini, who, when not led into puerilities by his love of +self-laudation, often shows considerable insight. 'The eclogue,' he says, +'is nothing but a short discussion between shepherds, differing in no +other manner from that sort of scene which the Latins call dialogue, +except in so far as being whole and independent, possessing within itself +both beginning and end[<a href="#fn165">165</a>].'</p> + +<p>Having thus gradually altered the literary form of the eclogue, this +tendency towards dramatic expression next showed itself in the manner in +which the poem was presented to the world. For circulation in print or +manuscript, or for informal reading, came to be substituted recitation in +character. The dialogue was divided between two persons who spoke +alternately, and it is evident from the somewhat meagre texts that survive +that, in the earliest examples, these <i>ecloghe rappresentative</i>, or +dramatic eclogues as I shall call them, differed in no way from the purely +literary productions which we considered in an earlier section. Evidence +of actual representation is often wanting, and the exact date in most +cases is uncertain; but, since there is no doubt that such performances +actually did take place, we are not only justified in assuming that +several poems of the period belong to this class, but we can also, on +internai evidence, arrange them more or less in a natural sequence of +dramatic development. One such eclogue has come down to us from the pen of +Baldassare Taccone, a Genoese who also wrote mythological plays on the +subjects of Danaë and Actaeon. Another, interesting as dealing with the +corruption of the Curia at a moment when its scandalous traffic was +carried on in the light of day with more than usually cynical +indifference, was actually presented at Rome under the patronage of +Cardinal Giovanni Colonna at the carnival of 1490, during the pontificate +of Innocent VIII. Gradually a more complex form was evolved, the number of +speakers was increased, and some of these made their entrance during the +progress of the recitation. So too in the matter of metrical form, the +strict <i>terza rima</i> of the earlier examples came to be diversified with +<i>rime sdrucciole</i>, and by being intermingled with verses with internal +rime, with <i>ottava rima, settenarî</i> couplets, and lyrical measures. +Castiglione's representation at Urbino has been noticed previously. Among +similar productions may be mentioned two poems by a certain Caperano of +Faenza, printed in 1508, while others are found at Siena in 1517 and 1523. +Besides the texts that are extant we also have record of a good many which +have perished. In 1493 the representation of eclogues formed part of the +revels prepared by Alexander VI for the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with +Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, and this was again the case when, having +been divorced from Giovanni, and her second husband having perished by the +assassin's dagger, she finally in 1502 became the wife of Alfonso d'Este, +heir to the duchy of Ferrara. Eclogues were again represented at Ferrara +in 1508, and received specific mention among the dramatic performances +dealt with by the laws of Venice.</p> + +<p>We thus see that the eclogue had every opportunity of developing into a +regular dramatic form. At this point a variety of external influences made +themselves felt, which facilitated or modified its growth. Perhaps +foremost among these should be reckoned that of the 'regular' drama--that +is of the drama based upon an imitation of the classics, chiefly of the +Latin authors. The conception of dramatic art which was in men's minds at +the time naturally and inevitably influenced the development of a form of +poem which was daily becoming more sensibly dramatic. Next there was the +influence of the mythological drama embodying the romantic and ideal +elements of classical myth, but in form representing the tradition of the +old religious plays. This led to the occasional introduction of +supernatural characters, counteracted the rationalizing influence of the +Roman dramatists, and supplied the pastoral with its peculiar imaginative +atmosphere. Lastly, there was the 'rustic' influence, which was at no time +very strong, and left no mark upon the form as finally evolved, but which +has nevertheless to be taken into account in tracing the process of +development. The influence exercised by burlesque and realistic scenes +from real life cannot have been brought to bear on the eclogue until it +had already attained to a dramatic character of some complexity. The +earliest text of the kind we possess dates from 1508, and it is doubtful +whether or not it was acted. In 1513 we have record of a rustic +performance at the Capitol, and a satyrical and allegorical piece of like +nature, and belonging to the same year, is actually preserved, as is also +one in Bellunese dialect. These shows became the special characteristic of +the Rozzi society at Siena, in whose hands they soon developed into short +realistic farces of low life, composed in dialectal verse and acted by +members of the society at many of the courts of Italy. The fashion, +though never widely spread, survived for many years, the most famous +author of such pieces being Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger at the +beginning of the next century.</p> + +<p>These <i>drammi rusticali</i>, as they were called, may not improbably have +owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' +Medici in his <i>Nencia</i>, and may thus in their origin have been related to +the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at most +parallel to that of the pastoral drama, and should not be regarded either +as the origin or as a subdivision of this latter. Nor did the rustic +compositions exercise any permanent influence on the pastoral drama; the +most that can be said is that an occasional text shows signs of being +affected by the low vulgarity of the kind.</p> + +<p>Returning to the polite eclogues, we soon find an increase in the dramatic +complexity of the form. Tansillo's <i>Due pellegrini</i>, which cannot be later +than 1528, contains the rudiments of a plot, two lovers bent on suicide +being persuaded by a miraculous voice to become reconciled with the world +and life. Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di +Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love +the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the +devotion of Orindio.</p> + +<p>We now come to what may almost be regarded as the first conscious attempt +to write a pastoral play--an attempt, however, which met with but partial +success. This is the <i>Amaranta</i>, a 'Comedia nuova pastorale' by +Giambattista Casalio of Faenza, which most probably belongs to a date +somewhat before 1538. In it the mutual love of Partenio and Amaranta is +thwarted by the girl's mother Celia, who destines her for a goatherd. +Partenio is led to believe that his love has played him false, while in +her turn Amaranta supposes herself forsaken. The two meet, however, at the +hut of a wise nymph Lucina, through whose intervention they are reconciled +and their union effected. The piece, which attains to some proportions, is +divided into five acts, and, while owing a certain debt to the <i>Orfeo</i>, is +itself pastoral in character with occasional coarse touches borrowed from +the rustic shows. It is in the <i>Amaranta</i> that we first meet with an +attempt to introduce a real plot of some human interest into a purely +pastoral composition; we are no longer dealing with a merely occasional +piece written in celebration of some special person or festivity, no +longer with a mythological masque or pageant, nor with an amorous +allegory, but with a piece the interest of which, slight as it is, lies in +the fate of the characters involved.</p> + +<p>The fifteen years or so which separate the work of Casalio from that of +Beccari saw the production of a succession of more or less pastoral works +which serve, to some extent at least, to bridge over the gap which +separates even the most elaborate of the above compositions from the +recognized appearance of the fully-developed pastoral drama in the +<i>Sacrifizio</i>. The chief characteristic which marks the work of these years +is a tendency to deliberate experiment. The writers appear to have been +conscious that their work was striving towards a form which had not yet +been achieved, though they were themselves vague as to what that form +might be. Epicuro's <i>Mirzia</i> tends towards the mythological drama; the +<i>Silvia</i> written by one Fileno, which, like the <i>Amaranta</i>, turns on the +temporary estrangement of two lovers, introduces considerable elements +from the rustic performances; in Cazza's <i>Erbusto</i> the amorous skein is +cut by the discovery of consanguinity and an ἀναγνώρισις after +the manner of the Latin comedy. Similar in plot to this last is a +fragmentary pastoral of Giraldi Cintio's published from manuscript by +Signor Carducci. Another curious but isolated experiment is Cintio's +<i>Egle</i>, in intent a revival of the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, in +substance a dramatization of the motive of Sannazzaro's <i>Salices</i>. In one +sense these experiments ended in failure; it was not through the +elaboration of mythological or superhuman elements, nor through the humour +of burlesque or realistic rusticity, nor yet through the violence of +unexpected discoveries, that the destined form of the pastoral drama was +to be attained. On the other hand, they undoubtedly served to introduce an +elaboration of plot and complexity of dramatic structure which is +altogether lacking in the earlier eclogues and masques, but without which +the work of Tasso and Guarini could never have occupied the commanding +position that it does in the history of literature. They carry us forward +to the point at which the pastoral drama took its shape and being.</p> + +<p>Of the elements compounded of pastoral idealism and the graceful purity of +classical myth, and combining the scenic attractions of the masque with +the reasoned action and human interest of the regular drama, the Arcadian +pastoral first achieved definite form in the work of Agostino Beccari. His +<i>Sacrifizio</i>, styled 'favola pastorale' on the title-page of the first +impression, was acted at the palace of Francesco d' Este at Ferrara in the +presence of Ercole II and his son Luigi, and of the Duchess Renata and her +daughters Lucrezia and Leonora, on two occasions in February and March +1554. The piece was revived more than thirty years later, namely in 1587, +when the courtly world was already familiar with Tasso's masterpiece, and +was ringing with the prospective fame of the <i>Pastor fido</i>, and +represented both at Sassuolo and Ferrara.</p> + +<p>The action involves three pairs of lovers. Turico loves Stellinia in spite +of the fact that she has transferred her affections to Erasto. Erasto in +his turn pays his homage to Callinome, the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, a nymph vowed to the service of Diana. There remains +Carpalio, whose love for Melidia is secretly returned; its consummation +being prevented by the girl's brother Pimonio, who refuses to countenance +the match, and keeps dragon guard over his sister. In the meanwhile +shepherds and shepherdesses assemble to honour the festival and sacrifice +of Pan, which proves the occasion for the unravelling of the amorous +tangle. Stellinia, wishing to rid herself of her rival in Erasto's love, +induces Callinome so far to break her vestal vow as to be present at the +forbidden feast. Here she is promptly detected by the offended goddess and +sentenced to do battle against one of the fiercest of the Erymanthian +boars. Erasto comes to her aid with a magic ointment, which has the power +of rendering the user invisible, and with the help of which she achieves +her task unharmed. Out of gratitude she rewards her preserver with her +love. Not only is Stellinia thus condemned to witness the failure of her +plot, but she is herself carried off by a satyr, who endeavours to deceive +each of the nymphs in turn. Being rescued from his power by the faithful +Turico, she too capitulates to love. Lastly, in the absence of Pimonio, +who has gone to be present at the games held at the festival, Carpalio and +Melidia pluck the fruit of love, and are saved from the anger of the +brother through his conveniently falling into an enchanted lake whence he +emerges in the shape of a boar.</p> + +<p>In the prologue the author boldly announces the novelty of his work--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Una favola nova pastorale<br /> + ............nova in tanto<br /> + Ch' altra non fu giammai forse più udita<br /> + Di questa sorte recitarsi in scena.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Guarini, who is said to have supplied a prologue for the revival of the +piece, bore out Beccari's claim when he wrote in his essay on +tragi-comedy: 'First among the moderns to possess the happy boldness to +make in this kind, namely the pastoral dramatic tale, of which there is no +trace among the ancients, was Agostin de' Beccari, a worthy citizen of +Ferrara, to whom alone does the world owe the fair creation of this sort +of poem[<a href="#fn166">166</a>].'</p> + +<p>Several pieces of no great interest or importance serve to fill the decade +or so following on the production of Beccari's play. Groto, known as the +Cieco d' Adria, combined the mythological motive with much of the vulgar +obscenity of the Latin comedy. Lollio also produced a hybrid of an earlier +type in his <i>Aretusa</i>. In 1567 a return was made to the pastoral tradition +of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play <i>Lo Sfortunato</i>. Among the +spectators who witnessed the first performance of this piece before Duke +Alfonso and his court at Ferrara was a youth of twenty-two, lately +attached to the household of the Cardinal Luigi d' Este. In all +probability this was Tasso's first introduction to a style of composition +which not many years later he was to make famous throughout Europe. The +play he witnessed on that occasion, however, was no work of surpassing +genius. It cannot, indeed, be said to mark any decided advance on +Beccari's work except in so far, perhaps, as it at times foreshadows the +somewhat sickly sentiment of later pastorals, including Tasso's own. The +shepherd Sfortunato loves Dafne, Dafne loves Iacinto, who in his turn +pursues Flaminia, while she loves only Silvio, who loves himself. Nothing +particular happens till the fourth scene of Act III. Then Silvio, tired of +being the last link in the chain of love, devises a plan for placing +Flaminia and Dafne in the power of their respective lovers. Flaminia, +assailed by Iacinto, makes up her mind to bow to fate, and accepts with a +good grace the love it is no longer in her power to fly. Sfortunato, on +the other hand, rather than offend his mistress, allows her to depart +unharmed, and since he thereby forgoes his only chance of enjoying the +object of his passion, determines to die. His vow is overheard by Dafne, +who, seeing that her love for Iacinto may no more avail, at last relents. +A third nymph, introduced to make the numbers even, takes the veil among +the followers of Diana, and so lives the object of Silvio's chaste regard. +It will be readily seen how in the character of Sfortunato we have the +forerunner of Tasso's Aminta; but it will also appear what poor use has +been made of the situation. The truth is that we have up to now been +dealing merely with origins, with productions which are of interest only +in the reflected light of later work; whatever there is of real beauty and +of permanent value in the pastoral drama of Italy is due to the breath of +life inspired into the phantasms of earlier writers by the genius of Tasso +and Guarini.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch03-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>We have now followed the dramatic pastoral from its obscure origin in the +eclogue to the eve of its assuming a recognized and abiding position in +the literature of Europe[<a href="#fn167">167</a>]. But if it is in a measure easy thus to +trace back the Arcadian drama to its historical sources, and to show how +the <i>Aminta</i> came to be possible, it is not so easy to show how it came to +be actual. All creative work is the outcome of three fashioning forces, +the historical position, the personal circumstances of the artist, and his +individual genius. The pastoral drama had reached what I may perhaps be +allowed to call the 'psychological point' in its development. At the same +moment it happened that Tasso, having returned from a fruitless and +uncongenial mission to the Valois court, enjoyed a brief period of calm +and prosperity in the congenial society of Leonora d' Este, before the +critical bickerings to which he exposed himself in connexion with the +<i>Gerusalemme</i> wrought havoc with an already over-sensitive and +overstrained temperament. Furthermore it happened that he brought to the +spontaneous composition of his courtly toy just that touch of languorous +beauty, that soft vein of sentiment, which formed perhaps his most +characteristic contribution to the artistic tone of his age, veiling a +novel mood in his favourite phrase, <i>un non so che</i>[<a href="#fn168">168</a>]. Had all this not +been, had not the fortune of a suitable genius and the chance of personal +surroundings jumped with the historical possibility, we might indeed have +had any number of lifeless 'Sacrifices' and 'Unhappy Ones,' but Italy +would have added no new kind to the forms of dramatic art. Had it not been +for the <i>Aminta</i>, the pastoral drama must almost necessarily have been +stillborn, for Guarini was too much of a pedant to do more than to imitate +and enlarge, while other writers belong to the decline.</p> + +<p>The <i>Aminta</i>, while possessing a delicate dramatic structure of its own, +yet retains not a little of the simplicity of the <i>ecloga +rappresentativa</i>. Indeed, it is worth noting, alike on account of this +quality in the poem itself as also of its literary ancestry, that, in a +letter written within a year of its original production, Tiburio Almerici +speaks of it by the old name of eclogue[<a href="#fn169">169</a>]. Referring to its +representation at Urbino, he writes: 'Il terzo spettacolo, che si è +goduto questo carnovale, è stato un' egloga del Tasso, che fu recitata +questo giovedì passato da alcuni gioveni d' Urbino nella sala, che fu +fatta per la venuta delia Principessa.' The princess in question was none +other than Lucrezia d' Este, who had lately become the wife of Tasso's +former companion Francesco Maria della Rovere, now Duke of Urbino, and who +with her sister Leonora, the heroine of the Tasso legend, had, it will be +remembered, stood sponsor to Beccari's play nearly twenty years before. +The representation at Urbino to which Almerici alludes was not of course +the first. Written in the winter of 1572-3 during the absence of Duke +Alfonso, the piece was acted after his return from Rome in the summer of +the latter year. Ferrara, as we have seen, had become and was long +destined to remain the special home of the pastoral drama in Italy. Here +on July 31, in the palace of Belvedere, built on an island in the Po, the +court of the Estensi assembled to witness the production of Tasso's +play[<a href="#fn170">170</a>]. The staging, both on this and on subsequent occasions, was no +doubt answerable to the nature of the piece, and added the splendour of +the masque to the classic grace of the fable. Almerici remarks on the +special attractions for spectators and auditors alike of what he calls 'la +novità del coro fra ciascuno atto,' by which he clearly meant the +spectacular interludes known as <i>intermedî</i>, the verses for which are +commonly printed at the end of the play[<a href="#fn171">171</a>]. But the representation which +struck the imagination of contemporaries was that before the Grand Duke +Ferdinand at Florence. This took place in 1590[<a href="#fn172">172</a>]. Guarini's play had in +its turn won renown far beyond the frontiers of Italy, while the author +of the <i>Aminta</i>, a yet attractive but impossible madman, was destined for +the few remaining years of his life to drag his tale of woes and but too +often his rags from one Italian court to another, ere he sank at last +exhausted where S. Onofrio overlooks St. Peter's dome.</p> + +<p>The structure of the play is not free from a good deal of stiffness and +artificiality, which it bequeathed to its successors. It borrowed from the +classical drama a chorus, on the whole less Greek than Latin, the use of +confidants, and the introduction of messengers and descriptive passages. +These last, it may be noted, are deliberately and wantonly classical, not +merely necessitated by the exigencies of the action, difficult of +representation as in the attempted suicide of Aminta, impossible as in the +rescue of Silvia from the satyr, but resorted to in order to veil the +dramatic weakness of the author's imagination, as is plain from the +description of the final meeting of the lovers. Yet it may be freely +admitted that to this device, the substitution namely of narrative for +action, we owe most of the finest poetic passages of the play: the +description of the youthful loves of Aminta and Silvia and the former's +ruse to win a kiss, the picture of Silvia bound to the tree by the pool, +Tirsi's account of the court, the description of Silvia at the spring--one +of the most elaborate in the piece--the account of her escape from the +wolves, last but not least that description of Silvia finding the +unconscious Aminta, so full of subtle and effeminate seduction, prophetic +of a later age of morals and of taste:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ma come Silvia il riconobbe, e vide<br /> + Le belle guance tenere d' Aminta<br /> + Iscolorite in sì leggiadri modi, <br /> + Che viola non è che impallidisca<br /> + Si dolcemente, e lui languir sì fatto, <br /> + Che parea già negli ultimi sospiri<br /> + Esalar l'alma; in guisa di Baccante<br /> + Gridando, e percotendosi il bel petto, <br /> + Lasciò cadersi in sul giacente corpo, <br /> + E giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. (V. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>So too the chorus, though awkward enough from a dramatic point of view +and in so far as it fulfils any dramatic purpose, offers a sufficient +justification for its existence in the magnificent ode on 'honour,' that +rapturous song of the golden age of love, the poetic supremacy of which +has never been questioned, whatever may have been thought of its ethical +significance. To that aspect we shall return later. At present it will be +well to give some more or less detailed account of the action of the piece +itself.</p> + +<p>The shepherd Aminta loves Silvia, formerly as a child his playmate and +companion, now a huntress devoted to the service of Diana, proud in her +virginity and unfettered state. The play opens in a sufficiently +conventional manner, but wrought with sparkling verse, with two companion +scenes. In the first of these Silvia brushes aside the importunities of +her confidant Dafne who seeks to allure her to the blandishments of love +with sententious natural examples and modern instances.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cangia, cangia consiglio, <br /> + Pazzerella che sei, <br /> + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova;</p></blockquote> + +<p>such is the burden of her song, or yet again, recalling the golden days of +love she too of yore had wasted:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Il mondo invecchia<br /> + E invecchiando intristisce.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Words of profound melancholy these, uttered in the days of the burnt-out +fires of the renaissance. But all this moves not Silvia, nymph of the +woods and of the chase, and, if she is indeed as fancy-free as she would +have us believe, her lover may even console himself with the reflection +that</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> If of herself she will not love, <br /> + Nothing will make her--<br /> + The devil take her!</p></blockquote> + +<p>She has, after all, every right to the position. The next scene introduces +Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history +of his love. Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great +interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches +that lie scattered throughout the play.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> All' ombra d' un bel faggio Silvia e Filli<br /> + Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme; <br /> + Quando un' ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo<br /> + Sen giva il mel per que' prati fioriti, <br /> + Alle guance di Fillide volando, <br /> + Alle guance vermiglie come rosa, <br /> + Le morse e le rimorse avidamente; <br /> + Ch' alla similitudine ingannata<br /> + Forse un fior le credette.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole +description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Tasso's +which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality. Aminta feigns +to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> La semplicetta Silvia, <br /> + Pietosa del mio male, <br /> + S' offrì di dar aita<br /> + Alla finta ferita, ahi lasso! e fece<br /> + Più cupa e più mortale<br /> + La mia piaga verace, <br /> + Quando le labbra sue<br /> + Giunse alle labbra mie.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though +they kissed from now to doomsday. But only the reader who cannot feel its +beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Tasso's style.</p> + +<p>The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, +type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly +shepherds. He inherits no savoury character from his literary +predecessors, and he is content to play to the rôle. His monologue may be +passed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical +indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts. It is a +quality wholly different from the mere coarseness exhibited in the English +drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one +who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes +of the <i>Mandragola</i>. The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants +Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an +understanding between Aminta and Silvia. The scene is characterized by +those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant +iciness of the 'careless' nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral +drama.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or, non sai tu com' è fatta la donna? <br /> + Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch' altri la giunga; <br /> + Niega, e negando vuol ch' altri si toglia; <br /> + Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch' altri la vinca.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Listening to the deliberations of these two, it cannot but strike us that +in spite of their polished speech the straightforward London stage would +have hesitated but little to bestow on them the names they deserve, and +which it were yet scarce honest to have here set down. We pass on, and, +whatever may be said regarding the moral atmosphere of the rest of the +play, we shall not again have to make complaint of the corruption of +manners assumed in the situation. In the following scene Tirsi undertakes +the difficult task of inducing Aminta to intrude upon Silvia, where she is +said to be alone at the spring preparing for the chase. It is only by +hinting that Silvia has secretly instructed Dafne to arrange the tryst +that he in the end succeeds in persuading the bashful lover to risk the +displeasure of his mistress.</p> + +<p>At the opening of Act III Tirsi enters lamenting in bitter terms the +cruelty of Silvia. Interrogated by the chorus, he relates how, as he and +Aminta approached the spring where Silvia was bathing, they heard a cry +and, hastening to the spot, found the nymph bound hand and foot to a tree, +and confronting her the satyr. At their approach the monster fled, and +Aminta released the nymph, who <i>ignuda come nacque</i> at once took flight, +leaving her lover in despair. In the meanwhile Aminta has sought to kill +himself with his own spear, but has been prevented by Dafne, and the two +now enter. At this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the +piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in +the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having +prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the +recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock +pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her +escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses +her fear that the false report of Silvia's death may indeed prove the +death of Aminta. The nymph at first shows herself incredulous, but on +learning that he had already once sought death on her account she wavers +and owns to pity if not to love--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh potess' io<br /> + Con l' amor mio comprar la vita sua, <br /> + Anzi pur con la mia la vita sua, <br /> + S' egli è pur morto!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Hereupon Ergasto enters with the news that Aminta has thrown himself from +a cliff, and Silvia, now completely overcome, goes off with the intention +of dying on the body of her dead lover.</p> + +<p>The shortness, as well as the dramatic weakness, of the fifth act is +conspicuous even in proportion to the modest limits of the whole. It runs +to less than one hundred and fifty lines, and merely relates how Aminta's +fall was broken, how Silvia's love awoke, and all ended happily. The most +significant passage, that namely which describes Aminta being called back +to life in Silvia's arms, has been already quoted. He revives unharmed, +and the lovers,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Alike in age, in generous birth alike<br /> + And mutual desires,</p></blockquote> + +<p>gather in love the fruits which they have sown in weeping.</p> + +<p>It is worth while quoting the final chorus in witness of the spirit of +half bantering humour in which the whole was conceived even by the serious +Tasso, a spirit we unfortunately too often seek in vain among his +followers.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Non so se il molto amaro<br /> + Che provato ha costui servendo, amando, <br /> + Piangendo e disperando, <br /> + Raddolcito esser puote pienamente<br /> + D' alcun dolce presente: <br /> + Ma, se più caro viene<br /> + E più si gusta dopo 'l male il bene, <br /> + Io non ti chieggio, Amore, <br /> + Questa beatitudine maggiore: <br /> + Bea pur gli altri in tal guisa; <br /> + Me la mia ninfa accoglia<br /> + Dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: <br /> + E siano i condimenti<br /> + Delle nostre dolcezze<br /> + Non sì gravi tormenti, <br /> + Ma soavi disdegni, <br /> + E soavi ripulse, <br /> + Risse e guerre a cui segua, <br /> + Reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is with these words that the author leaves his graceful fantasy; and +such, we have perhaps the right to assume, was the spirit in which the +whole was composed. Were any one to object to our seeking to analyse the +quality of the piece, arguing that to do so were to break a butterfly upon +the wheel, much might reasonably be said in support of his view. +Nevertheless, when a work of art, however delicate and slender, has +received the homage of generations, and influenced cultivated taste for +centuries, and in widely different countries, we have a right to inquire +whereon its supremacy is based, and what the nature of its influence has +been.</p> + +<p>With the sources from which Tasso drew the various elements of his plot we +need have little to do. The child-love of Silvia and Aminta is of the +stuff of <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i>; the ruse by which the kiss is obtained is +borrowed from Achilles Tatius; the compliment to the court of the Estensi +is after the manner of Vergil, or of Castiglione, or of Ariosto, or of any +other of the allegorical eclogists of whom Vergil was the first; the germ +of the golden-age chorus is to be found in the elegies of Tibullus (II. +iii); the character of the satyr belongs to tradition; the rent veil of +Silvia reminds us of that of Ovid's Thisbe (<i>Met.</i> IV. 55). The language +too is reminiscent. The finest lines in the play--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce;<br /> + A noi sua breve luce<br /> + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--(<i>Coro</i> I.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>belong to Catullus:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus;... <br /> + soles occidere et redire possunt; <br /> + nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux, <br /> + nox est perpetua una dormienda. (<i>Carm.</i> V.)</p></blockquote> + + +<p>The words in which Amore describes himself in the prologue--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> non mica un dio<br /> + Selvaggio, o della plebe degli dei, <br /> + Ma tra' grandi celesti il più possente--</p></blockquote> + +<p>recall Ovid's lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna<br /> + sceptra manu teneo. (<i>Met.</i> I. 595.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again, the line:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Dove la costa face di sè grembo;</p></blockquote> + +<p>which occurs alike in the play (V. i.) and in the <i>Purgatorio</i> (VII. 68), +supplies evidence, as do similar borrowings in the <i>Gerusalemme</i>, of +Tasso's study of Dante.</p> + +<p>The prologue introduces Amore in pastoral disguise, escaped from the care +of his mother, who would confine his activity to the Courts, and intent on +loosing his shafts among the nymphs and shepherds of Arcadia. In the form +of this prologue, which became the model for subsequent pastoral writers +in Italy[<a href="#fn173">173</a>], and in the heavenly descent of the principal characters, we +may see the influence of the mythological play; while the substance both +of the prologue and of the epilogue, or <i>Amore fuggitivo</i>, in which Venus +comes to seek her runaway among the ladies and gallants of the court, is +of course borrowed from the famous first idyl of Moschus. Again the +topical element is not absent, though it is less prominent than some of +the earlier work might lead us to expect. In the poet Tirsi--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> allor ch' ardendo<br /> + Forsennato egli errò per le foreste<br /> + Sì, ch' insieme movea pietate e riso<br /> + Nelle vezzose ninfe e ne' pastori; <br /> + Nè già cose scrivea digne di riso, <br /> + Sebben cose facea digne di riso--(I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>we may, of course, see the poet himself. In Batto too, mentioned together +with Tirsi, it is not unreasonable to recognize Battisto Guarini, whom at +that time Tasso might still regard as his friend. Again, it is usual to +identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the +Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was +yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little +fulsome:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or non rammenti<br /> + Ciò che l' altrieri Elpino raccontava, <br /> + Il saggio Elpino a la bella Licori, <br /> + Licori che in Elpin puote cogli occhi<br /> + Quel ch' ei potere in lei dovria col canto, <br /> + Se 'l dovere in amor si ritrovasse; <br /> + E 'l raccontava udendo Batto e Tirsi, <br /> + Gran maestri d' amore; e 'l raccontava<br /> + Nell' antro dell' Aurora, ove sull' uscio<br /> + È scritto: <i>Lungi, ah lungi ite, profani</i>?<br /> + Diceva egli, e diceva che gliel disse<br /> + Quel grande che cantò l' armi e gli amori, <br /> + Ch' a lui lasciò la fistola morendo; <br /> + Che laggiù nello 'nferno è un nero speco, <br /> + Là dove esala un fumo pien di puzza<br /> + Dalle tristi fornaci d' Acheronte; <br /> + E che quivi punite eternamente<br /> + In tormenti di tenebre e di pianto<br /> + Son le femmine ingrate e sconoscenti. (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>He who sang of arms and love is of course Ariosto--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori, <br /> + Le cortesie, l' audaci imprese io canto--</p></blockquote> + +<p>from whom Tasso borrows the above description of the reward awaiting +ungrateful women, as also the fiction of the tell-tale walls and chairs in +Mopso's account of the court (I. ii). And this Elpino, whose pipe +elsewhere</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> correr fa di puro latte i fiumi<br /> + E stillar melle dalle dure scorze, (III. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>later becomes the Alete of the <i>Gerusalemme</i>,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Gran fabbro di calunnie adorne in modi<br /> + Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi. (II. 58.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>His flattery had not shielded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of +the minister[<a href="#fn174">174</a>].</p> + +<p>Again, the picture drawn by Tirsi of the ideal court (I. ii.) is a glowing +compliment to that of the Estensi and to Duke Alfonso himself. It is +contrasted with the usual pastoral denunciation of court and city put into +the mouth of the pretended augur Mopso. In this character it has been +customary to see Sperone Speroni, who later accused Tasso of plagiarizing +him in the <i>Gerusalemme</i>, and was the first to apply the ominous word +'madman' to the unfortunate poet. To Speroni's play <i>Canace</i> Tasso may +have been indebted for the free measures with which he diversified his +blank verse, as likewise for the line:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede;[<a href="#fn175">175</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>though it must not be supposed that there is any resemblance in style +between the <i>Aminta</i> and Speroni's revolting and frigid declamation of +butchery and lust. Nor did the debt pass unnoticed. In 1585 Guarini, who +had long since parted with the sinking ship of the younger poet's +friendship, was ready to flatter Speroni with the declaration 'che tanto +di leggiadria è sempre paruto a me, che abbia nell' Aminta suo conseguito +Torquato Tasso, quant' egli fù imitatore della Canace[<a href="#fn176">176</a>].'</p> + +<p>Lastly, in the hopeless suit of Aminta to Silvia, criticism has not failed +to see a reference to the supposed relation between Tasso and Leonora d' +Este. That Tasso, who in his overwrought imagination no doubt harboured a +sentimental regard for the princess, was conscious of the parallel is in +some degree probable; that he should have identified his creation with +himself is, in view of the solution of the dramatic situation, utterly +impossible. Indeed, it would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose that +his care to identify himself with Aminta's confidant may have been an +unusual but not untimely piece of caution on his part, to prevent poisoned +gossip connecting him too closely with his hero.</p> + +<p>The question of the influence of the <i>Aminta</i> on later works and on +European thought generally opens up large and difficult issues. It is one +of those works which we are not justified in treating from the purely +literary point of view. If we wish to see it in its relation to +contemporary society, and to estimate its influence upon subsequent +literature, we cannot afford to neglect its ethical bearings. This inquiry +must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, +but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of +pastoral literature has no right to shirk.</p> + +<p>The central motive of the piece is the struggle between the feverish +passion of Aminta and the virginal coldness of Silvia. Of this motive and +of the manner in which it is treated it is not altogether easy to speak, +and this less from any inherent element in the subject or from the +difficulty of accurately apprehending the peculiarities of sentiment +proper to former ages, than from the readiness of all ages alike to accept +in such matters the counterfeit coin of conventional protestation for the +sterling reticence of natural delicacy. No doubt this tendency has been +aided by the fact that the secrets of a girl's heart, whatever may be +their true dramatic value, form an unsuitable and ineffective subject for +declamation. The difficulties must not, however, be allowed to weigh +against the importance of coming to a clear understanding as to the true +nature of this <i>non so che</i> of false sentiment, of which it would hardly +be too much to affirm that it made the fortune of the pastoral in +aristocratic Italy on the one hand, and proved its ruin in middle-class +London on the other.</p> + +<p>To Tasso is due that assumption of extravagant and conventional <i>pudor</i> +which forms one of the most abiding features of the pastoral drama. To +censure an exaggeration of the charm of modesty on the threshold of the +<i>seicento</i>, or to object a strained sense of chastity against the author +of the golden-age chorus, may indeed seem strange; but, as with Fletcher +at a later date, the very extravagance of the paradox may supply us with +the key to its solution.</p> + +<p>The falsity of Tasso's position is evinced partly in the main action of +the drama, partly in the commentary supplied by the minor personages. The +character of Aminta himself is unimportant in this respect; when we have +described him as effeminate, sickly, and over-refined, we have said all +that is necessary in view of the position he occupies with regard to +Silvia. She, we are given to understand, is the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, the unspotted nymph of Diana[<a href="#fn177">177</a>], rejoicing in the chase +alone, and importuned by the love of Aminta, which she neither +reciprocates nor understands, and of the genuineness of which she shows +herself, indeed, not a little sceptical. If, however, she is as careless +as she appears, her conversion is certainly most sudden. The picture, +moreover, drawn by Dafne of Silvia coquetting with her shadow in the pool, +though possibly coloured by malice, supplies a sufficient hint of the +true state of the girl's fancy. She is in truth such a Chloe of innocence +as might spring up in the rank soil of a petty Italian court infected with +post-Tridentine morality. Were she indeed careless of Aminta's devotion we +could easily sympathize with her when she brushes aside Dafne's +importunity with the words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Faccia Aminta di sè e de' suoi amori<br /> + Quel ch' a lui piace; a me nulla ne cale. (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is altogether different with her attitude of arrogant pudicity when she +announces:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Odio il suo amore<br /> + Ch' odia la mia onestate; (Ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> In questa guisa gradirei ciascuno<br /> + Insidiator di mia virginitate, <br /> + Che tu dimandi amante, ed io nemico. (Ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Silvia here conjoins the unwholesome medieval ideal of virginity with the +corrupt spectre of renaissance 'honour'--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> quel vano<br /> + Nome senza soggetto, <br /> + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno[<a href="#fn178">178</a>], (<i>Coro</i> I.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>as Tasso himself styled it--that conventional mask so bitterly contrasted +with the natural goodness of the age of gold[<a href="#fn179">179</a>].</p> + +<p>The general conception of love and its attendant emotions that permeates +the work and vitiates so many of its descendants appears yet more +glaringly characterized in some of the minor personages. On these it is +not my intention to dwell. Of Dafne and Tirsi, that is, be it remembered, +Tasso's self, I have spoken, however briefly, yet at sufficient length +already. Suffice it to add here that Dafne's suggestion, that modesty is +commonly but a veil for lust, is nothing more than the cynical expression +of the attitude adopted throughout the play. Love is no ideal and +idealizing emotion, but a mere gratification of the senses--a <i>luxuria</i> +scarcely distinguishable from <i>gula</i>. Ignorance can alone explain an +attitude of indifference towards its pleasures. The girl who does not care +to embrace opportunity is no better than a child--'Fanciulla tanto +sciocca, quanto bella,' as Dafne says. So, again, there is nothing +ennobling in the devotion of the hero, nothing elevating in his fidelity. +All the mysticism, all the ideality, of the early days of the renaissance +have long since disappeared, and chivalrous feeling, that last lingering +glory of the middle age, is dead.</p> + +<p>We are, indeed, justified in regarding what I may term the degeneration of +sexual feeling in the <i>Aminta</i> as to a great extent the negation of +chivalrous love, for, even apart from the allegorizing mysticism of Dante, +that love contained its ennobling elements. And yet, strangely enough, not +a little of the convention at least of chivalrous love survives in the +debased Arcadian love of the sentimental pastoral. Both alike are +primarily of an animal nature, and this in a sense other than that in +which physical love may be said to form an element in all natural relation +between man and woman. Again, in both we find the rational machinery by +which love shall be rewarded. The lover serves his apprenticeship, either +with deeds of arms or with sighs and sonnets, and the credit of the +mistress is light who refuses to reward him for his service. The System +assumes neither choice, nor passion, nor pleasure on her part. Her act is +regarded in the cold light of a calculated payment, undisguised by any joy +of passionate surrender. But whereas in the outgrowth of feudalism, in the +chivalry of the middle ages, this system formed the great incentive to +martial daring, whereas when idealized in Beatrice it became almost +undistinguishable from the ferveurs of religion, we find it with Tasso +sinking into a weak and mawkish sensuality. More than any other +sentimentalist Tasso justified his title by 'fiddling harmonics on the +strings of sensualism,' and it may be added that the ear is constantly +catching the fundamental note.</p> + +<p>The foregoing remarks appeared necessary in order to understand the +subsequent history of the dramatic pastoral as well as the conditions +under which it took form and being, but they have led us far beyond the +limits of literary criticism proper. The next characteristic of the play +to be considered is one which, while possessing an important ethical +bearing, is also closely connected with the aesthetic composition. I refer +to the peculiar, not sensual but sensuous, nature of the beauty. The +effect produced by the descriptions, by the suggestions, by the general +tone, by the subtle modulations of the verse in adaptation to its theme, +is less one of literary and intellectual than of direct emotional +perception, producing the immediate physical impression of an actual +presence. The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and +voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect +produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same +impression remains with us afterwards. Smooth limbs, soft and white, that +shine through the waters of the spring and amid the jewelled spray, or +half revealed among the thickets of lustrous green, a slant ray of +sunlight athwart the loosened gold of the hair--the vision floats before +us as if conjured up by the strains of music rather than by actual words. +This kinship with another art did not escape so acute a critic as Symonds +as a characteristic of Tasso's style. But the kinship on another side with +the art of painting is equally close; a thousand pictures rise before us +as we follow the perfect melody of the irregular lyric measures. The white +veil fluttering and the swift feet flashing amid the brambles and the +trailing creepers of the wood, bright crimson staining the spotless purity +of the flying skirts as the huntress bursts through the clinging tangles +that seek to hold her as if jealous of a human love, the lusty strength of +the bronzed and hairy satyr in contrast with the tender limbs of the +captive nymph, the dark cliff, and the still mirror of the lake reflecting +the rosebuds pressed artfully against the girl's soft neck as she crouches +by its brink,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Backed by the forest, circled by the flowers, <br /> + Bathed in the sunshine of the golden hours,</p></blockquote> + +<p>the armed huntress, the grey-coated wolves, and the white-robed +chorus--here are a series of pictures of seductive beauty for the brush of +a painter to realize upon the walls of some palace of pleasure.</p> + +<p>The <i>Aminta</i> attained a wide popularity even before the appearance of the +first edition from the Aldine house at Venice early in 1581--the epistle +is dated 1580. The printer of the Ferrarese edition of the same year +remarks: 'Tosto che la Fama ... mi rapportò, che in Venetia si stampava l' +Aminta, ... così subito pensai, che quella sola Impressione dovesse essere +ben poca per sodisfattione di tanti virtuosi, che sono desiderosi di +vederla alla luce.' A critical edition was prepared at Paris in the middle +of the following century by Egidio Menagio of the Accademia della Crusca, +and dedicated to Maria della Vergna, better known, under her married name +of Madame de la Fayette, as the author of the <i>Princesse de Clèves</i>[<a href="#fn180">180</a>]. +In 1693 the play was attacked by Bartolomeo Ceva Grimaldi, Duke of Telese, +in an address read before the Accademia degli Uniti at Naples[<a href="#fn181">181</a>]. He was +answered before the same society by Francesco Baldassare Paglia, and in +1700 appeared Giusto Fontanini's elaborate defence[<a href="#fn182">182</a>]. To each chapter +of this work is prefixed a passage from Grimaldi's address, which is then +laboriously refuted. The Duke's attack is puerile cavil, and in spite of +the reputed ability of its author the defence must be admitted to be much +on the same level.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch03-4"> +<h3>IV</h3> + + +<p>The attention which we have bestowed upon the <i>Aminta</i> will allow us to +pass more rapidly than would otherwise have been possible over its +successor and rival, the <i>Pastor fido</i>. This is due to the fact that the +moral and artistic environment of the two pieces is much the same, and +further, that it is this environment which to a great extent determined, +not only the individual character of the poems, but likewise the nature of +their subsequent influence.</p> + +<p>Recent research has had the effect of dispelling not a few of the +traditional ideas respecting Guarini's play. Among them is the fable that +it took twenty years to write, which would carry back its inception to +days before the composition of the <i>Aminta</i>. It is now recognized that +nine years is the utmost that can be assigned, letters being extant which +fix the genesis of the play in 1581, or at the earliest in 1580 a year or +so previous to Guarini's departure from Ferrara[<a href="#fn183">183</a>]. Again, it has been +usual to assume that the play was performed as early as 1585, whereas +there is in truth no evidence of any representation previous to the +appearance of the first edition dated 1590[<a href="#fn184">184</a>]. The early fortunes of the +play are indeed typical of the ill-success that dogged the author +throughout life. Though untouched by the tragic misfortunes which lend +interest to Tasso's career, his lot was at times a hard one and we may +excuse him if, at the last, he was no less embittered than his younger +rival. He was not cursed, it is true, with Tasso's incurable idealism; +but, if in consequence he exposed himself less to the buffets of +disillusionment, he likewise lacked its sustaining and ennobling power. +Tasso used the pastoral machinery to idealize the court; Guarini accepted +the pastoral convention of the superiority of the 'natural' life of the +country, and used it as a means of pouring out his bitterness of soul. The +<i>Aminta</i>, it should be remembered, was written during a few weeks, months +at most, at a time when Tasso was comparatively fortunate and happy; the +<i>Pastor fido</i> was the ten years' labour of a retired and disappointed +courtier, whose later days were further embittered by domestic +misfortunes. In the same way as it was characteristic of Tasso's rosy view +that no law should be allowed to curb the purity of natural love in his +dream of the ideal age, so it was characteristic of the spirit of his +imitator to seek the ideal in the prudent love that strives towards no +distant star beyond the bounds of law. And the fact that Guarini saw fit +seriously to oppose a scholastic's moral figment to the poet's age of gold +may serve as a sufficient measure of the soul of the pedant.</p> + +<p>When Battista Guarini[<a href="#fn185">185</a>] entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara in +1567 he was already married and had attained the age of thirty, being +seven years older than Tasso. His duties at court were political, and he +was employed on several missions of a diplomatic character. There was no +reason whatever, beyond his own perverse ambition, why he should have come +into rivalry with Tasso, yet he did so both as a writer of verses and as a +hanger-on of court beauties. It is impossible to acquit him of bad taste +in the manner in which he and some at least of his fellow courtiers +treated the unfortunate poet, and there was certainly bad blood between +the two soon after the production of the <i>Aminta</i>, owing, probably, to the +ungenerous remarks passed by Guarini upon the author's indebtedness to +previous writers. After Tasso's confinement to S. Anna in 1579, Guarini +became court poet, and the luckless prisoner was condemned to see his own +poems entrusted to the editorial care of his rival.</p> + +<p>Guarini, however, was not satisfied with the court of Ferrara. His estate +was reduced by the expenses entailed by his missions as ambassador, for +which, like Machiavelli, he appears never to have received adequate +supplies, and by the continuous litigation in which he involved himself. +His political imagination, too, had been fired during a stay at Turin with +the possibilities inherent for Italy in the house of Savoy--an enthusiasm +which possibly did not tend to smooth his relations with his own master. +In 1582 he left Ferrara and the service of Alfonso and retired to his +ancestral estates of S. Bellino. Here he devoted himself to the +composition of the play he had lately taken in hand, which, in spite of +spasmodic returns to political life not only at the court of the Estensi +but also at Turin and Florence, forms thenceforward with its many +vicissitudes the central interest of his biography. He survived till 1612, +dying at the age of seventy-four.</p> + +<p>To do justice to the <i>Pastor fido</i> it would be best to give the story in +the form of a continuous narrative rather than an analysis of the actual +scenes, since the author's constructive power lay almost wholly in the +invention of an intricate plot and his weakness in the scenic rendering of +it. His dramatic methods, however, so far elaborated from the simplicity +of Tasso's, had a vast influence over subsequent work, and it is highly +important to obtain a clear idea of their nature. We shall, therefore, be +condemned to follow Guarini, part-way at least, through the stiff +artificiality of his interminable scenes.</p> + +<p>A complicated story which is narrated at length in the course of the play +explains the peculiar laws of Arcadia on which the plot hinges[<a href="#fn186">186</a>]. These +comprise an edict of Diana to the effect that any nymph found guilty of a +breach of faith shall suffer death at the altar unless some one offers to +die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and +twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought +to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Non avrà prima fin quel che v' offende, <br /> + Che duo semi del ciel congiunga amore; <br /> + E di donna infedel l' antico errore<br /> + L' alta pietà d' un pastor fido ammende.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The only two in Arcadia who fulfil the conditions of the oracle are +Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano, and Amarilli, daughter of +Titiro, who have in their veins the blood of Hercules and Pan. These two +have consequently been betrothed and, being now arrived at marriageable +age, their final union is imminent.</p> + +<p>At this point the play opens. Silvio cares for nothing but the chase, +regardless alike of his destined bride and of the love borne him by the +nymph Dorinda; Amarilli is seemingly heart-whole, but secretly loves her +suitor Mirtillo, a stranger in Arcadia, whom, however, she persists in +treating with coldness in view of the penalty involved by a breach of +faith. Mirtillo in his turn is loved by Corisca, a wanton nymph who has +learned the arts of the city, and who is pursued both by Coridone, to whom +she is formally engaged, but whom she neglects, and by a satyr. Almost +every character is provided with a confidant: Silvio has Linco; Mirtillo, +Ergasto; Dorinda, Lupino; Carino[<a href="#fn187">187</a>], the supposed father of Mirtillo, +has Uranio; Montano and Titiro act as confidants to one another. The only +case arguing any dramatic feeling is that in which Amarilli makes a +confidant of her rival Corisca; while Corisca and the satyr alone among +the more important characters are left to address the audience directly. +Even the confidants sometimes need confidants in their turn, these being +supplied by a conveniently ubiquitous chorus.</p> + +<p>In the first scene of Act I, after the prologue, in which Alfeo rises to +pay compliments to Carlo Emanuele and his bride, we are introduced to +Silvio and Linco, who are about to start in pursuit of a savage boar which +has been devastating the country. Linco taxes his companion with his +neglect of the softer joys of love, to which Silvio replies with +long-drawn praise of the free life of the woods. The scene is parallel to +the first of the <i>Aminta</i>, and the author has sought here and elsewhere to +point the contrast. Thus where Tasso wrote:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cangia, cangia consiglio, <br /> + Pazzerella che sei; <br /> + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova;</p></blockquote> + +<p>Guarini has:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Lascia, lascia le selve, <br /> + Folle garzon, lascia le fere, ed ama.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the next scene, again modelled on the corresponding one in Tasso's +play, we find Ergasto comforting Mirtillo in his despair at Amarilli's +'cruelty.' Mirtillo has but recently arrived in Arcadia, and is ignorant +of its history and customs, which Ergasto explains at length. The third +scene is devoted to a long monologue by Corisca; the fourth to a +conversation between Montano and Titiro, who discuss the oracles +concerning the approaching marriage and recount portentous dreams. A +monologue by the satyr relating his ill-usage at the hands of Corisca, +followed by a chorus, ends the first act. The next scene contains the +history of Mirtillo's passion as narrated to his confidant. Ergasto has +enlisted the services of Corisca, and the whole paraphernalia of love lead +in the next act to an interview between Mirtillo and Amarilli. The +author's dramatic method whereby he presents us with alternate scenes from +the various threads of the plot will by now be evident to the reader, and +the remainder may for clearness' sake be thrown into narrative form.</p> + +<p>Corisca, well knowing that it is impossible for Amarilli to show favour to +Mirtillo, and hoping to ingratiate herself with him, prevails upon the +nymph to grant her lover a hearing, provided the interview be secret and +short. During a game of blind man's buff the players suddenly retire, +leaving Mirtillo and Amarilli alone. The interview of course comes to +nothing, but as soon as Mirtillo has left her Amarilli relieves her +feelings in a monologue confessing her love, which is overheard by +Corisca[<a href="#fn188">188</a>]. Charged with her weakness, she confesses her dislike of the +marriage with Silvio. Hereupon Corisca conceives a plan for ridding +herself at once of her rival in Mirtillo's affections and of her own +affianced lover. She leads Amarilli to suppose that Silvio is faithless +to his betrothal vow. If Amarilli can prove Silvio guilty she will +herself be free, and she agrees to hide in a recess in a cave where +Corisca alleges that Silvio has an assignation. Next Corisca makes an +appointment to meet her lover Coridone in the same cave, intending that he +and Amarilli shall be surprised together. Finally, in order to obtain a +witness, she accuses Amarilli to Mirtillo of being faithless, and bids him +watch the mouth of the cave in which she alleges the nymph has an +assignation with Coridone. This ingenious plan would have succeeded to +perfection but for Mirtillo's precipitancy, for, seeing Amarilli enter the +cave, he at once concludes her guilt and follows her forthwith to wreak +revenge. At that moment the satyr appears and, misunderstanding some words +of Mirtillo's, proceeds to bar the entrance to the cave with a huge rock, +thinking he is imprisoning Mirtillo and Corisca. He then goes off to +inform the priests of the pollution committed so near their temple. These +enter the cave and apprehend the lovers. Amarilli is at once condemned to +death, but Mirtillo thereupon offers himself in her place and, being +accepted by the priests, is kept as a sacrifice, Amarilli being at the +same time closely guarded lest she should lay violent hands upon herself.</p> + +<p>In the meantime Silvio has been successful in his hunting of the boar, +whose head he brings home in triumph. There follows an echo-scene, one of +those toys which, as old as the Greek Anthology, and cultivated in Latin +by Tebaldeo, and in Italian by Poliziano, owed, not indeed their +introduction, but certainly their great popularity in pastoral, to +Guarini. His example is fairly successful. The echo predicts that the end +of Silvio's 'carelessness' is at hand, when he shall himself break his bow +and follow her who now follows him. The prophecy is quick of fulfilment. +With a jest he turns to go, when his eye falls on a grey object crouching +among the bushes. He supposes it to be a wolf, and looses an arrow at it. +It proves, however, to be Dorinda, who has throughout followed his chase +disguised in the rough wolf-skin coat of a herdsman, and who is now led +fainting on to the scene by Lupino. Silvio is overcome with remorse, and, +careless alike of his troth to Amarilli and of the fate of Arcadia, +declares that thenceforth he will love none but Dorinda, and will die +with her should his arrow prove fatal. They leave the stage for good--to +get healed and married.</p> + +<p>To return to the main plot. At sundown Mirtillo is led out to die, and the +sacrifice is about to be performed when his supposed father, an Arcadian +by birth, though he has long lived at Elis, and has just arrived in search +of his foster child, interposes. Explanations ensue, and it gradually +appears that Mirtillo is the eldest son of Montano, washed away in his +cradle by the floods of the Alpheus twenty years before. Thus in the love +between him and Amarilli, and in his voluntary sacrifice of himself in her +place, the oracle is fulfilled, and Arcadia freed from its maiden tribute. +This seems obvious enough, though it takes the inspiration of a blind +prophet to drive it into the heads of the assembled Arcadians. A final +difficulty remains--the broken troth. But it so happens that Mirtillo was +originally named Silvio, so that to 'Silvio' no faith is broken. A +casuistical reason indeed; but good enough for the purpose. No attempt is +made to clear Amarilli of the compromising evidence on which she had been +condemned, but the pair have the favour of the gods, and the chorus makes +no difficulty of chanting the virtue of the bride.</p> + +<p>Such is Guarini's play; a plot constructed with consummate ingenuity, but +presented with an almost entire lack of dramatic feeling. Almost the whole +of the action takes place off the stage. Silvio and Dorinda leave the +scene apparently for a tragic catastrophe; their subsequent union is only +reported; so is the surprisal of Mirtillo and Amarilli, the scene in which +the former offers himself as a sacrifice in her place, and their meeting +after the cloud of death has passed. The solitary scene revealing any real +dramatic power is that between Amarilli and the priest Nicandro, in which +the girl maintains her innocence. Her terror when confronted with death is +drawn with some delicacy and pathos, though we sadly miss those poignant +touches that the English playwrights seem always to have had at command on +similar occasions. Her fear of death, however, stands in powerful dramatic +contrast with the sudden courage she displays when her lover seeks to die +in her place. Guarini was perfectly aware of the value of this contrast, +for he placed the following lines in the mouth of the <i>messo</i> who reports +the scene:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or odi maraviglia. <br /> + Quella che fu pur dianzi<br /> + Sì dalla tema del morire oppressa, <br /> + Fatta allor di repente<br /> + A le parole di Mirtillo invitta, <br /> + Con intrepido cor così rispose: <br /> + 'Pensi dunque, Mirtillo, <br /> + Di dar col tuo morire<br /> + Vita a chi di te vive? <br /> + O miracolo ingiusto! Su, ministri; <br /> + Su, che si tarda? omai<br /> + Menatemi agli altari.' (V. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>And yet this dramatic contrast has been wantonly thrown away by the +substitution of narrative for representation, less for the sake of a blind +adherence to classical convention, as on account of the author's inability +honestly to face a powerful situation. The same dramatic incapacity shows +itself in his use of borrowings. It will be sufficient to mention the +sententious words from Ovid (<i>Amores</i>, I. viii. 43) placed in the mouth of +the chorus:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Dunque non si dirà donna pudica<br /> + Se non quella che mai<br /> + Non fu sollecitata; (IV. in.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>in order to compare them with the use made of the same by Webster when he +made Vittoria at her trial exclaim:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Casta est quam nemo rogavit!--</p></blockquote> + +<p>a comparison which at once reveals the gulf fixed between the clairvoyant +dramatist and the mere pedantic scholar.</p> + +<p>And yet the subsequent history of pastoral reminds us that it is quite +possible to underestimate Guarini's merits as a playwright. In the +construction of a complicated plot, apart from the dramatic presentation +thereof, he achieved a success not to be paralleled by any previous work +in Italy, for the difference in the titles of the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor +fido</i>, the one styled <i>favola</i> and the other <i>tragi-commedia</i>, indicates a +real distinction; and Guarini's proud claim to have invented a new +dramatic kind was not wholly unfounded[<a href="#fn189">189</a>]. It was this that caused +Symonds to speak of his play as 'sculptured in pure forms of classic +grace,' while describing the <i>Aminta</i> as 'perfumed and delicate like +flowers of spring.' And lastly, it was this more elaborately dramatic +quality that was responsible for the far greater influence exercised by +Guarini than by Tasso, both on the subsequent drama of Italy and still +more on the fortunes of the pastoral in England.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in Amarilli, Guarini created one really dramatic character and +devoted to it one really dramatic scene. His heroine is probably the best +character to be found in the whole of the pastoral drama, and this simply +because there is a reason for her coldness towards the lover, upon her +love to whom the plot depends. Unless love is to be mutual the motive +force of the drama fails, and consequently, when nymphs insist on parading +their inhuman superiority to the dictates of natural affection, they are +simply refusing to fulfil their dramatic <i>raison d'être</i>. With Amarilli it +is otherwise. She has the right to say:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ama l' onestà mia, s' amante sei; (III. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and there is a pathos in the words which the author may not have himself +fully understood; whereas the similar expression of Tasso's Silvia quoted +on a previous page is insufferable in its smug self-conceit.</p> + +<p>Of this quality of extravagant virginity noticed as a characteristic of +Tasso's play there is on the whole less in the <i>Pastor fido</i>. It is also +freer from the tone of cynical corruption and from improper suggestion. +These merits are, however, more than counterbalanced in the ethical scale +by the elaboration of the spirit of sentimental sensualism, which becomes +as it were an enveloping atmosphere, and lends an enervating seduction to +the piece. This spirit, already present in the <i>Aminta</i>, reappeared in an +emphasized form in the <i>Pastor fido</i>, and attained its height in the +following century in Marino's epic of <i>Adone</i>. We find it infusing the +scene of Mirtillo's first meeting with Amarilli, which may be said to set +the tone of the rest of the poem. Happening to see the nymph at the +Olympian games, Mirtillo at once fell in love and contrived to introduce +himself in female attire into the company of maidens to which she +belonged. Here, the proposal being made to hold a kissing match among +themselves, Amarilli was unanimously chosen judge, and, the contest over, +she awarded the prize to the disguised youth. The incident owes its +origin, as Guarini's notes point out, to the twelfth Idyl of Theocritus, +and the suggestion of the kissing match is aptly put into the mouth of a +girl from Megara, where an annual contest of kisses among the Greek youths +was actually held. Guarini, however, most probably borrowed the episode +from the fifth canto of Tasso's <i>Rinaldo</i>.</p> + +<p>The sentimental seductiveness of this and other scenes did not escape +sharp comment in some quarters within a few years of the publication of +the play. In 1605 Cardinal Bellarmino, meeting Guarini at Rome, told him +plainly that he had done as much harm to morals by his <i>Pastor fido</i> as by +their heresies Luther and Calvin had done to religion. Later Janus Nicius +Erythraeus, that is Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, in his <i>Pinacoteca</i>, compared +the play to a rock-infested sea full of seductive sirens, in which no +small number of girls and wives were said to have made shipwreck. It is at +first sight ratifier a severe indictment to bring against Guarini's play, +especially when we remember that a work of art is more often an index than +a cause of social corruption. After what has been said, however, of the +nature of the sentiment both in the <i>Pastor fido</i> and the <i>Aminta</i>, the +charge can hardly be dismissed as altogether unfounded. It is only fair to +add that very different views have been held with regard to the moral +aspect of the play, the theory of its essential healthiness finding an +eloquent advocate in Ugo Angelo Canello[<a href="#fn190">190</a>].</p> + +<p>Little as it became him, Guarini chose to adopt the attitude of a +guardian of morals, and Bellarmino's words clearly possessed a special +sting. This pose was in truth but a part of the general attitude he +assumed towards the author of the <i>Aminta</i>. His superficial propriety +authorized him, in his own eyes, to utter a formal censure upon the +amorous dream of the ideal poet. He paid the price of his unwarranted +conceit. Those passages in which he was at most pains to contrast his +ethical philosophy with Tasso's imaginative Utopia are those in which he +most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in +his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid +declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay +beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the <i>Pastor +fido</i> with Tasso's great ode; his sententious 'Piaccia se lice' with +Tasso's 'S' ei piace, ei lice'; his utterly banal</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Speriam: che 'l sol cadente anco rinasce;<br /> + E 'l ciel, quando men luce,<br /> + L' aspettato seren spesso n' adduce,</p></blockquote> + +<p>with Tasso's superb, even though borrowed, paganism:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce;<br /> + A noi sua breve luce<br /> + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--</p></blockquote> + +<p>when we make this comparison we have the spiritual measure of the man. A +similar comparison will give us his measure as a poet. Take the graceful +but over-elaborated picture:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Quell' augellin che canta<br /> + Sì dolcemente, e lascivetto vola<br /> + Or dall' abete al faggio, <br /> + Ed or dal faggio al mirto, <br /> + S' avesse umano spirto<br /> + Direbbe: 'Ardo d' amore, ardo d' amore!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Compare with this the spontaneous sketch of Tasso:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Odi quell' usignuolo<br /> + Che va di ramo in ramo<br /> + Cantando: 'Io amo, io amo!'[<a href="#fn191">191</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or again, with the irresistible slyness of the final chorus of the +<i>Aminta</i> already quoted compare the sententious lines with which Guarini +closed his play:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O fortunata coppia, <br /> + Che pianto ha seminato, e riso accoglie! <br /> + Con quante amare doglie<br /> + Hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi! <br /> + Quinci imparate voi, <br /> + O ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, <br /> + I sinceri diletti, e i veri mali. <br /> + Non è sana ogni gioia, <br /> + Nè mal ciò che v' annoia. <br /> + Quello è vero gioire, <br /> + Che nasce da virtù dopo il soffrire.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that we are listening in +the one case to a genuine poet of no common order, in the other to a +poetaster of considerable learning and great ingenuity, who elected to don +the outward habit of a somewhat hypocritical morality. The effect of the +contrast is further heightened when we remember that Guarini never for a +moment doubted that he had far surpassed the work of his predecessor.</p> + +<p>Guarini's comment on the <i>Aminta</i> in his letter to Speroni has been +already quoted: it does little credit to the writer. Manso, the companion +and biographer of Tasso, records that, the poet being asked by some +friends what he thought of the <i>Pastor fido</i>, a copy of which had lately +found its way to him at Naples:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + Et egli, 'Mi piace sopramodo, ma confesso di non saper la cagione perchè + mi piaccia.' Onde io rispondendogli, 'Vi piacerà per avventura,' + soggiunsi, 'quel che vi riconoscete del vostro.' Et egli replicò, 'Ne + può piacere il vedere il suo in man d' altri.'[<a href="#fn192">192</a>] +</p></blockquote> + +<p>Guarini would hardly have acknowledged his indebtedness to Tasso in the +way of art, but he drew on all sources for the incidents of his plot, and, +since he appears to have valued a reputation for scholarship above one for +originality, he recorded a fair proportion of his borrowings in his notes.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The <i>Pastor fido</i> was the talk of the Italian Courts even before it was +completed. Early in 1584 the heir to the duchy of Mantua, Vincenzo +Gonzaga, to whose intercession Tasso later owed his liberty, entreated +Guarini to let him have his already famous pastoral for the occasion of +his marriage with Eleonora de' Medici. The poet, however, found it +impossible to complete the work in time, and sent the <i>Idropica</i> instead. +In the autumn a projected representation of the now completed play came to +naught. The following year Guarini presented his play to the Duke of +Savoy, and received a gold chain as an acknowledgement. The occasion was +the entry into Turin of Carlo Emanuele and his bride, Catharine of +Austria, the marriage having taken place at Saragossa some time +previously. The dedication is recorded on the title-page of the first +edition in words that have not unnaturally been held to imply that the +play was performed on that occasion.[<a href="#fn193">193</a>] It is clear, however, from +contemporary documents that this is an error, and, though preparations +were made in view of a performance at the following carnival, these too +were abandoned. After this we find mention of preparations made at a +variety of places, but they never came to anything, and there is reason to +believe that some at least were abandoned owing to the opposition of +Alfonso d' Este, who never forgave a courtier who transferred his +allegiance to another prince. In 1591 Vincenzo Gonzaga, now duke, summoned +Guarini to Mantua, and matters advanced as far as a <i>prova generale</i> or +dress rehearsal. The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing +to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome. We possess the +scheme for the four <i>intermezzi</i> designed for this occasion, representing +the <i>Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell' Aria</i>, and <i>Celeste</i>. They were +scenic and musical only, without words. About this time too, that is after +the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of +preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which +is uncertain. The first representation of which there is definite +evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in +Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[<a href="#fn194">194</a>]. After this +performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the +play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua. On +all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were substituted +for that addressed to <i>gran Caterina</i> and <i>magnanimo Carlo</i>[<a href="#fn195">195</a>].</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the +publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism +of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a +member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the <i>Gerusalemme</i>. +Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and +recommendations of these two men. The work finally appeared, as we learn +from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589. It is a handsome +quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the +following year[<a href="#fn196">196</a>]. In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the title-page +to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti. This +represents Guarini's final revision of the text, and contains, besides a +portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on +tragi-comedy[<a href="#fn197">197</a>].</p> + +<p>The <i>Pastor fido</i> was the object of a violent attack while as yet it +circulated in manuscript only. As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores +or Denores, a Cypriot noble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the +university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing +between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in +which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced +tragi-comedies and pastorals as 'monstrous and disproportionate +compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil +philosophy.' Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving +to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the +reference was palpable. He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast +which he named <i>Il Verato</i> (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the +time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti's +<i>Sfortunato</i> in 1567. In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor's +propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism: 'As in compounds the +hot accords with the cold, its mortal enemy, as the dry humour with the +moist, so the elements of tragedy and comedy, though separately +antagonistic, yet when united in a third form,' <i>et cetera et cetera</i>. De +Nores replied in an <i>Apologia</i> (1590), disclaiming all personal allusion, +and the poet finally answered back in a <i>Verato secondo</i>, first published +in 1593, after his antagonist's death, restating his arguments and +seasoning them with a good deal of unmannerly abuse. These two treatises +of Guarini's were reprinted with alterations as the <i>Compendio della +poesia tragicommica</i>, in the 1602 edition of the play, and together with +the notes to the same edition form Guarini's own share of the +controversy[<a href="#fn198">198</a>]. But in 1600, before these had appeared, a Paduan, +Faustino Summo, published a set attack on and dissection of the play; +while a certain Giovan Pietro Malacreta of Vicenza illustrated the +attitude of the age with regard to literature by putting forward a series +of critical <i>dubbî</i>, that is, doubts as to the 'authority' of the form +employed. Both works are distinguished by a spirit of puerile cavil, which +would of itself almost suffice to reconcile us to the worst faults of the +poet. Thus Malacreta is not even content to let the author choose his own +title, arguing that Mirtillo was faithful not in his quality of shepherd +but of lover[<a href="#fn199">199</a>]. He goes on to complain of the tangle of laws and +oracles which Guarini invents in order to motive the action of his play; +and here, though taken individually his objections may be hypercritical, +he has laid his finger on a very real weakness of the author's ingenious +plot. It is, moreover, a weakness common to almost the whole tribe of the +Arcadian, or rather Utopian, pastorals. Apologists soon appeared, and had +little difficulty in disposing of most of the adverse criticisms. A +specific <i>Risposta</i> to Malacreta appeared at Padua in 1600 from the pen of +Paolo Beni. Defences by Giovanni Savio and Orlando Pescetti were printed +at Venice and Verona respectively in 1601, while one at least, written by +Gauges de Gozze of Pesaro, under the pseudonym of Fileno di Isauro, +circulated in manuscript. These writings, however, are marked either by +futile endeavours to reconcile the <i>Pastor fido</i> with the supposed +teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as +that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, +it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of +Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles[<a href="#fn200">200</a>]. Finally, Summo returned to the +charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in +1601[<a href="#fn201">201</a>]. But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the +popularity of the <i>Pastor fido</i> and its successors. Moreover, the critical +position of the combatants on both sides was essentially false. It would +be an easy task to fill a volume with strictures on the play touching its +sentimental tone, its affected manners, its stiff development, its +undramatic construction, the weak drawing of character, the lack of motive +force to move the complex machinery, and many other points--strictures +that should be unanswerable. But those who wish to understand the +influence exercised by the play over subsequent literature in Europe will +find their time better spent in analysing those qualities, whether +emotional or artistic, which won for it the enthusiastic worship of the +civilized world.</p> + +<p>Numerous translations bear witness to its popularity far beyond the shores +of Italy. The earliest of these was into French, and appeared in 1595; it +was followed by several others. The Spanish versions have already been +mentioned, and the English will occupy our attention shortly. Besides +these there are versions, often more than one, in German, Greek, Swedish, +Dutch, and Polish. There are likewise versions in the Bergamasc and +Neapolitan dialects, while the manuscript of a Latin translation is +preserved in the University Library at Cambridge.</p> +</div> + +<div class='section' id="ch03-5"> +<h3>V</h3> + + +<p>There were obvious advantages in treating the two masterpieces of pastoral +drama in Italy in close connexion with one another. It must not, however, +be supposed that they stood alone in the field of pastoral composition. +Both between the years 1573 when the <i>Aminta</i> was composed and 1590 when +the <i>Pastor fido</i> was printed, and also after the latter year, the stream +of plays continued unchecked, though, apart from a general tendency +towards greater regularity of dramatic construction, they do not form any +organic link in the chain of artistic development. Few deserve more than +passing notice. In the earlier ones, at least, we still find a tendency to +introduce extraneous elements. Thus <i>Gl' Intricati</i>, printed in 1581, and +acted a few years before at Zara, the work of Count Alvise, or, it would +appear, more correctly Luigi, Pasqualigo, contains a farcical and magical +part combined with some rather coarse jesting between two rogues, one +Spanish and one Bolognese, who speak in their respective dialects. Another +play in which a comic element appears is Bartolommeo Rossi's <i>Fiammella</i> +(1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical +characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another +piece belonging to this period is the <i>Pentimento amoroso</i> by Luigi Groto, +which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and +intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in +<i>sdrucciolo</i> verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, +Gabriele Zinano's <i>Caride</i>, surreptitiously printed in 1582, and included +in an authorized publication in 1590, has the peculiarity of placing the +prologue in the mouth of Vergil. Lastly, I may mention Angelo Ingegneri's +<i>Danza di Venere</i>, acted at Parma in 1583, and printed the following year. +It contains the incident of a mad shepherd's regaining his wits through +gazing on the beauty of a sleeping nymph, thus borrowing the motive of +Boccaccio's tale of Cymon and Iphigenia. Its chief interest for us, +however, lies in the episode of the hero employing a gang of satyrs to +carry off his beloved during a solemn dance in honour of Venus. This looks +like a reminiscence of Giraldi Cintio's <i>Egle</i>, and through it of the old +satyric drama[<a href="#fn202">202</a>].</p> + +<p>These plays all belong to the period between the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor +fido</i>. Tasso's and Guarini's masterpieces mark the point of furthest +development attained by the pastoral drama in Italy, or indeed in Europe. +With them the vitality which rendered evolution possible was spent, though +the power of reproduction remained unimpaired for close on a century. +Signor Rossi, in the monograph of which I have already made such free use, +mentions a number of plays, whose dependence on the <i>Pastor fido</i> is +evident from their titles, though Guarini's influence is, of course, far +more widely spread than such eclectic treatment reveals. The most curious, +perhaps, is a play, <i>I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed +Amarilli</i>, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children +of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a +genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance +that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of +supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso +and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding +proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that +influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino +possessed no less than eighty pastoral plays; while by 1700, the year of +Fontanini's work on the <i>Aminta</i>, Giannantonio Moraldi is said to hsve +brought together in Rome a collection of over two hundred.[<a href="#fn203">203</a>] Every +device was resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo +Noci's <i>Cintia</i> (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find +her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's <i>Finta +Fiammetta</i> (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courtship of +Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's +<i>Fida Armilla</i> (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous +serpent--all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and +romance. Two plays only call for closer attention, and this rather on +account of a certain reputation they have gained than of any intrinsic +merit. One of these, Antonio Ongaro's <i>Alceo</i>, which was printed in 1582 +and is therefore earlier than the <i>Pastor fido</i>, has been happily +nicknamed <i>Aminta bagnato</i>. It is a piscatorial adaptation of Tasso's +play, which it follows almost scene for scene. The satyr becomes a triton +with as little change of character as the nymphs and shepherds undergo in +their metamorphosis to fisher girls and boys. Alceo shows less +resourcefulness than his prototype in that he twice tries to commit +suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The last act is spun out to +three scenes in accordance with the demand for greater regularity of +dramatic construction, but gains nothing but tedium thereby. The other +play to be considered connects itself in plot rather with the <i>Pastor +fido</i>. It is the <i>Filli di Sciro</i>, the work of Guidubaldo Bonarelli della +Rovere. The poet's father enjoyed the protection of the Duke Guidubaldo II +of Urbino, but in after days he removed to the court of the Estensi at +Ferrara. It was here that the play appeared in 1607, though it is +dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, who had by that time succeeded +his father in the duchy of Urbino. The plot of the play is highly +intricate, and shows a tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous +element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the +island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is +replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract +two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely +wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with +both her rescuers at once, and it is only when one of them proves to be +her long-lost brother that she is able to make up her mind between +them[<a href="#fn204">204</a>]. This brother had been carried off as a child by the Thracians +together with his betrothed Filli, and having escaped was lately returned +to his native land. From a dramatic point of view the <i>dénoûment</i> is even +more preposterous than usual. The principal characters leave the stage at +the end of the fourth act, under sentence of death, and do not reappear, +the whole of the last act being occupied with narratives of their +subsequent fortunes. A point which is possibly worth notice is the +introduction of that affected talk on the technicalities of sheepcraft +which adds so greatly to the already intolerable artificiality of the +later pastoral drama, but which is happily absent from the work of Tasso +and Guarini.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>We have now reached the end of our survey of the Italian pastoral drama. +In spite of the space it has been necessary to devote to the subject, it +must be borne in mind that we have treated it from one point of view only. +Besides the interest which it possesses in connexion with the development +of pastoral tradition, it also plays a very important part in the history +of dramatic art, not in Italy alone, but over the whole of Europe. On this +aspect of the subject we have hardly so much as touched. Nor is this all. +If it is true, as is commonly assumed, that the opera had its birth in the +<i>Orfeo</i> of Angelo Poliziano, it is not less true that it found its cradle +in the Arcadian drama. A few isolated pieces may still be able to charm us +by their poetic beauty. In dealing with the rest it must never be +forgotten that without the costly scenery and elaborate musical setting +that lent body and soul to them in their day, we have what is little +better than the dry bones of these <i>ephemeridae</i> of courtly art.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> +<h2>Chapter IV.</h2> + +<h3>Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch04-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of +this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the +growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the +seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a +connected web the loose threads of my discourse.</p> + +<p>Taking birth among the upland meadows of Sicily, the pastoral tradition +first assumed its conventional garb in imperial Rome, and this it +preserved among learned writers after its revival in the dawn of the +Italian renaissance. With Arcadia for its local habitation it underwent a +rebirth in the opening years of the sixteenth century in Sannazzaro's +romance, and again towards the close in the drama of Tasso. It became +chivalric in Spain and courtly in France, and finally reached this country +in three main streams, the eclogue borrowed by Spenser from Marot, the +romance suggested to Sidney by Montemayor, and the drama imitated by +Daniel from Tasso and Guarini. Once here, it blended variously with other +influences and with native tradition to produce a body of dramatic work, +which, ill-defined, spasmodic and occasional, nevertheless reveals on +inspection a certain character of its own, and one moreover not precisely +to be paralleled from the literary annals of any other European nation.</p> + +<p>The indications of a native pastoral impulse, manifesting itself in the +burlesque of the religions drama and the romance of the popular ballads, +we have already considered. The connexion which it is possible to trace +between this undefined impulse and the later pastoral tradition is in no +wise literary; in so far as it exists at all and is one of temperament +alone, a bent of national character. In tracing the rise of the form in +Italy upon the one hand, and in England upon the other, we are struck by +certain curious contrasts and also by certain curious parallelisms. The +closest analogy to the ballad themes to be discovered in the literature of +Italy is in certain of the songs of Sacchetti and his contemporaries, but +it would be unwise to insist on the resemblance. The more suggestive +parallel of the <i>novelle</i> has to be ruled out on the score of form, and is +further differentiated by the notable lack in them of romantic spirit. +Again, in the <i>sacre rappresentazioni</i>, the burlesque interpolations from +actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through +it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the +rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a +direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, +a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct +imitation,[<a href="#fn205">205</a>] must be taken to indicate a real parallelism in the +evolution of the tradition in the two countries, that in England as in +Italy the way was paved for pastoral by the appearance of mythological +plays, introducing incidentally pastoral scenes and characters, and +anticipating to some extent at any rate the peculiar atmosphere of the +Arcadian drama.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The earliest of these English mythological plays, alike in date of +production and of publication, was George Peele's <i>Arraignment of Paris</i>, +'A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Majestie, by the children of +her Chappell,' no doubt in 1581, and printed three years later.[<a href="#fn206">206</a>] It +partakes of the nature of the masque in that the whole composition centres +round a compliment to the Queen, Eliza or Zabeta--a name which, as Dr. +Ward notes, Peele probably borrowed along with one or two other hints from +Gascoigne's Kenilworth entertainment of 1575. The title sufficiently +expresses its mythological character, and the precise value of the term +'pastoral' on the title-page is difficult to determine. The characters are +for the most part either mythological or rustic; the only truly pastoral +ones being Paris and Oenone, whose parts, however, in so far as they are +pastoral, are also of the slightest. It is of course impossible to say +exactly to what extent the fame of the Italian pastoral drama may have +penetrated to England--the <i>Aminta</i> was first printed the year of the +production of Peele's play, and waited a decade before the first English +translation and the first English edition appeared[<a href="#fn207">207</a>]--but no influence +of Tasso's masterpiece can be detected in the <i>Arraignment</i>; still less is +it possible to trace any acquaintance with Poliziano's work.</p> + +<p>After a prologue, in which Atè foretells in staid and measured but not +unpleasing blank verse the fall of Troy, the silvan deities, Pan, Faunus, +Silvanus, Pomona, Flora, enter to welcome the three goddesses who are on +their way to visit 'Ida hills,' and who after a while enter, led by Rhanis +and accompanied by the Muses, whose processional chant heralds their +approach. They are greeted by Pan, who sings:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The God of Shepherds, and his mates, <br /> + With country cheer salutes your states, <br /> + Fair, wise, and worthy as you be, <br /> + And thank the gracions ladies three<br /> + For honour done to Ida.</p></blockquote> + +<p>When these have retired from the stage there follows a charming idyllic +scene between the lovers Paris and Oenone, which contains the delightful +old song, one of the lyric pearls of the Elizabethan drama:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Oenone.</i> Fair and fair, and twice so fair,<br /> + As fair as any may be;<br /> + The fairest shepherd on our green,<br /> + A love for any lady.</p> + +<p> <i>Paris.</i> Fair and fair, and twice so fair,<br /> + As fair as any may be;<br /> + Thy love is fair for thee alone,<br /> + And for no other lady.</p> + +<p> <i>Oenone.</i> My love is fair, my love is gay,<br /> + As fresh as bin the flowers in May,<br /> + And of my love my roundelay,<br /> + My merry, merry, merry roundelay,<br /> + Concludes with Cupid's curse--<br /> + They that do change old love for new,<br /> + Pray gods they change for worse!</p> + +<p> <i>Both.</i> They that do change old love for new,<br /> + Pray gods they change for worse!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The second act presents us the three goddesses who have come to Ida on a +party of pleasure with no very definite object in view, and are now +engaged in exercising their tongues at one another's expense. The scene +consists of a cross-fire of feminine amenities, not of the most delicate, +it is true, and therefore not here to be reproduced, yet of a keenness of +temper and a ringing mastery in the rimed verse little less than brilliant +in themselves, and little less than a portent at the date of their +appearance. Then a storm arises, during which, the goddesses having sought +refuge in Diana's bower, Atè rolls the fatal ball upon the stage. On the +return of the three the inscription <i>Detur pulcherrimae</i> breeds fresh +strife, until they agree to submit the case for judgement to the next man +they meet. Paris arriving upon the scene at this point is at once called +upon to decide the rival claims of the contending goddesses. First Juno +promises wealth and empery, and presents a tree hung as with fruit with +crowns and diadems, all which shall be the meed of the partial judge. +Pallas next seeks to allure the swain with the pomp and circumstance of +war, and conjures up a show in which nine knights, no doubt the nine +worthies, tread a 'warlike almain.' Last Venus speaks:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Come, shepherd, come, sweet shepherd, look on me, <br /> + These bene too hot alarums these for thee: <br /> + But if thou wilt give me the golden ball, <br /> + Cupid my boy shall ha't to play withal, <br /> + That whenso'er this apple he shall see, <br /> + The God of Love himself shall think on thee, <br /> + And bid thee look and choose, and he will wound<br /> + Whereso thy fancy's object shall be found.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Whereupon 'Helen entereth in her bravery' attended by four Cupids, and +singing an Italian song which has, however, little merit. As at a later +day Faustus, so now Paris bows before the sovereignty of her beauty, and +then wanders off through Ida glades in the company of the victorious queen +of love, leaving her outraged rivals to plot a common revenge. Act III +introduces the slight rustic element. Hobbinol, Diggon, and Thenot enter +to Colin, who is lamenting the cruelty of his love Thestylis. The names +are obviously borrowed from the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>, but while Colin is +still the type of the hopeless lover, there is no necessity to suspect any +personal identification. The <i>Arraignment</i> was probably produced less than +two years after the publication of Spenser's eclogues, and Peele, who was +an Oxford man, may even have been ignorant of their authorship[<a href="#fn208">208</a>]. Still +more unnecessary are certain other identifications between characters in +the play and persons at court which have been propounded. Such +identifications, at any rate, have no importance for our present task, +which is to ascertain in what measure and in what manner Peele's work +paved the way for the advent of the Italian pastoral; and we note, with +regard to the present scene, that the more polished and more homely +elements alike--both Colin on the one hand, and Diggon, Hobbinol, and the +rest on the other--are inspired by Spenser's work, and by his alone. +Meanwhile Oenone enters, lamenting her desertion by Paris. There is +delicate pathos in the reminiscence of her former song which haunts the +outpouring of her grief--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one, <br /> + To range and change old loves for new; but now those days be gone.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She is less happy in a set lament, beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs,</p></blockquote> + +<p>in which we may perhaps catch a distant echo of Spenser's:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Melpomene, the mournfull'st Muse of nine.</p></blockquote> + +<p>As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris +to appear at Juno's suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of +partiality in judgement. A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, +in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the +unsuspecting nymph--it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the +lover's duet.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Mercury.</i> Is love to blame?</p> + +<p> <i>Oenone.</i> The queen of love hath made him false his troth.</p> + +<p> <i>Mer.</i> Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love?</p> + +<p> <i>Oen.</i> Even wanton Cupid's dame.</p> + +<p> <i>Mer.</i> Why, was thy love so lovely, then?</p> + +<p> <i>Oen.</i> His beauty height his shame;<br /> + The fairest shepherd on our green.</p> + +<p> <i>Mer.</i> Is he a shepherd, than?</p> + +<p> <i>Oen.</i> And sometime kept a bleating flock.</p> + +<p> <i>Mer.</i> Enough, this is the man.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together. First the goddess +directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, 'The love whom +Thestylis hath slain,' as the epitaph of the now dead Colin. When these +have left the stage she turns to Paris:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love?</p> + +<p> <i>Paris.</i> Lady, a little once.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which +is a good example of Peele's use of the old rimed versification, and as +such deserves quotation.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry,<br /> + That haply erst thou hast not heard: in hell there is a tree,<br /> + Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers,<br /> + With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers<br /> + Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat<br /> + Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat.<br /> + This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell<br /> + T'impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well:<br /> + And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee,<br /> + Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee;<br /> + For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start,<br /> + Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart.</p> + +<p> <i>Paris.</i> Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity?</p> + +<p> <i>Venus.</i> Pity it were that love should not be linkèd with indifferency.[<a href="#fn209">209</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then follow Colin's funeral, the punishment of the hard-hearted Thestylis, +condemned to love a 'foul crooked churl' who 'crabbedly refuseth her,' +and the scene in which Mercury summons Paris before the Olympian tribunal. +Here we find him in the next act. The gods being seated in the bower of +Diana, Juno and Pallas, and Venus and Paris appear 'on sides' before the +throne of Jove, and in answer to his indictment the shepherd of Ida +delivers a spirited speech. Again the verse is of no small merit. +Defending himself from the charge of partiality in the bestowal of the +prize, he argues:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Had it been destinèd to majesty--<br /> + Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace--<br /> + Then stately Juno might have borne the ball. <br /> + Had it to wisdom been intitulèd, <br /> + My human wit had given it Pallas then. <br /> + But sith unto the fairest of the three<br /> + That power, that threw it for my farther ill, <br /> + Did dedicate this ball--and safest durst<br /> + My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought, <br /> + To judge of form and beauty rather than<br /> + Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness--...<br /> + Behold, to Venus Paris gave the fruit, <br /> + A daysman[<a href="#fn210">210</a>] chosen there by full consent, <br /> + And heavenly powers should not repent their deeds.</p></blockquote> + +<p>After consultation the gods decide to dismiss the prisoner, though we +gather that he is not wholly acquitted.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Jupiter.</i> Shepherd, thou hast been heard with equity and law, <br /> + And for thy stars do thee to other calling draw, <br /> + We here dismiss thee hence, by order of our senate; <br /> + Go take thy way to Troy, and there abide thy fate.</p> + +<p> <i>Venus.</i> Sweet shepherd, with such luck in love, while thou dost live, <br /> + As may the Queen of Love to any lover give.</p> + +<p> <i>Paris.</i> My luck is loss, howe'er my love do speed: <br /> + I fear me Paris shall but rue his deed.</p> + +<p> <i>Apollo.</i> From Ida woods now wends the shepherd's boy, <br /> + That in his bosom carries fire to Troy.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This, however, does not settle the case, and the final adjudication of the +apple of beauty is entrusted by the gods to Diana, since it was in her +grove that it was found. Parting company with classical legend in the +incident which gives its title to the play, Peele further adds a fifth +act, in which he contrives to make the world-famous history subserve the +courtly ends of the masque. When the rival claimants have solemnly sworn +to abide by the decision of their compeer, Diana begins:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It is enough; and, goddesses, attend. <br /> + There wons within these pleasaunt shady woods, <br /> + Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature<br /> + Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold, ... <br /> + Far from disturbance of our country gods, <br /> + Amid the cypress springs[<a href="#fn211">211</a>], a gracions nymph, <br /> + That honours Dian for her chastity, <br /> + And likes the labours well of Phoebe's groves; <br /> + The place Elizium hight, and of the place<br /> + Her name that governs there Eliza is, <br /> + A kingdom that may well compare with mine, <br /> + An auncient seat of kings, a second Troy, <br /> + Y-compass'd round with a commodious sea.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The rest may be easily imagined. The contending divinities resign their +claims:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Venus.</i> To this fair nymph, not earthly, but divine, <br /> + Contents it me my honour to resign.</p> + +<p> <i>Pallas.</i> To this fair queen, so beautiful and wise, <br /> + Pallas bequeaths her title in the prize.</p> + +<p> <i>Juno.</i> To her whom Juno's looks so well become, + The Queen of Heaven yields at Phoebe's doom.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The three Fates now enter, and singing a Latin song lay their 'properties' +at the feet of the queen. Then each in turn delivers a speech appropriate +to her character, and finally Diana 'delivereth the ball of gold into the +Queen's own hands,' and the play ends with a couple of doggerel hexameters +chanted by way of epilogue by the assembled actors:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Vive diu felix votis hominumque deumque, <br /> + Corpore, mente, libro, doctissima, candida, casta.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The jingle of these lines would alone suffice to prove that Peele's ear +was none of the most delicate, and he particularly sins in disregarding +the accent in the rime-word, a peculiarity which may have been noticed +even in the short passages quoted above. Nevertheless, even apart from its +lyrics, one of which is in its way unsurpassed, the play contains passages +of real grace in the versification. The greater part is written either in +fourteeners or in decasyllabic couplets with occasional alexandrines, in +both of which the author displays an ease and mastery which, to say the +least, were uncommon in the dramatic work of the early eighties; while the +passages of blank verse introduced at important dramatic points, notably +in Paris' defence and in Diana's speech, are the best of their kind +between Surrey and Marlowe. The style, though now and again clumsy, is in +general free from affectation except for an occasional weakness in the +shape of a play upon words. Such is the connexion of Eliza with Elizium, +in a passage already quoted, and the time-honoured <i>non Angli sed +angeli</i>--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Her people are y-clepèd Angeli, <br /> + Or, if I miss, a letter is the most--</p></blockquote> + +<p>occurring a few lines later; also the words of Lachesis:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Et tibi, non aliis, didicerunt parcere Parcae.</p></blockquote> + +<p>With regard to the general construction of the piece it is hardly too much +to say that the skill with which the author has enlarged a masque-subject +into a regular drama, altered a classical legend to subserve a particular +aim, and conducted throughout the multiple perhaps rather than complex +threads of his plot, mark him out as pre-eminent among his contemporaries. +We must not, it is true, look for perfect balance of construction, for +adequacy of dramatic climax, or for subtle characterization; but what has +been achieved was, in the stage of development at which the drama had then +arrived, no mean achievement. The dramatic effects are carefully prepared +for and led up to, reminding us almost at times of the recurrence of a +musical motive. Thus the song between Paris and Oenone, just before the +shepherd goes off to cross Dame Venus' path, is a fine piece of dramatic +irony as well as a charming lyric; while the effect of the reminiscences +of the song scattered through the later pastoral scenes has been already +noticed. Another instance is Venus' warning of the pains in store for +faithless lovers, which fittingly anticipates the words with which Paris +leaves the assembly of the gods. Again, we find a conscious preparation +for the contention between the goddesses in their previous bickerings, and +a conscious juxtaposition of the forsaken Oenone and the love-lorn Colin. +Lastly, there are scattered throughout the play not a few graphic touches, +as when Mercury at sight of Oenone exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Dare wage my wings the lass doth love, she looks so bleak and thin!</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such then is Peele's mythological play, presented in all the state of a +court revel before her majesty by the children of the Chapel Royal, a play +which it is more correct to say prepared the ground for than, as is +usually asserted, itself contained the germ of the later pastoral drama. +In spite of the care bestowed upon its composition, the <i>Arraignment of +Paris</i> remains a slight and occasional production; but it nevertheless +claims its place as one of the most graceful pieces of its kind, and the +ascription of the play to Shakespeare, current in the later seventeenth +century, is perhaps more of an honour to the elder than of an insult to +the younger poet. Nor, at a more recent date, was Lamb uncritically +enthusiastic when he said of Peele's play that 'had it been in all parts +equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in +this sort of Writing.'</p> + +<p>Before leaving Peele, mention must be made of one other play from his pen, +namely the <i>Hunting of Cupid</i>, known to us unfortunately from a few +fragments only. This is the more tantalizing on account of the freshness +of the passages preserved in <i>England's Helicon</i> and <i>England's +Parnassus</i>, and in a commonplace-book belonging to Drummond of +Hawthornden, and also from the fact that there is good reason to suppose +that the work was actually printed[<a href="#fn212">212</a>]. So far as can be judged from the +extracts we possess, and from Drummond's jottings, it appears to have been +a tissue of mythological conceits, much after the manner of the +<i>Arraignment</i>, though possibly somewhat more distinctly pastoral in +tone[<a href="#fn213">213</a>].</p> + +<p>About contemporary with the <i>Arraignment of Paris</i> are the earliest plays +of John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of these are of a mythological character, +while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their +pastoral tendency, namely, <i>Gallathea, Love's Metamorphosis</i>, and the +<i>Woman in the Moon</i>[<a href="#fn214">214</a>].</p> + +<p>Although Lyly's romance itself lay outside the scope of this inquiry, we +have already had, in the pastoral work of his imitators, ample +opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of the style +he rendered fashionable. Its laborious affectation is all the more +irritating when we remember that its author, on turning his attention to +the more or less unseemly brawling of the Martin Mar-prelate pasquilade, +revealed a command of effective vernacular hardly, if at all, inferior to +that of his friend Nashe; and its complex artificiality becomes but more +apparent when applied to dramatic work. Nevertheless in an age when prose +style was in an even more chaotic state than prosody, Euphuism could claim +qualities of no small value and importance, while as an experiment it was +no more absurd, and vastly more popular, than those in classical +versification. Its qualities, when we consider the general state of +contemporary literature, may well account for the popularity of Lyly's +attempt at novel-writing, but the style was radically unsuited for +dramatic composition, and the result is for the most part hardly to be +tolerated, and can only have met with such court-favour as fell to its +lot, owing to the general fashion for which its success in the romance was +responsible. It is indeed noteworthy that Lyly is the only writer who ever +ventured to apply his literary invention <i>in toto</i> to the uses of the +stage, while even in the romance he lived to see Euphuism as a fashionable +style pale before the growing popularity of Arcadianism[<a href="#fn215">215</a>]. The opening +of <i>Gallathea</i> may supply a specimen of the style as it appears in the +dramas; the scene is laid in Lincolnshire, and Tyterus is addressing his +daughter who gives her name to the piece:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + In tymes past, where thou seest a heape of small pyble, stoode a stately + Temple of white Marble, which was dedicated to the God of the Sea, (and + in right being so neere the Sea): hether came all such as eyther + ventured by long travell to see Countries, or by great traffique to use + merchandise, offering Sacrifice by fire, to gette safety by water; + yeelding thanks for perrils past, and making prayers for good successe + to come: but Fortune, constant in nothing but inconstancie, did change + her copie, as the people their custome; for the Land being oppressed by + Danes, who in steed of sacrifice, committed sacrilidge, in steede of + religion, rebellion, and made a pray of that in which they should have + made theyr prayers, tearing downe the Temple even with the earth, being + almost equall with the skyes, enraged so the God who bindes the windes + in the hollowes of the earth, that he caused the Seas to breake their + bounds, sith men had broke their vowes, and to swell as farre above + theyr reach, as men had swarved beyond theyr reason: then might you see + shippes sayle where sheepe fedde, ankers cast where ploughes goe, + fishermen throw theyr nets, where husbandmen sowe their Corne, and + fishes throw their scales where fowles doe breede theyr quils: then + might you gather froth where nowe is dewe, rotten weedes for sweete + roses, and take viewe of monstrous Maremaides, in steed of passing faire + Maydes. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The unsuitability of the style for dramatic purposes will by this be +somewhat painfully evident, and, as may be imagined, the effect is even +less happy in the case of dialogue. To pursue: the offended deity consents +to withdraw his waters on the condition of a lustral sacrifice of the +fairest virgin of the land, who is to be exposed bound to a tree by the +shore, whence she is carried off by the monster Agar, in whom we may no +doubt see a personification of the 'eagre' or tidal wave of the Humber. At +the opening of the play we find the two fairest virgins of the land +disguised as boys by their respective fathers, in order that they may +escape the penalty of beauty. While they wander the fields and graves, +another maiden is exposed as the sacrifice, but Neptune, offended by the +deceit, rejects the proffered victim, and no monster appears to claim its +prey. In the meanwhile, Cupid has eluded the maternal vigilance, and, +disguised as a nymph, is beginning to display his powers among the +followers of Diana. Here is an example of a euphuistic dialogue. Cupid +accosts one of the nymphs:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Faire Nimphe, are you strayed from your companie by chaunce, or love + you to wander solitarily on purpose?</p> + +<p> <i>Nymph.</i> Faire boy, or god, or what ever you bee, I would you knew + these woods are to me so wel known, that I cannot stray though I would, + and my minde so free, that to be melancholy I have no cause. There is + none of Dianaes trayne that any can traine, either out of their waie, or out + of their wits.</p> + +<p> <i>Cupid.</i> What is that Diana? a goddesse? what her Nimphes? + virgins? what her pastimes? hunting?</p> + +<p> <i>Nym.</i> A goddesse? who knowes it not? Virgins? who thinkes it not? + Hunting? who loves it not?</p> + +<p> <i>Cup.</i> I pray thee, sweete wench, amongst all your sweete troope, is + there not one that followeth the sweetest thing, sweet love?</p> + +<p> <i>Nym.</i> Love, good sir, what meane you by it? or what doe you call it?</p> + +<p> <i>Cup.</i> A heate full of coldnesse, a sweet full of bitternesse, a paine ful + of pleasantnesse; which maketh thoughts have eyes, and harts eares; + bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jelousie, kild by dissembling, + buried by ingratitude; and this is love! fayre Lady, wil you any?</p> + +<p> <i>Nym.</i> If it be nothing else, it is but a foolish thing.</p> + +<p> <i>Cup.</i> Try, and you shall find it a prettie thing.</p> + +<p> <i>Nym.</i> I have neither will nor leysure, but I will followe Diana in the + Chace, whose virgins are all chast, delighting in the bowe that wounds + the swift Hart in the Forrest, not fearing the bowe that strikes the softe + hart in the Chamber.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The nymphs are soon in love with the two girls in disguise, and what is +more, each of these, supposing the other to be what her apparel betokens, +falls in love with her. After a while, however, Diana becomes suspicious +of the stranger nymph, and her followers make a capture of the boy-god, +whom they identify by the burn on his shoulder caused by Psyche's lamp, +and set him to untie love-knots. There follows one of those charming songs +for which Lyly is justly, or unjustly, famous[<a href="#fn216">216</a>].</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O Yes, O yes, if any Maid, <br /> + Whom lering Cupid has betraid<br /> + To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne, <br /> + And would in madnes now see torne<br /> + The Boy in Pieces--Let her come<br /> + Hither, and lay on him her doome.</p> + +<p> O yes, O yes, has any lost<br /> + A Heart, which many a sigh hath cost; <br /> + Is any cozened of a teare, <br /> + Which (as a Pearle) disdaine does weare?-- <br /> + Here stands the Thiefe, let her but come<br /> + Hither, and lay on him her doome.</p> + +<p> Is any one undone by fire, <br /> + And Turn'd to ashes through desire? <br /> + Did ever any Lady weepe, <br /> + Being cheated of her golden sleepe, <br /> + Stolne by sicke thoughts?--The pirats found, <br /> + And in her teares hee shalbe drownd. <br /> + Reade his Inditement, let him heare<br /> + What hees to trust to: Boy, give eare!</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is the position of affairs when Venus appears in search of her +wanton, and is shortly followed by the irate Neptune. After some +disputing, Neptune, to quiet the strife between the goddesses, proposes +that Diana shall restore the runaway to his mother, in return for which he +will release the land for ever from its virgin tribute. This happily +agreed upon, the only difficulty remaining is the strange passion between +the two girls. Venus, however, proves equal to the occasion, and solves +the situation by transforming one of them into a man. An allusion to the +story of Iphis and Ianthe told in the ninth book of the <i>Metamorphoses</i> +suggests the source of the incident[<a href="#fn217">217</a>]. Otherwise the play appears to be +in the main original. The exposing of a maiden to the rage of a +sea-monster has been, of course, no novelty since the days of Andromeda, +but it is unnecessary to seek a more immediate source[<a href="#fn218">218</a>]; while the +intrusion of Cupid in disguise among the nymphs was doubtless suggested by +the well-known idyl of Moschus, and probably owes to this community of +source such resemblance as it possesses to the prologue of the <i>Aminta</i>. +A comic element is supplied by a sort of young rascals, and a mariner, an +alchemist, and an astrologer, who are totally unconnected with the rest of +the play. The supposed allusions to real characters need not be taken +seriously. Lyly's rascals are generally recognized as the direct ancestors +of some of Shakespeare's comic characters, and we not seldom find in them +the germ at least of the later poet's irresistible fun. Take such a speech +as Robin's: 'Why be they deade that be drownd? I had thought they had +beene with the fish, and so by chance beene caught up with them in a Nette +againe. It were a shame a little cold water should kill a man of reason, +when you shall see a poore Mynow lie in it, that hath no understanding.' +As regards the euphuistic style, the passages already quoted will suffice, +but it may be remarked that the marvellous natural history is also put +under requisition. 'Virgins harts, I perceive,' remarks one of Diana's +nymphs, 'are not unlike Cotton trees, whose fruite is so hard in the +budde, that it soundeth like steele, and beeing rype, poureth forth +nothing but wooll, and theyr thoughts, like the leaves of Lunary, which +the further they growe from the Sunne, the sooner they are scorched with +his beames.' At times one is almost tempted to imagine that Lyly is +laughing in his sleeve, but as soon as he feels an eye upon him, his face +would again do credit to a judge. The following is from a scene between +the two disguised maidens:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Phillida.</i> It is pitty that Nature framed you not a woman, having + a face so faire, so lovely a countenaunce, so modest a behaviour.</p> + +<p> <i>Gallathea.</i> There is a Tree in Tylos, whose nuttes have shels like fire, + and being cracked, the karnell is but water.</p> + +<p> <i>Phil.</i> What a toy is it to tell mee of that tree, beeing nothing to the purpose: + I say it is pity you are not a woman.</p> + +<p> <i>Gall.</i> I would not wish to be a woman, unless it were because thou art + a man. (III. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p><i>Gallathea</i> may be plausibly enough assigned to the year 1584[<a href="#fn219">219</a>]. The +date of the next play we have to deal with, <i>Love's Metamorphosis</i>, is +less certain, though Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1588-9 seems reasonable. +All that can be said with confidence is that it was later than +<i>Gallathea</i>, to which it contains allusions, that it is an inferior work, +and that it has the appearance at least of having been botched up in a +hurry[<a href="#fn220">220</a>]. The story is as follows. Three shepherds, or rather woodmen, +are in love with three of the nymphs of Ceres, but meet with little +success, one of the maidens proving obdurate, another proud, and the third +fickle. The lovers make complaint to Cupid, who consents at their request +to transform the disdainful fair ones into a rock, a rose, and a bird +respectively. Hereupon Ceres in her turn complains to the God of Love, who +promises that the three shall regain their proper shapes if Ceres will +undertake that they shall thereupon consent to the love of the swains. She +does so, and her nymphs are duly restored to their own forms, but at first +flatly refuse to comply with the conditions. After a while they yield:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Nisa.</i> I am content, so as Ramis, when hee finds me cold in love, or + hard in beliefe, hee attribute it to his owne folly; in that I retaine some + nature of the Rocke he chaunged me into.... + + <i>Celia.</i> I consent, so as Montanus, when in the midst of his sweete + delight, shall find some bitter overthwarts, impute it to his folly, in that + he suffered me to be a Rose, that hath prickles with her pleasantnes, as + hee is like to have with my love shrewdnes.... + + <i>Niobe.</i> I yeelded first in mind though it bee my course last to speake: + but if Silvestris find me not ever at home, let him curse himselfe that gave + me wings to flie abroad, whose feathers if his jealousie shall breake, my + policie shall imp.[<a href="#fn221">221</a>] (V. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>This plot, at once elementary and violent, is combined with the fantastic +story of Erisichthon, 'a churlish husband-man,' who in the nymphs' despite +cuts down the sacred tree of Ceres, into which the chaste Fidelia had +been transformed. For this offence the goddess dooms him to the plague of +hunger. The ghastly description of this monster, who may be compared with +Browne's Limos, was probably suggested by some similar descriptions in the +<i>Faery Queen</i> (I. iv. and III. xii). Erisichthon is put to all manner of +shifts to satisfy the hunger with which he is ever consumed, and is at +last forced to sell his daughter Protea to a merchant, in order to keep +himself alive. Protea, it appears, was at one time the paramour of +Neptune, who now in answer to her prayer comes to her aid in such a way +that, when about to embark on the vessel of her purchaser, she justifies +her name by changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded +merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart +without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being +tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and +comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore--the scene being +laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her +disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time to warn her lover of his +danger. Finally, at Cupid's intercession her father is relieved of his +affliction by the now appeased goddess. This plot is even more crudely +distinct from the principal action of the play than is usual with +Lyly[<a href="#fn222">222</a>].</p> + +<p>It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the +nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in +<i>Gallathea</i>; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical +conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the +<i>Woman in the Moon</i>. It would almost seem as though his experience of the +inconstancy of the royal sunshine had made Lyly a less enthusiastic +devotee of womanhood in general and of virginity in particular, and that +with an unadvised frankness which may well account for his disappointments +at court, he failed to conceal his feelings. The play is likewise +distinguished from the other dramatic works of its author by being +composed almost entirely in blank verse. Certain lines of the prologue--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Remember all is but a Poets dreame, <br /> + The first he had in Phoebus holy bowre,<br /> + But not the last, unlesse the first displease--</p></blockquote> + +<p>have not unnaturally been taken to mean that the piece was the first +venture of the author; but on investigation this will be seen to be +impossible, since the constant reminiscence of Marlowe in the construction +of the verse points to 1588 or at earliest to 1587 as the date. Mr. +Fleay's suggestion of 1589-90 may be accepted as the earliest likely +date[<a href="#fn223">223</a>]. To my mind it would need external proof of an unusually cogent +description to render plausible the theory that the year, say, of the +<i>Shepherd's Calender</i> saw the appearance of such lines as:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> What lack I now but an imperiall throne[<a href="#fn224">224</a>], <br /> + And Ariadnaes star-lyght Diadem? (II. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O Stesias, what a heavenly love hast thou! <br /> + A love as chaste as is Apolloes tree, <br /> + As modest as a vestall Virgins eye, <br /> + And yet as bright as Glow wormes in the night, <br /> + With which the morning decks her lovers hayre; (IV. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or yet again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When will the sun go downe? flye Phoebus flye! + O, that thy steeds were wingd with my swift thoughts: + Now shouldst thou fall in Thetis azure armes[<a href="#fn225">225</a>], + And now would I fall in Pandoraes lap. (IV. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Nor are these isolated passages; from the opening lines of the prologue to +the final speech of Nature the verse has the appearance of being the work +of a graceful if not very strong hand writing in imitation of Marlowe's +early style. We must, therefore, it seems to me, take the words of the +prologue as signifying not that the play was the first work of the author, +but that it was his earliest adventure in verse.</p> + +<p>The plan of the work is as follows. The shepherds of Utopia come to dame +Nature and beg her to make a woman for them. She consents and fashions +Pandora, whom she dowers with the virtues of the several Planets. These, +however, are offended at not being consulted in the matter, and determine +to use their influence to the bane of the newly created woman. Under the +reign of Saturn she turns sullen; when Jupiter is in the ascendant he +falls in love with her, but she has grown proud and scorns him; under Mars +she becomes a vixen; under Sol she in her turn falls in love, and turns +wanton under Venus; she learns deceit of Mercury when he is dominant, and +runs mad under the influence of Luna. At length, since the shepherds will +no longer have anything to do with the lady, Nature determines to place +her in the heavens. Her beauty makes each planet desire her as companion. +Nature gives her the choice:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Speake, my Pandora; where wilt thou be?</p> +<p> <i>Pandora.</i> Not with old Saturne for he lookes like death;<br /> + Nor yet with Jupiter, lest Juno storme;<br /> + Nor with thee Mars, for Venus is thy love;<br /> + Nor with thee Sol, thou hast two Parramours,<br /> + The sea borne Thetis and the rudy morne;<br /> + Nor with thee Venus, lest I be in love<br /> + With blindfold Cupid or young Joculus; <br /> + Nor with thee Hermes, thou art full of sleightes,<br /> + And when I need thee Jove will send thee foorth.<br /> + Say Cynthia, shall Pandora rule thy starre,<br /> + And wilt thou play Diana in the woods,<br /> + Or Hecate in Plutos regiment?</p> +<p> <i>Luna.</i> I, Pandora.</p> +<p> <i>Pand.</i> Fayre Nature let thy hand mayd dwell with her,<br /> + For know that change is my felicity,<br /> + And ficklenesse Pandoraes proper forme.<br /> + Thou madst me sullen first, and thou Jove, proud;<br /> + Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan:<br /> + Thou Venus madst me love all that I saw,<br /> + And Hermes to deceive all that I love;<br /> + But Cynthia made me idle, mutable,<br /> + Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde;<br /> + These be the humors that content me best,<br /> + And therefore will I stay with Cynthia....</p> +<p> <i>Nat.</i> Now rule, Pandora, in fayre Cynthias steede,<br /> + And make the moone inconstant like thy selfe;<br /> + Raigne thou at womens nuptials, and their birth;<br /> + Let them be mutable in all their loves,<br /> + Fantastical, childish, and foolish, in their desires,<br /> + Demaunding toyes:<br /> + And stark madde when they cannot have their will.<br /> + Now follow me ye wandring lightes of heaven,<br /> + And grieve not, that she is not plast with you;<br /> + Ail you shall glaunce at her in your aspects,<br /> + And in conjunction dwell with her a space. (V. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>And so Pandora becomes the 'Woman in the Moon.' The play, in its topical +and satiric purpose, and above all, in its utilization of mythological +material, bears a distinct relationship to the masque. The shepherds are +in their origin philosophical, standing for the race of mankind in +general, rather than pastoral; Utopian, in fact, rather than Arcadian. +These early mythological plays stand alone, in that the pastoral scenes +they contain are apparently uninfluenced by the Italian drama. The kind +attained some popularity as a subject of courtly presentation, but it did +not long preserve its original character. The later examples, with which +we shall be concerned hereafter, always exhibit some characteristics which +may be immediately or ultimately traced to the influence of Tasso and +Guarini. This influence we must now turn to consider in some detail, as +evidenced as well in translations and imitations as in the general tone +and machinery of an appreciable portion of the Elizabethan drama.[<a href="#fn226">226</a>]</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch04-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature +it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of +translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, +as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position +unjustified by its intrinsic importance. In most cases, probably, the +energy devoted to the task of rendering the foreign models directly into +the language they influenced is rather useful as supplying us with a rough +measure of their popularity than itself significant as a step in the +operation of that influence. We may safely assume that, in the case of the +English pastoral drama, the influence exercised directly by the Italian +masterpieces was beyond comparison greater than that which made itself +indirectly felt through the labours of translators.</p> + +<p>Having thus anticipated a possible misapprehension it will be worth our +while to devote some little attention to the history of the attempts at +translation in this line. The first English writer to venture upon the +task of turning the choice music of Tasso into his native language was the +eccentric satellite of the Sidneyan circle, Abraham Fraunce, fellow of St. +John's College in Cambridge. It so happened that he was at the time +pursuing that elusive phantasm, the application of the laws of classical +versification to English poetry. The resuit was at least unique, in +English, at any rate, namely a drama in hexameter verse. It also occurred +to him that Watson's <i>Lamentations of Amyntas</i>, a translation of which he +had himself published in 1587, might be made to serve as an appendix to +Tasso's play. With this object in view he changed the name of the heroine +from Silvia to Phillis. This appears to have been the exact extent to +which he 'altered S. Tassoes Italian' in order to connect it with 'M. +Watsons Latine Amyntas' and 'to make them both one English.'[<a href="#fn227">227</a>] Certain +other changes were, however, introduced upon other considerations. Various +unessential points were omitted, notably in connexion with Tirsi, whose +topical character disappears; the name Nerina is altered to Fulvia; +frequent allusions are introduced to the nymph Pembrokiana, to whom among +other things is ascribed the rescue of the heroine from the bear which +takes the place of the wolf in Tasso. Lastly, we have the addition of a +whole scene immediately before the final chorus. Phillis and Amyntas +reappear and carry on a conversation, not unamiably, in a sort of +hexametrical stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the +amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between +the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[<a href="#fn228">228</a>] Of this literary curiosity +Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sweete face, why be the hev'ns soe to the bountifull, <br /> + Making that radiant bewty of all the starrs<br /> + Bright-burning, to be fayre Phillis her ornament? <br /> + And yet seeme to be soe spytefuly partial, <br /> + As not for to aford Argus his eyes to mee, <br /> + Eyes too feawe to behould Phillis her ornament?</p></blockquote> + +<p>It is, perhaps, not a little strange that the pedant who made the +preposterous experiment of turning the <i>Aminta</i> into English hexameters +should nevertheless have been capable of clearly perceiving, however +incapable he was of adequately rectifying, the hopelessly undramatic +character of the last act of Tasso's play. As an example of the style of +the translation we may take the following rendering of the delicate <i>Chi +crederia</i>, with which the original prologue opens:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake, <br /> + Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? <br /> + And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, <br /> + But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: <br /> + Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing<br /> + His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire<br /> + Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving, <br /> + And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant, <br /> + His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to +be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic +pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate +artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a 'God that gads +by the mountaines' is a pithy enough paraphrase of <i>dio selvaggio</i>, if +hardly an accurate translation. The unsatisfactory nature of the verse, +however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid +dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas' +resolve to die.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Phillis.</i> As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee<br /> + Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased.</p> + +<p> <i>Daphne.</i> Phillis alas is alive, but an other's gone to be dying[<a href="#fn229">229</a>].</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> And what mean's this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded, <br /> + That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other.</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> Whose death?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Death of Amyntas.</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> Alas how dyed Amyntas?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe: <br /> + But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe.</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Thy death.</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> And I alive?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Thy death was lately reported, <br /> + And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death.</p> + +<p> <i>Ph.</i> Feare of Phillis death prov'd vayne, and feare of Amyntas<br /> + Death will proove vayne too: life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which +somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are +not wholly wanting. Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek +her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh tardi saggia, e tardi<br /> + Pietosa, quando ciò nulla rileva;</p></blockquote> + +<p>a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a +homely proverb, and writes:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable.</p></blockquote> + +<p>It may, at first sight, appear strange that at a time when the Italian +pastoral was exercising its greatest influence over the English drama this +translation by Fraunce of Tasso's play should have satisfied the demand +for more than thirty years. The explanation, of course, is that the +widespread knowledge of Italian among the reading public in England +rendered translation more or less superfluous[<a href="#fn230">230</a>], while at the same time +it should be remembered that in this country Tasso was far surpassed in +popularity by Guarini. So far as we can tell no further translation of the +<i>Aminta</i> was attempted till 1628, when there appeared an anonymous version +which bibliographers have followed one another in ascribing to one John +Reynolds, but which was more probably the work of a certain Henry +Reynolds[<a href="#fn231">231</a>]. However that may be, the translation is of no +inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from +the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of +appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the +higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian +into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. +Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the +general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating +than is the case with translations which many times reveal far higher +qualities. The following is a characteristic specimen chosen from the +story of Aminta's early love for Silvia.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Being but a Lad, so young as yet scarce able<br /> + To reach the fruit from the low-hanging boughes<br /> + Of new-growne trees; Inward I grew to bee<br /> + With a young mayde, fullest of love and sweetnesse, <br /> + That ere display'd pure gold tresse to the winde;... <br /> + Neere our abodes, and neerer were our hearts; <br /> + Well did our yeares agree, better our thoughts; <br /> + Together wove we netts t' intrapp the fish<br /> + In flouds and sedgy fleetes[<a href="#fn232">232</a>]; together sett<br /> + Pitfalls for birds; together the pye'd Buck<br /> + And flying Doe over the plaines we chac'de; <br /> + And in the quarry', as in the pleasure shar'de: <br /> + But as I made the beasts my pray, I found<br /> + My heart was lost, and made a pray to other. (I. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Many a translator, moreover, has failed to instil into his verse the swing +and flow of the following stanzas from the golden age chorus, which, +nevertheless follow the metrical form of the original with reasonable +fidelity[<a href="#fn233">233</a>]:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O happy Age of Gould; happy' houres; <br /> + Not for with milke the rivers ranne, <br /> + And hunny dropt from ev'ry tree; <br /> + Nor that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres, <br /> + Without the toyle or care of Man, <br /> + And Serpents were from poyson free;...<br /> + But therefore only happy Dayes, <br /> + Because that vaine and ydle name, <br /> + That couz'ning Idoll of unrest, <br /> + Whom the madd vulgar first did raize, <br /> + And call'd it Honour, whence it came<br /> + To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest,<br /> + Was not then suffred to molest<br /> + Poore lovers hearts with new debate; <br /> + More happy they, by these his hard<br /> + And cruell lawes, were not debar'd<br /> + Their innate freedome; happy state; <br /> + The goulden lawes of Nature, they<br /> + Found in their brests; and them they did obey. (Ch. I.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Before leaving the <i>Aminta</i> it will be worth while straying beyond the +strict chronological limits of this inquiry to glance for a moment at the +version produced by John Dancer in 1660, for the sake of noting the change +which had come over literary hack-work of the kind in the course of some +thirty years. Comparing it with Reynolds' translation we are at first +struck by the change which long drilling of the language to a variety of +uses has accomplished in the work of uninspired poetasters; secondly, by +the fact that the conventional respectability of production, which has +replaced the halting crudities of an earlier date, is far more inimical +to any real touch of poetic inspiration. Equally evident is that spirit of +tyranny, happily at no time native to our literature, which seeks to +reduce the works of other ages into accordance with the taste of its own +day. Thus, having 'improved' Tasso's apostrophe to the <i>bella età dell' +oro</i> almost beyond recognition, Dancer complacently closes the chorus with +the following parody:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> We'l hope, since there's no joy, when once one dies<br /> + We'l hope, that as we have seen with our eies<br /> + The Sun to set, so we may see it rise. (Ch. I.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again, while all the spontaneity and reverential labour of an age of more +avowed adolescence has disappeared, there is yet lacking the justness of +phrase and certainty of grammar and rime, which later supply, however +inadequately, the place of poetic enthusiasm. The defects of the style, +with its commonplace exaggeration of conceits, the thumbed token-currency +of the certified poetaster, are well seen in such a passage as the +following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Weak love is held by shame, but love grows bold<br /> + As strong, what is it then can it with-hold: <br /> + She as though in her ey's she did contain<br /> + Fountains of tears, did with such plenty rain<br /> + Them on his cheeks, and they such vertue had, <br /> + That it reviv'd again the breathlesse lad;... <br /> + Aminta thought 'twas more then heav'nly charms, <br /> + That thus enclasp'd him in his Silvia's armes; <br /> + He that loves servant is, perhaps may guesse<br /> + Their blisse; but none there is can it expresse[<a href="#fn234">234</a>]. (V. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>As was to be expected, the attention of translators was early directed to +the <i>Pastor fido</i>. The original was printed in England, together with the +<i>Aminta</i>, the year after its first appearance in Italy, that is in 1591, +and bore the imprint of John Wolfe, 'a spese di Giacopo Castelvetri'; the +first translation saw the light in 1602. This version was published +anonymously, and in spite of the confident assertions and ingenious +conjectures of certain bibliographers, anonymous it must for the present +remain; all that can with certainty be affirmed is that it claims to be +the work of a kinsman of Sir Edward Dymocke[<a href="#fn235">235</a>]. Most modern writers who +have had occasion to mention it have shown a praiseworthy deference to the +authority of one of the most venerable figures of English criticism by +each in turn repeating that the translation, 'in spite of Daniel's +commendatory sonnet, is a very bad one.' And indeed, when we have stated +the very simple facts concerning the authorship as distinct from the very +elaborate conjectures, there remains little to add to Dyce's words. With +the exception of the omission of the prologue the version keeps pretty +faithfully to its original, but it does no more than emphasize the tedious +artificiality of the Italian, while whatever charm and perhaps +over-elaborated grace of language Guarini infused into his verse has +entirely evaporated in the process of translation. No less a poet and +critic than Daniel, regarding the work doubtless with the undiscriminating +eye of friendship, asserted that it might even to Guarini himself have +vindicated the poetic laurels of England, and yet from the whole long poem +it is hardly possible to extract any passage which would do credit to the +pen of an average schoolboy. We turn in vain to the contest of kisses +among the Megarean maidens, to the game of blind man's buff, to Amarillis' +secret confession of love, and to her trembling appeal when confronted by +a death of shame, for any evidence of poetie feeling. The girl's speech in +the last-mentioned scene, 'Se la miseria mia fosse mia colpa,' is thus +rendered:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> If that my fault did cause my wretchednesse, <br /> + Or that my thoughts were wicked, as thou thinkst<br /> + My deed, lesse grievous would my death be then: <br /> + For it were just my blood should wash the spots<br /> + Of my defiled soule, heavens rage appease, <br /> + And humane justice justly satisfie, <br /> + Then could I quiet my afflicted sprights, <br /> + And with a just remorse of well-deserved death, <br /> + My senses mortifie, and come to death: <br /> + And with a quiet blow pass forth perhaps<br /> + Unto a life of more tranquilitie: <br /> + But too too much, Nicander, too much griev'd<br /> + I am, in so young years, Fortune so hie, <br /> + An Innocent, I should be doom'd to die. (IV. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next translation we meet with never got into print. It is preserved in +a manuscript at the British Museum[<a href="#fn236">236</a>], and bears the heading: 'Il Pastor +Fido, or The Faithfull Sheapheard. An Excellent Pastorall Written In +Italian by Battista Guarinj And translated into English By Jonathan Sidnam +Esq, Anno 1630.' The prologue is again omitted, and the translation is +distinguished from its contemporaries by an endeavour to reproduce to some +extent the freer metrical structure of the Italian. This was not a +particularly happy experiment, since it ignored the fact that the +character of a metre may differ considerably in different languages. The +Italian <i>endecasillabi sciolti</i> are far less flexible than our own blank +verse, and it is only when freely interspersed with the shorter +<i>settinarî</i> that they can attempt to rival the range of effect possible to +the English metre in the hands of a skilful artist. Thus the imitation of +the irregular measures of Guarini was a confession of the translator's +inability adequately to handle the dramatic verse of his own tongue. As a +specimen we may take the rendering of Amarillis' speech already quoted +from the 'Dymocke' version:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> If my mischance had come by mine own fault, <br /> + Nicander, or had beene as thou beleevst<br /> + The foule effect of base and wicked thoughts, <br /> + Or, as it now appeares, a deed of Sinn, <br /> + It had beene then lesse greevous to endure<br /> + Death as a punishment for such a fault, <br /> + And just it had beene with my blood to wash<br /> + My impure Soule, to mitigate the wrath<br /> + And angar of the Godds, and satisfie<br /> + The right of humane justice, <br /> + Then could I quiett my afflicted Soule<br /> + And with an inward feeling of my just<br /> + Deserved death, subdue my outward Sence, <br /> + And fawne uppon my end, and happelie<br /> + With a more settled countenance passe from hence<br /> + Into a better world: <br /> + But now, Nicander, ah! tis too much greefe<br /> + In soe yong yeares, in such a happie state, <br /> + To die so suddenlie, and which is more, <br /> + Die innocent. (IV. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was not until the civil war was at its height, namely in 1647, that +English literature was enriched with a translation in any way worthy of +Guarini's masterpiece. It is easy to strain the interpretation of such +facts, but there is certainly a strong temptation to see in the occasion +and circumstances of the composition of the piece an illustration of a +critical law already noticed, namely the constant tendency of literature +to negative as well as to reproduce the life of actuality, and furthermore +of the special liability of pastoral to take birth from a desire to escape +from the imminence and pressure of surrounding circumstance. Like +Reynolds' <i>Aminta</i>, Richard Fanshawe's <i>Pastor fido</i> is better appreciated +as a whole than in quotation, though, thanks partly to its own greater +maturity of poetic attainment, partly to the less ethereal perfection of +the original, it suffers far less than the earlier work by comparison with +the Italian. For the same reasons it is by far the most satisfactory of +any of the early translations of the Italian pastoral drama. One +noticeable feature is the constant reminiscence of Shakespeare, whole +lines from his works being sometimes introduced with no small skill. For +instance, where Guarini, describing how love wins entrance to a maiden's +heart, writes:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> E se vergogna il cela, <br /> + O temenza l' affrena, <br /> + La misera tacendo<br /> + Per soverchio desío tutta si strugge; (I. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Fanshawe renders the last two lines by:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Poor soul! Concealment like a worm i' th' bud, <br /> + Lies in her Damask cheek sucking the bloud.</p></blockquote> + +<p>A few illustrative passages will suffice to give an idea of Fanshawe's +style. He stands alone in having succeeded in recrystallizing in his own +tongue some at least of the charm of the kissing match, and is even fairly +successful in the following dangerous conceit:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> With one voice<br /> + Of peerlesse Amarillis they made choice. <br /> + She sweetly bending her fair eyes. <br /> + Her cheeks in modest blushes dyes, <br /> + To shew through her transparent skin<br /> + That she is no lesse fair within<br /> + Then shee's without; or else her countenance<br /> + Envying the honour done her mouth perchance, <br /> + Puts on her scarlet robes as who<br /> + Should say: 'And am not I fair too?' (II. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>So again he alone among the translators has infused any semblance of +passion into Amarillis' confession of love:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Mirtillo, O Mirtillo! couldst thou see<br /> + That heart which thou condemn'st of cruelty, <br /> + Soul of my soul, thou unto it wouldst show<br /> + That pity which thou begg'st from it I know. <br /> + O ill starr'd Lovers! what avails it me<br /> + To have thy love? T' have mine, what boots it thee?<br /> + (III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>In a lighter vein the following variation on the theme of fading beauty by +Corisca also does justice to its original:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Let us use it whilst wee may; <br /> + Snatch those joyes that haste away. <br /> + Earth her winter-coat may cast, <br /> + And renew her beauty past; <br /> + But, our winter come, in vain<br /> + We sollicite spring again: <br /> + And when our furrows snow shall cover, <br /> + Love may return, but never Lover. (III. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>When it is borne in mind that not only is the rendering graceful in +itself, but that as a rule it represents its original if not literally at +any rate adequately, it will be realized that Fanshawe's qualifications as +a translator are not small. His version, which is considerably the best in +the language, is happily easily accessible owing to its early popularity. +It first appeared in 1647 in the form of a handsomely printed quarto with +portrait and frontispiece engraved after the Ciotti edition of 1602, the +remaining copies being re-issued with additional matter the following +year; it went through two editions between the restoration and the end of +the century, and was again reprinted together with the original, and with +alterations in 1736[<a href="#fn237">237</a>]. In the meantime, however, the translation had +been adapted to the stage by Elkanah Settle. In a dedication to Lady +Elizabeth Delaval, the adapter ingenuously disclaims all knowledge of +Italian, and when he speaks of 'the Translated <i>Pastor Fido</i>' every reader +would no doubt be expected to know that he was referring to Fanshawe's +work. He left his readers, however, to discover for themselves that, +while he considerably altered, and of course condensed, the original, for +whatever poetic merit his scenes possess he is entirely indebted to his +predecessor. The adaptation was licensed by L'Estrange in 1676, and +printed the following year, while reprints dated 1689 and 1694 seem to +indicate that it achieved some success at the Duke's Theatre. It was +presumably of this version that Pepys notices a performance on February +25, 1668.[<a href="#fn238">238</a>]</p> + +<p>Besides these English translations there is also extant one in Latin, a +manuscript of which is preserved in the University Library at +Cambridge.[<a href="#fn239">239</a>] The name of the translater does not appear, but the +heading runs: 'Il pastor fido, di signor Guarini ... recitata in Collegio +Regali Cantabrigiae.' The title is so scrawled over that it would be +impossible to say for certain whether the note of performance referred to +the present play, were it not for an allusion casually dropped by the +anonymous recorder of a royal visit to Oxford, which not only +substantiates the inference to be drawn from the manuscript, but also +supplies us with a downward limit of August, 1605.[<a href="#fn240">240</a>] In this +translation a dialogue between the characters 'Prologus' and 'Argumentum' +takes the place of Guarini's long topical prologue, and a short +conventional 'Epilogus' is added at the end.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It was not till 1655 that <i>the Filli di Sciro</i> of Bonarelli, which has +usually been thought to hold the third place among Italian pastorals, +appeared in English dress. The translation published in that year is +ascribed on the title-page to 'J. S. Gent.,' an ascription which has given +rise to a good deal of conjecture. And yet a very little investigation +might have settled the matter. Prefixed to the translation are some +commendatory verses signed 'I. H.', in a marginal note to which we read: +'This Comedy was Translated long ago by M. <i>I. S.</i> and layd by, as also +was <i>Pastor Fido</i>, which was since Translated and set forth by Mr. Rich. +Fanshaw.' Another note,[<a href="#fn241">241</a>] to some verses to the reader, tells us that +both translations were made 'neer twenty years agone,' and, as we should +expect, the <i>Pastor fido</i> first; and further, that the latter remained in +manuscript owing to the appearance of Fanshawe's version, which is spoken +of in terms of warm admiration. Now the only manuscript translation of +Guarini's play extant in English is that of Jonathan Sidnam, whose name +gives us the very initials which appear upon the title-page of the printed +play.[<a href="#fn242">242</a>] Since the preliminary verses may have been written any time +between 1647 and 1655, the vague allusion to the date of composition will +quite well fit 1630, the year given in the manuscript. When, furthermore, +we find J. S.'s work characterized by precisely the same use of short +lines as we noted above in the case of Sidnam's, the identification +becomes a practical certainty. The version, though, as the author was +himself aware, it will not stand comparison with Fanshawe's work, is not +without merit, and is perhaps as good as the rather tedious original +deserves. As a specimen we may take a passage in which the author +deliberately followed Tasso, Celia's narration of her adventure with the +centaur:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> There, to a sturdy Oak, he bound me fast<br /> + And re-enforct his base inhumane bonds<br /> + With the then danglinst Tresses of my hair; <br /> + Ingrateful hair, ill-nurtur'd wicked Locks! <br /> + The cruel wretch then took up from the foot<br /> + Both my loose tender garments, and at once<br /> + Rent them from end to end: Imagine then<br /> + Whether my crimson red, through shame was chang'd<br /> + Into a pale wan tincture, yea or no. <br /> + I that was looking toward Heaven then, <br /> + And with my cries imploring ayd from thence, <br /> + Upon a suddain to the Earth let fall<br /> + My shamefac'd eyes, and shut them close, as if<br /> + Under mine eye-lids, I could cover all<br /> + My naked Members. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Of the various unfounded conjectures as to the author of this version, +among which Shirley's name has of course not failed to appear, certainly +the most ingenious is that which has seen in it the work of Sir Edward +Sherburne. The suggestion appears to have been originally made by Coxeter, +on what grounds I do not know. 'There is no doubt of the authorship of +this play,' writes Professer Gollancz in his notes to Lamb's <i>Specimens</i>, +'"J. S." is certainly an error for "E. S." I have found in a MS. in the +British Museum Sir E. Sherburne's preface to this play.' Professer +Gollancz deserves credit for having unearthed the interesting document +referred to,[<a href="#fn243">243</a>] but an examination of it at once destroys his theory. It +is a preface 'To the Reader' intended for a translation of the <i>Filli</i>, +and another copy also is extant,[<a href="#fn244">244</a>] both being found among the papers of +Sir Edward Sherburne, though in neither does his name actually occur. In +the course of the preface the writer quotes 'the Censure of my sometime +highly valued, and most Ingenious friend S'r. John Denham, to whom (some +years before the happy Restauration of King Charles the 2<sup>d</sup> being then +at Paris) I communicated Some Part of this my Translation. Who was not +only pleasd to encourage my undertaking, but gave me likewise this +Character of the Original. "I will not say It is a Better Poem then Pastor +Fido, but to speak my Mind freely, I think it a Better Drama."' From this +it is clear that the preface was penned after 1660, and we may furthermore +infer that the version was as yet unfinished when the writer was in Paris, +apparently at some time during the Commonwealth. It is therefore +impossible that the preface should be intended for a translation which was +printed in 1655, and which was then distinctly stated to have been +composed not later than 1635. Furthermore, I question whether either the +preface or the version mentioned therein were by Sherburne at all. There +is a translation extant in a British Museum manuscript[<a href="#fn245">245</a>] purporting to +be the work of Sir George Talbot, who is said to have been a friend of Sir +Edward's, into whose hands some of his papers may have come. The +translation is headed: 'Fillis of Scirus, a Pastorall Written in Italian, +by Count Guidubaldo de' Bonarelli, and Translated into English by S'r. G: +Talbot,' and there follows 'The Epistle Dedicatory To his sacred Ma'ty. +Charles 2'd. &c. prophetically written at Paris, an: 57.' The opening is +not wanting in grace:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The dawning light breaks forth; I heare, aloofe, <br /> + The whistling ayre, the Saints bell of the Heav'n, <br /> + Wherewith each morne it call's the drowsy Birds<br /> + To offer up theyre Hymnes to th' new-borne day.<br /> + But who ere saw, from night's dark bosome, spring<br /> + A morne soe fayre and beautifull? Observe<br /> + With what imperceptible hand, it steales<br /> + The starres from Heav'n, and deck's the earth with flow'rs: <br /> + Haile, lovely fields, your flow'rs in this array<br /> + Fournish a kind of star-light to the day.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or take again Celia's encounter with the centaur. And in this connexion it +is worth while mentioning that, when revising his translation and +introducing a number of verbal changes, in most cases distinctly for the +better, Sir George appears to have been struck by the absurdity of this +machinery, and throughout replaced the centaur by a 'wild man.' After +telling how she was seized and carried to 'the middle of a desart wood,' +Celia proceeds:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> There, to a sturdy oake, he bound me fast, <br /> + Doubling my bonds with knots of mine own hayre; <br /> + Ungratefull hayre, thou ill returnst my care. <br /> + The Tyrant then my mantle took in hand<br /> + And with one rash tore it from head to foote. <br /> + Consider whether shame my trembling pale<br /> + Did now convert into Vermillion: up<br /> + I cast my eyes to Heav'n, and with lowd cryes<br /> + Implor'd it's ayd; then lookt downe tow'rd the earth, <br /> + And phancy'd my dejected eyebrows hung<br /> + Like a chast mantle ore my naked limbs. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>A comparison of this and the preceding renderings with the original will +show that while Talbot's is by far the more fiowing and imaginative, +Sidnam's is on the whole rather more literal, except where he appears to +have misunderstood the original. No other English translation, I believe, +exists.</p> + +<p>Lastly, as in the case of the <i>Pastor fido</i>, record has to be made of a +Latin version acted at Cambridge. It was the work of a Dr. Brooke of +Trinity[<a href="#fn246">246</a>], and purports to have been performed, no doubt at that +College, before Prince Charles and the Count Palatine, on March 30, +1612[<a href="#fn247">247</a>]. The title is 'Scyros, Fabula Pastoralis,' which has hitherto +prevented its being identified as a translation of Bonarelli's play, and +it is preserved in manuscripts at the University Library[<a href="#fn248">248</a>], Trinity and +Emmanuel. At the beginning is a note to the effect that in the place of +the prologue--Marino's <i>Notte</i>--was to be presented a triumph over the +death of the centaur. The cast is given, and includes three +undergraduates, five bachelors, and five masters.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch04-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>After translation the next process in logical sequence is direct +imitation. Although it is true that the influence of Tasso and Guarini may +be traced either directly or indirectly in the great majority of the +English pastorals composed during the first half of the seventeenth +century, there are nevertheless two plays only in which that influence can +be regarded as completely paramount, and to which the term 'imitation' can +be with full justification applied. These are the two pastorals by Samuel +Daniel, historian and court-laureate, namely the <i>Queen's Arcadia</i>, 'A +Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Majestie and her Ladies, by the +Universitie of Oxford in Christs Church, in August last. 1605[<a href="#fn249">249</a>],' and +<i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, which formed part of the Queen's 'magnificent +intertainement of the Kings most excellent Majestie' on the occasion of +the marriage in 1614 of Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburgh, and Mistress Jean +Drummond, sister of the Earl of Perth[<a href="#fn250">250</a>].</p> + +<p>The earlier of these pieces displays alike the greater dependence on +Italian models and the less intrinsic merit, whether from a poetic or +dramatic point of view. It is, indeed, in its apparent carelessness of the +most elementary necessities of dramatic construction, distinctly +retrograde as compared with these models themselves. In the first scene we +are introduced to two old Arcadians who hold long discourse concerning the +degeneracy of the age. The simple manners of earlier times are forsaken, +constant quarrels occur, faith is no longer untarnished nor modesty +secure. In the hope of probing to the root of the evil the two determine +to hide close at hand and so overhear the conversations of the younger +swains and shepherdesses. The fact is that Arcadia has recently been +invaded by a gang of rascally adventurers from Corinth and elsewhere: +Techne, 'a subtle wench,' who under pretence of introducing the latest +fashions of the towns corrupts the nymphs; Colax, whose courtier-airs find +an easy prey in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, +who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of the shepherds; Lincus, +'a petty-fogger,' who breeds litigation among the simple folk; and lastly +Pistophanax, who seeks to undermine the worship of Pan. Colax has, it +appears, already abused the love of Daphne, and won that of Dorinda from +her swain Mirtillus; Techne has sown jealousy between the lovers Palaemon +and Silvia; while Lincus has set Montanus and Acrysius by the ears over +the possession of a bit of land. Ail the plotting is overheard by the two +concealed shepherds, who when the crisis is reached come forward, call +together the Arcadians, expose the machinations of the evil-doers, and +procure their banishment from the country. Such an automatic solution is +obviously incompatible with the smallest dramatic interest in the plot; it +is not a <i>dénoûment</i> at all, properly speaking, but a severing of the +skein after Alexander's manner, and it is impossible to feel any emotion +at the tragic complications when all the while the sword lies ready for +the operation.</p> + +<p>The main amorous action centres round Cloris, beloved of Amyntas and +Carinus, the latter of whom is in his turn loved by Amarillis. Carinus' +hopes are founded on the fact that, in imitation of Tasso's Aminta, he has +rescued Cloris from the hands of a satyr, while Amyntas bases his upon +certain signs of favour shown him. Colax, however, also falls in love with +the nymph, and induces Techne to give her tryst in a cave, where he may +then have an opportunity of finding her alone. Techne, hereupon, in the +hope of winning Amyntas' affection for herself if she can make him think +Cloris unworthy, directs him to the spot where she has promised to meet +the unsuspecting maiden. This is obviously borrowed from the <i>Pastor +fido</i>; indeed, Techne is none other than Corisca under a new name, and it +was no doubt she who suggested to Daniel the introduction of the other +agents of civilization. Amyntas, on seeing Cloris emerge from the cave in +company with Colax, at once concludes her guilt, and in spite of all +Techne's efforts to restrain him rushes off with the intention of putting +an end to his life. Techne, perceiving the ill-success of her plot, tells +Cloris of Amyntas' resolve. We here return to the imitation of Tasso: +Cloris, like that poet's Silvia, begins by pretending incredulity and +indifference, but being at length convinced agrees to accompany Techne in +search of the desperate swain. Daniel has produced what is little better +than a parody of the scene in his model. Not content with placing in the +girl's mouth the preposterous excuse:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> If it be done my help will come too late, <br /> + And I may stay, and save that labour here, (IV. iv.[<a href="#fn251">251</a>])</p></blockquote> + +<p>he has spun out the dialogue, already over-long in the original, to an +altogether inordinate and ludicrous extent. When the pair at last come +upon the unhappy lover they find him lying insensible, a horn of poison by +him. The necessary sequel is reported by Mirtillus:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> For we perceiv'd how Love and Modestie<br /> + With sev'rall Ensignes, strove within her cheekes<br /> + Which should be Lord that day, and charged hard<br /> + Upon each other, with their fresh supplies<br /> + Of different colours, that still came, and went, <br /> + And much disturb'd her, but at length dissolv'd<br /> + Into affection, downe she casts her selfe<br /> + Upon his senselesse body, where she saw<br /> + The mercy she had brought was come too late: <br /> + And to him calls: 'O deare Amyntas, speake, <br /> + Look on me, sweete Amyntas, it is I<br /> + That calles thee, I it is, that holds thee here, <br /> + Within those armes thou haste esteem'd so deare.' (V. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Amyntas' subsequent recovery is reported in the same strain. The reader +will remember the lines in which Tasso described a similar scene. And yet, +in spite of the identity of the situations and even of the close +similarity of the language, the tone and atmosphere of the two passages +are essentially different; for if Daniel's treatment of the scene, which +is typical of a good deal of his work, has the power to call a tear to the +eye of sensibility, his sentiment, divested as it is of the Italian's +subtle sensuousness, appears perfectly innocuous and at times not a little +ridiculous.</p> + +<p>Cloris and Amyntas are now safe enough, and Carinus has the despised but +faithful Amarillis to console him. The other pairs of lovers need not +detain us further than to note that their adventures are equally borrowed +from Tasso and Guarini. Silvia relates how, wounded by her 'cruelty,' +Palaemon sought to imitate Aminta by throwing himself from a cliff, but +was prevented by her timely relenting. Amarillis fondles Carinus's dog, +and is roughly upbraided by its master in the same manner as her prototype +Dorinda in the <i>Pastor fido</i>.</p> + +<p>Amid much that is commonplace in the verse occur not a few graceful +passages, while Daniel is at times rather happy in the introduction of +certain sententious utterances in keeping with the conventionality of the +pastoral form. Thus a caustic swain remarks of a girl's gift:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Poore withred favours, they might teach thee know, <br /> + That shee esteemes thee, and thy love as light<br /> + As those dead flowers, shee wore but for a show, <br /> + The day before, and cast away at night;</p></blockquote> + +<p>and to a lover:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When such as you, poore, credulous, devout, <br /> + And humble soules, make all things miracles<br /> + Your faith conceives, and vainely doe convert<br /> + All shadowes to the figure of your hopes. (I. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Colax is a subtle connoisseur in love:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Some thing there is peculiar and alone<br /> + To every beauty that doth give an edge<br /> + To our desires, and more we still conceive<br /> + In that we have not, then in that we have. <br /> + And I have heard abroad where best experience<br /> + And wit is learnd, that all the fairest choyce<br /> + Of woemen in the world serve but to make<br /> + One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The historical importance of the <i>Queen's Arcadia</i>, as the first play to +exhibit on the English stage the direct and unequivocal influence of the +Italian pastoral drama, is evident to the critic in retrospect, and it is +not impossible that it may have lent some extraneous interest to the +performance even in the eyes of contemporaries; but the zest of the play +for a court audience in the early years of the reign of James I was very +possibly the satirical element. The shadowy fiction of Arcadia and its age +of gold quickly vanished when the actual or fancied evils of the day were +exposed to the lash. The abuse of the practice of taking tobacco flattered +the prejudices of the king; the quack and the dishonest lawyer were stock +butts of contemporary satire; Colax and Techne, the he and she +coney-catchers, have maintained their fascination for all ages. +Pistophanax, the disseminator of false doctrine, who had actually presumed +to reason with the priests concerning the mysteries of Pan, was perhaps +the favourite object of contemporary invective. The term 'atheist' covered +a multitude of sins. This character appears in the final scene only, and +even there he is a mute but for one speech. He is indeed treated in a +somewhat different manner from the other subjects of satire in the play. +Thus the discovery that he is wearing a mask to hide the natural ugliness +of his features passes altogether the bounds of dramatic satire, and +carries us back to the allegorical manner of the middle ages. Apart from +these figures, who bear upon them the form and pressure of the time, and +who are, it must be remembered, the main-spring of the action, there is +little of note to fix the attention in this first fruit of the Arcadian +spirit in the English drama.</p> + +<p>In every way superior to its predecessor is the second venture in the kind +made by Daniel after an interval of nearly a decade. Instead of being a +patchwork of motives and situations borrowed from the Italian, and pieced +together with more or less ingenuity, <i>Hymen's Triumph</i> is as a whole an +original composition. The play is preceded by a prologue in which Daniel +departs from his models in employing the dialogue form, the speakers being +Hymen, Avarice, Envy, and Jealousy[<a href="#fn252">252</a>]. In the opening scene we find +Thirsis lamenting the loss of his love Silvia, who is supposed to have +been devoured by wild beasts while wandering alone upon the shore--we are +once again on the sea-board of Arcadia--her rent veil and a lock of her +hair being all that remains to her disconsolate lover. Their vows had been +in secret owing to the match proposed by Silvia's father between her and +Alexis, the son of a wealthy neighbour[<a href="#fn253">253</a>]. In reality she has been +seized by pirates[<a href="#fn254">254</a>] and carried off to Alexandria, where she has lived +as a slave in boy's attire for some two years. Recently an opportunity for +escape having presented itself, she has returned, still disguised, to her +native country, where she has entered the service of the shepherdess +Cloris, waiting till the approaching marriage of Alexis with another nymph +shall have made impossible the renewal of her father's former schemes. +Complications now arise, for it appears that Cloris has fallen in love +with Thirsis, but fears ill success in her suit, supposing him in his turn +to be pining for the love of Amarillis. She employs the supposed boy to +move her suit to Thirsis, and Silvia goes on her errand to court her lover +for her mistress, fearing to find him already faithless to his love for +her[<a href="#fn255">255</a>]. On her mission she is waylaid by the nymph Phillis, who has +fallen in love with her in her male attire, careless of the love borne her +by the honest but rude forester Montanus. The varying fortune of Silvia's +suit on behalf of Cloris, Thirsis' faith to the memory of Silvia, +Montanus' jealousy, and Phillis' shame when she finds her proffered love +rejected by the boy for whom she has sacrificed her modesty, are presented +in a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially advance the +business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach +the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now +imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some +spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she +does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[<a href="#fn256">256</a>]. As +Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the +favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs Silvia, and +carries off the garland she is wearing, believing it to be one woven by +the hand of Phillis. This naturally leads to the discovery of Silvia's sex +and identity, and supposing her dead, Thirsis falls in a swoon at her +side. The last act is, as usual, little more than an epilogue, in which we +are entertained with a long account of the recovery of the faithful +lovers, thanks to the care of the wise Lamia, an elaborate passage again +modelled on Tasso, but again falling far short of the poetical beauty of +the original.</p> + +<p>Taken as a whole, and partly through being unencumbered with the satyric +machinery of the <i>Queen's Arcadia, Hymen's Triumph</i> is a distinctly +lighter and more pleasing composition. At least so it appears by +comparison, for Daniel everywhere takes himself and his subject with a +distressing seriousness wholly unsuited to the style; we look in vain for +a gleam of humour such as that which in the final chorus of the <i>Aminta</i> +casts a reflex light over the whole play[<a href="#fn257">257</a>]. Again an advance may be +observed, not only in the conduct of the plot, which moves artistically on +an altogether different level, and even succeeds in arousing some dramatic +interest, but likewise in the verse, which has a freer movement, and is on +the whole less marred by the over-emphatic repetition of words and phrases +in consecutive lines, a particularly irritating trick of the author's +pastoral style, or by the monotonous cadence and painful padding of the +blank verse. Daniel was emphatically one of those poets, neither few nor +inconsiderable, the natural nervelessness of whose poetic diction +imperatively demands the bracing restraint of rime. It is noteworthy that +this applies to his verse alone; such a work as the famous <i>Defence of +Rime</i> serves to place him once for all among the greatest masters of 'the +other harmony of prose.'</p> + +<p><i>Hymen's Triumph</i> contains many more passages of notable merit than its +predecessor. There is, indeed, one passage in the <i>Queen's Arcadia</i> which +will bear comparison with anything Daniel ever wrote, but it stands in +somewhat striking contrast with its surroundings. This is the opening of +the speech in which Melibaeus addresses the assembled Arcadians, and well +deserves quotation.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> You gentle Shepheards and Inhabitors<br /> + Of these remote and solitary parts<br /> + Of Mountaynous Arcadia, shut up here<br /> + Within these Rockes, these unfrequented Clifts, <br /> + The walles and bulwarkes of our libertie, <br /> + From out the noyse of tumult, and the throng<br /> + Of sweating toyle, ratling concurrencie, <br /> + And have continued still the same and one<br /> + In all successions from antiquitie; <br /> + Whil'st all the states on earth besides have made<br /> + A thousand revolutions, and have rowl'd<br /> + From change to change, and never yet found rest, <br /> + Nor ever bettered their estates by change; <br /> + You I invoke this day in generall, <br /> + To doe a worke that now concernes us all, <br /> + Lest that we leave not to posteritie, <br /> + Th' Arcadia that we found continued thus<br /> + By our fore-fathers care who left it us. (V. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such passages are more frequent in <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>. Take the description +of the early love of Thirsis and Silvia, instinct with a delicacy and +freshness that even Tasso might have envied[<a href="#fn258">258</a>]:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Then would we kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus<br /> + In that first garden of our simplenesse<br /> + We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began<br /> + To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then<br /> + Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, <br /> + Check my presumption and my forwardnes; <br /> + Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew<br /> + What she would have me, yet not have me, know. (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thirsis, who is the typical 'constant lover' of pastoral convention, and +does</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Hold it to be a most heroicke thing<br /> + To act one man, and do that part exact,</p></blockquote> + +<p>thus addresses his friend Palaemon in defence of love:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ah, know that when you mention love, you name<br /> + A sacred mistery, a Deity, <br /> + Not understood of creatures built of mudde, <br /> + But of the purest and refined clay<br /> + Whereto th' eternall fires their spirits convey. <br /> + And for a woman, which you prize so low, <br /> + Like men that doe forget whence they are men, <br /> + Know her to be th' especiall creature, made<br /> + By the Creator as the complement<br /> + Of this great Architect[<a href="#fn259">259</a>] the world, to hold<br /> + The same together, which would otherwise<br /> + Fall all asunder; and is natures chiefe<br /> + Vicegerent upon earth, supplies her state. <br /> + And doe you hold it weakenesse then to love, <br /> + And love so excellent a miracle<br /> + As is a worthy woman? (III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The sententious passages, the occurrence of which we previously noted in +the <i>Queen's Arcadia</i>, likewise appear. Thus of dreams:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Alas, Medorus, dreames are vapours, which, <br /> + Ingendred with day thoughts, fall in the night, <br /> + And vanish with the morning;[<a href="#fn260">260</a>] (III. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and of thoughts:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> They are the smallest peeces of the minde<br /> + That passe this narrow organ of the voyce; <br /> + The great remaine behinde in that vast orbe<br /> + Of th' apprehension, and are never borne. (III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>At times these utterances even possess a dramatic value, as where, +bending over the seemingly lifeless form of his beloved Silvia, Thirsis +exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And sure the gods but onely sent thee thus<br /> + To fetch me, and to take me hence with thee. (IV. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The two plays we have been considering are after all very much what we +should expect from their author. A poet of considerable taste, of great +sweetness and some real feeling, but deficient in passion, in power of +conception and strength of execution, writing for the court in the +recognized rôle of court-laureate, and unexposed to the bracing influence +of a really critical audience--such is Samuel Daniel as seen in his +experiments in the pastoral drama. We learn from his commendatory sonnet +on the 'Dymocke' <i>Pastor fido</i> that he had known Guarini personally in +Italy, an accident which supplies an interesting link between the dramas +of the two countries, and might suggest a specific incentive to the +composition of his pastorals, were any such needed. So far, however, from +that being the case, the only wonder is that the adventure was not made at +an earlier date, a problem the most promising explanation of which may +perhaps be sought in the rather conservative taste of the officiai court +circle, which tended to lag behind in the general advance during the +closing years of Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James new life +as well as a new spirit entered the court, and is quickly found reflected +in the literary fashions in vogue. It was in 1605 that Jonson wrote in +<i>Volpone</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Here's Pastor Fido ...<br /> + ... All our English writers, <br /> + I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, <br /> + Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; <br /> + Almost as much, as from Montagnie: <br /> + He has so moderne, and facile a veine, <br /> + Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare. (1616, III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>On the whole, perhaps, Daniel's merits as a pastoral writer have been +exaggerated. His dependence on Italian models, particularly in his earlier +play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually +lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand +examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the <i>Queen's Arcadia,</i> +of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion--a point in +which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of +narrative as compensation--and of his failure to do justice to such scenes +when forced upon him.[<a href="#fn261">261</a>] If the atmosphere of certain scenes is purer +than is the case with his models, it is in large measure due to his +failure to master the style; if his conception of virtue is more +wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his +sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little +tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly +trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into +penning passages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often +stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[<a href="#fn262">262</a>] On the other +hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is +true, may be said to be rather the <i>qualités de ses défauts</i>. The verse is +at least smooth; it is courtly and scholarly, and sometimes graceful; the +language is pure and refined, and habitually simple. The sentiment, if at +times finicking, is always that of a gentleman and a courtier. Moreover, +in reckoning his qualifications as a dramatist, we must not forget to +credit him with the plot of <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, which is on the whole +original, and is happily conceived, firmly constructed, and executed with +considerable ability.</p> + +<p>With Daniel begins and ends in English literature the dominant influence +of the Italian pastoral drama. No doubt the imitation of Tasso and Guarini +is an important element in the subsequent history of pastoralism in this +country, and to trace and define that influence will be not the least +important task of the ensuing chapters. No doubt it supplied the incentive +that induced a man like Fletcher to bid for a hopeless success in such a +play as the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, and placed a heavy debt to the account +of Thomas Randolph when he composed his <i>Amyntas</i>. But in these cases, as +in others, wherever the author availed himself of the tradition imported +from the Ferrarese court, he approached it as it were from without, +seeking to rival, to acclimatize, rather than to reproduce. Nowhere else +do we find the tone and atmosphere, the structure, situations, and +characters imitated with that fidelity, or attempt at fidelity, which +makes Daniel's plays almost indistinguishable, except for language, from +much of the work of the later Italians.[<a href="#fn263">263</a>] To minimize with many critics +Daniel's dependence on his models, or to emphasize with some that of +Fletcher, is, it seems to me, wholly to misapprehend the positions they +occupy in the history of literature, and to obscure the actual development +of the pastoral ideal in this country.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> +<h2>Chapter V.</h2> + +<h3>The Three Masterpieces</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch05-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be +said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The +first of these is, of course, Fletcher's <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>. In the +case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in +the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it +reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's <i>Sad Shepherd</i> has +prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic +literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism +be classed Thomas Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i>, which, however inferior to the +others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of +intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, +well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English +examples of the kind.</p> + +<p>These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, +and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or +less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three +plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain +direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to +the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the +absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the +mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore +gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall +lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence.</p> + +<p>When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it +proved a complete failure.[<a href="#fn264">264</a>] An edition appeared without date, but +before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, +Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had +at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception +accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may +have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no +reason to believe that the <i>Sad Shepherd</i> was taken in hand for another +quarter of a century almost. The <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> was revived long +after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by +comparison with Montagu's <i>Shepherds Paradise</i> acted the year before. It +was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it +met with some measure of success.</p> + +<p>The <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> was the earliest, and long remained the only, +deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a +pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of +Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no +mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but +a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its +author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of +his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he +must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of +stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He +further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a +lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, +howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That +he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he +did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco +of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the +spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a +scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained +by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral +stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of +the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the +attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously +to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to +show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to +suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure.</p> + +<p>In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to +Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been +held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable +doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, +that the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> may more properly be regarded as written +in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the +<i>Aminta</i> and <i>Pastor fido</i>, the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> would never have +come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor +literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian +pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, +on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, +little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, +whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A +certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca +and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the +comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some +traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. +Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, +wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and +deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the +embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference +between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the +respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern +drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, +the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly +superfluous seer in the <i>dénoûment</i> make up the whole sum so far as the +<i>Pastor fido</i> is concerned, while the <i>Aminta</i> cannot even show as much as +this. In the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> we find not only the potent herbs, +holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well +and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly +compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[<a href="#fn265">265</a>]. +Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the +Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning +ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by +imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known +it, that of Contarini's <i>Fida ninfa</i>[<a href="#fn266">266</a>].</p> + +<p>A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry +which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which +Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph +vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; +in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning +a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so +Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser +flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids +modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its +attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is +the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the +traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into +the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of +Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is +at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a +shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, +hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the +priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside +the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae.</p> + +<p>The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as +forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped +a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly +too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, +leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. +Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at +the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and +damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range +themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the +first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. +Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love +unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for +Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when +he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers +from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis +are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' +innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in +the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is +banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no +more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night.</p> + +<p>The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to +neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in +favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, +is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and +needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage +representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the +movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far +towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece.</p> + +<p>It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain +distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of +love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too +colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained +desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to +find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither +as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn +a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory +recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory +illustrative of certain aspects of love[<a href="#fn267">267</a>]. So regarded much of the +absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to +disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that +abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as +ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass +unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start +into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> was +among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be +contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art +of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the +popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a +craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the +already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in +reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer +solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing +abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of +every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have +known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover +their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the +absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent.</p> + +<p>What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best +explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place +endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three +centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the +composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the +piece will be necessary.</p> + +<p>The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's +pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he +prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed +two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind +approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some +allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, +and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment +itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: +'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, +and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and +most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for +certaine sometimes are[<a href="#fn268">268</a>]. In his preface to the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> +the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the +<i>Queen's Arcadia</i>, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that +piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted passage writes: +'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and +shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may +agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and +vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such +improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and +poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and +fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such +like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic +representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable +propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and +state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at +above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in +the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of +mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make +it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no +comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind +of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as +in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have +supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in +1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a +very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular +gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a +pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray +cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and +sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is +concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is +obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and +bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his +play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's <i>Pastor fido</i>, it is perhaps not +fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same +author's <i>Compendio della poesia tragicomica</i>. What is important to note +is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory.</p> + +<p>Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to +individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was +familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his +eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional +characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types +of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human +desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and +the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and +the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, +indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely +careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more +tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to +regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the +cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many +changes of garment--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and +refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no +plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to +have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a +pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but +because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the +characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his +characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for +themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a +certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the +characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic +business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their +origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that +Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological +conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and +abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later +plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other +fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to +illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of +the present play he had to fashion characters <i>in vacuo</i> and then weave +them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other +words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to +make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual +example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea.</p> + +<p>So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as +to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, +having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every +form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it +necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of +cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal +sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition +of the middle age. Again comparing the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> with +Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and +women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the +moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly +conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he +comes to create <i>in vacuo</i> he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory +regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be +with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and +undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument +of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for +this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take +exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the +author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to +honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. +Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he +intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His +cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but +constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The +falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality +of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the +characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous +except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure +who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being +carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion +and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the +profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, +with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his +altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most +sacred in woman.</p> + +<p>In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set +before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one +other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as +an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly +surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false +notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we +have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to +pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must +nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with +regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of +the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or, +non sai tu com' è fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca +describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the +close of the <i>Orfeo</i>. In English poetry we find Daniel writing:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Light are their waving vailes, light their attires, <br /> + Light are their heads, and lighter their desires;<br /> + (<i>Queen's Arcadia</i>, II. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, +contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> that such virtue can<br /> + Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of +caprice</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity<br /> + Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thou wert not meant, <br /> + Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Women love only opportunity<br /> + And not the man. (ib. 127.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age +exclaimed:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake!</p></blockquote> + +<p>But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have +been considering to be justly chargeable against the <i>Faithful +Shepherdess</i>, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of +the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its +author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and +again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered +the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of +easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of +phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been +surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of +power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious +criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. +The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty +which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and +flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and +glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for +an instant on the gaze of the rider[<a href="#fn269">269</a>].</p> + +<p>Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar +to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages +as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his +critics. It is in truth no lame one[<a href="#fn270">270</a>].</p> + +<p>In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity +at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in +worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the +entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer +sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> By that heavenly form of thine, <br /> + Brightest fair, thou art divine, <br /> + Sprung from great immortal race<br /> + Of the gods, for in thy face<br /> + Shines more awful majesty<br /> + Than dull weak mortality<br /> + Dare with misty eyes behold<br /> + And live. Therefore on this mould<br /> + Lowly do I bend my knee<br /> + In worship of thy deity.[<a href="#fn271">271</a>] (I. i. 58.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the +conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the +assembled people and purging them with holy water[<a href="#fn272">272</a>], after which they +disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging +her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh you are fairer far<br /> + Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star<br /> + That guides the wandering seaman through the deep, <br /> + Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep<br /> + Head of an agèd mountain, and more white<br /> + Than the new milk we strip before day-light<br /> + From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks, <br /> + Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks<br /> + Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their +love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> to that holy wood is consecrate<br /> + A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks<br /> + The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds<br /> + By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes<br /> + Their stolen children, so to make them free<br /> + From dying flesh and dull mortality. <br /> + By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn, <br /> + And given away his freedom, many a troth<br /> + Been plight, which neither envy nor old time<br /> + Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given<br /> + In hope of coming happiness. <br /> + By this fresh fountain many a blushing maid<br /> + Hath crown'd the head of her long-lovèd shepherd<br /> + With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung<br /> + Lays of his love and dear captivity. (I. ii. 99.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Come, shepherds, come!<br /> + Come away<br /> + Without delay, <br /> + Whilst the gentle time doth stay.<br /> + Green woods are dumb, <br /> + And will never tell to any<br /> + Those dear kisses, and those many<br /> + Sweet embraces, that are given; <br /> + Dainty pleasures, that would even<br /> + Raise in coldest age a fire<br /> + And give virgin blood desire</p> + +<p> Then if ever,<br /> + Now or never, <br /> + Come and have it;<br /> + Think not I<br /> + Dare deny<br /> + If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just +lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her +with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> lend me all thy red, <br /> + Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed<br /> + Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Shepherds all and maidens fair, <br /> + Fold your flocks up, for the air<br /> + 'Gins to thicken, and the sun<br /> + Already his great course hath run. <br /> + See the dew-drops how they kiss<br /> + Every little flower that is, <br /> + Hanging on their velvet heads<br /> + Like a rope of crystal beads; <br /> + See the heavy clouds low falling, <br /> + And bright Hesperus down calling<br /> + The dead night from under ground, <br /> + At whose rising mists unsound, <br /> + Damps and vapours fly apace, <br /> + Hovering o'er the wanton face<br /> + Of these pastures, where they come<br /> + Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, +founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can +plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> 'Tis not the white or red<br /> + Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed<br /> + My mind to adoration, nor your eye, <br /> + Though it be full and fair, your forehead high<br /> + And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile<br /> + Lies watching in those dimples to beguile<br /> + The easy soul, your hands and fingers long<br /> + With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue, <br /> + Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp; <br /> + Your hair woven in many a curious warp, <br /> + Able in endless error to enfold<br /> + The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould<br /> + Of all your body, which as pure doth shew<br /> + In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow: <br /> + All these, were but your constancy away, <br /> + Would please me less than the black stormy day<br /> + The wretched seaman toiling through the deep. <br /> + But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep, <br /> + Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were<br /> + In the great womb of air were settled here, <br /> + In opposition, I would, like the tree, <br /> + Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free<br /> + Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in +the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of +Chapman's outburst:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea<br /> + Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, <br /> + Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, <br /> + And his rapt ship run on her side so low<br /> + That she drinks water and her keel plows air.<br /> + (<i>Byron's Conspiracy</i>, III. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to +enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, +which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of +the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his +mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, +mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly +reminiscent of the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>. The wild-wood minister thus +describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a +characteristic of the play:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky, <br /> + And the stars, whose feeble light<br /> + Give a pale shadow to the night, <br /> + Are up, great Pan commanded me<br /> + To walk this grove about, whilst he, <br /> + In a corner of the wood<br /> + Where never mortal foot hath stood, <br /> + Keeps dancing, music and a feast<br /> + To entertain a lovely guest; <br /> + Where he gives her many a rose<br /> + Sweeter than the breath that blows<br /> + The leaves, grapes, berries of the best; <br /> + I never saw so great a feast. <br /> + But to my charge. Here must I stay<br /> + To see what mortals lose their way, <br /> + And by a false fire, seeming-bright, <br /> + Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the +transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> What art thou dare<br /> + Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care<br /> + Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that<br /> + Which we esteem our honour, virgin state; <br /> + Dearer than swallows love the early morn, <br /> + Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn; <br /> + Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast<br /> + Another, and far dearer than the last; <br /> + Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all<br /> + The self-love were within thee that did fall<br /> + With that coy swain that now is made a flower, <br /> + For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!... <br /> + Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head, <br /> + And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> See, the day begins to break, <br /> + And the light shoots like a streak<br /> + Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold<br /> + Whilst the morning doth unfold. <br /> + Now the birds begin to rouse, <br /> + And the squirrel from the boughs<br /> + Leaps to get him nuts and fruit; <br /> + The early lark, that erst was mute, <br /> + Carols to the rising day<br /> + Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action +as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking +in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as +she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. +However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in +itself unsurpassed:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> If there be<br /> + Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree, <br /> + Receive my body, close me up from lust<br /> + That follows at my heels! Be ever just, <br /> + Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake<br /> + That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake<br /> + In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit; <br /> + Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute, <br /> + Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast<br /> + Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste!<br /> + (V. iii. 79.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thou divinest, fairest, brightest,<br /> + Thou most powerful maid and whitest,<br /> + Thou most virtuous and most blessèd,<br /> + Eyes of stars, and golden-tressèd<br /> + Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest,<br /> + What new service now is meetest<br /> + For the satyr? Shall I stray<br /> + In the middle air, and stay<br /> + The sailing rack, or nimbly take<br /> + Hold by the moon, and gently make<br /> + Suit to the pale queen of night<br /> + For a beam to give thee light?<br /> + Shall I dive into the sea<br /> + And bring thee coral, making way<br /> + Through the rising waves that fall<br /> + In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall<br /> + I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies<br /> + Whose woven wings the summer dyes<br /> + Of many colours? get thee fruit,<br /> + Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute?<br /> + All these I'll venture for, and more, <br /> + To do her service all these woods adore.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> So I take my leave and pray<br /> + All the comforts of the day,<br /> + Such as Phoebus' heat doth send<br /> + On the earth, may still befriend<br /> + Thee and this arbour! <br /> + <i>Clorin.</i> And to thee,<br /> + All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own +individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it +follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain +traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, +it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of +Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum +total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far +surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate +art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of +the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon +accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was +necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and +range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form +from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or +vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action +and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, +and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been +stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from +the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a +successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for +the scene's sake[<a href="#fn273">273</a>].'</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch05-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no +doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the +academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he +was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London +about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, +before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that +the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have +occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the +very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this +supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at +that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The +play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's +poems edited by his brother in 1638.</p> + +<p>Like Fletcher's play, the <i>Amyntas</i> is a conscious attempt at so altering +the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation +on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, +before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and +intended by the author for performance on the public boards[<a href="#fn274">274</a>]. Yet the +two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing +the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and +conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless +introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest +commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the <i>Faithful +Shepherdess</i> lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of +plot which we find in the <i>Pastor fido</i>. Randolph, on the other hand, +chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained +much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the +complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of +certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced +elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence +of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism +an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable +proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English +melodrama.</p> + +<p>Like the <i>Pastor fido</i>[<a href="#fn275">275</a>], Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i> is weighted with a +preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was +betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the +greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. +Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the +faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and +Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her +tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the +goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide<br /> + To every bridegroome, and to every bride: <br /> + No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire, <br /> + Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire. <br /> + The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit<br /> + Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister +Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to +Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania +and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went +so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the +uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[<a href="#fn276">276</a>]' +replied:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have<br /> + Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave: <br /> + Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine<br /> + To give Urania this, and she is thine.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had +conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love +of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis.</p> + +<p>This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we +find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and +her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the +most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis' +love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her +choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them +abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the +morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose +love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself. +In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard +of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of +his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his +identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise +that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over +the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the +temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and +Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon, +fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award +of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who +shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks +to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear +and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has +fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her +all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and +finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil +conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make +Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his +old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the +letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares +that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is +forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off +in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we +find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and +bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius' +blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the +fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self. +Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of +wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that +of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues +that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might +without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly +stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are +alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the +general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her +vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels +before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the +appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the +solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband.</p> + +<p>This plot is a mingling of comedy in the scenes of Laurinda's +'wavering'[<a href="#fn277">277</a>] and the 'humours' of Amyntas' madness, and of tragi-comedy +in the catastrophe. But besides this there is what may best be described +as an antiplot of pure farce, in which the main character is the roguish +page Dorylas, who in the guise of Oberon robs Jocastus' orchard, tricks +Thestylis into marrying the foolish augur, and gulls everybody all round. +The humour of this portion of the piece may be occasionally a trifle broad +and at the same time childish, but there is nevertheless no denying the +genuineness of the quality, while the verse is as a rule sparkling, and +the dialogue both racy and pointed, occasionally displaying qualities +hardly to be described as other than brilliant.</p> + +<p>This comic subplot obviously owes nothing to Guarini, but is introduced +in accordance with the usage of the English popular drama, and is grafted +somewhat boldly on to the conventional stock. Dorylas is one of the most +inimitable and successful of the descendants of Lyly's pages; while the +characters of Mopsus and Jocastus, although the former no doubt owes his +conception to a hint in the <i>Aminta</i>, belong essentially to the English +romantic farce. The scenes in which the page appears as Oberon surrounded +by his court recall the introduction of the 'mortal fairies' of the <i>Merry +Wives,</i> and that in which Amyntas' 'deluded fancy' takes the augur for a +hound of Actaeon's breed may owe something to a passage in <i>King Lear</i>. +But even apart from the elements of farce and comedy there are important +aspects in which the <i>Amyntas</i> severs itself from the stricter tradition +of the Italian pastoral. Randolph, while adopting the machinery and much +of the scenic environment of Guarini's play, made certain not unimportant +alterations in the dramatic construction, tending towards greater variety +and complicity. In the <i>Pastor fido</i> the four main characters, though they +ultimately resolve themselves into two pairs, are throughout +interdependent, and their story forms but a single plot. That the play +should have needed a double solution, the events that bring two couples +together having no connexion with one another, was a dramatic blunder but +imperfectly concealed by the fact that Silvio and Dorinda are purely +secondary, the whole interest being concentrated on the fortunes of +Mirtillo and Amarilli. In Randolph's play, on the other hand, there are no +less than six important characters. These are divided into two groups, +each with an independent plot, one of which contains a telling though +somewhat conventional περιπέτεια, while the other, though +possessing originality and pathos, is lacking in dramatic possibilities. +Thus each supplies the elements wanting in the other, and if woven +together harmoniously, should have been capable of forming the basis of a +well-constructed play. The first of these groups consists of Laurinda, +Alexis, Damon, and Amarillis, the last two being really the dramatically +important ones, though their fortunes are connected throughout. It is +Laurinda's choice of Alexis that leads to the union of Damon and +Amarillis, and it is not till Damon has unconsciously fulfilled the +oracle and been freed by its interpretation, that the loves of Laurinda +and Alexis can hope for a happy event. Thus Randolph has at least not +fallen into the error by which Guarini introduced a double catastrophe +into a single plot, though he has not altogether avoided a somewhat +similar danger. This is due to the other group above mentioned, consisting +of Amyntas and Urania, who, so far as the plot is concerned, are +absolutely independent of the other characters. Their own story is +essentially undramatic, although it possesses qualities which would make +it effective in narrative; and it is, moreover, wholly unaffected by the +solution of the other plot. This is obviously a weak place in the +construction of the play, but the author has shown great resource in +meeting the difficulty. First, by placing the interpretation of the oracle +in the mouth of Amyntas, who must yet himself remain hopeless amid the +general rejoicing, he has produced a figure of considerable dramatic +effect, and so kept the attention of the audience braced, and stayed the +relaxing effect of the anti-climax. Secondly, he has amused the spectators +with some excellent fooling until, while Io and Paean are yet resounding, +it is possible to crown the whole by the solution of the second oracle, +and send the hero and his love to join the others in the festive throng. +The imperfection of plot is there, but the author has been skilful in +concealing it, and it may well be that his success would appear all the +greater were his play to be put to the real test of dramatic composition +by being actually placed on the boards.</p> + +<p>But there is yet another point in which the <i>Amyntas</i> differs not only +from its Italian model but from its English predecessors likewise. This is +a certain genially humorous conception of the whole, quite apart from and +beyond the mere introduction of comedy and farce, which we have never +found so marked before, and which has indeed been painfully absent from +the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the <i>Aminta</i>. This +humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in +a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing +the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming +stilted and pretentions--a fault not less commonly and quite as justly +charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of +humour is the great safeguard against an author taking either himself or +his creations too seriously. Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i>, it is true, renounces +the high ideality of its predecessors, of the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor +fido</i>, of <i>Hymen's Triumph</i> and the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>; but it makes +up for it by human sanity of feeling and expression, by good humour and by +wit. It is, moreover, genuinely diverting. Here at least we find no +endeavour to attain to the importance and solemnity of a classical tragedy +as with Guarini, nor a striving after an utterly unreal, unsympathetic and +impossible ideal as with Fletcher. It is, moreover, noticeable and +eminently to the credit of the author that the comic scenes, even when +somewhat extravagant alike in tone and proportion, seldom clash +unpleasantly with the more serious passages, nor derogate from the +interest and dignity of the whole.</p> + +<p>The play has generally met with a far from deserved neglect, owing in part +no doubt to the singular failure on the part of most critics to apprehend +correctly the nature and conditions of pastoral poetry.[<a href="#fn278">278</a>] Mr. W. C. +Hazlitt, who edited Randolph's works in 1875, does not so much as mention +the play in the perfunctory introduction, in which he chiefly follows the +extravagant, pedantic, and utterly worthless article in the sixth volume +of the <i>Retrospective Review</i>.[<a href="#fn279">279</a>] The merits of the piece have been +somewhat more fully recognized by Dr. Ward and Mr. Homer Smith, but the +treatment accorded the play by the former is necessarily scanty, while +that of the latter is inaccurate. Throughout a tendency is manifest to +find fault with the artificiality of the piece, and to blame the author +for not representing the true 'simplicity' of pastoral life. That the +pastoral tradition was a wholly impossible, not to say an absurd one, +bearing no true relation to nature at all, may be admitted; and it may be +lamented by such as love to shed bitter tears because the sandy shore is +not a well-swept parquet, or because anything you please is not something +else to which it bears not the smallest resemblance. It may or may not be +unfortunate that Randolph should have elected to write <i>more pastorali</i>, +but to censure the individual work because it is not of a type to which +its author never had the remotest intention of making it conform, and to +which except for something like a miracle it was impossible that it should +even approach, is the acme of critical fatuity. Judged in accordance with +the intention of the author the <i>Amyntas</i> is no inconsiderable achievement +for a young writer, and compared with other works belonging to the same +tradition it occupies a highly respectable place. With Tasso's <i>Aminta</i> +and Fletcher's <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> it cannot, in point of poetic merit, +for one moment compare, falling as far below them in this as it surpasses +them in complexity and general suitability of dramatic construction. A +fairer comparison may be made between it and the <i>Pastor fido</i> in Italian +or <i>Hymen's Triumph</i> in English, and here again, though certainly with +regard to the former and probably with regard to the latter it stands +second as poetry, as a play it is decidedly better suited than either for +representation on the stage--at least on a stage with the traditions and +conventions which prevailed in this country in the author's day.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>It is then in the matter of the poetical quality of the verse that +Randolph's play appears to least advantage. Living in a polished and +cultured literary circle at Cambridge, and enjoying after his remove to +London the congenial fellowship of the tribe of Ben, he naturally attained +the ease and skill necessary to maintain a respectable level of +composition, but he was sparing of the higher flights. He seldom strikes +the attention by those purple patches which make many of his +contemporaries so quotable, yet, while by no means monotonously correct, +it is equally seldom that he sinks much below his general level. The +dialogue is on the whole natural and easy, and at the same time crisp and +pointed. A few of the more distinctively poetic and imaginative passages +may be quoted, in order to give some idea of the style. Laurinda thus +appoints a choice to her brace of lovers:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I have protested never to disclose<br /> + Which 'tis that best I love: But the first Nymph, <br /> + As soone as Titan guilds the Easterne hills, <br /> + And chirping birds, the Saints-bell of the day, <br /> + Ring in our eares a warning to devotion--<br /> + That lucky damsell what so e're she be<br /> + [That first shall meet you from the temple gate][<a href="#fn280">280</a>] <br /> + Shall be the Goddesse to appoint my love, <br /> + To say, 'Laurinda this shall be your choice': <br /> + And both shall sweare to stand to her award! (III. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another passage of deliberate poetic elaboration is the monologue of +Claius on once again treading his native soil:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I see the smoake steame from the Cottage tops, <br /> + The fearfull huswife rakes the embers up, <br /> + All hush to bed. Sure, no man will disturbe mee. <br /> + O blessed vally! I the wretched Claius<br /> + Salute thy happy soyle, I that have liv'd<br /> + Pelted with angry curses in a place<br /> + As horrid as my griefes, the Lylibaean mountaines, <br /> + These sixteene frozen winters; there have I<br /> + Beene with rude out-lawes, living by such sinnes<br /> + As runne o' th' score with justice 'gainst my prayers and wishes: <br /> + And when I would have tumbled down a rock, <br /> + Some secret powre restrain'd me. (III. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few +passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the +verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. The following is a graceful +example in a somewhat conceited vein; the transition, moreover, from +blank to rimed measure has an appearance of natural ease. The rivals are +awaiting the arbitrement of their love:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Alexis.</i> How early, Damon, <br /> + Doe lovers rise!...</p> + +<p> <i>Damon.</i> No Larkes so soon, Alexis.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> He that of us shall have Laurinda, Damon, <br /> + Will not be up so soone: ha! would you Damon?</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Alexis, no; but if I misse Laurinda, <br /> + My sleepe shall be eternall.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> I much wonder the Sunne so soone can rise!</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Did he lay his head in faire Laurinda's lap, <br /> + We should have but short daies.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> No summer, Damon.</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> Thetis[<a href="#fn281">281</a>] to her is browne.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> And he doth rise<br /> + From her to gaze on faire Laurinda's eyes....</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> I heare no noise of any yet that move.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> Devotion's not so early up as love.</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> See how Aurora blushes! we suppose<br /> + Where Tithon lay to night.</p> + +<p> <i>Al.</i> That modest rose<br /> + He grafted there.</p> + +<p> <i>Da.</i> O heaven, 'tis all I seeke, <br /> + To make that colour in Laurinda's cheeke. (IV. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>A more tragic note is struck in the speech in which Claius retorts on +Pilumnus after his discovery:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I, glut your hate, Pilumnus; let your soule<br /> + That has so long thirsted to drinke my blood, <br /> + Swill till my veines are empty;... I have stood<br /> + Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove<br /> + Levels his thunder; all my boughes long since<br /> + Blasted and wither'd; now the trunke falls too. <br /> + Heaven end thy wrath in mee! (IV. viii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>In some of these 'high tragical endeavours,' and notably in Damon's +confession, we do indeed find a certain stiltedness, but even here there +rings a true note of pathos in the farewell:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Amarillis, <br /> + I goe to write my story of repentance<br /> + With the same inke, wherewith thou wrotes before<br /> + The legend of thy love. (IV. ix.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>These passages will serve to give a fair and not unfavourable impression +of the style, but I have reserved for separate consideration what I +consider to be the most striking portions of the play. The first of these +is the string of Latin songs in which the would-be elves comment on their +nefarious proceedings in Jocastus' orchard. I quote certain stanzas only:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Nos beata Fauni Proles, <br /> + Quibus non est magna moles, <br /> + Quamvis Lunam incolamus, <br /> + Hortos saepe frequentamus.</p> + +<p> Furto cuncta magis bella, <br /> + Furto dulcior Puella, <br /> + Furto omnia decora, <br /> + Furto poma dulciora.</p> + +<p> Cum mortales lecto jacent, <br /> + Nobis poma noctu placent; <br /> + Illa tamen sunt ingrata, <br /> + Nisi furto sint parata.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> Oberon, descende citus, <br /> + Ne cogaris hinc invitus; <br /> + Canes audio latrantes, <br /> + Et mortales vigilantes.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> I domum, Oberon, ad illas<br /> + Quae nos manent nunc ancillas, <br /> + Quarum osculemur sinum, <br /> + Inter poma, lac et vinum. (III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>To discuss verses such as these seriously is impossible. The dog-Latin of +the fellow of Trinity is inimitable, while there is a peculiarly roguish +delicacy about his humour. In the admirable ease with which the words are +adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of +the <i>carmina vagorum</i>. Lastly, as undoubtedly the finest passage of the +play, and as one that must give us pause when we would deny to 'prince +Randolph' the gifts requisite for the higher imaginative drama, I must +quote the scene in which the distracted Amyntas fancies that in his +endless search for the 'impossible dowry' he has arrived on the shores of +Styx and boarded Charon's bark.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Amyntas.</i> Row me to hell!--no faster? I will have thee<br /> + Chain'd unto Pluto's gallies!</p> + +<p> <i>Urania.</i> Why to hell, <br /> + My deere Amyntas?</p> + +<p> <i>Amyntas.</i> Why? to borrow mony!</p> + +<p> <i>Amarillis.</i> Borrow there?</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> I, there! they say there be more Usurers there<br /> + Then all the world besides.--See how the windes<br /> + Rise! Puffe, puffe Boreas.--What a cloud comes yonder! <br /> + Take heed of that wave, Charon! ha? give mee<br /> + The oares!--So, so: the boat is overthrown; <br /> + Now Charons drown'd, but I will swim to shore.... <br /> + My armes are weary;--now I sinke, I sinke! <br /> + Farewell Urania ... Styx, I thank thee! That curld wave<br /> + Hath tos'd mee on the shore.--Come Sysiphus, <br /> + I'll rowle thy stone a while: mee thinkes this labour<br /> + Doth looke like Love! does it not so, Tysiphone?</p> + +<p> <i>Ama.</i> Mine is that restlesse toile.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Is't so, Erynnis? <br /> + You are an idle huswife, goe and spin<br /> + At poore Ixions wheele!</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Amyntas!</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Ha? + Am I known here?</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Amyntas, deere Amyntas--</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Who calls Amyntas? beauteous Proserpine? <br /> + 'Tis shee.--Fair Empresse of th' Elysian shades, <br /> + Ceres bright daughter intercede for mee, <br /> + To thy incensed mother: prithee bid her<br /> + Leave talking riddles, wilt thou?... Queene of darknesse, <br /> + Thou supreme Lady of eternall night, <br /> + Grant my petitions! wilt thou beg of Ceres<br /> + That I may have Urania?</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Tis my praier, <br /> + And shall be ever, I will promise thee<br /> + Shee shall have none but him.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Thankes Proserpine!</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Come sweet Amyntas, rest thy troubled head<br /> + Here in my lap.--Now here I hold at once<br /> + My sorrow and my comfort.--Nay, ly still.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> I will, but Proserpine--</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Nay, good Amyntas--</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Should Pluto chance to spy me, would not hee<br /> + Be jealous of me?</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> No.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Tysiphone, <br /> + Tell not Urania of it, least she feare<br /> + I am in love with Proserpine: doe not Fury!</p> + +<p> <i>Ama.</i> I will not.</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Pray ly still!</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> You Proserpine, <br /> + There is in Sicilie the fairest Virgin<br /> + That ever blest the land, that ever breath'd<br /> + Sweeter than Zephyrus! didst thou never heare<br /> + Of one Urania?</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Yes.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> This poore Urania<br /> + Loves an unfortunate sheapheard, one that's mad, Tysiphone, <br /> + Canst thou believe it? Elegant Urania--<br /> + I cannot speak it without tears--still loves<br /> + Amyntas, the distracted mad Amyntas. <br /> + Is't not a constant Nymph?--But I will goe<br /> + And carry all Elysium on my back, <br /> + And that shall be her joynture.</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Good Amyntas, <br /> + Rest here a while!</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Why weepe you Proserpine?</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> Because Urania weepes to see Amyntas<br /> + So restlesse and unquiet.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Does shee so? <br /> + Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, <br /> + When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; <br /> + I will not move a haire, not let a nerve<br /> + Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! Hush,-- <br /> + Shee sleepes!</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> And so doe you.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> You talk too loud, <br /> + You'l waken my Urania.</p> + +<p> <i>Ura.</i> If Amyntas, <br /> + Her deere Amyntas would but take his rest, <br /> + Urania could not want it.</p> + +<p> <i>Amy.</i> Not so loud! (II. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>It was no ordinary imagination that conceived this example of the +grotesque in the service of the pathetic.</p> + +<p>I have endeavoured in the above account to do a somewhat tardy justice to +the considerable and rather remarkably sustained qualities of Randolph's +play. I do not claim that as poetry it can be compared with the work of +Tasso, Fletcher, or Jonson, or that it even rivals that of Guarini or +Daniel, though had Randolph lived he might easily have surpassed the +latter. But I do claim that the <i>Amyntas</i> is one of the most interesting +and important of the experiments which English writers made in the +pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its +kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the +genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived +author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not +overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her +laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it +is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun +in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth +of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other +hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to +assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of +the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when +Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works--the <i>Jealous Lovers</i>, a +Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the +<i>Muses' Looking Glass</i>, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and +the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than +occasionally improper--will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact +that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of +pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due +to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the +loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play +failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature.[<a href="#fn282">282</a>]</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch05-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>In Jonson's <i>Sad Shepherd</i> we find ourselves once again considering a work +which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, +but which at the same time raises important questions of literary +criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to +consider--Daniel's <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, Fletcher's <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, +Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i>--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian +pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the +very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, +aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. +Except for such comparatively unimportant works as <i>Gallathea</i> and the +<i>Converted Robber</i>,[<a href="#fn283">283</a>] the spectators found themselves, for the first +time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of +Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,' +the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those +of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, +Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's +rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of +Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which +had been variously present since Tasso styled his play <i>favola +boschereccia</i>, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction +of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of +the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of +the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd +Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated +and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to +fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something +fresh and original and new.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is +at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some +years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of +1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what +date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered +upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for +supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor +that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is +conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier +pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost <i>May Lord</i> has +little to recommend it.[<a href="#fn284">284</a>] Seeing that the play is far from being as +generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give +a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place.[<a href="#fn285">285</a>]</p> + +<p>After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with +characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, +lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is +supposed to have been drowned in the Trent.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here! <br /> + Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow: <br /> + The world may find the Spring by following her; <br /> + For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to +fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to +entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the +stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of +melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin +Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country +maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls +forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of +shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical +pretensions of the puritan reformers--a passage which yields, in biting +satire, neither to his own presentation in the <i>Alchemist</i> nor to Quarles' +scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they +become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks +to himself like a madman.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It will be rare, rare, rare! <br /> + An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words! <br /> + Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: <br /> + If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing! <br /> + Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, <br /> + On every greene sworth, and in every path, <br /> + Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; <br /> + There will I knock the story in the ground, <br /> + In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, <br /> + Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; <br /> + And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, <br /> + Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. <br /> + Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither, <br /> + Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water, <br /> + Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout, <br /> + As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs, <br /> + Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine; <br /> + Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice; <br /> + And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice. <br /> + Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest, <br /> + And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles, <br /> + And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle; <br /> + To fling a fellow with a Fever in, <br /> + To set it all on fire, till it burne, <br /> + Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, <br /> + When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that +he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his +distracted fancy breaks out afresh:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes? <br /> + Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks? <br /> + Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe? <br /> + These may grow still; but what can spring betide? <br /> + Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died? <br /> + As if there since did fall one drop of dew, <br /> + But what was wept for her! or any stalke<br /> + Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome, <br /> + After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith, <br /> + You doe not faire, to put these things upon me, <br /> + Which can in no sort be: Earine, <br /> + Who had her very being, and her name, <br /> + With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring, <br /> + Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet, <br /> + Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd, <br /> + And Venus led the Graces out to dance, <br /> + And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap, <br /> + Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration, <br /> + To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know, <br /> + How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since, <br /> + No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre<br /> + Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke, <br /> + As it were hung so for her Exequies! <br /> + And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell, <br /> + But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle, <br /> + And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule<br /> + Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings! <br /> + Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad +north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a +new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this, <br /> + This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse;<br /><br /> + [<i>Forces Amie to kiss Karolin.</i><br /> + Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty, <br /> + For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem<br /> + From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her: <br /> + Now I am poore as you. (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the +quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's +interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Robin.</i> I! what was that, sweet Marian? [<i>Kisses her.</i></p> + +<p> <i>Marian.</i> You'll not heare?</p> + +<p> <i>Rob.</i> I love these interruptions in a Story; [<i>Kisses her again</i><br /> + They make it sweeter.</p> + +<p> <i>Mar.</i> You doe know, as soone<br /> + As the Assay is taken-- [<i>Kisses her again.</i></p> + +<p> <i>Rob.</i> On, my Marian. <br /> + I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> sate a Raven + On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse!</p></blockquote> + +<p>crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen +swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by +Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, +broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now +proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie +complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly +explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the +stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the +strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults +Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to +Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act +Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of +Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought +discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it +now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow +tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now +enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases +from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, +which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, +and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, +reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in +which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This +latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned +to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one +might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would +appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of +natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been +awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to +dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of +his nymphs and swains.[<a href="#fn286">286</a>] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce +the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and +by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next +scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill +at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain +possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the +<i>naïveté</i> of <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i>.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth, <br /> + Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth, <br /> + Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by<br /> + A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie, <br /> + Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree, <br /> + Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee? <br /> + Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost, <br /> + The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost, <br /> + My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence, <br /> + Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence. <br /> + But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove, <br /> + Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove; <br /> + It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe<br /> + All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late +conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of +the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains +unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to +thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and +begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin +declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At +this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to +the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting +poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her +disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its +delicate comedy and pathos.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Amie</i> [<i>asleep</i>]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ... <br /> + O', ô.</p> + +<p> <i>Marian.</i> How is't Amie?</p> + +<p> <i>Melifleur.</i> Wherefore start you?</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet.</p> + +<p> <i>Maud.</i> What then? <br /> + Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men? <br /> + The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet!</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> I', so! <br /> + Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe: <br /> + Karol is only faire to mee!</p> + +<p> <i>Mar.</i> And why?</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die. <br /> + Karol he singeth sweetly too!</p> + +<p> <i>Maud.</i> What then? <br /> + Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men?</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing, <br /> + But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring, <br /> + The Nightingale.</p> + +<p> <i>Maud.</i> Then why? then why, alone, <br /> + Should his notes please you? ...</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> This verie morning, but--I did bestow--<br /> + It was a little 'gainst my will, I know--<br /> + A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine, <br /> + And now I wish that verie kisse againe. <br /> + His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose, <br /> + His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes; <br /> + The relish of it was a pleasing thing.</p> + +<p> <i>Maud.</i> Yet like the Bees it had a little sting.</p> + +<p> <i>Amie.</i> And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe<br /> + And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer +doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of +Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise +shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of +venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a +gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes +and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an +Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an +old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As +fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers +kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales +forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and +boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad +Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade! +The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of +lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! +Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie +Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their +habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks +of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a +poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits +play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the +Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, +o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent +charmes. (II. viii.)</p> + +<p>In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as +the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk +it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the +dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The +latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a +'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein +no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine, <br /> + Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers, <br /> + Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste<br /> + To get up to the Moone, and Mercury; <br /> + And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring<br /> + Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars, <br /> + Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe<br /> + Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all<br /> + The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World<br /> + Againe, his first and tunefull planetting! <br /> + O' what an age will here be of new concords! <br /> + Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages, <br /> + Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation, <br /> + And throw a silence upon all the creatures!... <br /> + The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes<br /> + Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse; <br /> + Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme<br /> + Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht, <br /> + To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for +the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again +appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and +their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, +and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle +and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with +it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the +shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and +sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again +addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting +his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Gang thy gait, and try<br /> + Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel';</p></blockquote> + +<p>the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we +know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of +Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden +mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her +girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped +by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers.</p> + +<p>Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's +pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford, +who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical +judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of +propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought, +and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the +petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who +stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> +as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its +heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, +however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the <i>Sad +Shepherd</i> to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of +it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will +serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They +display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of +judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben +Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour +and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel, +Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian, +and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious +part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque, +was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit; +the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the +success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt +of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary +groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous +contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On +the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate +the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of +composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with +such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the +projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more +amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or +more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise, +but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that +now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt +influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but +he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is +impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone +final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was +of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his +work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and +deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he +denounces the heresy</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall,</p></blockquote> + +<p>as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he +introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by +Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In +<i>The Sad Shepherd</i> [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit +of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than +either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is +due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance +that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It +must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in +part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit +that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be +repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's +invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it +will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as +favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike +are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may +feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There +are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely +refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a +writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but +with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel +bound to record my dissent.</p> + +<p>Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and +genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr. +Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry' +in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive +that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to +repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[<a href="#fn287">287</a>] That Jonson did not +fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only, +however, I believe, because he faiîed to carry it to completion. Had he +lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant +with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question +as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult +and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, +especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the +unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic +construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers +with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted.</p> + +<p>Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, +it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first +place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads, +pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and +seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken +to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and +forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral +tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in +name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and +boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's +<i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, +are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the <i>Maid's +Metamorphosis</i> in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly +indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the +woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their +essence and history indistinguishable.[<a href="#fn288">288</a>] Probably, however, what the +writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of +popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he +regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by +Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return.</p> + +<p>Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the +comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer +Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as +an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this +view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, +the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin +Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject +of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which +the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of +stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of +a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is +known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we +have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, +<i>Hymen's Triumph</i> and Rutter's <i>Shepherds' Holiday</i>; while in the +detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an +exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements +of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by +Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the +materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited +by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the +exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse, +have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part +of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an +unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the +<i>imbroglio</i> can do more than restore the harmony which had been before, +and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the +dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the <i>Faithful +Shepherdess</i>. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end +of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose +than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her +confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her +Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the +materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact +that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than +half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the +felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot +as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness +almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the +burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid +Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin +Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which +arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various +threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and +incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic +characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished +shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy +one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr. +Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain +the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are +essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic +composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets +of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the +sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without +qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is +welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's +pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention +of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found +its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious +idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined +creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from +common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many +shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may +frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind, +Phoebe, and Audrey in <i>As You Like It</i>? But that is a question to which we +shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the <i>Sad +Shepherd</i> we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined +atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet +constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude +unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels +at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This +brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we +shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of +the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage.</p> + +<p>The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's +pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All +that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the +stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and +with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope +to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be +in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic +characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in +reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts +them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock +and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as +exhibited in the <i>Sad Shepherd</i>, would not be worth defending. But it is +not so.</p> + +<p>It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions. +It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain +passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world +in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and +irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so +far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial +Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the +rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine; +of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find +her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of +the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the +singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the +mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean +and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come +dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an +occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense +at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good +angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a +familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of +borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain +incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual +passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as +they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to +lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between +these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be +remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather +beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not +fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had +the play undergone revision.</p> + +<p>Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and +general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. +The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and +may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country +lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular +romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way +antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft +and fairy lore[<a href="#fn289">289</a>]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far +as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no +Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his +lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of +burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic +lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical +tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not +contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, +since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether +necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is +going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,' +they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be +wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, +it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the +pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly +poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce +references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less +naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, +introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable +characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the +same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also +noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one +passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise +incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of +Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically +something of an anachronism.</p> + +<p>Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized +than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular +tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as +Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than +with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood +tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it +exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the +popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock +and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely +less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That +Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found +is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like +Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect.</p> + +<p>Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for +an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic +characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a +mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this +light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for +death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude +audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while +there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private +opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to +cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he +laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister +reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an +imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, +removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of +romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less +idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but +regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more +in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the +shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and +other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition.</p> + +<p>There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the +ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the +groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher +than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the +whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it +is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it +not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere +literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not +only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have +been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum +true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his +day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters +not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we +should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised +fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author +decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his <i>English Grammar</i> shows, +was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and +it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral +himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of +language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have +escaped his critical eye.</p> + +<p>Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor +importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in +previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in +popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a +veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it +remained unfinished at the death of its author.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment. +This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and +falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure +of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat +qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of +the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and +convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by +which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. +The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but +only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course, +introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all +ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the +hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth +quoting[<a href="#fn290">290</a>]:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! <br /> + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; <br /> + With breath of bugles sound his knell, <br /> + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!</p> + +<p> Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide, <br /> + Nor branchy head will long abide; <br /> + Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath, <br /> + Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death.</p> + +<p> The hart is slain! his faithful deer, <br /> + In spite of hounds or huntsman near, <br /> + Despising Death, and all his train, <br /> + Laments her hart untimely slain!</p> + +<p> The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! <br /> + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; <br /> + Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell, <br /> + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!</p> + +<p> (Act IV.)</p></blockquote></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> +<h2>Chapter VI.</h2> + +<h3>The English Pastoral Drama</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch06-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>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 +<i>Astrée</i> was introduced from France[<a href="#fn291">291</a>]. 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.</p> + +<p>There are extant at least seven plays founded upon Sidney's +<i>Arcadia</i>.[<a href="#fn292">292</a>] 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Arcadia</i> 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:[<a href="#fn293">293</a>]</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> such a truth<br /> + Shines in your language, and such innocence<br /> + In what you call affection, I must<br /> + Declare you have not plac'd one good thought here, <br /> + Which is not answer'd with my heart. The fire<br /> + Which sparkled in your bosom, long since leap'd<br /> + Into my breast, and there burns modestly: <br /> + It would have spread into a greater flame, <br /> + But still I curb'd it with my tears. Oh, Pyrocles, <br /> + I would thou wert Zelmane again! and yet, <br /> + I must confess I lov'd thee then; I know not<br /> + With what prophetick soul, but I did wish<br /> + Often, thou were a man, or I no woman.</p> + +<p> <i>Pyrocles.</i> Thou wert the comfort of my sleeps.</p> + +<p> <i>Philoclea.</i> And you<br /> + The object of my watches, when the night<br /> + Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber; <br /> + Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy<br /> + For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains, <br /> + My dreams were still of thee--forgive my blushes--<br /> + And in imagination thou wert then<br /> + My harmless bedfellow.</p> + +<p> <i>Pyr.</i> I arrive too soon<br /> + At my desires. Gently, oh gently, drop<br /> + These joys into me! lest, at once let fall, <br /> + I sink beneath the tempest of my blessings. (III. iv.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or again when he urges her to escape:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I could content myself<br /> + To look on Pyrocles, and think it happiness<br /> + Enough; or, if my soul affect variety<br /> + Of pleasure, every accent of thy voice<br /> + Shall court me with new rapture; and if these<br /> + Delights be narrow for us, there is left<br /> + A modest kiss, where every touch conveys<br /> + Our melting souls into each other's lips. <br /> + Why should not you be pleas'd to look on me? <br /> + To hear, and sometimes kiss, Philoclea? <br /> + Indeed you make me blush. [<i>Draws a veil over her face.</i>] + + <i>Pyr.</i> What an eclipse<br /> + Hath that veil made! it was not night till now. <br /> + Look if the stars have not withdrawn themselves, <br /> + As they had waited on her richer brightness, <br /> + And missing of her eyes are stolen to bed. (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Isle of Gulls</i>, a farcical and no doubt highly topical play, +which is equally founded on the <i>Arcadia</i>, though it follows the story far +less closely. Day's title was probably suggested by Nashe's <i>Isle of +Dogs</i>, 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 <i>Isle of Gulls</i> 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[<a href="#fn294">294</a>]--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.[<a href="#fn295">295</a>]</p> + +<p>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,[<a href="#fn296">296</a>] +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:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Duke.</i> Doth our match hold?</p> + +<p> <i>Duchess.</i> Yes, whose part will you take?</p> + +<p> <i>Duke.</i> Zelmanes.</p> + +<p> <i>Duchess.</i> Soft, that match is still to make.</p> + +<p> <i>Violetta.</i> Lets cast a choice, the nearest two take one.</p> + +<p> <i>Lisander.</i> My choice is cast; help sweet occasion.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> Come, heere's agood.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Well, betterd.</p> + +<p> <i>Duch.</i> Best of all:</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> The Duke and I.</p> + +<p> <i>Duke.</i> The weakest goe to the wall.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> Ile lead.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Ile follow.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> We have both one mind.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> In what?</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> In leaving the old folke behinde.</p> + +<p> <i>Duke.</i> Well jested, daughter; and you lead not faire, <br /> + The hindmost hound though old may catch the hare.</p> + +<p> <i>Duch.</i> Your last Boule come?</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> By the faith a me well led.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Would I might lead you.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> Whither?</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> To my bed.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> I am sure you would not.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> By this aire I would.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> I hope you would not hurt me and you should.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Ide love you, sweet ...</p> + +<p> <i>Duke.</i> Daughter, your bowle winnes one.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> None, of my Maidenhead, Father; I am gone: + The Amazon hath wonne one.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Yield to that.</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> The cast I doe.</p> + +<p> <i>Lis.</i> Yourselfe?</p> + +<p> <i>Viol.</i> Nay scrape out that. (II. v.)[<a href="#fn297">297</a>]</p></blockquote> + +<p>The unprinted dramas founded on the <i>Arcadia</i> need not detain us long. +One is preserved in a volume of manuscript plays in the British Museum, +and is entitled <i>Love's Changelings' Change</i>.[<a href="#fn298">298</a>] 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 <i>Arcadia</i>; 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.'[<a href="#fn299">299</a>] The prologue may serve as a specimen +of the style of the piece.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> This Scaene's prepar'd for those that longe to see<br /> + The crosse Meanders in Loves destinie; <br /> + To see the changes in a shatterd wit<br /> + Proove a man Changlinge in attemptinge it; <br /> + To change a noble minde t'a gloz'd intent<br /> + Beefore such change will let um see th' event. <br /> + This change our Famous Princes had, beefore<br /> + Their borrowed shape could speake um any more, <br /> + And nought but this our Poet feares will seize<br /> + Your liking fancies with that new disease. <br /> + Wee hope the best: all wee can say tis strange<br /> + To heare with patient eares Loves changelinges Change</p></blockquote> + +<p>--which, if this is a fair sample, is very likely true. Below the prologue +the writer has added the couplet:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Th' old wits are gone: looke for noe new thing by us, <br /> + For <i>nullum est jam Dictum quod non sit dictum prius</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The other play is preserved in a Bodleian manuscript,[<a href="#fn300">300</a>] 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 <i>A Brief Discourse about Baptism</i>, 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 <i>Mangora</i> 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.[<a href="#fn301">301</a>]</p> + +<p>The earliest of the plays founded upon episodes in the <i>Arcadia</i> is +Beaumont and Fletcher's <i>Cupid's Revenge</i>, which was acted by the children +of the Queen's Revels, and published in 1615.[<a href="#fn302">302</a>] A revision, possibly by +another hand, has introduced considerable confusion into the titles of the +personae, but need not otherwise concern us.[<a href="#fn303">303</a>] 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.[<a href="#fn304">304</a>] 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.[<a href="#fn305">305</a>]</p> + +<p>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 <i>Philaster</i>. 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: </p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Cupid, pardon what is past, <br /> + And forgive our sins at last! <br /> + Then we will be coy no more, <br /> + But thy deity adore; <br /> + Troths at fifteen we will plight, <br /> + And will tread a dance each night, <br /> + In the fields or by the fire, <br /> + With the youths that have desire.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> Thus I shut thy faded light, <br /> + And put it in eternal night. <br /> + Where is she can boldly say, <br /> + Though she be as fresh as May, <br /> + She shall not by this corpse be laid, <br /> + Ere to-morrow's light do fade? (II. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>There is a suggestion of better things, too, in the lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> he is like<br /> + Nothing that we have seen, yet doth resemble<br /> + Apollo, as I oft have fancied him, <br /> + When rising from his bed he stirs himself, <br /> + And shakes day from his hair. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The authors, or one of them, had also learned something of Shakespeare's +quaint humour, as appears in the remark:</p> + +<blockquote><p> What should he be beheaded? we shall have it grow so base shortly, + gentlemen will be out of love with it. (II. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The main plot of the above reappears in <i>Andromana</i>, 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 <i>Sophy</i> places the date +of composition after 1642.[<a href="#fn306">306</a>] The plot is taken direct from the +<i>Arcadia</i>, the names being retained, and there is nothing to show that the +author, whoever he may have been, knew anything of <i>Cupid's Revenge</i>. 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:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I have lived long enough to boast an act, <br /> + After which no mischief shall be new.</p></blockquote> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Plangus.</i> It cannot be so late.</p> + +<p> <i>Andromana.</i> Believe 't, the sun<br /> + Is set, my dear, and candles have usurp'd<br /> + The office of the day.</p> + +<p> <i>Plan.</i> Indeed, methinks<br /> + A certain mist, like darkness, hangs on my eye-lids. <br /> + But too great lustre may undo the sight: <br /> + A man may stare so long upon the sun<br /> + That he may look his eyes out; and certainly<br /> + 'Tis so with me: I have so greedily<br /> + Swallow'd thy light that I have spoil'd my own.</p> + +<p> <i>And.</i> Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruin thus? <br /> + As if thy presence were less welcome to me<br /> + Than day to one who, 'tis so long ago<br /> + He saw the sun, hath forgot what light is. (I. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Occasional touches, too, are not without flavour:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> You can create me great, I know, sir, <br /> + But good you cannot. You might compel, <br /> + Entice me too, perhaps, to sin. But<br /> + Can you allay a gnawing conscience, <br /> + Or bind up bleeding reputation? (II. v. end.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or, again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Shall I believe a dream? <br /> + Which is a vapour borne along the stream<br /> + Of fancy. (V. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The last in this somewhat dreary catalogue is Glapthorne's <i>Argalus and +Parthenia</i>, published in 1639 and acted probably the previous year. It is +founded on the episode related in Books I and III of the <i>Arcadia</i>,[<a href="#fn307">307</a>] +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.[<a href="#fn308">308</a>] Of +Argalus it is said that</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> His gracions merit challenges a wife, <br /> + Faire as Parthenia, did she staine the East, <br /> + When the bright morne hangs day upon her cheeks<br /> + In chaines of liquid pearle. (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Demagoras is a glorious warrior who would compel love as he has done fame. +Though Parthenia reminds him that</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes,</p></blockquote> + +<p>his fierce soul yet dwells on deeds of force:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I'll bring on<br /> + Well-manag'd troops of Souldiers to the fight, <br /> + Draw big battaliaes, like a moving field<br /> + Of standing Corne, blown one way by the wind<br /> + Against the frighted enemy; (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and, remembering former conquests:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> This brave resolve<br /> + Vanquish'd my steele wing'd Goddesse, and ingag'd<br /> + Peneian Daphne, who did fly the Sun, <br /> + Give up to willing ravishment, her boughes<br /> + T' invest my awfull front. (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> her right<br /> + Beauty new shining like the Queen of night, <br /> + Appearing fresher after she did shroud<br /> + Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud: <br /> + Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an 'epithalamy' for the bridal +pair,</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Till I sing day from Tethis armes, and fire<br /> + With ayry raptures the whole morning quire, <br /> + Till the small birds their Silvan notes display<br /> + And sing with us, 'Joy to Parthenia!' (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The holy Priest had joyn'd their hands, and now<br /> + Night grew propitious to their Bridall vow, <br /> + Majestick Juno, and young Hymen flies<br /> + To light their Pines at faire Parthenia's eyes; <br /> + The little Graces amourously did skip, <br /> + With the small Cupids, from each lip to lip; <br /> + Venus her selfe was present, and untide<br /> + Her virgine Zone;[<a href="#fn309">309</a>] when loe, on either side<br /> + Stood as her handmaids, Chastity and Truth, <br /> + With that immaculate guider of her youth<br /> + Rose-colour'd Modestie: These did undresse<br /> + The beauteous maid, who now in readinesse, <br /> + The Nuptiall tapers waving 'bout her head, <br /> + Made poore her garments, and enrich'd her bed. (IV. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>So again we find single expressions which are striking, as when Parthenia +bids Amphialus, sooner than appease her wrath, to hope</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To charme the Genius of the world to peace; (V.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or when, dying, she commends herself to her dead lover:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> take my breath<br /> + That flies to thee on the pale wings of death. (ib.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>, however, though the most important, was not the only +so-called pastoral romance which left dramatic progeny. It has been +customary to describe the <i>Thracian Wonder</i>, a play of uncertain +authorship, as founded upon the story of Curan and Argentile in Warner's +<i>Albion's England</i>, 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.[<a href="#fn310">310</a>] 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 <i>Thracian Wonder</i> is based, though hardly closely, +on no less famous a work than Greene's <i>Menaphon</i>.[<a href="#fn311">311</a>] 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.</p> + +<p>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.[<a href="#fn312">312</a>]</p> + +<p>Any argument in favour of an early date for the <i>Thracian Wonder</i>, based +on its being founded on Greene's romance, is sufficiently answered by +Thomas Forde's <i>Love's Labyrinth</i>, 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 <i>Lodovick Sforza</i>.[<a href="#fn313">313</a>] +The play, which lies somewhat beyond our limits, represents in its worst +form the <i>débâcle</i> 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 <i>Poetical Diversions</i>, some are original. Of the last, one +may be worth quoting.[<a href="#fn314">314</a>]</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Fond love, no more<br /> + Will I adore<br /> + Thy feigned Deity; <br /> + Go throw thy darts<br /> + At simple hearts<br /> + And prove thy victory.</p> + +<p> Whilst I do keep<br /> + My harmless sheep<br /> + Love hath no power on me; <br /> + 'Tis idle soules<br /> + Which he controules,<br /> + The busy man is free.</p> + +<p> (II. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Readers of Suckling will recognize the inspiration of the following lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Why so nice and coy, fair Lady,<br /> + Prithee why so coy? <br /> + If you deny your hand and lip<br /> + Can I your heart enjoy?<br /> + Prithee why so coy?</p> + +<p> (IV. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>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 <i>As You Like It</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Arcadia</i>, 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.</p> +</div> + +<div class='section' id='ch06-2'> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the +English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At +no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. +Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner +compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic +drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what +had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. +Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this +romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to +attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the +three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as +we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to +bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient +importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it +may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of +classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England +is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless +experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two +cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards +some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true +that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of +time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves +to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object +was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral +drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in +that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with +artistic evolution.</p> + +<p>A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals +will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it +is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us +to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain +doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of +our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of +most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development +would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than +in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is +unhappily wanting.</p> + +<p>In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of +the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as +familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less +consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the +mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the +mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and +more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest +play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous <i>Maid's +Metamorphosis</i>, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in +1600.[<a href="#fn315">315</a>] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it +presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. +Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to +be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, +discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly +into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch +their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live +among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner +left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in +love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of +livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by +Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be +able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication +has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has +fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his +pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the +infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much +regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens +is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the +suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or +Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo +to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this +performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he +the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the +duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it +seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be +welcome.</p> + +<p>Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, +weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of +the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but +little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd +and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic +clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have +drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's <i>Gallathea</i>, in which, it will be +remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a +man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[<a href="#fn316">316</a>] As to the +sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to +note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, +a fact that carries them back towards Peele's <i>Arraignment</i> and the days +previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the +characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish +pages of Lyly.[<a href="#fn317">317</a>]</p> + +<p>The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often +irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it +contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in +description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not +unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, +are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the +master:[<a href="#fn318">318</a>]</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found<br /> + A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground: <br /> + So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe, <br /> + As for his life the sunne durst never peepe<br /> + Into the entrance: which doth so afright<br /> + The very day, that halfe the world is night. <br /> + Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound: <br /> + There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground, <br /> + No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call, <br /> + Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all. <br /> + No sound is heard in compasse of the hill, <br /> + But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still. <br /> + Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie, <br /> + A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie<br /> + Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God, <br /> + Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>And again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Then in these verdant fields al richly dide, <br /> + With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride: <br /> + There is a goodly spring whose christal streames<br /> + Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames: <br /> + There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory, <br /> + The Graces sit, listening the melodye: <br /> + The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes<br /> + Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles, <br /> + Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates<br /> + Is as a base unto their hollow throates. <br /> + Garlands beside they weare upon their browes, <br /> + Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes: <br /> + From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise, <br /> + As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> grassie bed<br /> + With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of +haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare<br /> + With woodmen thus audaciously compare? <br /> + Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King, <br /> + And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing. <br /> + Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene, <br /> + Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene. <br /> + And so alas, the good Athenian knight, <br /> + And swift Acteon herein tooke delight: <br /> + And Atalanta the Arcadian dame, <br /> + Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game, <br /> + That with her traine of Nymphs attending on, <br /> + She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, +in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the +songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which +bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by +Eurymine--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above, <br /> + Forge of desires working love, <br /> + Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye<br /> + Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of +acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a: <br /> + Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a. <br /> + Trip and go, too and fro[<a href="#fn319">319</a>], over this Greene a: <br /> + All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is +undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon +Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Gemulo.</i> As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides, <br /> + When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne--</p> + +<p> <i>Silvio.</i> As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides, + Where Nightingales record upon the thorne--</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> So rise my thoughts--</p> + +<p> <i>Sil.</i> So all my sences cheere--</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> When she surveyes my flocks--</p> + +<p> <i>Sil.</i> And she my Deare.</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> Eurymine!</p> + +<p> <i>Sil.</i> Eurymine!</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> Come foorth!</p> + +<p> <i>Sil.</i> Come foorth!</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> Come foorth and cheere these plaines!</p> + +<p> <i>Both.</i> Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines--</p> + +<p> <i>Sil.</i> The Wood-mans Love--</p> + +<p> <i>Ge.</i> And Lady of the Swaynes[<a href="#fn320">320</a>] (IV. ii. 39.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Not long after the appearance of the <i>Maid's Metamorphosis</i> there was +written a play entitled <i>The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves</i>, +which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, +and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe +Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of +Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose +life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or +nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present +at least, dated 1603[<a href="#fn321">321</a>] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses +neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in +prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the +author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and +ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted +restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to +be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the +author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only +characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy +hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess +of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the +woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and +reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a +hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her +turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. +While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on +their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent +to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread +of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and +his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from +passages in the <i>Maid's Metamorphosis</i>. The piece has a prologue for +representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that +honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition.</p> + +<p>Passing over the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> in 1609, we come to a play of a +very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's +<i>Sicelides</i>, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at +Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before +the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, +surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[<a href="#fn322">322</a>]. It is not easy to account +for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the +hands of critics[<a href="#fn323">323</a>]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the +neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more +particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been +overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have +already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included +under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic +merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues +of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, +which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer +who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the +fountain-head of his inspiration.</p> + +<p>Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his +affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns +indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with +mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is +courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she +turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but +soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has +relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon +offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks +the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is +condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on +the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is +bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, +when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile +Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of +Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, +determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his +mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a +love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, +mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls +into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting +a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but +Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast +from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. +These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of +Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic +under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love +for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends +happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and +uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who +had been carried off long before by pirates.</p> + +<p>This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian +pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the +construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it +is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in +couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at +times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the +author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such +phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. +Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at +Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it<br /> + That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to +be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i>, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[<a href="#fn324">324</a>]. The orc +probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the +influence of the <i>Metamorphoses</i> is likewise, as so often, present. The +following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many +short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes, <br /> + The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes, <br /> + And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames, <br /> + Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ... <br /> + Only love waking rests and sleepe despises, <br /> + Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises. <br /> + With him the day as night, the night as day, <br /> + All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day. <br /> + How different from love is lovers guise! <br /> + He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral +that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild +production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled +<i>The Careless Shepherdess.</i> It was printed many years after its original +production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. +of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this +ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, +where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the +living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is +probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but +the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are +informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at +Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the +playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' +the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last +months of the author's life[<a href="#fn325">325</a>]. The question of the date is interesting +principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking +resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's <i>Sad +Shepherd</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> This was her wonted place, on these green banks<br /> + She sate her down, when first I heard her play<br /> + Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be<br /> + Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose<br /> + I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke<br /> + Then court my eye; She must be here, or else<br /> + That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd<br /> + Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that<br /> + Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head<br /> + To mourn the absence of her eyes[<a href="#fn326">326</a>]. (V. vii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, +while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely +interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the +play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four +characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and +Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not +object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son +of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes +his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of +disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so +continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile +informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the +return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in +despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is +throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the +exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian +predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, +feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far +successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves +him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her +turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus +challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances +to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in +the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two +shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers +desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by +Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two +maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. +While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of +satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a +despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement +that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his +marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the +swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding +their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover +themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No +satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for +while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be +their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. +Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. +Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for +we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and +carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of +the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. +Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and +are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are +actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. +They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr +reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to +induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of +banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now +ends happily.</p> + +<p>In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled +and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent <i>enlèvements</i> by the +satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story +distantly recalls Ingegneri's <i>Danza di Venere</i>. One feature of importance +is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended +satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe +his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a +measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner +of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written +in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the <i>Maid's +Metamorphosis</i> we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such +slighter compositions as the <i>Converted Robber</i> and Tatham's <i>Love Crowns +the End</i>, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was +no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular +with the audience.[<a href="#fn327">327</a>] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of +Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt +responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves +the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as +is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. +Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely +Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, +introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the +office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a +sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This +mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the +courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the +lyrical verse of the play:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Come Shepherds come, impale your brows<br /> + With Garlands of the choicest flowers<br /> + The time allows. <br /> + Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair, <br /> + And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers<br /><br /> + With hast repair: <br /> + Where you shall see chast Turtles play, <br /> + And Nightingales make lasting May, <br /> + As if old Time his youthfull minde, <br /> + To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by +Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while +adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. +Of the author of <i>Rhodon and Iris</i>, as the play was called, little is +known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare +facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or +chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the +restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have +been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the +same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of +certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters +are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of +the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many +cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose +connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly +subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to +interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the +oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, +moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one +thread is cut short by a <i>dea ex machina</i> of the most mechanical sort, +while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following +is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached +on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she +appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of +Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's +behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has +abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. +The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who +with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of +Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a +love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as +his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused +to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send +Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace +(All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in +time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that +Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a +double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the +attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the +prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan +she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his +followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus +she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to +her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus +Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is +only referred to in the epilogue.</p> + +<p>The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The +large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly +and Spanish type than to that of works like <i>Menaphon</i>, or even <i>Daphnis +and Chloe</i>. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow +servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine +and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The +allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the +<i>Queen's Arcadia</i>.[<a href="#fn328">328</a>]</p> + +<p>This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely +unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the +<i>Fairy Pastoral</i> in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so +at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to +see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse +and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both +in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous +poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for +example, the lines from Eglantine's lament:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Since that the gods will not my woe redresse, <br /> + Since men are altogether pittilesse, <br /> + Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare; <br /> + Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare, <br /> + And listen to my plaints that doe excell<br /> + The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel. <br /> + Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while, <br /> + Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle, <br /> + Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone, <br /> + Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne, <br /> + And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare<br /> + The growing liver of the ravisher; <br /> + Let these behold my sorrows and confesse<br /> + Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains, <br /> + That in the woods and mountains art ador'd, <br /> + The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires, <br /> + Who art for chastity renouned most, <br /> + Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure<br /> + The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes, <br /> + Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply<br /> + Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed, <br /> + When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,... <br /> + When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober, <br /> + When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,... <br /> + When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down, <br /> + When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown, <br /> + To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow; <br /> + Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a +second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to +write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort<br /> + Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames<br /> + Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages, <br /> + Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed; <br /> + But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy<br /> + Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd<br /> + With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste +and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of +measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The +occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines, +sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire<br /> + My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite; <br /> + My hopes are vanish'd into ayre,<br /> + My day is turn'd to gloomy night; <br /> + For since my Rhodon deare is gone,<br /> + Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none. <br /> + A Cell where griefe the Landlord is<br /> + Shall be my palace of delight, <br /> + Where I will wooe with votes and sighes<br /> + Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite; <br /> + Since I have lost my Rhodon deare,<br /> + Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>To treat of Walter Montagu's <i>Shepherds' Paradise</i> at a length at all +commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there +are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give +it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of +Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. +The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, +who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. +The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' +Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, +and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence +the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and +likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, +Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a +man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same +pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly +company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in +love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised +Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of +Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds +to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, +it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the +prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to +Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen +perpetual queen[<a href="#fn329">329</a>].</p> + +<p>The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the +Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited, +in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover, +as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more +intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous +tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of +verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater +merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence +of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from +the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external +circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation.</p> + +<p>One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's <i>Session +of the Poets</i>, from which it is evident that the style of the play +attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's +contemporaries:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial, <br /> + And did not so much as suspect a denial; <br /> + But witty Apollo asked him first of all, <br /> + If he understood his own pastoral!</p></blockquote> + +<p>The <i>Shepherds' Paradise</i> is, however, best remembered on account of +circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a +letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her +ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously +appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in +which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who +appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the +public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific +instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any +personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the +supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears.</p> + +<p>It is presumably at this point that Randolph's <i>Amyntas</i> should appear in +a chronological survey of English pastoralism.</p> + +<p>Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before +the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and +it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[<a href="#fn330">330</a>]. The +songs in the introduction and the <i>intermedî</i> were undoubtedly in French, +and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French +forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles +françaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which +belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only +influenced in the <i>dénoûment</i> by mythological tradition, appears to be +original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to +exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[<a href="#fn331">331</a>] The relation of the +characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account +of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess +Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her +servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to +the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and +passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by +Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the +nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds. +Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e. +Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this +garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love. +Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the +faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now +fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances +of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered +her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene +at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and +begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene +accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to +show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from +Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when +Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene +now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are +interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene. +This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that +they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to +abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her +love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to +Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and +Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the +latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize +shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their +love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them. +Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns +to complete the <i>tableau</i>. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many +deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these +marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the +spectators.</p> + +<p>The <i>Shepherds' Holiday</i> is the most typical, as it is on the whole the +most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the +Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page +informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is +satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the +translater of Corneille's <i>Cid</i>, who appears to have been in some way +attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of +Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The +following analysis will sufficiently express its nature.</p> + +<p>At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of +Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral +inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished, +carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament, +the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich +shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain +Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene +between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss +of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone, +however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her +love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis, +finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him +with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the +giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she +faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her +father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court. +Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus, +recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son +of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd +Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country +folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had +discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now +again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity +of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile +Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own +daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king +to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore +commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born, +but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and +carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to +commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers +fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the +play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a +restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who +adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her +lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her +still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries, +however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis, +overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a +friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in +accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and +Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to +die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however, +leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends +happily.[<a href="#fn332">332</a>]</p> + +<p>In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be +desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the +unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is +properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot +on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but +clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to +predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The +verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if +its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in +flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser +poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the +<i>Shepherds' Holiday</i> from <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>. Rutter's verse also displays +a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it +preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which +Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which +opens with a reminiscence of Spenser:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks, <br /> + So pine and languish they, as in despair<br /> + He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks<br /> + Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair, <br /> + Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them. <br /> + And now what beauty can there be to live, <br /> + When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again the opening situation recalls that of <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, a +resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual +names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of +Dorinda are taken from the <i>Pastor fido</i>. From the <i>Aminta</i>, of course, +comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of +the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the <i>Pastor fido</i> her +confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines +of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul, <br /> + Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina<br /> + But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so; <br /> + To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[<a href="#fn333">333</a>] (II. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the +construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his +own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his +love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and +also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. +Verbal reminiscences of the <i>Aminta</i> also are scattered through the play, +for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who +seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations +particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. +Her father not unreasonably retorts:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is, <br /> + Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth<br /> + To follow you with lies and flatteries. <br /> + Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades, <br /> + Which will not always last, and you go crooked, <br /> + As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground, <br /> + Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of +those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists +make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, +Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly +have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our +attention.</p> + +<p>Cowley's <i>Love's Riddle</i>, published in 1638, but written two or three +years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply +to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it +is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of +genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics +professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not +finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's +conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley +had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the +world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was +perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely +on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less +clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were +interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and +courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic +or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin.</p> + +<p>Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the +shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at +the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her +suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and +Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, +finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost +his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with +the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, +daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral +characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, +who fills at once the rôles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On +Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and +Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister +Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of +some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after +vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under +the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with +Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that +he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad +Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him +home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by +transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, +working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and +Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. +Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in +Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to +recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by +Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their +lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's +identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is +found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, +stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby +removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and +Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent +to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted +by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs +is secured.</p> + +<p>There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley +shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of +individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there +is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole +construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various +threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, +fall apart of themselves, without any <i>dénoûment</i>, strictly speaking, at +all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, +absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction.</p> + +<p>The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of +mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below +the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which +possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found +in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples<br /> + Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her +brother's sword:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet<br /> + Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble: <br /> + I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune, <br /> + And am almost worne out with often playing; <br /> + And therefore I would entertaine my death<br /> + As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct +following without imitation of <i>The Jealous Lovers</i> of Thomas Randolph.' +Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it +was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its +application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not +taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of +astrologers.[<a href="#fn334">334</a>] That Cowley had read <i>The Jealous Lovers</i>, published in +1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the +yet unpublished <i>Amyntas</i>. This he may perhaps have seen when it was +performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own +Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of +Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual +verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little +doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque, +half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed +to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of +Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in <i>Amyntas</i>, +while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene +of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of +Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation, +rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and +his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have +been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the <i>Jealous Lovers</i>, she is +probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in +<i>Amyntas</i>. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the +liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will +not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of +incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the +loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere +schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could +be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft +are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some +praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The +position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls +that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia, +particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe. +The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel +finds of course an obvious parallel in <i>Twelfth Night</i>. The discovery of +Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in +Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's +<i>Filli di Sciro</i>, which might also be traced in the attribution to +centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral +tradition.</p> + +<p>It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral +tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English +stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a +schoolboy. <i>Love in its Extasy</i>, described on the title-page as 'a kind of +Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of +Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William +Peaps.[<a href="#fn335">335</a>] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to +have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps +regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile +effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[<a href="#fn336">336</a>] treating of tyrants and +revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might +have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the +publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a +period after 1642.</p> + +<p><i>Love in its Extasy</i> itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be +called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it +with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the +title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of +the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in +their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is +no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere +of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in +the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or +pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is +for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and, +considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author. +An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two +princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other +appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths, +and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple +elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot +intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be +admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a +wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and +the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it +has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will +be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly +incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one +prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally +important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic +tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics +are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure +respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form.</p> + +<p>The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is +true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the +practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly +unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can +hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines, +as where a lover bids his penitent mistress</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Go, <br /> + Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine<br /> + Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to +dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness +displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun +writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and +pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have +been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who +know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the +composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities +Cowley's flashy precocity.</p> + +<p>This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated +play entitled <i>Love's Victory</i>, extracts from a manuscript of which were +printed in 1853.[<a href="#fn337">337</a>] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the +date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat +archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with +free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is +of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts, +but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a +pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the <i>finale</i>, while the +situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the +quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The +only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate +their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the +involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the +whole the poetic merit is small.[<a href="#fn338">338</a>]</p> + +<p>We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within +our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or +at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces +in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for +our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each +other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice +differences of form as may be found to exist among them.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="ch07"> +<h2>Chapter VII.</h2> + +<h3>Masques and General Influence</h3> + + +<div class="section" id="ch07-1"> +<h3>I</h3> + + +<p>The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what +may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the +early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic +kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, +and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of +its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may +often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and +exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines +of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact +usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous +and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate +themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that <i>Comus</i> is a +masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question +of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt +may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must +not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics +such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest +possible signification as including not only the regular and highly +developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on +the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all +dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or +inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the +question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a +particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and +quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of +forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever +classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a +clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat +in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully +developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something +no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from +the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times +especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, +and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral +tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong.</p> + +<p>The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may +well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the +isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the +pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to +supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while +the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing +matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of +structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had +long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and +occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter +forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the +pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more +noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama.</p> + +<p>The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of +interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which +Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according +to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn. +The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it +is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being +no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation.</p> + +<p>The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the +middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for +classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight +entertainment, to which the name of <i>The Lady of May</i> has been given by +modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth +during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to +have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict +sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains +the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind. +The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the +May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending +for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party +being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who +decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show. +A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old +shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the +character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little +more extravagant than that of Sidney's own <i>Arcadia</i>. As in the romance, +at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional +songs are of small merit.</p> + +<p>The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work +breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the <i>Descensus +Astraeae</i>, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the +Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. +1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment +of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of +pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car +with the words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green,<br /> + Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks; <br /> + Such pastures are not common to be seen:<br /> + Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks, <br /> + For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall; <br /> + And heaven's great architect be praised for all[<a href="#fn339">339</a>].</p></blockquote> + +<p>In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate +speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together +with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march.</p> + +<p>The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her +Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at +Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right +Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very +characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing +rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the +compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more +detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards +Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild +man who began his speech thus:</p> + +<blockquote><p> + I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why, + nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to + our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan, + whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty + thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee + Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet + counted the god of the Woods. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle +of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their +Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all +join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read +further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest +Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.' +Ceres sings:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking;<br /> + Pomona pineth,<br /> + Fruitlesse her tree;<br /> + Fair Phoebus shineth<br /> + Onely on mee. <br /> + Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,... <br /> + All other Gods of power bereven, <br /> + Ceres only Queene of heaven.</p> + +<p> With Robes and flowers let me be dressed;<br /> + Cynthia that shineth<br /> + Is not so cleare,<br /> + Cynthia declineth<br /> + When I appeere, <br /> + Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ...<br /> + And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers,<br /> + Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres.</p></blockquote> + +<p>She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely +Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech; +whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show +accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the +metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree, +having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth, <br /> + This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth: <br /> + The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene, <br /> + And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene. <br /> + If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste, <br /> + And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne +after, with these words:'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire,<br /> + Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste, <br /> + And yet because so chaste, must I despaire?<br /> + And to despaire, I yeelded have at last.</p></blockquote> + +<p>'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:'</p> + +<blockquote><p> I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene + of chastety, &c.</p></blockquote> + +<p>a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader. +The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus. +Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the +shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the +feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake. +After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in +a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked +Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes +the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of +Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's +delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but +however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other +similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not +necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[<a href="#fn340">340</a>]</p> + +<p>To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces +printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of +<i>Dialogues and Dramas</i>.[<a href="#fn341">341</a>] The only one of these that can really be +styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled <i>Amphrissa, or the +Forsaken Shepherdess</i>. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and +fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the +unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins +in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise +counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the +scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, +virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously +raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song.</p> + +<p>In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most +appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest +concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in +blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards +Euphuism. Thus we read of men how</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> like as the Chamelions change themselves<br /> + Into all perfect colours saving white; <br /> + So they can to all humors frame their speech, <br /> + Save only to prove honest;</p></blockquote> + +<p>or else how</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> light minds are catcht with little things, <br /> + And Phancie smels to Fennell.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness +the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in +the <i>Gallathea</i> already quoted (p. 227):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits, <br /> + A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse, <br /> + And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste: <br /> + It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart: <br /> + 'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst, <br /> + And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us +rather of Daniel and the sonneteers:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst, <br /> + And all contingents brooke with patience, <br /> + Is a most soveraigne medicine.</p></blockquote> + +<p>All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who +regards the piece as forming part of the <i>Five Plays in One</i>, acted at the +Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed +in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with +the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is +that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, +and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from +the work of Peele and Lyly. In <i>Jupiter and Io</i>, which perhaps made part +of the same performance as <i>Amphrissa</i>, Mercury disguises himself as a +shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good +purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the +inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the +character of which can be easily imagined from its title, <i>Apollo and +Daphne</i>, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of +the mythological pastoral:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Howsoe're the Minutes go,<br /> + Run the heures or swift or slow:<br /> + Seem the Months or short or long,<br /> + Passe the seasons right or wrong: <br /> + All we sing that Phoebus follow, <br /> + <i>Semel in anno ridet Apollo</i>.<br /> + Early fall the Spring or not,<br /> + Prove the Summer cold or hot:<br /> + Autumne be it faire or foule,<br /> + Let the Winter smile or skowle: + Still we sing, that Phoebus follow, + <i>Semel in anno ridet Apollo</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Passing on to the seventeenth century, the first piece that demands +attention is the St. John's Twelfth Night entertainment, <i>Narcissus</i>, +performed at Oxford in 1602. If its pastoral quality is somewhat +evanescent, there is another point of view from which the piece has a good +deal of interest. It is, namely, a burlesque production of the nature of +the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>, and +flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela +eclogue in <i>Menaphon</i>. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the +'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, +evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the <i>Metamorphoses</i>, and +which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[<a href="#fn342">342</a>] I +may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, suggested by Ovid, are +introduced and handled with more than usual ingenuity; and further to +quote two characteristic passages. In one of these the nymphs Florida and +Clois court the affections of the loveless hero.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Florida.</i> Shine thou on mee, sweet plannet, bee soe good<br /> + As with thy fiery beames to warme my bloud ...</p> + +<p> <i>Narcissus.</i> To speak the truth, faire maid, if you will have us, <br /> + O Oedipus I am not, I am Davus.</p> + +<p> <i>Clois.</i> Good Master Davis, bee not so discourteous<br /> + As not to heare a maidens plaint for vertuous.</p> + +<p> <i>Nar.</i> Speake on a Gods name, so love bee not the theame.</p> + +<p> <i>Flo.</i> O, whiter then a dish of clowted creame, <br /> + Speake not of love? How can I overskippe<br /> + To speake of love to such a cherrye lippe?</p> + +<p> <i>Nar.</i> It would beseeme a maidens slender vastitye<br /> + Never to speake of any thinge but chastitye.</p> + +<p> <i>Flo.</i> As true as Helen was to Menela<br /> + So true to thee will be thy Florida.</p> + +<p> <i>Clo.</i> As was to trusty Pyramus truest Thisbee<br /> + So true to you will ever thy sweete Clois bee.</p> + +<p> <i>Flo.</i> O doe not stay a moment nor a minute, <br /> + Love is a puddle, I am ore shooes in it.</p> + +<p> <i>Clo.</i> Doe not delay us halfe a minutes mountenance<br /> + That ar in love, in love with thy sweet countenance.</p> + +<p> <i>Nar.</i> Then take my dole although I deale my alms ill, <br /> + Narcissus cannot love with any damzell; <br /> + Although, for most part, men to love encline all, <br /> + I will not, I, this is your answere finall.</p></blockquote> + +<p>We are here, it is true, as far as ever from the delicate rusticity of +Lorenzo de' Medici, and not particularly near to the humour of the +Athenian rustics, but for burlesque it is passably amusing. The <i>Midsummer +Night's Dream</i> had appeared possibly a decade earlier, and the audience in +the college hall at Oxford can hardly but have been reminded of Wall and +Moonshine as they listened to the speech by one who enters carrying 'a +buckett and boughes and grasse.'</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> A well there was withouten mudd, <br /> + Of silver hue, with waters cleare, <br /> + Whome neither sheep that chawe the cudd, <br /> + Shepheards nor goates came ever neare; <br /> + Whome, truth to say, nor beast nor bird, <br /> + Nor windfalls yet from trees had stirrde.<br /> + [<i>He strawes the grasse about the buckett.</i> + And round about it there was grasse, <br /> + As learned lines of poets showe, <br /> + Which next by water nourisht was; [<i>Sprinkle water.</i> + Neere to it too a wood did growe, <i>[Sets down the bowes.</i> + To keep the place, as well I wott, <br /> + With too much sunne from being hott. <br /> + And thus least you should have mistooke it, <br /> + The truth of all I to you tell: <br /> + Suppose you the well had a buckett, <br /> + And so the buckett stands for the well; <br /> + And 'tis, least you should counte mee for a sot O, <br /> + A very pretty figure cald <i>pars pro toto</i>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The first strict masque of a pastoral character that we meet with is that +of Juno and Iris, with the dance of nymphs and the 'sunburnt sicklemen, of +August weary,' introduced by Shakespeare into the <i>Tempest</i>; but this must +not be taken as altogether typical of the independent productions of the +time. The masques introduced into plays were necessarily, for the most +part, of a slighter and less elaborate character than those performed at +court, or for the entertainment of persons of rank. This is more +particularly the case with the serions portions of the masques, since the +actors, who were engaged for the performance of the antimasques in court +revels, frequently transferred their parts bodily on to the public boards. +Thus, in the entertainment in the <i>Winters Tale</i>, in which shepherds also +appear, the main feature was a dance of satyrs, which was no doubt +borrowed from Jonson's <i>Masque of Oberon</i>.[<a href="#fn343">343</a>] The <i>Tempest</i> masque, +however, is of the simpler type, without antimasque. At Juno's command +Iris summons Ceres, and the goddesses together bestow their blessing on +the young lovers. Then at Iris' call come the naiads and the reapers for +the dance. The date of the play may be taken as late in 1610, or early the +next year, a time at which the popularity of the masque was reaching its +height.</p> + +<p>Although the mythological element is everywhere prominent, the pastoral is +comparatively of rare occurrence in the regular masque literature of the +seventeenth century. This, considering the adaptability and natural +suitability of the form, is rather surprising. Probably the masque as it +evolved itself at the court of James needed a subject possessing a +traditional story, or at least fixed and known conditions of a kind which +the pastoral was unable to supply. Be this as it may, on one occasion +only did Jonson make extended use of the kind, namely, in the masque which +in the folio of 1640 appears with the heading 'Pans Anniversarie; or, The +Shepherds Holy-day. The Scene Arcadia. As it was presented at Court before +King James. 1625. The Inventors, Inigo Jones, Ben. Johnson[<a href="#fn344">344</a>].' Even +here, however, we learn little concerning the condition of pastoralism in +general, from the highly specialized form employed to a specific purpose. +As in all the regular masques of the Jonsonian type the characters and +situations exist solely for the opportunities they afford for dance and +song. Shepherds and nymphs constitute the personae of the masque proper, +while those of the antimasque are supplied by a band of Bocotian clowns, +who come to challenge the Arcadians to the dance. Some of the songs are +very graceful, suggesting at times reminiscences of Spenser, at others +parallels to Ben's own <i>Sad Shepherd</i>, but the piece does not possess +either sufficient importance or interest to justify our lingering over it. +Outside this piece the nearest approach to pastoral characters to be found +in Jonson's masques are, perhaps, the satyr and Queen Mab in the fairy +entertainment at Althorp in 1603, Silenus and the satyrs in <i>Oberon</i> in +1611, and Zephyrus, Spring, and the Fountains and Rivers in <i>Chloridia</i> in +1631.</p> + +<p>During James I's reign pastoral shows of a sort no doubt became frequent. +While in some cases which remain to be noticed they reached the +elaboration of small plays, in others they probably remained simple +affairs enough. We get an interesting glimpse of the conditions of +production in a note of John Aubrey's.[<a href="#fn345">345</a>] 'In tempore Jacobi,' he +writes, 'one Mr. George Ferraby was parson of Bishops Cannings in Wilts: +an excellent musitian, and no ill poet. When queen Anne came to Bathe, her +way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. +He made severall of his neighbours, good musitians, to play with him in +consort, and to sing. Against her majestie's comeing, he made a pleasant +pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in +shepherds' weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that +wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues.' This was in +1613; Ferraby or Ferebe later became chaplain to the king.</p> + +<p>The more elaborate pieces were usually written for performance at schools +or colleges. Such a piece is Tatham's <i>Love Crowns the End</i>, composed for +the scholars of Bingham in Nottinghamshire in 1633, and printed in his +<i>Fancy's Theatre</i> in 1640. Small literary interest attaches to the play, +which is equally slight and ill constructed, but is perhaps not +unrepresentative of its class. In spite of its very modest dimensions it +possesses a full romantic-pastoral plot, with the resuit that it is at +times almost unintelligible, owing to the want of space in which to +develop in an adequate and dramatic manner the motives and situations. The +bewildering rapidity with which character succeeds character upon the +stage must have made the representation almost impossible to follow, while +the reading of the piece is not a little complicated by the confusion in +which the stage directions remain in the only modern edition.[<a href="#fn346">346</a>] Some +notion of the complexity of the plot may be gathered from the following +account. Cliton, having in a fit of jealousy sought to kill his love +Florida, is found wandering in the woods by Alexis, who receives his +confession and shows him the way to repentance. Florida, moreover, has +been found and healed by the wise shepherdess Claudia, and is living in +retirement. Meanwhile Cloe (a name which it appears from the rimes that +the author pronounced Cloi) is saved by Lysander from the pursuit of a +Lustful Shepherd, in consequence of which she transfers to him the +affection she previously bore to her lover Daphnes. Next Leon and his +daughter Gloriana appear, together with the swain Francisco, to whom +against her will the maiden is apparently betrothed. They all go off to +view the games in which Lysander, whose heart is also fixed on Gloriana, +proves victor. His refusal to entertain the affection of Cloe drives her +to a state of distraction, in which the nymphs of the woods take pity on +her and bring her to Claudia to be cured. Gloriana in the meantime returns +the affections of Lysander, but the meeting of the lovers is interrupted +by the jealous Francisco and a gang who wound Lysander and carry off +Gloriana. She escapes from her captors, but only after she has lost her +reason, and wanders about until she meets with Cliton, who has turned +hermit and who now undertakes her cure. Throughout the play we find comic +interludes by Scrub, a page or attendant in search of his master, who also +has some farcical business with the Lustful Shepherd, who after being +disappointed of Cloe disguises himself as a satyr, apparently deeming that +rôle suited to his taste. In the end all the characters are brought +together. Francisco, found contrite, is forgiven by Lysander and Gloriana; +Cliton and Florida love once more; so do Daphnes and Cloe, appropriately +enough. Scrub announces the death of the usurping duke, 'who banished good +old Leon;' Francisco and Lysander reveal themselves as princes who left +the court to win his daughter's love, when he was driven from his land, +and so--love crowns the end.</p> + +<p>Through this medley it is not hard to see the various debts the author has +incurred towards his predecessors. The verse, in rimed couplets, whether +deca- or octo-syllabic, ultimately depends on Fletcher; of the comic prose +scenes I have already spoken in dealing with Goffe's <i>Careless +Shepherdess</i>, a play the influence of which may perhaps be specifically +traced in the satyr-disguise, the gang who carry off Gloriana, her +unexplained escape, and the songs of the 'Destinies' and a 'Heavenly +Messenger,' who in their inconsequence recall the 'Bonus Genius' of +Goffe's play. Scrub may owe his origin to the same source, though he is +rather more like the page in the <i>Maid's Metamorphosis</i>. The usurping duke +recalls <i>As You Like It</i>; the princes seeking their love-fortunes among +the shepherd folk suggest the <i>Arcadia</i>; while the influence of the +<i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> is not only traceable in the character of the +Lustful Shepherd, but also in certain specific parallels, as where the +wounded Lysander, seeing his love carried off, exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Stay, stay! let me but breathe my last<br /> + Upon her lips, and I'll forgive what's past; (p. 24)</p></blockquote> + +<p>a reminiscence of the lines spoken by Alexis in a similar situation:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Oh, yet forbear<br /> + To take her from me! give me leave to die<br /> + By her! (<i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, III. i. 165[<a href="#fn347">347</a>].)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The general level of the verse is not high, but we now and again light on +some pleasing lines such as the following:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> My dearest love, fair as the eastern morn<br /> + As it breaks o'er the plains when summer's born, <br /> + Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree, <br /> + New life and hope imparting, as to me<br /> + Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare<br /> + As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air<br /> + The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play<br /> + The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away, <br /> + And thou shalt stand as judge to censure me. (p. 18.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant +echo of Peele's gem:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> <i>Gloriana.</i> Sit, while I do gather flowers<br /> + And depopulate the bowers. <br /> + Here's a kiss will come to thee!</p> + +<p> <i>Lysander.</i> Give me one, I'll give thee three!</p> + +<p> <i>Both.</i> Thus in harmless sport we may<br /> + Pass the idle hours away.</p> + +<p> <i>Gloriana.</i> Hark! hark, how fine<br /> + The birds do chime! <br /> + And pretty Philomel<br /> + Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum +manuscript, where it bears the title of <i>The Converted Robber</i>.[<a href="#fn348">348</a>] No +author's name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced. The +scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the +occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with +Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Lett us that do noe envy beare um<br /> + Wish all felicity to Sarum.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Now in 1636,[<a href="#fn349">349</a>] according to Anthony à Wood, there was acted at St. +John's College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled <i>Stonehenge</i>, the +occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as +Dean of Salisbury. We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two +pieces. The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated +1637. This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may +possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting +the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal +reckoning.</p> + +<p>The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a +stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link +between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles <i>Comus</i>, +employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai +dances of the masque.[<a href="#fn350">350</a>]</p> + +<p>The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds +and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of +Stonehenge--'stoy[=n]age y<sup>e</sup> wonder y<sup>t</sup> is vpon that Playne of +Sarum'--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the +shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved +from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her +love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve +him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd +folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among +them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During +a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda's sister, and +finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to +stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and +is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall +upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason +by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in +his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while +Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful +swains, Palaemon and Dorus.</p> + +<p>In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic +construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque. +The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual +'rime' is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in +the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, +as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of +dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of +keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the +Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one +recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the substitution of the +name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false +etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called 'Pannes blest +babe.' After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old +shepherd proceeds:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> But sturdy shepherds brought all the other stones, <br /> + And reard up that great Munster all at once, <br /> + Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man, <br /> + Do come to worship theyr great God Pann.</p></blockquote> + +<p>A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by +Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit +to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the +queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, +when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue +ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and +Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain +Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd +and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author +of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest +authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its +construction, of Davenant's <i>Prince d'Amour</i>.[<a href="#fn351">351</a>]</p> + +<p>Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on +which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor's pageant. The +'first show by land' of the <i>Porta Pietatis</i>, presented by the drapers in +1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot's mayoralty, consisted of a +speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short +account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of +sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft +honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of +London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often +startling information.</p> + +<p>We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the +Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of +Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic +dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age +of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his +<i>Triumph of Beauty</i>, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular +masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the goddesses and +their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen +and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of +Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a +comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small +play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden +fleece, reminiscent, like <i>Narcissus</i>, of the <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>. +This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city +pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite +allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it +was dependent on the <i>libretto</i>, demanded a power of light and graceful +lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the +author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of +the goddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary +audience than they do to the reader to-day.</p> + +<p>I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by +Robert Baron in his romance Ἐροτοπαίγνιον, <i>or the Cyprian +Academy</i>, printed in 1647. It is entitled <i>Gripus and Hegio, or the +Passionate Lovers</i>, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and +Daris; while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of +stricter propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse classical +myth; Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of +pastoral commonplace. The romance also contains a masque entitled <i>Deorum +Dona</i>, in which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and +the like. It is in no wise pastoral.</p> + +<p>Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry +than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny's +<i>Shepherds' Holiday</i>, printed from manuscript in the <i>Inedited Poetical +Miscellany</i> of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only +slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical +cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather +temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in +the preface.</p> + +<p>A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or +less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. +This is the case, for instance, in the <i>Acteon and Diana</i>, published in +1656.[<a href="#fn352">352</a>] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, +a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole. Then +enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs. +Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is +rebuked by the goddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the +forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when +they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the goddess turns upon him, +and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of +the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his +own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre +description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt +depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious +fact, to which Davenant's work among others is witness, that the nominally +private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while +the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it +must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without +sacrificing either propriety or tradition.</p> + +<p>Another similar composition, headed 'The Rural Sports on the Birthday of +the Nymph Oenone,' is printed together with the above. In it the strains +of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, +the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs.</p> + +<p>One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The +reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will +endeavour to repair it.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch07-2"> +<h3>II</h3> + + +<p>In Milton's contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day +we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in +question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict +application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to +extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn +from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the +early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as <i>Arcades</i> +and <i>Comus</i>, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether +different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional +commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster +of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow +masque: 'I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the +Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs +and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing +parallel in our Language[<a href="#fn353">353</a>].'</p> + +<p>The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written +within a short while of one another, and the second anticipated by more +than three years the composition of <i>Lycidas</i>. But the connexion between +the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was +the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite +evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the +entertainment, of which as we are told <i>Arcades</i> formed a part, originated +with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the +following year probably, bore the chief parts in <i>Comus</i>. The +entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, +the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy +at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir +John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando +Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of +actors with whom Shakespeare's name is associated; and secondly, after +his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by +rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The +span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving +events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare's patron, who +may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of +his first appearance on the London stage--the 'Amarillis' of <i>Colin +Clout</i>, with whom, and with her sisters 'Phillis' and 'Charillis,' Spenser +claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his <i>Tears of the Muses</i> in +1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amusement in the +reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master +Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of <i>Paradise Lost</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Arcades</i>, or 'the Arcadians,' can hardly be dignified by the name of a +masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at +the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the +constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following +year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced +into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription +explicitly informs us, but 'Part of an entertainment presented to the +Countess Dowager of Darby.' Nevertheless it is complete and +self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Masson does, as 'part, +and part only, of a masque,' is to give a wholly false impression; for, +whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the +least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the +portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A +group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, +approach the 'seat of State' where sits the venerable Countess, whom they +address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of +the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[<a href="#fn354">354</a>] This is followed by a song +introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to +a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is +of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the +rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that +to which it served as herald:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more<br /> + By sandy Ladons Lillied banks; <br /> + On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar<br /> + Trip no more in twilight ranks; <br /> + Though Erymanth your loss deplore<br /> + A better soyl shall give ye thanks. <br /> + From the stony Maenalus<br /> + Bring your Flocks, and live with us; <br /> + Here ye shall have greater grace<br /> + To serve the Lady of this place,<br /> + Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were,<br /> + Yet Syrinx well might wait on her.<br /> + Such a rural Queen<br /> + All Arcadia hath not seen.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as +also of that harmonious interweaving of classical names which long years +after was to lend weight and dignity to the 'full and heightened style' of +the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the +quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, +indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which +Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he +cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the +fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among +the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his +mind turned, through some natural bent or early association, to the +employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more +forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the +composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college +acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical +transmutation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language.</p> + +<p>It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes +was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of +the <i>Triumph of Peace</i> and the <i>Coelum Britannicum</i>, that Milton composed +the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day +familiar with the term 'masque.' In the second of the elaborate +productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no +particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpassed author, Tom +Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief +nobles deigned to bear a part--minor rôles had been assigned to the two +sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master +Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to assume the +Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their +sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed +before the assembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow +Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, +the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest.</p> + +<p>It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in +the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, +but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval +ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and +costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the +spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more +splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great +hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town +upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour +and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall +just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the +unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting +out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate +under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London.</p> + +<p>I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which +we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary +history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in +view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor +Masson. The debts Milton owed to the <i>Somnium</i> of Puteanus, to Peele's +<i>Old Wives' Tale</i> and to Fletcher's <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, are now all +more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and +character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The +second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers +for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while +many passages might be cited to prove Milton's close acquaintance with +Fletcher's poem[<a href="#fn355">355</a>].</p> + +<p>The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one +important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that +in which it left Milton's hand. This form is attested by the original +quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by +Milton's manuscript draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, +Cambridge. The variant form is found in the manuscript at Bridgewater +House, reputed to be in Lawes' handwriting, which seemingly represents the +acting version. In Milton's text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the +attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long +speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more +appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he +took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently +transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical +speech of the Spirit, substituting the words 'From the heavens' for +Milton's 'To the ocean.' The change was doubtless effective, and was +skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the +poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his +friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements +of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as +performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into +the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his +friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth +into the world in its slender quarto garb.</p> + +<p>A brief analysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is +constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of +the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in +possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by +Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they +seek to trick unwary passengers into drinking of the fateful cup which +shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all +remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them +content 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' Wherefore the Spirit is +sent to guide the steps of those 'favoured of high Jove,' and save them +from the wiles of the fleshly god. Announcing that he goes to assume 'the +weeds and likeness of a swain,' so as to perform his charge unknown, the +Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A +brilliant speech by the god, preceding the first measure, illustrates the +strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that +the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best +work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo +the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning of +sin was intentional on Milton's part; he painted the pleasures of κῶμος in their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue might +appear by so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to assert that +final victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that unless +it was made psychologically and artistically convincing the total effect +would be the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare the +speech of Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall +hardly escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a +mere schoolboy's idea of 'plot,' as of some combination of events to be +infused with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not +such as should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters +themselves. In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his +followers:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Break off, break off, I feel the different pace<br /> + Of some chast footing neer about this ground;</p></blockquote> + +<p>and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and +narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted +by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding +some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her +brothers' attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus +re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut +where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left +the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with +a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of +virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly +been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's +shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their +sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with +hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the +sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, +'set out with all manner of deliciousness,' where the god and his rabble +are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the +banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its +waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within. +We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the +magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then +follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the +blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the +spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found +to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant +Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin goddess of +the stream:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sabrina fair<br /> + Listen where thou art sitting<br /> + Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,<br /> + In twisted braids of Lillies knitting<br /> + The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,<br /> + Listen for dear honour's sake,<br /> + Goddess of the silver lake,<br /> + Listen and save.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Thus conjured in some of the most perfectly musical lines in the language +the daughter of Locrine rises from her waves, and enters the hall with a +song, attended by her obedient nymphs. Having broken the spell and freed +the captive Lady, she at once departs with her train, and after another +speech by the Spirit, the scene changes to the town and castle of Ludlow, +a bevy of shepherds dancing in the foreground. After these have concluded +their measure, the wanderers enter, still guided by the spirit-shepherd, +who presents them safe and sound to their parents. Then follows another +dance, and the Spirit, throwing off, we may presume, his pastoral +disguise, launches into his final speech:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To the Ocean now I fly, <br /> + And those happy climes that ly<br /> + Where day never shuts his eye;</p></blockquote> + +<p>concluding:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Mortals that would follow me, <br /> + Love vertue, she alone is free, <br /> + She can teach ye how to clime<br /> + Higher than the Spheary chime; <br /> + Or if Vertue feeble were, <br /> + Heav'n it self would stoop to her.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such is the bare outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help +wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the +flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we +have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the +life it enjoyed for one brief hour nearly three hundred years ago. We must +be thankful that we count the poem itself among our treasures, and be +content to confine our inquiry to it. It is, after all, to the accidents +of its production as the body to the robes that adorn it.</p> + +<p>It must be confessed that outwardly at least <i>Comus</i> has but little +connexion with pastoral. The habit of the Spirit, the disguise of the +magician, the dance in the third scene, these are the only points serving +to connect the poem with pastoral tradition in any formal manner. It is +not, however, on account of these that <i>Comus</i> has been commonly assigned +to the same category as the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> and <i>Lycidas</i>, but +rather because its whole tone, its mode, one might almost say, is +essentially pastoral, and because it is directly dependent upon previous +pastoral work.</p> + +<p>It has been the fashion to praise <i>Comus</i> above all other masques +whatever, and from the point of view of the poetry it contains it would be +idle to dispute its supremacy. But there are other considerations. As a +masque proper, and from the point of view of what had come to be expected +of such compositions, how does it stand? I am not here concerned to +inquire how far the term can with strict propriety be applied to the +piece, a question which may be left to the somewhat arid region of the +formal classification of literature. The points in which it resembles the +regular spectacular masques, as well as those in which it differs from +them, will be alike evident from the analysis given above. It may, +however, be well to put in a caution against the manner in which some +writers on the masque seek to make their distinctions appear more clearly +defined than they in reality are by declaring <i>Comus</i> to be not a masque +at all but a play. It is no more a regular play than it is a strict +masque, but a dramatic composition containing elements of both in almost +equal proportions.</p> + +<p>That the songs are for the most part exquisite, that they were worthily +set to music and adequately rendered; that the measures, the dance of the +revellers in their half-brutish disguises, the antimasque of country folk, +and the final or main dance of the wanderers, were effective; that the +whole was graceful, complete and polished, is either self-evident to-day, +or may with reason be inferred. The scenery, too, must have been striking; +the dreary forest, its darkness just relieved by the half-seen +'glistering' forms; the heavy drug-like splendour of the enchanted palace +and the cold moonlight outside; the bright, fresh sunshine, lastly, +dew-washed, of the early morning; there were here a series of pictures the +contrasts of which must have added to their individual effect. The scene, +the song and the measure, these form, indeed, the very stuff that masques +are made of. But Milton's poem offered more than this; and it may well be +questioned how far this more was of a nature to recommend it to the tastes +of his audience, or indeed to heighten rather than to diminish its merits +as a work of literature and art. There was, in the first place, a +philosophical and moral intention, which, however veiled in fanciful +imagery and clothed in limpid verse, is yet not content to be an inspiring +principle and artistic occasion of the poem, but obtrudes itself directly +in the length of some of the speeches; refuses, that is, to subserve the +aesthetic purpose, and endeavours to divert the poetic beauty to its own +non-aesthetic ends. In the second place, and probably of greater +importance as regards the actual success of the piece on the stage, it +contained somewhat of dramatic emotion, of incident which depended for its +value upon its effect on the characters involved, which was ill served by +the spectacular machinery and necessary limitations of the composition, +while at the same time it must have interfered with the opportunity for +mere sensuous effect which it was the main business of the masque to +afford. The weight which different persons will attach to these objections +will no doubt vary with their individual temperaments, their +susceptibility to the magical charm of the verse, their sense of artistic +propriety, and the degree to which they are able to recall in imagination +the conditions of a bygone form of artistic presentation. I speak for +myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, +Milton's poem appears to me to be surpassed, for instance, by the best of +Jonson's masques, no less than it surpasses them, and all others of their +kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the 'tragical' or +lyrical portions.</p> + +<p>Since I have ventured to formulate certain objections against an +acknowledged masterpiece, it will be well that I should define as clearly +as possible the ground upon which those objections are based. I have, I +hope, sufficiently emphasized my dissent from that school of criticism +which condemns a work of art for not conforming to one or another of a +series of fixed types. That <i>Comus</i> lies, so to speak, midway between the +drama and the masque, and partakes of the nature of either, is not, by any +inherent law of literary aesthetics, a blemish; what in my view is a +blemish, and that a serions one, is that the means employed are not +calculated to the demands of the situation. The struggle of the Lady +against the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost +sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however +simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel +that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements +of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction. That is to say +that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, +an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium +adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not +in its regular and orthodox form. It follows that the dramatic interest is +a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is +necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content.</p> + +<p>It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely +styled 'A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle'; the title of <i>Comus</i> was +first affixed by Warton. It was an obvious title for a critic to adopt; it +is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of +choosing. Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of +the masques at court, the title of the <i>Triumph of Virtue</i> could not but +have suggested itself. This is indeed the very theme of the piece. Virtue +in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the +attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the +blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of +Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque. It is a +subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular illustration, and +possesses a moral after Milton's own heart. The closing lines of the poem, +already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive. Were the subject, +on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the +Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise--had; indeed, in +varying forms long exercised--the highest dramatic genius. But in this +direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton's most evident +limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the +idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in +undeniable failure. From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the +terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular +performance. Yet in spite of this Milton's conception of the piece is, as +we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the +means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the +Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high rôle. +The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to +satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call +forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual +to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means.</p> + +<p>These considerations have an important bearing upon the other objection +which I ventured to bring forward, that of moralizing; for it cannot be +argued, I imagine, that the direct expression of philosophical or ethical +ideas is in any way illegitimate in the masque proper, any more than it is +in the choric ode. But, as I have said, Milton--no doubt intentionally, +though the point is irrelevant--has raised dramatic issues and dramatic +emotions, and consequently by the laws of the drama, that is, by his +success in satisfying those emotions, he must be judged. All speeches +therefore introduced with a directly moral and philosophical rather than a +dramatic end must be pronounced artistic solecisms. Whether Milton has +been guilty of such undramatic interpolations, such lapses from the one +end of art, may be left to the individual judgement of each reader to +determine; for my own part I cannot conceive that any doubt should exist.</p> + +<p>But even if we pass over what some readers will be inclined to dismiss as +a mere theoretical objection, there are other charges which these same +passages will have to meet. Those who have borne with me in my remarks on +the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, will probably also agree with +me here, when I say that to me at least there is something not altogether +pleasing in Milton's presentment of virtue. I should add at once, that to +place Milton's poem on an ethical level with either of the above-mentioned +pieces would, of course, be preposterous. It is impossible to doubt the +severe chastity of Milton's own ideal, and to compare it for one moment to +the conventional <i>onestà</i> which replaced virtue in Tasso's world, or with +the nauseous unreality of the puppet Fletcher sought to enthrone in its +place, would be to commit an uncritical outrage. Nevertheless, the +expression Milton chose to give to his ideal cannot, therefore, lay claim +to privilege. That expression had become intimately associated with +pastoral convention, and he accepted it along with much else from his +predecessors. I am not aware of any reason why spectators should have been +prejudiced otherwise than in favour of the Lady Alice Egerton; but she is, +nevertheless, careful to take the first opportunity of informing them, +with much earnest protestation, of her quite remarkable purity and virtue, +implying as it were a naïve surprise at having arrived unsullied at the +perilous age of thirteen. The stilted affectation of this self-conscious +innocence is perhaps less evident in the scene in which we should most +readily look for it--that, namely, in which the Lady defends herself from +the persuasions of the Sorcerer, where a certain fervour of feeling raises +her utterances above a merely colourless level--than in the long soliloquy +in which she indulges on first appearing on the stage. Something of the +same disagreeable quality is present in the rather mawkish discussion +between her two young brothers. Milton, who is entirely untouched, either +with the levity of Tasso or the cynicism of Fletcher, was undoubtedly +himself wholly unconscious that any such charge could be brought against +his work. It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want +of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in passages of +offensively bad taste[<a href="#fn356">356</a>]. As yet it is hardly responsible for anything +worse than a confused conception in the poet's imagination. Πάντα +καθαρὰ τοῖς καθαροῖς, and the allegory is an old one whereby virtue +appears as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is, however, to those +alone who are innocent of evil that belongs the faery talisman. The +virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, +but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the +glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels +instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth +into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing, of course, would be easier +than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule +upon the whole of Milton's conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is +it more needful than in such a case as the present to remember the +fundamental maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking at its +strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside for the moment all questions of art +and all considerations of taste, there remains a question worthy of being +fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained. Milton has +deliberately penned passages of smug self-conceit upon a subject whose +delicacy he was apparently incapable of appreciating, and these passages +he has placed, to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child +just passing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby outraging at once +the innocence of childhood and the reticence of youth. Is it possible to +pretend that this is an action upon which moral censure has no word to +say[<a href="#fn357">357</a>]?</p> + +<p>It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or +to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the +verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat +injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a +certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality +of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the nobleness of +Milton's conception and the brilliance, within certain limits, of the +execution; but when we are further challenged to admire the 'moral +grandeur' of the figure in which virtue is honoured, there are some at +least who will feel tempted to reply in the significant words: 'Methinks +the lady doth protest too much!'</p> + +<p>A word may be said finally as to the quality of the verse. I need not +repeat that it is exquisite, that the music of it is like a full stream +overflowing the rich pastures; what I am concerned to maintain is, that it +is not for the most part of Milton's best. In the first place, what, for +want of a better name, I have called Milton's moralizing is a blemish upon +the poetic as it is upon the dramatic merits of the piece. The muse of +poetry, like all her sisters, is not slow in avenging herself of a divided +allegiance. By the cynical irony of fortune already noticed, where Milton +would most impress us with his moral he becomes least poetical. There is, +it is true, hardly a speech or a song which does not contain lines worthy +to rank with any in the language, from the opening words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Before the starry threshold of Joves Court,</p></blockquote> + +<p>to the final couplet:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Or if Virtue feeble were,<br /> + Heav'n it self would stoop to her.</p></blockquote> + +<p>But there are passages in which these memorable lines appear as so much +rich embroidery superimposed upon the baser fabric of the verse, not woven +of the woof. They are in their nature more easily detached, and often form +the best known and most often quoted passages of the work. Take the first +speech of the Lady, concerning which something has already been said. Here +we find the lines:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n<br /> + Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed<br /> + Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain;</p></blockquote> + +<p>or again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> A thousand fantasies<br /> + Begin to throng into my memory<br /> + Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire, <br /> + And airy tongues, that syllable mens names<br /> + On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses;</p></blockquote> + +<p>or yet again:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud<br /> + Turn forth her silver lining on the night?</p></blockquote> + +<p>We have the song:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen<br /> + Within thy airy shell<br /> + By slow Meander's margent green, <br /> + And in the violet imbroider'd vale<br /> + Where the love-lorn Nightingale<br /> + Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Such lines would justly render famous any passage in any poem in which +they occurred. Nevertheless, remove them, which can be done without +material injury to the sequence of the thought, and see whether in its +warp and web the speech can for a moment stand comparison with that of +Comus, to which it stands in direct and dramatic contraposition.</p> + +<p>But this drawback is only incidental; through nine-tenths of the piece, +perhaps, there is little or no moral preoccupation to disturb us. And +here, though no doubt the poetic beauty reaches a climax in the song to +Sabrina--a song for pure music certainly unsurpassed and probably +unequalled by anything else that Milton ever wrote--there are others, such +as 'By the rushy-fringed bank,' as well as less distinctively lyrical +passages, which come within measurable distance even of its perfection. +And yet, with certain noticeable exceptions, there are few passages in +which comparison with Milton's later works will not reveal technical +immaturity. This is no less true of the decasyllabic verse, when compared +with the full sonority of <i>Lycidas</i>, than of the shorter measures. Take, +for example, the invocation of Sabrina which follows the song previously +quoted--the speech beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Listen and appear to us<br /> + In name of great Oceanus.</p></blockquote> + +<p>In spite of its very great beauty there is observable at the same time a +certain monotony of cadence, and an occasional want of success in the +attempts to relieve it, which place the passage distinctly below Milton's +best. And yet it seems almost ungenerous to place Milton even below +himself, particularly when in the very speech we are criticizing we are +brought face to face with two such flawless lines as those on 'fair +Ligea's golden comb',</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks<br /> + Sleeking her soft alluring locks--</p></blockquote> + +<p>lines which anticipate and rival the perfection of rhythmic modulation in +<i>L'Allegro</i> and <i>Il Penseroso</i>[<a href="#fn358">358</a>].</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="ch07-3"> +<h3>III</h3> + + +<p>There remains to inquire what influence of pastoral tradition is traceable +in the wider field of the romantic drama, whether in individual scenes and +characters, or more vaguely in general tone and sentiment; and, finally, +to consider for a moment the critical expression given by writers of +various dates to the sentimental philosophy of life which went under the +name of pastoralism in fashionable circles.</p> + +<p>The number of plays in which definite pastoral elements can be traced is +surprisingly small, even when every allowance has been made for the fact +that we have already included in our examination several pieces which come +but doubtfully within the fold. The spirit of the romantic drama, instinct +with sturdy life, had little in common with the artificial and unreal +sentiment of a tradition which had almost ceased to pretend to a basis in +the emotions of natural humanity. The result was, as might be expected, +that when the drama introduced characters of a nominally pastoral type, +they were either direct transcripts from actual life, deliberately +ignoring conventional tradition, or else specifie borrowings from that +tradition, introduced with full consciousness of its fashionable +unreality, and using that unreality for a definite dramatic purpose. Thus, +although the basis of pastoralism is found in non-traditional garb, and +though pastoralism itself is found as the subject of dramatic treatment, +yet, so far as the introduction of individual scenes and characters is +concerned, it is seldom possible to say that pastoral has influenced the +romantic drama in any sensible degree.</p> + +<p>A certain number of plays, presumably of a more or less pastoral nature, +have perished. Thus no trace remains of the <i>Lusus Pastorales</i> licensed to +Richard Jones in 1565, the nature of which can be only vaguely +conjectured. The early date of the entry renders it important, and it is +much to be regretted that the work should have perished, since it might +have thrown very interesting light upon the condition of pastoralism in +England previous to the appearance of the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i>. Most +probably, however, the piece, whatever it may have been, was composed in +Latin. We also have to lament the non-survival of a <i>Phillida and Corin</i>, +which, we learn from the Revels' accounts, was acted by the Queen's men +before the court, at Greenwich, on St. Stephen's day, 1584. This again +would be an interesting piece to possess, since the title suggests a +purely pastoral composition contemporary with Peele's mythological play. +On February 28, 1592, Lord Strange's men performed a piece at the Rose, +the title of which is given by Henslowe as 'clorys & orgasto,' presumably +<i>Chloris and Ergasto</i>. It was an old play, probably dating from some years +earlier. Whether 'a pastorall plesant Commedie of Robin Hood and little +John,' entered to Edward White in the Stationers' Register, on May 14, +1594, could have justified its title may be questioned, but it is curious +as suggesting an anticipation of Jonson's experiment. Again, on July 17, +1599, George Chapman received of Philip Henslowe forty shillings, in +earnest of a 'Pastorall ending in a Tragydye,' which, however, was +apparently never finished. Possibly our loss is not great, for Chapman's +talents hardly lay in this line; but a tragical ending to a play of the +pure pastoral type would have been something of a novelty, and the early +date would also have lent it some interest. Yet another play known to us +solely from Henslowe's accounts is the <i>Arcadian Virgin</i>, on which Chettle +and Haughton were at work for the Admiral's men in December, 1599, and for +which they received sums amounting in all to fifteen shillings. The title +suggests that the play may have been founded on the story of Atalanta, but +it was probably not completed. Ben Jonson's <i>May Lord</i>, which we know only +through the notes left by Drummond of his conversations, was almost +certainly not dramatic, though critics have always accepted it as such; +but the same authority records that Jonson at the time of his visit to +Hawthornden was contemplating a fisher-play, the scene to be laid on the +shores of Loch Lomond. There is no evidence that the scheme ever reached a +more mature stage. Finally, I may mention a play entitled <i>Alba</i>, a Latin +pastoral, which incurred the royal displeasure when performed before James +and his consort in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605. The +historian of the visit, quoted by Nichols, says that 'It was a pastoral, +much like one which I have seen in King's College, Cambridge, but acted +far worse.' The allusion is presumably to the Latin translation of the +<i>Pastor fido</i>. The cause of offence was the appearance of 'five or six men +almost naked,' who no doubt represented satyrs.</p> + +<p>To what extent these plays were of a pastoral character must, of course, +be matter of conjecture. They may have been pastoral plays of a more or +less regular type, they may have been mythological dramas, or they may +have been distinguished from the ordinary run of romantic compositions by +a few incidental traits of pastoralism only. Not a few pieces of the +latter description have been preserved, pieces in which definite traces +of pastoral are to be found, but which cannot as a whole be included in +the kind.</p> + +<p>We have already had occasion to note the very slight pastoral influence +which exists in the short masques or dialogues of Thomas Heywood, in spite +of the opportunity afforded by their mythological character. The same may +be noticed in the plays in which he drew his subject from classical +legend. <i>Love's Mistress</i> is the appropriate and attractive title of a +dramatization of the last-born fancy of the mythopoeic spirit of Greece, +Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche. The early editions add to the title +the further designation of 'The Queen's Masque.' The work is indeed a +composite piece, a masque grown into a play through the accretion of +foreign matter, and was probably in its original state a far simpler +composition than it now appears. The writing is in a dainty vein, and had +the piece been completed in a manner consonant with the simple and idyllic +grace of the earlier scenes, it would have been no such unequal companion +to Peele's <i>Arraignment of Paris</i>. What the play contains of pastoral +belongs to one of the accretions. It is a rustic element in the +interludes, satiric and farcical, supplied by a country clown, some +shepherds, and 'a shee Swaine,' Amarillis. In his <i>Ages</i> the pastoral +element shrinks to an occasional dance and song. Thus in the <i>Golden Age</i> +the satyrs and nymphs sing a song in honour of Diana, which introduces the +disguised Jupiter in his courtship of Calisto. In the <i>Silver Age</i>, again, +the rape of Proserpine by Pluto is preluded by a song of 'a company of +Swaines, and country Wenches' in honour of Ceres.</p> + +<p>An unkind and quite worthless tradition, based on a manuscript note in an +old copy, has connected Peele's name with the lengthy and tedious drama of +<i>Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes</i>. It was admitted into the canon of Peele's +works by Dyce, and though Mr. Bullen differed from his predecessor as to +the justness of the ascription, he retained it in his edition. We find in +it a coarse, dialect-speaking rustic, named Corin, who at one point +succours Clyomon, and with whom Neronis, daughter of the King and Queen of +the Strange Marshes, seeks service in the disguise of a boy. Apart from +his name and the profession of shepherd he is a mere countryman, with +nothing to connect him with pastoral tradition, though the princess' +action finds, of course, abundant parallels therein. The <i>Old Wives' +Tale</i>, printed as 'by G. P.,' and of which there is no reason to question +Peele's authorship, connects itself with pastoral chiefly through the +already mentioned parallel which it affords to <i>Comus</i>. It also +anticipates, in a song of harvesters, the introduction of the 'sunburnt +sicklemen' of the <i>Tempest</i> masque.</p> + +<p>At a later date we find Shirley in his <i>Love Tricks</i> introducing two +sisters who leave their home and, taking the disguise of shepherd and +shepherdess, dwell among the country folk in the fields and pastures, +whither they are followed by their lovers. There are passages which reveal +a genuine pastoral tone, such as Shirley could readily adopt when it +suited his purpose, and it is not only in the measure that the tradition +reveals itself in such lines as:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> A shepherd is a king whose throne<br /> + Is a mossy mountain, on<br /> + Whose top we sit, our crook in hand, <br /> + Like a sceptre of command, <br /> + Our subjects, sheep grazing below, <br /> + Wanton, frisking to and fro. (IV. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again, in the <i>Grateful Servant</i> we have a show of 'Satyres pursuing +Nymphes; they dance together. Exeunt Satyres; three Nymphes seem to +intreat [Lodowick] to goe with them,' accompanied by a song of Silvanus.</p> + +<p>Yet slighter traces of pastoral are to be occasionally found in other +plays of the period. Thus in Brome's <i>Love-Sick Court</i> the swains and +nymphs are led in the dance by characters who have sought and found a cure +for love among the country folk. In John Jones' <i>Adrasta</i>, the scene of +which is laid at Florence, several of the characters disguise themselves +in pastoral attire, and there is one definitely pastoral scene in which +they appear in the midst of real shepherds and shepherdesses. The play was +printed in 1635, and it is noticeable as containing, in the pastoral +scene, satire on the Puritans resembling that introduced by Jonson in the +<i>Sad Shepherd</i>. So again, similar disguisings, though of a less +pronouncedly pastoral character, occur in the anonymous <i>Knave in Grain</i>, +in which the scene is Venice. Satyrs and nymphs, clowns and maids, join in +a song in Nashe's curious allegorical show entitled <i>Summer's Last Will +and Testament</i>; nymphs and satyrs appear in the interludes of Dekker's +<i>Old Fortunatus</i>; Silvanus, with nymphs and satyrs, perform a sort of +interlude with song in the anonymous <i>Wily Beguiled</i>; and, lastly, we have +the morris danced by the countrymen and wenches who accompany the jailor's +daughter in the <i>Two Noble Kinsmen</i>.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The wider influence of tone and spirit is, in the nature of the case, far +more difficult to determine. It is possible that some court-plays may show +the influence of the artificial arrangement of characters and the +conventional play of motives characteristic of the pastoral drama. But it +is a matter of the greatest difficulty to analyse with certainty such +structural peculiarities as these, still more so to assign them with +confidence to their proper origin. Many characteristics which one might at +first sight put down to the influence of the pastoral drama are, in +reality, far more likely to be due to that of the comic stage of Italy in +general. But while it would be rash to assert that the pastoral plays in +this country exercised any wide influence over the regular drama, there +can be no question such an influence was exercised to a very appreciable +degree by pastoral poetry in general. I am not thinking of the romances at +this moment, for as we have already seen it was the non-pastoral elements +in the pastoral novel that exerted such influence as can be traced over +the drama, but rather of the pastoral ideal and the pastoral mode in +general, as expressed either in the lyric, the eclogue, or the drama. In +this the drama shared an influence which was also exercised on other +departments of literature. Numerous songs might be quoted from the scenes +of the Elizabethan dramatists in support of this contention; while, on the +other hand, we also find dramatic and descriptive passages the idyllic +quality of which may not unreasonably be referred to a pastoral source.</p> + +<p>This tendency of the drama to absorb pastoral elements rather from the +lyric and the idyll than from regular plays in that kind is significant. +It is the acknowledgement of an important fact, which pastoralism failed +to recognize; namely, that as the expression of the pastoral idea gained +in complexity of artistic structure it lost in vitality. The pastoral +drama, born late in time, was the outcome of very especial circumstances, +emphatically the child of its age, and little calculated to serve the +artistic requirements of any other. Once the creative impulse that gave it +life was withdrawn the falsity of the kind as a form of art became +manifest; and though it lingered on for many years its life was but that +of a fashionable toy, with little or no hold over the vital literature of +its day. The popularity of the pastoral eclogue or idyll was of far longer +duration. Though the form was more or less definitely conditioned, it had +less of the structural rigidity of the drama, it brought its subject less +into contact with the hard limitations of reality, and, which may also +have been important, brought it less into comparison with other +subject-matter employing the same or a closely analogous form. Thus it was +better able to adapt itself to the tastes and requirements of various +ages, and found favour in such vastly different societies as those for +which Theocritus, Mantuan, Spenser, and Pope produced their works in this +kind. Even here, however, the simple sensuous ideal was too much hampered +by the ungenuine paraphernalia which the conventions of these various +societies had gathered round it to take rank among the permanent and +inevitable forms of literary art. This was granted to the lyric alone. It +was through the lyric that the pastoral ideal and pastoral colouring most +deeply penetrated and influenced existing forms; for the lyric, the freest +and most unconditioned of all poetical kinds, the least tied to the +circumstances and limitations of the actual world, was particularly fitted +to extract the fragrance from the pastoral ideal without raising any +unseasonable questions as to its rational or actual possibility.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> It was a lover and his lass<br /> + That o'er the green cornfield did pass--</p></blockquote> + +<p>this is the essential; and we ask no more if we are wise. The very +essence, be it remembered, of the pastoral ideal is no more than 'love +<i>in vacuo</i>.' And this the lyric alone can give us.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>But there is one play which more than any other illustrates the nature of +the influence exerted by pastoral tradition over the romantic drama and +the relation subsisting between the two. This is <i>As You Like It</i>; for if +in one sense Shakespeare was but following Lodge in the traditional +blending of pastoral elements with those of court and chivalry, in another +sense he has in this play revealed his opinion of, and passed judgement +upon, the whole pastoral ideal. This must necessarily happen whenever a +great creative artist adopts, for reasons of his own, and takes into his +work any merely outward and formal convention. It was rarely that in his +plays Shakespeare showed any inclination to connect himself even remotely +with pastoral tradition. The <i>Two Gentlemen of Verona</i> traces its origin, +indeed, to the <i>Diana</i> of Montemayor; but all vestige of pastoral +colouring has vanished, and Shakespeare may even have been himself +ignorant of the parentage of the story he treated. A more apparent element +of pastoral found its way many years later into the <i>Winters Tale</i>; but it +is characteristic of the shepherd scenes of that play, written in the full +maturity of Shakespeare's genius, that, in spite of their origin in +Greene's romance of <i>Pandosto</i>, they owe nothing of their treatment to +pastoral tradition, nothing to convention, nothing to aught save life as +it mirrored itself in the magic glass of the poet's imagination. They +represent solely the idealization of Shakespeare's own observation, and in +spite of the marvellous and subtle glamour of golden sunlight that +overspreads the whole, we may yet recognize in them the consummation +towards which many sketches of natural man and woman, as he found them in +the English fields and lanes, seem in a less certain and conscious manner +to be striving in plays of an earlier date. It was characteristic of +Shakespeare, as it has been of other great artists, to introduce into his +early writings incidental sketches which serve as studies for further work +of a later period. In much the same manner the varied, but at times +uncertain, melody of the early love comedies seems to aspire towards the +full sonority and magic of lyric feeling and utterance in <i>Romeo and +Juliet</i>.</p> + +<p>Thus it is neither to the mellow autumn of his art, when he had cast aside +as unworthy all the trivialities of convention, nor yet to the storm and +stress of adolescence, the immaturity of pettiness and exaggeration, that +we must look if we would discover Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral +tradition. <i>As You Like It</i> belongs to his middle period. It will be +remembered, from what has been said on an earlier page, that in this play +Shakespeare substantially followed the story of Rosalind as narrated by +Lodge, to whom we owe the introduction of a pastoral element into the old +tale of Gamelyn. The pastoral characters of the play may be roughly +analysed as follows. Celia and Rosalind, the latter disguised as a youth, +are courtly characters; Phebe and Silvius represent the polished Arcadians +of pastoral tradition; while Audrey and William combine the character of +farcical rustics with the inimitable humanity which distinguishes +Shakespeare's creations. It is noteworthy that this last pair is the +dramatist's own addition to the cast. Thus we have all the various +types--all the degrees or variations of idealization--brought side by side +and co-existent in the fairyland of the poet's fancy. The details of the +play are too well known for there to be any call to outrage the delicate +interweaving of character and incident by translating the perfect scenes +into clumsy prose. Nor would such analysis throw any light upon +Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral. That must be sought elsewhere. We +may seek it in the fanciful mingling of ideals and idealizations--of +courtly masking, of the conventional naturalism of polished dreamers, and +of a rusticity more genuine at once and more sympathetic than that of +Lorenzo, all of which act by their very natures as touchstones to one +another. We may seek it in the uncertainty and hovering between belief and +scepticism, earnest and play, reality and imagination--such as can only +exist in art, or in life when life approaches to the condition of an +art--which we find in the scenes where Orlando courts his mistress in the +person of the youth who is but his mistress in disguise. We may seek it +lastly in the manner in which the firm structure of the piece is +fashioned of the non-pastoral elements; in the happiness of the art by +which the pastoral incidents and business appear but as so much fair and +graceful ornament upon this structure, bringing with them a smack of the +free, rude, countryside, or a faint perfume of the polished Utopia of +courtly makers. It is here that we may trace Shakespeare's appreciation of +pastoral, as a delicate colouring, an old-world fragrance, a flower from +wild hedgerows or cultured garden, a thing of grace and beauty, to be +gathered, enjoyed, and forgotten, unsuited in its evanescent charm to be +the serious business of art or life.</p> + +<p>On this note, the realization at once of the delicate loveliness and of +the unsubstantiality of the pastoral ideal, we may close our survey of its +growth and blossoming in our dramatic literature, and before finally +turning from the tradition which fascinated so many generations of +European artists, pause for one moment to inquire of the critical +expression it has received at the hands of more philosophical writers.</p> + +<p>We have already seen how in the early days of modern pastoral composition +Boccaccio, summing up the previous history of the kind, found in allegory +and topical allusion its <i>raison d'être</i>. We have seen how in our own +tongue Drayton expressed a similar view, and how Fletcher adopted in +theory at least a more naturalistic position. This antagonism which runs +through the whole of pastoral theory is really dependent upon two +questions which have not always been clearly distinguished. There is, +namely, the question of the allegorical or topical interpretation of the +poems, and there is the question of the rusticity or at least simplicity +of the form and language. It is possible to advocate the introduction of +Boccaccio's 'nonnulli sensus' and yet demand that, whatever the esoteric +interpretation of which the poem may be capable, the outward expression +shall be appropriate to the apparent condition of the speakers; while on +the other hand it is possible to confine the meaning to the evident and +unsophisticated sense of the poem, while allowing such a degree of +idealization in the language and sentiments of the characters as to +differentiate them widely from the actual rustics of real life. The former +of these positions is that assumed by Spenser in the <i>Shepherd's +Calender</i>, however much he may have failed in logical consistency; the +second is that which, in spite of much incidental matter of a topical +nature, underlies Tasso's masterpiece in the kind. It is with the second +of the above questions that critics have in the main been concerned. They +have, namely, as a rule, tacitly though not explicitly recognized the fact +that a poem whose value depends exclusively upon an esoteric +interpretation has no meaning whatever as a work of art, while if artistic +value can be assigned to the primary meaning of the work, it is a matter +of indifference aesthetically whether there be an esoteric interpretation +or not.</p> + +<p>Every writer, I think, who comes within the limits of pastoral as usually +understood, has found a certain idealization and a certain refinement +necessary in bringing rustic swains into the domain of art. That any such +process is inherently necessary to produce an artistic result there is no +reason whatever to suppose; it may even be rationally questioned whether +it is necessary to ensure the result falling within the recognizable field +of pastoral; but neither of these considerations affects the historical +fact. It is commonly admitted that among pastoral writers Theocritus +adhered most closely to nature; yet no one has been found to describe him +as a realist, whether in method or intention. But though this process of +idealization is practically universal, few poets have confessed to it. +Only occasionally an author, writing according to the demands of his age +or of his individual taste, has been alive to what appeared to be a +contradiction between his creations and what he mistook for the +fundamental conditions of the kind in which he created. This was the case +with Tasso, and he sought to reconcile the two by making Amore in the +prologue declare:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Spirerò nobil sensi a' rozzi petti, <br /> + Raddolcirò nelle lor lingue il suono, <br /> + Perche, ovunque i' mi sia, io sono Amore, <br /> + Ne' pastori non men, che negli eroi; <br /> + E la disagguaglianza de' soggetti, <br /> + Come a me piace, agguaglio.</p></blockquote> + +<p>This served, of course, no other purpose than to salve the author's +artistic conscience, since it is perfectly evident that the polished +civility of his characters belongs to them by nature, and is not in any +way an external importation. The remark, however, is interesting in +respect of the philosophy of love as a civilizing power, which we have +seen constantly recurring from the days of Boccaccio onward. Ben Jonson +expressed himself sharply on this subject, with respect to Guarini and +Sidney, in his conversations with Drummond. 'That Guarini, in his Pastor +Fido, keept not decorum, in making Shepherds speek as well as himself +could.... That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making everyone speak as +well as himself.'[<a href="#fn359">359</a>] The critical foundation of these censures in an <i>a +priori</i> definition of pastoral is obvious, and they are more interesting +for their authorship than for their intrinsic merit. It would be curious +to know how Jonson defended such a character as his Sad Shepherd--but his +views had time to alter.</p> + +<p>It is to the critics of the late years of the seventeenth century and +early ones of the eighteenth that we owe the attempt to formulate a theory +of pastoral composition. The attempt has not for us any great importance. +All the work we have been considering had appeared, and the vast majority +of it had passed into oblivion, before the French critics first engaged +upon the task. Nor has the attempt much intrinsic interest. The theories +of individual writers such as those already mentioned are of value, as +showing the critical mood in which they themselves created; but these, and +still more the theories of pure critics, are of no importance, either in +the field of abstract critical theory or of historical inquiry. +Fontenelle, offended at the odour of Theocritus' hines, Rapin, with his +Jesuitical prudicity and ethico-literary theories of propriety, are not +the kind of thinkers to advance critical and historical science. Yet it +was to their school that the far greater English critics of the early +eighteenth century belonged. Their work consists for the most part of +various combinations of <i>a priori</i> definition and arbitrary rules, based +on the notion of propriety. Thus Pope in the <i>Discourse on Pastoral</i>, +prefixed to his eclogues in 1717, writes: 'A pastoral is an imitation of +the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character.... If we +would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that +pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age. So that we are not +to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they +may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the +employment.' Shallow formalism this; but what else was to be expected from +Alexander Pope at the age of sixteen? His contemporaries, however, and +successors down to Johnson, took his solemn vacuity in all seriousness. +Steele, writing in the <i>Guardian</i> in 1713 (Nos. 22, &c.), follows much the +same lines. He speaks of 'Innocence, Simplicity, and whatever else has +been laid down as distinguishing Marks of Pastoral.' Again, the reader is +informed that 'Whoever can bear these'--namely, certain <i>concetti</i> from +Tasso and Guarini--'may be assured he hath no Taste for Pastoral.' We find +the same pedantic and ignorant objections to Sannazzaro's piscatorials as +were later advanced by Johnson: 'who can pardon him,' loftily queries the +censor, 'for his Arbitrary Change of the sweet Manners and pleasing +objects of the Country, for what in their own Nature are uncomfortable and +dreadful?' An afternoon's idling along the cliffs of Sorento or the shore +of Posilipo will supply a sufficient answer to such ignorant conceit as +this. Lastly, in the same familiar strain, but with all the pompous weight +of undisputed dictatorship, we find Dr. Johnson a generation later laying +down in the <i>Rambler</i> that a pastoral is 'a Poem in which any action or +Passion is represented by its Effects upon a Country Life.... In Pastoral, +as in other Writings, Chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be +observed, and Purity of Manners to be represented; not because the Poet is +confined to the Images of the golden Age'--this is a rap at Pope--'but +because, having the subject in his own Choice, he ought always to consult +the Interest of Virtue.' The one fixed idea which runs throughout these +criticisms is that pastoral in its nature somehow is, or should be, other +than what it is in fact[<a href="#fn360">360</a>].</p> + +<p>This is a view which very rightly meets with small mercy at the hands of +the modern historical school of criticism. A last fragment of the hoary +fallacy may be traced in Dr. Sommer's remark: 'Die Theorie des +Hirtengedichtes ist kurz in folgenden Worten ausgedrückt: schlichte und +ungekünstelte Darstellung des Hirtenlebens und wahre Naturschilderung.' It +cannot be too emphatically laid down that there is and can be no such +thing as a 'theory' of pastoral, or, indeed, of any other artistic form +dependent, like it, upon what are merely accidental conditions.[<a href="#fn361">361</a>] As I +started by pointing out at the beginning of this work, pastoral is not +capable of definition by reference to any essential quality; whence it +follows that any theory of pastoral is not a theory of pastoral as it +exists, but as the critic imagines that it ought to exist. 'Everything is +what it is, and not another thing,' and pastoral is what the writers of +pastoral have made it.</p> + +<p>It may be convenient before closing this chapter to summarize briefly the +results of our inquiry into the history of pastoral tradition on the +pre-restoration stage in England, without the elaboration of detail and +the many necessary though minor distinctions unavoidable in the foregoing +account. We saw, in the first place, that the idea of a literature dealing +with the humours and romance of farm and sheepcot was not wholly alien to +national English literature; but, on the contrary, that the shepherd plays +of the religions cycles, the popular ballads, and a few of the Scots poets +of the time of Henryson, all alike furnish verse which may be regarded as +the index of the readiness of the popular mind to receive the +introduction of a formal pastoral tradition. Next, preceding, as in Italy, +the introduction or evolution of a regular pastoral drama, we find a +series of mythological plays embodying incidentally elements of pastoral, +written for the amusement of court circles, and founded on the +<i>Metamorphoses</i> of Ovid. In these the nature of the pastoral scenes appear +to be conditioned, in so far as they are independent of their classical +source, partly by the already existing eclogue, and partly perhaps by the +native impulse mentioned above[<a href="#fn362">362</a>]. All this anticipates the rise of the +pastoral drama proper. The foreign pastoral tradition reached England +through three main channels. The earliest of these, the eclogue, was +imitated by Spenser from Marot, who, while depending somewhat more +closely, perhaps, than was usual upon the ancients, and adding to his work +a certain original flavour, yet belonged essentially to the tradition of +the allegorical pastoral which took its fashion from the works of Petrarch +and Mantuan. The second, and for the English drama vastly the more +important channel, was the pastoral-chivalric romance borrowed by Sidney +from Montemayor, the great exponent of the Spanish school, which was, +however, based upon the Italian work of Sannazzaro. The third was the +Arcadian drama of the Ferrarese court, which was imitated, chiefly from +Guarini, by Samuel Daniel. Thus, of the three forms, verse, prose, and +drama, adopted by England from Italy, the first came by way of France, the +second by way of Spain, while the third alone was taken direct[<a href="#fn363">363</a>]. These +three blended with the pre-existing mythological play, and with the +traditions of the romantic drama generally, to produce the pastoral drama +of the English stage. The influence ot the eclogue was on the whole +slight, but to it we may reasonably ascribe a share of the topical and +allusive elements, when these do not appear assignable either to the +Arcadian drama or to masque literature generally.[<a href="#fn364">364</a>] The influence of +the mythological drama, again, is not of the first importance, and is also +very restricted in its occurrence; the <i>Maid's Metamorphosis</i> is the most +striking example. The three main influences at work in fashioning the +pastoral drama upon the English stage were, therefore, the Arcadian drama +of Italy, the Sidneian romance borrowed from Spain, and the native +tradition of the romantic drama.[<a href="#fn365">365</a>] But we have seen that the most +important examples of dramatic pastoral in this country, though to some +extent conditioned like the rest by the above-mentioned influences, were +the outcome of direct and conscious experiment. In part, at least, the +earliest, and by far the most simple, was the work of Samuel Daniel +himself, which aimed at nothing beyond the mere transference of the +Italian tradition unaltered on to the English stage. A different aim +underlay the attempts alike of Fletcher and Randolph; the combination, +namely, of the traditions of the Arcadian and romantic dramas. This common +end they sought, however, by very diverse means. Fletcher, while adopting +the machinery and methods of the popular drama, left the ideal and +imaginary content practically untouched, and even chose a plot which in +its structure resembled those familiar in the romantic drama even less +than did Guarini's own. Randolph, on the other hand, while preserving much +of the classical mechanism as he found it in Guarini, altered the whole +tone and character of the piece to correspond to the greater complexity of +interest, more genial humour, and more genuine romanticism of the English +stage. Lastly, we found Jonson cutting himself almost entirely adrift from +the tradition of Italian Arcadianism, and seeking to create an essentially +national pastoral by the combination of shepherd lads and girls, +transmuted from actuality by a natural process of refinement akin to that +of Theocritus, with the magic and fairy lore of popular fancy, and with +the characters of Robin and Marian and all the essentially English +tradition of Sherwood. These three chief experiments in the production of +an English pastoral drama which should rival that of Italy stand, together +with Daniel's two plays, apart from the general run of pieces of the kind. +It is also worth notice that they are all alike unaffected by the Sidneian +romance. The remaining plays which form the great bulk of the contribution +made by English drama to pastoral, and among which we must look for such +dramatic pastoral tradition as existed, are almost all characterized by a +more or less prevalent court atmosphere, disguisings and adventures in +shepherd's garb forming the mainstay of the plot, while the genuine +pastoral elements supply little beyond the background of the action.</p> + +<p>Into the post-restoration pastorals it is no part of my present scheme to +enter. They flourished for a while under the wing of the fashionable +romance of France, but were almost more than their predecessors the things +of artificial convention, having their form and being in a world whose +only pre-occupations were the pangs and transports of sensibility. They +occupy by right a small corner in the <i>Carte du Tendre</i>. Nor do I propose +to do more than allude in passing to Allan Ramsay's <i>Gentle Shepherd</i>. In +spite of the almost unvarying praise which has been lavished upon this +'Scots pastoral,' and even though the characters may have some points of +humanity in common with actual Lothian rustics, the whole composition of +the piece can scarcely be pronounced less artificial than that of the +Arcadian drama itself, and the play has undoubtedly shared in the +exaggerated esteem which has fallen to the lot of dialectal literature +generally. The tradition lingered on throughout the eighteenth and into +the nineteenth century. Goethe in his youth, while under the French +influence, composed the <i>Laune des Verliebten</i>, and in his later days at +Weimar the <i>Fischerin</i>, a piscatorial adapted for representation on an +open-air stage, in which the interest was purely spectacular. As a general +rule, however, pastoral inanity seldom strayed beyond the limits of the +opera.</p> + +<p>That the pastoral should flourish by the side of the romantic drama was +not to be expected. It was impossible in England, as it was impossible in +Spain. In either case it might now and again achieve a mild success at +court, or under some exceptional conditions of representation; it never +held the popular stage. No literature based on the accidents of a special +form of civilization, or upon a set of artificially imagined conditions, +can ever hope to outlive the civilization or the fashion that gave it +birth. 'Love <i>in vacuo</i>' failed to arouse the interest of general mankind. +Every literature of course wears the livery of its age, but where the body +beneath is instinct with human life it can change its dress and pass +unchanged itself from one order of things to another; where the livery is +all, the form cannot a second time be galvanized into life. Pastoral, +relying for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the +essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and +independent form of art. The trivial toy of a courtly coterie, it +attempted to arrogate to itself the position of a philosophy, and in so +doing exposed itself to the ridicule of succeeding ages. Men with a stern +purpose in life turned wearily from the sickly amours of romantic poets +who dreamed that human happiness found its place in the economy of the +world. They left it to a rout of melodious idlers to imagine unto +themselves a state in which serious importance should attach to the +gracious things of sentiment and the loves of youth and maiden. </p> +</div></div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="addenda"> +<h2>Addenda</h2> + + + +<p>Page 19.--Even apart from the evidence of the <i>Bucolica Quirinalium</i>, it +is, of course, clear that Vergil's eclogues were familiar to the writers +of the early middle ages. How far their interest in them was literary, and +how far, like that of the mystery-writers, it was theological, may, +however, be questioned. It is worth noticing in this connexion that a +German translation was projected by no less a person than Notker, and +since they are coupled by him with the <i>Andria</i>, we may reasonably infer +that in this case at least the writer's concern, if not distinctively +literary, was at any rate educational. (See W. P. Ker, <i>The Dark Ages</i>, p. +317.)</p> + +<p>Page 112, note 2.--There is an error here. <i>The Passionate Pilgrim</i> +version of 'As it fell upon a day' does not contain the couplet found in +<i>England's Helicon</i>. I was misled by its being supplied from the latter by +the Cambridge editors. Another poem of the same description appears in +Francis Sabie's <i>Pan's Pipe</i>. (See Sidney Lee's introduction to the Oxford +Press facsimile of the <i>Passionate Pilgrim</i>, p. 31.)</p> + +<p>Page 204.--It is perhaps hardly surprising to find Tasso's 'S' ei piace, +ei lice' quoted by English writers as summing up the cynical philosophy of +those whom they not unaptly styled 'politicians.' In Marston's tragedy on +the story of Sophonisba, for instance, the villain Syphax concludes a +'Machiavellian' speech with the words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> For we hold firm, that 's lawful which doth please.<br /> + (<i>Wonder of Women</i>, IV. i. 191.)</p></blockquote> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="app1"> +<h2>Appendix I</h2> + +<h3>On the Origin and Development of the Italian Pastoral Drama</h3> + + + +<p>The chapter in the history of Italian literature which shall deal with the +evolution of the Arcadian drama still remains to be written. The treatment +of it in Symonds' <i>Renaissance</i> is decidedly inadequate, and even as far +as it goes not altogether satisfactory. The explanation of this is, that +the most important works fall outside his period; the <i>Aminta</i> and the +<i>Pastor fido</i> are admirably treated in the volumes dealing with the +counter-reformation, but these are of the nature of an appendix, and +formed no part of his original plan. Tiraboschi's account is also meagre. +A long discussion of the subject will be found in the fifth volume of J. +L. Klein's <i>Geschichte des Dramas</i> (Leipzig, 1867), but the bewildering +irrelevancy of much of the matter introduced by that eccentric writer +seriously impairs the critical value of his work. An excellent sketch of +the early history as far as Beccari, with full references, is given in +Vittorio Rossi's valuable monograph, <i>Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido</i> +(Torino, 1886), pt. ii. ch. i. This has the immense advantage of +conciseness, and of a clear and scholarly style. An important review of +Rossi's book, concerning itself particularly with the chapter in question, +appeared in the <i>Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie</i> +for 1891 (col. 376), from the pen of A. L. Stiefel, who incidentally +announced that he was himself engaged on a comprehensive history of the +pastoral drama. Of this work I have been unable to obtain any further +information. Next an elaborate essay by the veteran Giosuè Carducci, +largely combatting Rossi's conclusions as to the literary evolution of the +form, and bringing forward a good deal of fresh evidence, appeared in the +<i>Nuova Antologia</i> for September, 1894, and was reprinted with additions +and corrections as the second of three papers in the author's pamphlet <i>Su +l'Aminta di T. Tasso</i> (Firenze, 1896). To this Rossi rejoined, effectively +as it seems to me, in the <i>Giornale storico della letteratura italiana</i> +(1898, xxxi. p. 108). The treatment in W. Creizenach's <i>Geschichte des +neueren Dramas</i> (Halle, 1901, ii. p. 359) is unfortunately not yet +complete.</p> + +<p>The theory of development which I have adopted is substantially that +elaborated by Rossi. To him belongs the honour of having been the first +clearly to indicate the historical steps by which the eclogue passes into +the drama. The idea, however, was not original; it underlies the accounts +given by Egidio Menagio in the notes to his edition of the <i>Aminta</i> +(Paris, 1655), by G. Fontanini (<i>Aminta difeso</i>, Roma, 1700, and Venezia, +1730), by P. L. Ginguené (<i>Histoire littéraire d'Italie,</i> vol. vi, Paris, +1813), and by Klein. It was also virtually accepted by Stiefel in his +review of Rossi, since he confined his criticism to pointing out and +attempting to fill occasional gaps in the sequence of development, and to +insisting on the influence of the regular drama, and more particularly of +the Intronati comedy. The incomplete state of Creizenach's work, and the +caution with which he expresses himself on the subject, preclude our +reckoning him among the declared supporters of the theory; but there can +be little doubt, I think, as to the tendency of his remarks. This may then +be regarded as the orthodox view. It has not, however, received the +exclusive adherence of scholars, and it may therefore be thought right +that I should both give in detail the arguments by which it is supported +and my reasons for accepting it, and likewise state the grounds on which I +reject the rival theories that have been propounded.</p> + +<p>Two of these latter may be quickly dismissed. These are the views put +forward respectively by Gustav Weinberg, <i>Das französische Schäferspiel in +der ersten Hälfte des XVIIten Jahrhunderts</i> (Frankfurt, 1884), and by J. +G. Schönherr in his <i>Jorge de Montemayor</i> (Halle, 1886). Weinberg finds +the origin of the Italian pastoral drama in the 'Éclogas' of Juan del +Encina. With regard to this theory it may be sufficient to observe that, +at the time Encina wrote, the <i>ecloga rappresentativa</i>, or dramatic +eclogue, was already familiar in the Italian courts, and that, so far from +his writings being the source of any pastoral tradition even in his own +country, what subsequent dramatic work of the kind is to be found in Spain +merely represents a further borrowing from Italy. Schönherr, on the other +hand, regards the <i>Jus Robins et Marion</i> as the source of the Arcadian +drama. Not only, however, did Adan de le Hale's play fail to originale any +dramatic tradition in its own country, but it is itself nothing but an +amplified <i>pastourelle</i>, a form which, in spite of marked Provençal +influence, never obtained to any extent in Italy. It need hardly be said +that there is not a vestige of historical evidence to support either of +these theories[<a href="#fn366">366</a>].</p> + +<p>It is different with the theory advanced by Carducci in the essay already +mentioned. The reputation of the great Italian critic would alone entitle +any view he advanced to the most respectful consideration. In the present +case, however, there is more than this, for his essay is a monument of +deep and loving scholarship, and whether we agree or not with its +conclusions, it adds greatly to our knowledge of the subject. Briefly and +baldly stated, his contention is as follows. The Arcadian drama was a +creation of the literary and courtly circles of Ferrara, and so far as +Italy is concerned the precursors of the <i>Aminta</i> are to be sought in +Beccari's <i>Sacrifizio</i> and Giraldi Cintio's <i>Egle</i> alone, with a +connecting link as it were supplied by the pastoral fragment of the latter +author, first printed as an appendix to the essay in question. Beyond +these compositions no influence can be traced, except that of a study of +the classics in general, and of Theocritus in particular. It is certainly +remarkable that the important texts mentioned above, as well as Argenti's +<i>Sfortunato</i> and the <i>Aminta</i> itself, should all alike have been written +for and produced at the court of the Estensi at Ferrara. The selection, +however, I regard as somewhat arbitrary. The <i>Egle</i> appears to lie +entirely off the road of pastoral development, and I cannot help thinking +that Carducci falls into the not unnatural error of exaggerating the +importance of the interesting document he was the first to publish. The +primitive dramatic eclogue was not altogether unknown at Ferrara, nor do +the pastoral shows elsewhere appear to have been always as remote from the +courtly grace of the Arcadian tradition as the critic is at pains to +demonstrate. In view therefore of the practically unbroken line of formal +development, and the consistency of artistic aim observable from +Sannazzaro in the last quarter of the fifteenth to Guarini in the last +quarter of the sixteenth century, I find it impossible to accept +Carducci's conclusions.</p> + +<p>The advocates of the orthodox theory, however, must be prepared to meet +and combat the objections which Carducci has raised, and which, in his +opinion, necessitate the adoption of a different explanation. The +evolution of the pastoral drama from the eclogue he declares to be +impossible, in the first place, on historical grounds. This objection +relates to the evidence as to a continuous development traceable in the +accessible texts, and to it the account given in the following pages +will--or will not--be found a sufficient answer. In the second place, he +declares it to be impossible on aesthetic grounds. These are three in +number, and may be briefly considered here. (<i>a</i>) 'Idealization cannot +develop out of caricature.' Here, I presume, he is using 'caricature' in +its technical sense of what Aristotle calls 'imitation worse than +nature,' not merely for the resuit of an inadequate command over the +medium of artistic μίμησις. The remark, therefore, can only apply +to the 'rustic' productions. But, as Aristotle's phrase suggests, +burlesque, or caricature, is only idealization in a different direction, +so that there appears to be less antagonism between the two tendencies +than might at first be supposed. Moreover, no one has suggested that the +rustic shows were the origin of the Arcadian drama, so that it is to be +presumed that Carducci had in mind the more or less frequent but still +sporadic elements borrowed by the eclogues from the popular drama. These, +however, are found in conjunction with idealized elements of courtly +tradition, both in the dramatic eclogues themselves and more especially in +the <i>ecloghe maggiaiuole</i> or May-day shows of the Congrega dei Rozzi. +Thus, although it is true that we should not expect idealization to be +evolved out of caricature, there is no reason to deny its evolution from a +form in which burlesque and romance subsisted side by side. (<i>b</i>) 'Those +eclogues that are not burlesque are occasional compositions equally +incapable of developing into the Arcadian drama.' Though, no doubt, +usually written for presentation upon some particular occasion, several of +the dramatic eclogues present no topical features. Nor does it appear why +a form of composition, the type of which was fairly constant although the +individual examples might be ephemeral enough, should not develop into +something of a more permanent nature. Moreover, the topical allusions +scattered throughout the <i>Aminta</i>, as well as the highly occasional +character of the prologue to the <i>Pastor fido</i>, serve to connect these +plays directly with the 'occasional' eclogue. (<i>c</i>) The metrical form of +the recognized dramatic pastorals differs from that of the eclogues.' +While beginning, however, with simple <i>terza</i> or <i>ottava rima</i>, the +dramatic eclogue gradually became highly polymetric in structure, though +it is true that it seldom affected the free measures peculiar to the +Arcadian drama. These, however, were no more suited to short compositions +than the stiff terzines and octaves to more complicated dramatic works. +The prevalent metre, as indeed many other points, might well be borrowed +by the dramatic pastoral from the practice of the regular stage without it +thereby ceasing to be the formal descendant of the eclogue.</p> + +<p>Another point in debate is the view taken of the question by contemporary +critics--that is, by Guarini and his adversaries. Rossi pointed out a +passage in Guarini's <i>Veraio</i> of 1588[<a href="#fn367">367</a>] which he held to support his +theory of development. Translated, the passage runs: 'And why should it +not be thought lawful for the eclogue to grow out of its infancy and +arrive at mature years, if this has been possible in the case of tragedy? +... Even as the Muses grafted tragedy upon the dithyrambic stock, and +comedy upon the phallic, so in their ever-fertile garden they set the +eclogue as a tiny cutting, whence sprang in later years the stately growth +of the pastoral,' that is, of the <i>favola di pastori</i>, or dramatic +pastoral, as he elsewhere explains. 'But in thèse words,' objects +Carducci, 'the writer is in no way referring to the Italian eclogues of +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The eclogue had passed out of its +infancy in the work of Theocritus.' Here, however, Carducci appears to me +to misinterpret Guarini's meaning in an almost perverse manner. The +metaphoric 'infancy' of which Guarini speaks is the pre-dramatic period of +pastoral growth. No one will deny that the Theocritean idyl had attained +full and perfect development in its own kind; but from the dramatic point +of view, and granted that it contained the germ of the later pastoral +drama, it belonged to a period of infancy, or, to adopt a more strictly +accurate metaphor, of gestation. Were further evidence needed to show that +the allusion is to the Italian rather than to the classical eclogue, it +might be found in the fact that the passage in question was Guarini's +answer to the following criticism of De Nores, as to the meaning of which +there can be no two opinions. Attacking the pastoral tragi-comedy, the +critic remarks: 'Until the other day similar compositions were represented +under the name of eclogues at festivals and banquets, ... but now of a +sudden they have been fashioned of the extension of comedies and tragedies +in five acts[<a href="#fn368">368</a>].' It will be noticed that in his reply Guarini makes no +attempt to question the underlying identity of the pastoral tragi-comedy +with the dramatic eclogue, but contents himself with very justly asserting +the right of the latter to develop into a mature literary form. Two other +passages from Guarini have been quoted as germane to the discussion. They +occur in the <i>Verato secondo</i>, written as a counterblast to De Nores' +<i>Apologia</i>,[<a href="#fn369">369</a>]. One may be rendered thus: 'Although the dramatic +pastoral, in respect of the characters introduced, recognizes its ultimate +origin in the eclogue and in the satire [i. e. the satyric drama] of the +ancients, nevertheless, in respect of its form and ordinance it may be +said to be a modern kind of poetry, seeing that no example of such +dramatic composition, whether Greek or Latin, is to be found in ancient +times.' The other runs: 'having regard to the fact that Theocritus stepped +beyond the number of persons usual in similar poems, and composed one [the +<i>Feast of Adonis</i>] which not only contains many interlocutors, but is of a +more dramatic character than usual, and remarkable also for its greater +length; it seemed to him [Beccari] that he might with great honour supply +that kind neglected by the Greek and Latin authors[<a href="#fn370">370</a>].' In the former of +these passages Guarini, while recognizing the community of subject-matter +between the classical eclogue and the renaissance pastoral drama, claims +that as an artistic form the latter is independent of the former. Nor is +this inconsistent with what he says in the subsequent passage, for it is +perfectly true that it was with Beccari that the pastoral first attained +its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus +means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after +the manner of a <i>cinquecento</i> critic, he is seeking for authority at least +among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found. His +reference to the evolution of classical tragedy and comedy in the passage +cited from his first essay shows clearly that he had in mind a process of +gradual and natural development, not one of definite borrowing or +artificial creation. + +It appears to me, therefore, that Carducci has erred in not taking a +sufficiently broad view of the lines on which literary development +proceeds; and also, more specifically, in failing to recognize the +importance of the distinction between the ordinary and the dramatic +eclogue. This distinction, though on the scanty evidence extant it is +extremely hard to draw it with any degree of certainty, appears to me a +vital point in the history of the species. The value of Carducci's work +lies in his insistence on the influence of the regular drama, to which, +perhaps on account of its very obviousness, Rossi had failed to attach +sufficient importance; in his directing attention to the local Ferrarese +tradition; in the admirable energy and patience with which he has +collected all available evidence; and in his reprinting the interesting +pastoral fragment of Giraldi Cintio. For these he deserves the warmest +thanks of all students of Italian literature; for my own part I need only +refer the reader to the footnotes to the following pages as indicating in +some measure the extent of my indebtedness[<a href="#fn371">371</a>].</p> + +<p>The theatrical tendency first exhibited itself in the mere recitation of +a dialogue in character, and the earliest examples of these <i>ecloghe +rappresentative</i> are identical in form with those written merely for +literary circulation. For the dates of these external evidence +unfortunately fails us almost entirely, but a fairly well-marked sequence +may be established on the grounds of internal development. Roughly, they +must fall within a few years of the close of the fifteenth century, say +between 1480 and 1510. They are commonly of an allegorical nature, +containing allusions to real persons, and are for the most part composed +in <i>terza rima</i>, diversified in the more complex examples by the +introduction of octaves and lyrical measures[<a href="#fn372">372</a>]. Of this primitive form +is a poem by the Genoese Baldassare Taccone, bearing the superscription +'Ecloga pastorale rapresentata nel Convivio dell' III. Sig'r. Io. Adorno, +nella quale si celebra l' amor del Co. di Cayace [Francesco Sanseverino] e +di M. Chiara di Marino nuncupata la Castagnini[<a href="#fn373">373</a>].' This piece, in which +the characters represent real persons, is a mere dialogue without any +semblance of action. Aminta questions his fellow-shepherd Fileno as to the +cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless +passion for a certain cruel nymph. His offer to undertake his friend's +cure is met with the declaration, that of the two death were preferable. +Similar in simplicity of construction is another poem, the work of +Serafino Aquilano, which deals with the corruption of the Church, and was +performed at Rome during the carnival of 1490[<a href="#fn374">374</a>]. An advance in +dramatization is made by an eclogue of Galeotto Del Carretto's, written in +1492, in honour of the newly elected Alexander VI, in that one character +enters upon the scene after the other has been discoursing for some time; +while another, the work of Gualtiero Sanvitale, contains three speakers, +of whom one enters towards the close, and is called upon to decide between +the other two. This arbiter is none other than Lodovico Sforza +himself[<a href="#fn375">375</a>]. So far the eclogues have all been in Sannazzaro's <i>terza +rima</i>. A wider range of metrical effect, including not only terzines both +<i>sdrucciole</i> and <i>piane</i>, but also hendecasyllables with internal rime and +a <i>canzone</i>, and at the same time a more dramatic treatment, is found in +another eclogue of Aquilano's[<a href="#fn376">376</a>]. In this Palemone sends his herdsman +Silvano to inspect his flocks after a stormy night. The herdsman meets +Ircano in a melancholy mood, who when questioned endeavours to hide the +nature of his grief by feigning that he has lost his flock in the storm. +At that moment, however, the real cause of his sorrow enters in the shape +of a nymph, and Ircano leaves Silvano in order to follow her with prayers +and supplications. Silvano endeavours to dissuade him from his love, but +meets with the usual want of success. In the case of this piece, as also +of the two preceding ones, we have no direct evidence of any +representation, but all three, and especially the last, have the +appearance of being composed for recitation. Another piece, exhibiting an +advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo +pasturale,' a disputation on love by Bernardo Bellincioni[<a href="#fn377">377</a>], apparently +in some way connected with Genoa, in the course of which five characters, +probably representing actual personages, though we lack external evidence, +forgather upon the stage. The versification again exhibits novel features, +the piece being for the most part in <i>ottava rima</i> with the introduction +of <i>settenarî</i> couplets. In the former we may perhaps see the influence of +the <i>Orfeo</i>, or possibly of the old <i>sacre rappresentationi</i> themselves. +In 1506 the court of Urbino witnessed the eclogue composed and recited by +Baldassare Castiglione and Cesare Gonzaga[<a href="#fn378">378</a>]. It also belongs to the +octave group, and is diversified with a canzonet. Dramatically the piece +is somewhat of a retrogression, but it is interesting from the characters +introduced in pastoral guise. Thus in Iola and Dameta we may see +Castiglione and his fellow author; Tirsi, who gives his name to the poem, +is a stranger shepherd attracted by reports of the court; while among the +characters mentioned are discernible Bembo and the Duchess Elizabeth. At +this point may be mentioned a somewhat similar eclogue found in a Spanish +romance of about 1512, entitled <i>Cuestion de amor</i>, descriptive of the +Hispano-Neapolitan society of the time. The eclogue, which is clearly +modelled on the Italian examples, contains five characters, and is +supposed to represent the love affairs of real personages[<a href="#fn379">379</a>]. Two +so-called 'commedie pastorali,' from which Stiefel hoped for useful +evidence, prove on inspection to be medleys of pastoral amours exhibiting +little advance in dramatization, though interesting as showing traces of +the influence of the not yet fully developed 'rustic' eclogue. They are +composed throughout in <i>terza rima</i> without any division into acts or +scenes, and are the work of one Alessandro Caperano of Faenza, thus +hailing, like the later <i>Amaranta</i>, from the Romagna[<a href="#fn380">380</a>]. In 1517 we find +a fantastic pastoral entitled <i>Pulicane,</i> written in octaves by Piero +Antonio Legacci dello Stricca, a Sienese, who was also the author of +several rustic pieces, in which is introduced a monster half dog and half +man. Another work by the same, again in octaves, and entitled <i>Cicro</i>, +appeared in 1538. Another piece mentioned by Stiefel as likely to throw +light on the development of the dramatic pastoral is the 'Ecloga di +amicizia' of Bastiano di Francesco, or Bastiano 'the +flax-dresser'(<i>linaiuolo</i>), also of Siena, which was first printed in +1523. It turns out, however, to be a decidedly primitive composition in +<i>terza rima</i>, with a certain slightly satirical colouring[<a href="#fn381">381</a>].</p> + +<p>If the texts that have survived are somewhat scanty, there is good reason +to believe that they form but a small portion of the eclogues actually +represented at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth +centuries. Thus we find a show, of the nature of which it is not +altogether easy to judge, recorded in a letter by a certain Floriano +Dulfo, written from Bologna in July, 1496[<a href="#fn382">382</a>]. It appears to have been a +composition of some length, pastoral only in part, supernatural in others, +but belonging on the whole rather to the cycle of chivalresque romance +than of classical mythology. In Act I an astrologer announces the birth of +a giant, who in Act II is represented as persecuting the shepherds. Acts +III and IV are occupied by various complaints on his account In Act V, +called by Dulfo 'la ultima comedia, overo egloga,' the giant carries off a +nymph while she is gathering flowers; the shepherds, however, come to her +rescue and restore her to her lover. This incident, reminiscent possibly +of the rape of Proserpine, tends to connect the piece with the +mythological tradition. So far as can be gathered, the verse appears to +have been <i>ottava rima</i> with the introduction of lyrical passages. Again, +we know that the representation of eclogues formed part of the festivities +at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with Giovanni Sforza in 1493, and again +in 1502, when she espoused Alfonzo d' Este. In 1508 the carnival shows at +Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, +Antonio dall' Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[<a href="#fn383">383</a>]. At Venice we have note of +similar performances, and even find <i>ecloghe</i> mentioned among the forms of +dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state. I may also call +attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction +of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a +performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled <i>La morte +del Danese</i>[<a href="#fn384">384</a>]. The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and +must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced +into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler +order than actually represented at court. It may also not improbably have +been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its +description as a 'festa in atti rusticali' would seem to indicate.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though +rather in arrear of the courtly variety. In 1508 we find a piece in <i>terza +rima</i>, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one +Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen 'villani' appear +with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[<a href="#fn385">385</a>]. Eating +and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female +characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether +the piece was intended for representation. Not till five years later have +we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In +1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided +at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city +was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio,' otherwise Biagio Pallai +delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to +us. A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers +then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper +citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the +two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before +retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a +Christian land. They find the Capitol <i>en fête</i>, and the piece ends with a +song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[<a href="#fn386">386</a>]. Of the same year is the 'Egloga +pastorale di Justitia,' the earliest extant specimen of the rustic +dramatic eclogue proper. It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, +who fails to obtain justice because he is poor. He at last appeals to the +king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in +place of Adulation[<a href="#fn387">387</a>]. This form of composition, recalling as it does +the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs +widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical +of rustic representations. Again, to the same year, 1513, belongs an +eclogue in rustic speech and Bellunese dialect, by Bartolommeo Cavassico, +which like the Roman show turns upon the horrors of the war which had been +devastating the country since 1508. Recollections of the 'tagliata di +Cadore[<a href="#fn388">388</a>]' blend incongruously with fauns, nymphs, bears, pelicans, and +wild men of the woods, to form a whole which appears to be of a decidedly +burlesque character. The distribution, however, of these rustic eclogues +never appears to have been very wide, and in later times they were chiefly +confined to the representations of the famous Congrega dei Rozzi at Siena, +though the activity of this society extended, it is true, far beyond the +limits of its Tuscan home. Most of these representations, at any rate in +the earlier years with which we are concerned, were short realistic farces +of low life composed in dialectal verse. Some of the cleverest are by +Francesco Berni, better known for his obscene <i>capitoli</i> and his +<i>rifacimento</i> of Boiardo's <i>Orlando</i>, and appeared between 1537 and 1567; +while in later days the kind attained its highest perfection in the work +of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, whose <i>Tancia</i> originally appeared +in 1612[<a href="#fn389">389</a>].</p> + +<p>It may be questioned to what extent these rustic shows influenced the +development of the pastoral eclogue. Their recognition as a dramatic form +was subsequent to that of the <i>ecloga rappresentativa</i>, and no element +traceable to their influence can be shown to exist in the dramatic +pastoral as finally evolved. On the other hand, we do undoubtedly meet +with incidents and characters in the courtly shows which appear to belong +to the style of the popular burlesque. A point of contact between the two +traditions may be found in the <i>commedie maggiaiuole</i>, a sort of May-day +shows also represented by the Rozzi, but of a more idealized character +than the rustic drama proper. They may, indeed, be regarded as to some +extent at least a parody of the two kinds--the courtly and the popular +pastoral--since by combining the two each was made the foil and criticism +of the other. Nymphs and shepherds appear as in the pastoral eclogues, but +their loves are interrupted by the incursion of boisterous rustics, who +substitute the unchastened instincts and brute force of half-savage boors +for the delicate wooing and sentimentality of their rivals.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>We return to the development of the dramatic eclogue in a work of some +importance as marking an advance both in dramatic construction and +versification. <i>I due pellegrini[<a href="#fn390">390</a>]</i>, written not later than 1528, when +the author, Luigi Tansillo, was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, was +doubtless produced on some occasion before the court of the Orsini, at +Nola, near Naples. It was revived with great pomp ten years later at +Messina, when Don Garcia de Toledo, commander of the Neapolitan fleet, +entertained Antonia Cardona, daughter of the Count of Colisano, for whose +hand he was a suitor[<a href="#fn391">391</a>]. Two shepherds, pilgrims of love, bereft of the +objects of their affection, the one through death, the other through +inconstancy, meet in a forest and reason of the comparative hardness of +their lots. Unable to decide the question, they each resolve to bear the +strongest possible witness to the depth of their affliction by putting an +end to their lives. At this moment, however, the voice of the dead +mistress is heard from a neighbouring tree, persuading them to relinquish +their intentions, reconciling them once more with the world and life, and +directing them to join the festivities in the city of Nola. Here for the +first time we meet with a pastoral composition of some length pretending +to a dramatic solution, and contrasting with the stationary character of +most of the eclogues we have been examining in that the change of purpose +among the actors constitutes a sort of περιπέτεια, or +<i>rivolgimento</i>. The piece is likewise important from a metrical point of +view, since it not only contains a free intermixture of <i>ottava</i> and +<i>terza rima</i>, and hendecasyllables with <i>rimalmezzo</i>, a favourite verse +form in certain kinds of composition[<a href="#fn392">392</a>], but likewise foreshadows, in +its mingling of freely riming hendecasyllables with <i>settenarî</i>, the +peculiar measures of the pastoral drama proper. <i>I due pellegrini</i> was +not, however, an altogether original composition. In 1525 had appeared a +work by the Neapolitan Marco Antonio Epicuro de' Marsi, styled in the +original edition 'dialogo di tre ciechi,' and in later reprints +'tragi-commedia intitulata <i>Cecaria</i>[<a href="#fn393">393</a>].' In this three blind men, one +blind with love, another with jealousy, the third with gazing too intently +on the sun-like beauty of his mistress, meet and determine to die +together. They fall in, however, with a priest of Amor, who sends them +back to their respective loves to be cured. It was this theme that +Tansillo arranged in pastoral form, borrowing even the metres of the +original, but it was just the element which justifies our including it +here that he added, and it is useless to seek in Epicuro's work the origin +of the form with which it was thus only accidentally associated.</p> + +<p>A composition of some importance, dating from a period about two years +later than Tansillo's piece, is an 'ecloga pastorale' by the 'mestissimo +giovane' Luca di Lorenzo of Siena.[<a href="#fn394">394</a>] Two nymphs, by name Euridice and +Diversa, respectively seek and shun the delights of love. They meet a +<i>citto</i>--that is a <i>bambino</i> in Sienese dialect--who proves to be none +other than Cupid himself, and rewards them according to their deserts, +Euridice obtaining the love of the courtly shepherd Orindio, while Diversa +is condemned to follow the rude and loveless Fantasia. The piece is +written in a mixture of <i>ottava</i> and <i>terza rima</i>, with a variety of +lyrics introduced. The contrast between the loving and the careless +nymphs, and the episode of the latter being bound to a tree, appear to +anticipate the later pastoral; while the introduction of Cupid as a +dramatis persona carries one back to the mythological drama, and the +rustic characters connect the piece with the plays of the Rozzi. Another +composition of Tuscan origin is the <i>Lilia</i>, first printed in 1538, and +composed throughout in polished octaves.[<a href="#fn395">395</a>] It merely relates how the +shepherd Fileno courted the fair Lilia, a certain rustic element being +introduced in the persons of the herdsmen Crotolo and Tirso.</p> + +<p>With the <i>Amaranta</i> of Casalio we have been sufficiently concerned in the +text (p. 172). It was printed at Venice in 1538,[<a href="#fn396">396</a>] having probably been +written some years earlier. It is composed in <i>ottava</i> and <i>terza rima</i>, +with the introduction of a canzonet, and marks an important advance on +previous work, not only in the nature of the plot, but in being divided +into acts and scenes. Sixteen years elapsed between the publication of +<i>Amaranta</i> and the appearance of the regular pastoral drama in Beccari's +<i>Sacrifizio</i>. Some time ago Stiefel pointed out a considerable hiatus at +this point in Rossi's account, and mentioned certain works which might be +expected to fill it. These and others have since been examined by +Carducci, with the result that it is possible, at least partially, to +bridge the gap. The period proves to be one less of gradual evolution than +of conscious experiment. At least this is how I read the available +evidence. + +Besides the <i>Cecaria</i>, mentioned above, Epicuro de' Marsi also left a +manuscript play entitled <i>Mirzia</i>, which he describes as a 'favola +boschereccia,' being thus the first to make use of the term later adopted +by Tasso.[<a href="#fn397">397</a>] The piece, which was written some ten years before the +author's death in 1555, leads us off into one of the numerous by-paths +into which the pastorals of this period were for ever wandering. Two +despised lovers, together with their friend Ottimo, witness unseen the +dances of Diana and the nymphs, on which occasion Ottimo falls in love +with the goddess herself. After passing through various plights, into +which they are led by their love of the careless nymphs, they all have +recourse to an oracle, whose predictions are fulfilled through a series of +violent metamorphoses. This mixture of mythology and magic is wholly +foreign to the spirit of the Arcadian drama, and the <i>Mirzia</i> cannot any +more than the <i>Cecaria</i> be regarded as the progenitor of that form. I may +mention incidentally that among the characters is a good-natured satyr, +who consoles Ottimo in his hopeless passion for Diana.</p> + +<p>Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and +one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic +compositions, is the Florentine 'commedia pastorale' first printed in 1545 +under the title of <i>Silvia</i>.[<a href="#fn398">398</a>] The author calls himself Fileno +Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the +pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo +Firenzuola. The prologue relates how the first <i>archimandrita</i> of the +academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was +driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, +'Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.' This would seem to imply that the +head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an +interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne +out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola's +departure from Prato. The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already +dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola's death +earlier by three years than the accepted date. The inference, however, is +not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral +character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh. The play +itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, +Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a +variety of metres--<i>terza rima</i>, octaves both <i>sdrucciole</i> and <i>piane</i>, +and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both +blank and with <i>rimalmezzo</i>, and lyrical stanzas. The plot itself is of +the simplest, and resembles that of the <i>Amaranta</i>. Through the sovereign +will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love. A temporary +estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his +burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of +Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are +united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of +Cupid and Venus. What could be more complete?</p> + +<p>The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, +<i>Erbusto</i> and <i>Filena</i>, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, +the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the +pieces were presumably composed.[<a href="#fn399">399</a>] The first of these, <i>Erbusto</i>, is in +three acts, and <i>terza rima</i>. The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in +the love of a shepherdess named Flora. The girl's affections are set on +the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be +Erbusto's own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont. +Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent +occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, +as here, with some actual event in contemporary history. The second piece, +<i>Filena</i>, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the +<i>terza rima</i>. It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat +formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular +pastoral, need not be examined in detail.</p> + +<p>To the next few years belong a series of 'giocose moderne e facetissime +ecloghe pastorali,' by the Venetian Andrea Calmo, composed in +<i>endecasillabi sdruccioli sciolti</i>, and published in 1553.[<a href="#fn400">400</a>] They +introduce a number of dialects, suited to various personages; Arcadian +shepherds like Lucido, Silvano, and the rest; rustics with names such as +Grítolo di Burano, mythological figures, and a <i>satiro villan</i> who speaks +Dalmatian. An advance in dramatization may perhaps be seen in the +introduction of a second pair of lovers, while the writer goes even +further than Beccari in the introduction of oracles (a point in which, +however, he had been anticipated by the author of <i>Mirzia</i>), and an echo +scene, a device of which Calmo's example is certainly of an elementary +character.</p> + +<p>The most important, however, of the writers between Casalio and Beccari is +the well-known Ferrarese novelist Giovanbattista Giraldi, surnamed Cintio, +the author of the <i>Ecatommiti</i>, and of a number of tragedies on the +classical model. The first piece of his which claims our attention is a +<i>satira</i> entitled <i>Egle</i>, which was privately performed at the author's +house in February, 1545, and again the following month in the presence of +Duke Ercole and his brother, the Cardinal Ippolito d' Este.[<a href="#fn401">401</a>] The play +is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the +Greeks, a kind of which the <i>Cyclops</i> of Euripides is the only extant +example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the +like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, +at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby +they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of +leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns +and satyrs. On these the unwary maids take pity, and begin forthwith to +dance and play with them in the woods. The deceitful divinities, however, +have only hidden for a while, and when opportunity serves are placed by +Egle where they may surprise the nymphs at sport. They suddenly break +cover, follow and seize the flying girls, and are on the point of enjoying +the success of their plot when Diana intervenes, transforming her outraged +followers into trees, streams, and so forth. The metamorphosis is related +by Pan himself, who returns bearing in his hand a reed, all that is left +of his beloved Syrinx. Thus the piece may be regarded as a dramatization +of Sannazzaro's <i>Salices</i>, expanded by the free introduction of +mythological characters, and bears no connexion with the real nature of +pastoral, the life-blood of which, whether in the idyls of Theocritus, the +<i>Arcadia</i> of Sannazzaro, or the <i>Aminta</i> of Tasso, is primarily and +essentially human.</p> + +<p>The other work of Cintio with which we are here concerned, a fragment +which remained in MS. till published by Carducci in 1896 as an appendix to +his essays on the <i>Aminta</i>, may be at once pronounced the most important +attempt at writing a really pastoral drama previous to Beccari's +<i>Sacrifizio</i>. It is found with the heading 'Favola pastorale' in an +autograph MS., along with several other works of the author, including +<i>Egle</i>, but with no indication of the date of composition. The author +survived till 1573, but we may reasonably suppose that the piece was +written before his departure from Ferrara in 1558. It consists of what are +apparently intended for two acts, headed respectively <i>Parte prima</i> and +<i>Parte quinta</i>, each consisting of several scenes, though these are not +distinguished. The first two form a sort of introduction, in which Cupid +and Diana mutually defy one another on account of the nymph Irinda, whom +the boy-god has wounded with love for Filicio. The shepherd returns her +love, but finds a rival in Viaste, whose blind passion, though unreturned, +will admit no discourse of reason. It is, however, ultimately discovered +that Irinda and Viaste are cousins, a fact which is regarded as a +sufficient reason for the infatuated swain to free himself wholly and +immediately from his passion, and accept the love of the faithful +Frodignisa, who has followed him throughout.[<a href="#fn402">402</a>] The story, which +resembles that of Cazza's <i>Erlusto</i>, is thus of a simple order, and it is +chiefly in the composition that the likeness of the play to the regular +pastoral is seen. What the author intended for the middle three acts it is +hard to say, since the action at the opening of the fifth is precisely at +the point at which the first left it. Probably they were never written, +and the author may even have abandoned his work owing to the difficulty of +filling the hiatus. In both Cintio's pieces the metre is blank verse +(hendecasyllabic), diversified in the case of the <i>Egle</i> with a rimed +chorus.[<a href="#fn403">403</a>]</p> + +<p>One point becomes, I think, apparent from the foregoing examination; +namely, that while the fully developed pastoral owes its origin to the +evolution of the eclogue as a dramatic kind, its final form was arrived +at, not merely by a natural and inevitable process of growth, but as the +result of direct experimenting on certain lines. The evolution, that is, +was at the last conscious, not spontaneous. While up to a certain point +the dramatic germs latent in the eclogue develop upon a natural line of +growth, each advance being the reasonable resuit of the action of +surrounding conditions upon a previous stage of evolution, there comes a +time when authors seem to have felt that the form was in a state of +unstable equilibrium, that it was advancing towards a final expression, +which it had so far failed to find, but which each individual writer +sought to realize in his work. The supposition of a theoretic +preoccupation on the part of these writers is reasonable enough, +considering the critical atmosphere in which the pastoral developed, and +the heated controversy which soon centred round the accomplished form; and +it serves at the same time to explain the liabilities of writers before +Tasso to run metaphorically into blind alleys. The conscious endeavour +after a stable and adequate form appears to me a determining factor in the +work of Casalio, Cintio, and finally Beccari.</p> + +<p>Of the <i>Sacrifizio</i> of Agostino Beccari[<a href="#fn404">404</a>] have already spoken at some +length in the text (p. 174). From the account there given it will be seen +that the plot, though from its threefold character it attains a certain +degree of complexity, is in reality little more than the scenic +combination of three distinct stories, each of which might well have +formed the subject of an eclogue, and the whole play is thus closely +connected with the dramatic simplicity of its origin.[<a href="#fn405">405</a>] The verse, +which is blank, interspersed with lyrical passages, shows, like Cintio's, +the influence of the regular drama. For the satyr we need seek no +individual source; he was already as much a recognized character of the +Italian pastoral as the Vice was of the English interlude. The magical +element is doubtless ultimately traceable to a romantic source; it is one +which almost entirely drops out of the later pastoral drama, in which the +more distinctively classical oracle gradually won for itself a place. +Finally, I may remark that Beccari's claim to be considered the originator +of the pastoral drama was made in spite of his being perfectly well +acquainted with Cintio's <i>Egle</i>, as a passage in the first scene of Act +III testifies. There is, indeed, no reason to suppose that any writer +before Carducci ever considered Cintio's play as belonging to the realm of +pastoral.</p> + +<p>Beccari's immediate successors were of no great interest in themselves, +and contributed little to the development of the form. In 1556 appeared a +'comedia pastorale,' by the Piedmontese Bartolommeo Braida, a hybrid +composition in octave rime, written possibly for representation at the +court of Claudio of Savoy, governor of Provence and Marseilles, to whose +wife it is dedicated.[<a href="#fn406">406</a>] This piece resembles Poliziano's play, not only +in metrical structure, but in having a prologue spoken by Mercury, while +by its general character it connects itself with such old-fashioned +productions as Cavassico's Bellunese eclogue of 1513, and the +representation reported from Bologna by Dulfo in 1496. On the other hand, +the introduction of three pairs of lovers, and the incident of the nymph +being bound to a tree, suggest that Braida may at least have heard of the +Ferrarese <i>Sacrifizio</i>. The whole is a strange medley of various and +incongruous elements--mythological in Mercury and Somnus; pastoral in the +shepherds, Tindaro, Ruffo, Alpardo, and their loves; rustic in the clown +Basso, who speaks Piedmontese in shorter measure; satirical in the wanton +hermit; allegorical in the figure of Disdain; romantic in the wild man of +the woods and the magic herb. Thus on the whole Braida's work represents a +decided retrogression in the development of pastoral; or perhaps it may be +more accurate to say that it renects the tradition of an outlying district +in which that development had been retarded.</p> + +<p>To this period likewise, if we are to believe the author, belongs a 'nova +favola pastorale' entitled <i>Calisto</i>, by Luigi Groto, the blind +littérateur of Adria, whose preposterous pastoral, <i>Il pentimento +amoroso</i>, was produced between the <i>Aminta</i> and the <i>Pastor fido</i>. +According to a note in the original edition, the piece was first +represented at Adria in 1561, revived and rewritten in 1582, and first +printed the following year.[<a href="#fn407">407</a>] It is founded on the well-known tale of +the love of Zeus for Calisto, a nymph of Artemis, who by him became the +mother of the Arcadians, as related by Ovid in the second book of the +<i>Metamorphoses</i> (ll. 401, &c.). It may, therefore, so far as the subject +is concerned, be classed among the mythological plays, but the author has +mingled with his main theme much of the vulgar indecency of the Latin +comedy as adopted in the <i>cinquecento</i> on to the Italian stage. The piece +is composed in <i>sdrucciolo</i> blank verse.</p> + +<p>With our next author, the orator Alberto Lollio, we return once more to +Ferrara. In 1563 a play entitled <i>Aretusa</i>[<a href="#fn408">408</a>] was presented before +Alfonso II and his brother the cardinal, by the students of law at +Ferrara, at the command, it is said, of Laura Eustoccia d' Este. The verse +is blank, diversified by a single sonnet, but the piece is again a hybrid +of an earlier type--a love-knot solved by the discovery of +consanguinity--with certain elements of Plautine comedy added. There is +also extant in MS. the plot, or prose sketch, of another comedy by Lollio, +entitled <i>Galatea</i>, on the same model as the <i>Aretusa</i>, but with somewhat +greater complexity of construction.[<a href="#fn409">409</a>]</p> + +<p>It is evident that, though in the <i>Sacrifizio</i> the final form of the +pastoral drama had been attained, the fact was not immediately recognized. +Indeed, until the seal had been set upon that form by the genius of Tasso, +it must have been difficult for any one to realize what had been achieved. +The form had been discovered, but it remained to prove that it was the +right form, and to show its capabilities. In 1567 a return was made to the +tradition of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play <i>Lo Sfortunato</i>.[<a href="#fn410">410</a>] With +this piece also, composed in blank verse with a couple of lyric songs, we +have already been sufficiently concerned (p. 175). I only wish to draw +attention to one point here, namely, that if Guarini's Silvio is a +companion portrait to Tasso's Silvia, she in her turn is but the feminine +counterpart of Argenti's Silvio. The <i>Sfortunato</i> stands on the threshold +of the <i>Aminta</i>, and its performance may have suggested to Tasso the +composition of his pastoral masterpiece, but it contributed little either +to the evolution of the form, or to the poetic supremacy of its successor.</p> + +<p>We have arrived at the end of the catalogue, and it is for the reader to +decide whether or not I have succeeded in establishing a formal continuity +between the eclogue and the pastoral drama, and so answering the most +serious of Carducci's objections.</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="app2"> +<h2>Appendix II</h2> + +<h3>Bibliography</h3> + + + +<p>Any attempt at an adequate bibliography of pastoral literature would +require space far greater than that at present at my disposal. In the case +of all the more important works considered in the foregoing inquiry, I +have been careful to mention the edition from which my quotations are +taken whenever this was not the original. Nor do I propose to mention in +this place every book or article which I have consulted in the course of +my study. Where some particular authority has been followed on some +particular point the reference has been given in the form of a footnote. +There are, however, two classes of books which require special mention. +The first of these consists of those works to which I have had cause +constantly to refer, and which I have therefore quoted by abbreviated +titles; and second, of certain works which I have constantly consulted and +followed, but to which I have had no occasion to make specific reference +in the notes. A list of the works coming under one or other of these heads +will give a very fair survey of the critical literature of the subject, +and may therefore not only be convenient to readers of my work, but may +prove useful as a guide to any who may wish to make an independent study. +I have, of course, derived much help from the critical apparatus +accompanying many of the texts cited, but these I have not, as a rule, +thought it necessary to recapitulate here. Where, however, I have used +critical matter in editions other than those quoted for the text, they +have been duly recorded. Ordinary works of reference need no specific +notice.</p> + + +<div class="section" id="app2-general"> +<h3>A. General.</h3> + + +<p>(α) Works on General Literature. These chiefly refer to Italian +and English literature.</p> + +<p>(i) <i>Italian.</i> J. A. Symonds. <i>Renaissance in Italy. Vols. IV and V. +Italian Literature.</i> To the whole of this work, but especially to the +section dealing with literature and to that on the Catholic reaction +mentioned below (B. vi), my indebtedness is far more than any specific +acknowledgement can express. My references are to the new edition (7 +vols., London, 1897-8), which has the advantages of being obtainable, and +of having a full though not very accurate index to the whole work, but +which is unfortunately very carelessly printed.</p> + +<p>B. Weise and E. Pèrcopo. <i>Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur von den +ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart.</i> Leipzig und Wien, 1899. I have often +found this of considerable use as summarizing the latest work on the +subject. It is, however, not invariably accurate, and the literary +appreciations, whether original or borrowed, are seldom enlightening. Had +the space occupied by these been devoted to giving references to special +works, the value of the book would have been enormously increased.</p> + +<p>A. D'Ancona and O. Bacci. <i>Manuale della letteratura italiana.</i> 5 vols. +Firenze, 1897-1900. I have fonnd the biographical and bibliographical +notes to this collection of the greatest use.</p> + +<p>(ii) <i>English.</i> W. J. Courthope. <i>A History of English Poetry.</i> 5 vols, +published. London, 1895-1905. Vols, ii and iii contain accounts of English +poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.</p> + +<p>A. W. Ward. <i>A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of +Queen Anne.</i> New and revised edition. 3 vols. London, 1899.</p> + +<p>F. G. Fleay. <i>A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama.</i> 2 vols. +London, 1891.</p> + +<p> +(β) General Works on Pastoral. Of these some refer chiefly to +pastoral poetry, some mainly to the English drama.</p> + +<p>(i) <i>Poetry.</i> E. W. Gosse. <i>An Essay on English Pastoral Poetry.</i> A. B. +Grosart, <i>Rider on Mr. Gosse's Essay.</i> In Grosart's edition of Spenser, +vol. iii, 1882, pp. ix-lxxi.</p> + +<p>H. O. Sommer. <i>Erster Versuch über die englische Hirtendichtung.</i> Marburg, +1888. A useful sketch of the eclogue in English literature from 1510 to +1805, though superficial and not always accurate.</p> + +<p>Katharina Windscheid. <i>Die englische Hirtendichtung von</i> 1579-1625. Halle, +1895. This contains a good deal of original investigation, and I have +found it of considerable use. In questions of literary judgement, however, +the author is not always happy.</p> + +<p>C. H. Herford. <i>Spenser. Shepheards Calender, edited with introduction and +notes.</i> London, 1897. The Introduction contains an admirable sketch of +pastoral poetry in general.</p> + +<p>E. K. Chambers. <i>English Pastorals, with an introduction.</i> London, 1895. A +collection of lyrics, eclogues, and scenes, with a useful introduction.</p> + +<p>(ii) <i>English Drama.</i> Homer Smith. <i>Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama.</i> Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. +xii (1897), pp. 355-460. This has been constantly cited in my notes. As +the first serious attempt to investigate the English pastoral drama it +deserves credit; but in detail it is often inaccurate, while I generally +disagree with the author on all matters on which divergence of opinion is +possible.</p> + +<p>Josephine Laidler. <i>A History of Pastoral Drama in England until 1700.</i> +Englische Studien, July, 1905, xxxv (2). pp. 193-259. This appeared while +my work vas passing through the press, and though I have read it +carefully, I think that the reference to Mahaffy's not very accurate +account of Arcadia (see p. 51, note) is the total extent of my +indebtedness. The article adds little to Homer Smith's work for the period +with which we are concerned, while it is at the same time both incomplete +and inaccurate.</p> + +<p>A. H. Thorndike. <i>The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605.</i> +Modern Language Notes, vol. xiv. cols. 228-246 (1899). A careful and +interesting article, which I also only read while my book was in the +press. Though it did not contain much that was new, I was particularly +glad to find myself in agreement with the author as regards the importance +of the pre-Italian tradition in English pastoral.</p> + +<p>(γ) I ought also to mention: J. C. Dunlop. <i>History of Prose +Fiction. A new edition by H. Wilson.</i> 2 vols. London, 1888. The fact that +this work consists chiefly of summaries of plots and stories makes it of +great value for tracing sources.</p> +</div> + +<div class="section" id="app2-special"> +<h3>B. Special.</h3> + + +<p>(i) Classical (Chap. I, sect. ii). J. A. Symonds. <i>Studies of the Greek +Poets. Third edition.</i> 2 vols. London, 1893. Chap. XXI deals with 'The +Idyllists.'</p> + +<p>Andrew Lang. <i>Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus rendered info English Prose, +with an introductory essay.</i> London, 1889. The introduction contains a +very interesting account of the conditions of Alexandrian poetry.</p> + +<p>Joseph Jacobs. <i>Daphnis and Chloe: the Elizabethan version from Amyot's +Translation by Angel Day.</i> London, 1890. The introduction contains an +account of Longus and his translators.</p> + +<p> +(ii) Medieval and Humanistic (Chap. I, sect. iv). F. Macrì-Leone. <i>La +Bucolica latina nella letteratura italiana del secolo XIV, con una +introduzione sulla bucolica latina nel medioevo.</i> Parte I (all published). +Torino, 1889.</p> + +<p>P. H. Wicksteed and E. G. Gardner. <i>Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, +including a critical edition of the text of Dante's 'Eclogae Latinae' and +of the poelic remains of Giovanni del Virgilio.</i> Westminster, 1902.</p> + +<p>Attilio Hortis, <i>Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca pubblicati ed +illustrati.</i> Trieste, 1874.</p> + +<p>Luigi Ruberto. <i>Le Egloghe del Petrarca.</i> Il Propugnatore, xi (2). p. +244, xii (1). p. 83, (2). p. 153. Bologna, 1878-9.</p> + +<p>Attilio Hortis. <i>Studl sulle opere latine del Boccaccio con particolare +riguardo alla storia delia erudizione nel medio evo e alle letterature +straniere.</i> Trieste, 1879.</p> + +<p>Marcus Landau. <i>Giovanni Boccaccio, sua vita e sue opere. Traduzione di +Camillo Antona-Traversi approvata e ampliata dall' autore</i>, Napoli, 1881. +Greatly enlarged from the original German edition. Stuttgart, 1877.</p> + +<p>[Bucolic Collections.] (a) <i>Eclogae Vergilii. Calphurnii. Nemesiani. +Frcisci. Pe. Ioannis Boc. Ioanbap Mā. Pomponii Gaurici.</i> Florentiae. +Philippus de Giunta. 1504. Decimo quinto. Calendas Octobris. Contains the +<i>editio princeps</i> of Boccaccio's eclogues.</p> + +<p>(β) <i>En habes Lector Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII. quot quot +uidelicet à Vergilij ætate ad nostra usque tempora, eo poëmatis genere +usos, sedulò inquirentes nancisci in præsentia licuit: farrago quidem +Eclogarum CLVI. mira cùm elegantia tum uarietate referta, nuncque primum +in studiosorum iuuenum gratiam atque usum collecta.</i> Basel. Ioannes +Oporinus. 1546. Mense Martio.</p> + +<p>[Sannazzaro.] I may note here, what I was unaware of when writing my +account of Sannazzaro's Latin poems, that the <i>Salices</i> was translated +into English under the title of <i>The Osiers</i>, by Beaupré Bell, about 1724. +The MS. is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; see M. R. James' +Catalogue of the Western MSS., ii. p. 102.</p> + +<p> +(iii) Spanish (Chap. I, sect. vii). George Ticknor. <i>History of Spanish +Literature. Sixth American edition.</i> 3 vols. Cambridge (Mass.), 1888.</p> + +<p>J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, <i>A History of Spanish Literature.</i> London, 1898.</p> + +<p>H. A. Rennert. <i>The Spanish Pastoral Romances.</i> Publications of the Modern +Language Association of America, vol. vii (3). pp. 1-119, (1892). An +elaborate study, which, however, I only discovered when my work was in the +press.</p> + +<p>Francesco Torraca. <i>Gl' imitatori stranieri di Jacopo Sannazaro. Seconda +edizione accresciuta.</i> Roma, 1882. A study which I have found very useful +both in relation to Spanish and French pastoralism.</p> + +<p> +(iv) French (Chap. I, sect. viii). L. Petit de Julleville. <i>Histoire de la +Langue et de la Littérature française.</i> 8 vols. Paris, 1896-1899.</p> + +<p> +(v) English Poetry (Chap. II). J. G. Underhill. <i>Spanish Literature in the +England of the Tudors.</i> New York (Columbia University Studies in +Literature), 1899. A valuable study, particularly in connexion with +Montemayor, with useful bibliography.</p> + +<p>A. W. Pollard. <i>The Castell of Labour, translated from the French of +Pierre Gringore by Alexander Barclay.</i> Edinburgh (Roxburghe Club), 1905. +Whatever can be said for Barclay as a poet is admirably said in the +Introduction to this work.</p> + +<p>F. W. Moorman. <i>William, Browne. His Britannia's Pastorals and the +pastoral poetry of the Elizabethan age.</i> Strassburg (Quellen und +Forschungen), 1897.</p> + +<p>Walter Raleigh. <i>The English Novel. Second edition.</i> London, 1895. To this +brilliant study, and in particular to the treatment of Euphuism and +Arcadianism, I am deeply indebted.</p> + +<p>J. J. Jusserand. <i>The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, translated +from the French by Elisabeth Lee. Revised and enlarged by the author.</i> +London, 1890.</p> + +<p>K. Brunhuber. <i>Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachläufer.</i> Nürnberg, +1903. Though not always accurate, the first part, dealing chiefly with the +sources, possesses original value; the same cannot be said of the second, +dealing with the dramatizations, which is superficial.</p> + +<p> +(vi) Italian Drama (Chap. III). J. L. Klein. <i>Geschichte des Dramas. Vol. +V. Das italienische Drama. Zweiter Band.</i> Leipzig, 1867.</p> + +<p>Wilhelm Creizenach. <i>Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Zweiter Band. +Renaissance und Reformation. Erster Theil.</i> Halle, 1901.</p> + +<p>Alessandro D'Ancona. <i>Origini del teatro italiano.</i> 2 vols. Torino, 1891. +Very much enlarged from the original edition, 2 vols., Firenze, 1877.</p> + +<p>Curzio Mazzi. <i>La Congrega dei Rozzi di Siena nel secolo XVI.</i> 2 vols. +Firenze, 1882.</p> + +<p>Vittorio Rossi. <i>Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido. Studio +biografico-critico con documenti inediti.</i> Torino, 1886.</p> + +<p>Giosuè Carducci. <i>Su l'Aminta di T. Tassa, saggi tre. Con una pastorale +inedita di G. B. Giraldi Cinthio.</i> Firenze, 1899.</p> + +<p>J. A. Symonds. <i>Renaissance in Italy. Vols. VI and VII. The Catholic +Reaction.</i> (See above, A. a. i.) Chapters VII and XI contain admirable +criticisms of the pastoral work of Tasso and Guarini.</p> + +<p> +(vii) English Masques (Chap. VII). Rudolf Brotanek. <i>Die englischen +Maskenspiele.</i> Wien und Leipzig (Wiener Beiträge), 1902.</p> + +<p>David Masson. <i>The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited with memoir, +introduction, notes, and an essay on Milton's English and versification.</i> +3 vols. London, 1890.</p> + +<p>M. W. Sampson. <i>The Lyric and Dramatic Poems of John Milton, edited, with +an introduction and notes.</i> New York, 1901.</p></div> +</div> + + +<div class="chapter" id="index"> +<h2>Index</h2> + + + +<p>[In cases where a name occurs several times, the main reference or +references, if any, are distinguished by bold-face type.]</p> + + +<p>Abbot, Sir Maurice, <i>Lord Mayor</i><br /> +Abbruzzese, A.<br /> +<i>Abuses Stript and Whipt</i><br /> +<i>Accademia tusculana</i><br /> +Achelly, Thomas<br /> +Achilles Tatius<br /> +<i>Actaeon and Diana</i><br /> +àdan de le Hale, <i>or</i> le Bochu<br /> +Addiaccio, academy at Prato<br /> +Admiral, Lord (Charles, Lord Howard)<br /> +<i>Adone</i><br /> +<i>Adrasta</i><br /> +Aeneas Silvius, <i>see</i> Pius II.<br /> +<i>Aeneid</i><br /> +<i>Aethiopica</i><br /> +<i>Affectionate Shepherd</i><br /> +Affò, Ireneo<br /> +<i>Ages</i><br /> +<i>Agincourt</i><br /> +<i>Alba</i><br /> +Alberti, Leo Battista<br /> +<i>Albion's England</i><br /> +<i>Albumazar</i><br /> +<i>Alceo</i><br /> +<i>Alchemist</i><br /> +<i>Alcon</i><br /> +Alcuin<br /> +Aldus Manutius, the elder<br /> +Aldus Manutius, the younger<br /> +Alexander VI, <i>Pope</i><br /> +Alexander, Sir William (Earl of Stirling)<br /> +<i>Alexis</i><br /> +Allacci, Leone<br /> +<i>Allegro</i><br /> +Almerici, Tiburio<br /> +Alva, Duke of<br /> +<i>Amadis of Gaul</i><br /> +<i>Amaranta</i><br /> +<i>Amarilli</i><br /> +<i>Ambra</i> (Lorenzo de' Medici)<br /> +<i>Ambra</i> (Poliziano)<br /> +Ambrogini, Angelo, <i>see</i> Poliziano.<br /> +<i>Ameto</i><br /> +<i>Aminta</i><br /> +<i>Aminta</i> (Tasso), English translations:<br /> + Fraunce<br /> + Reynolds<br /> + Dancer<br /> + Oldmixon, du Bois, Ayre, Stoekdale, Leigh Hunt, anon.<br /> +<i>Aminta bagnato</i><br /> +<i>Aminta difeso</i><br /> +<i>Amintae Gaudia</i><br /> +<i>Amphrissa</i><br /> +<i>Amore cortese</i><br /> +<i>Amore fuggitivo</i><br /> +<i>Amores</i> (Ovid)<br /> +<i>Amorosi sospiri</i><br /> +<i>Amorous War</i><br /> +<i>Amyntas</i> (Randolph)<br /> +<i>Amyntas</i> (Watson)<br /> +Amyot, Jacques<br /> +Anacreon<br /> +Ancona, Alessandro D'<br /> +<i>Andria</i><br /> +<i>Andromana</i><br /> +Angeli, Nicolò degli<br /> +<i>Anglia</i><br /> +Anne of Denmark<br /> +Annunzio, Gabriele d'<br /> +<i>Anthology</i> (Greek)<br /> +Antona-Traversi, Camillo<br /> +Antonius<br /> +<i>Apollo and Daphne</i><br /> +<i>Apologia contre l'autor del Verato</i><br /> +<i>Apology for Poetry</i><br /> +Apuleius<br /> +Aquilano, Serafino<br /> +Arber, Edward<br /> +<i>Arcades</i><br /> +Arcadia, Academy of the<br /> +<i>Arcadia</i> (Sannazzaro)<br /> +<i>Arcadia</i> (Shirley)<br /> +<i>Arcadia</i> (Sidney)<br /> +<i>Arcadia</i> (Vega, drama)<br /> +<i>Arcadia</i> (Vega, romance)<br /> +<i>Arcadia in Brenta</i><br /> +<i>Arcadia Reformed</i><br /> +<i>Arcadian Lovers</i><br /> +<i>Arcadian Princess</i><br /> +<i>Arcadian Virgin</i><br /> +Archer, Edward<br /> +<i>Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane</i><br /> +<i>Aretusa</i><br /> +<i>Argalus and Parthenia</i> (Glapthorne)<br /> +<i>Argalus and Parthenia</i> (Quarles)<br /> +Argenti, Agostino<br /> +<i>Arimène</i><br /> +Ariosto, Lodovico<br /> +<i>Arisbas</i><br /> +Aristotle<br /> +Arnold, Matthew<br /> +<i>Arraignment of Paris</i><br /> +Arsocchi, Francesco<br /> +<i>Art of English Poesy</i><br /> +<i>As You Like It</i><br /> +<i>Asolani</i><br /> +<i>Assetta</i><br /> +<i>Astrée</i><br /> +<i>Astrological Discourse</i><br /> +<i>Astrophel</i><br /> +<i>Astrophel and Stella</i><br /> +<i>Atalanta</i><br /> +Atchelow, Thomas<br /> +<i>Athenae Oxonienses</i><br /> +<i>Athlette</i><br /> +Aubrey, John<br /> +<i>Aucassin et Nicolette</i><br /> +Ausonius<br /> +<i>Auto pastoril castelhano</i><br /> +Averara, Niccolò<br /> +Ayre, William</p> + +<p>B., I. D.<br /> +<i>Babylonica</i><br /> +<i>Bacchus and Ariadne</i><br /> +Bacci, Orazio<br /> +Baglione family<br /> +Balbuenas, Bernardo de<br /> +Baldi, Bernardino<br /> +Baldini, Vittorio<br /> +Baldinucci, Filippo<br /> +Baldovini, Francesco<br /> +Ballad Society<br /> +Bandello, Matteo<br /> +Bang, W.<br /> +Barclay, Alexander<br /> +Barclay, John<br /> +Bariola, Felice<br /> +Barksted, William<br /> +Barnes, Barnabe<br /> +Barnfield, Richard<br /> +Baron, Robert<br /> +Bartoli, Adolfo<br /> +Bartoli, Clementi<br /> +Basse, William<br /> +Bastiano di Francesco (linaiuolo)<br /> +Bathurst, Theodore<br /> +Baylie, Richard<br /> +Beaumont, Francis<br /> +<i>Beautiful Shepherdess of Arcadia</i><br /> +<i>Beca di Dicomano</i><br /> +Beccari, Agostino<br /> +Bede<br /> +Beeching, H. C.<br /> +Belcari, Feo<br /> +Beling, Richard<br /> +Bell, Beaupré<br /> +Bellarmino, Roberto, <i>Cardinal</i><br /> +Bellay, Joachim du<br /> +Belleau, Remi<br /> +<i>Bellessa, the Shepherd's Queen</i><br /> +Bellincione, Bernardo<br /> +Bembo, Pietro<br /> +Bendidio, Lucrezia<br /> +Beni, Paolo<br /> +Benivieni, Girolamo<br /> +Bentivogli, Annibale<br /> +Benvoglienti, Uberto<br /> +<i>Bergerie</i> (Belleau)<br /> +<i>Bergerie de Juliette</i><br /> +Berni, Francesco<br /> +Bertini, Romolo<br /> +<i>Biographia Dramatica</i><br /> +Bion<br /> +Blake, William<br /> +Blosio, <i>see</i> Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio.<br /> +Boccaccio, Giovanni<br /> +Bodoni, Giambattista<br /> +Boethius<br /> +Boiardo, Matteo Maria<br /> +Bois, P. B. Du<br /> +Boleyn, Anne<br /> +Bonarelli della Rovere, Guidubaldo<br /> +Bond, R. W.<br /> +Bonfadino, Giovanbattista<br /> +Boni, Giovanni de<br /> +Bonifacia, Carmosina<br /> +Boninsegni, Fiorino<br /> +Bonnivard, François de<br /> +<i>Bonny Hynd</i><br /> +<i>Bonny May</i><br /> +Bono de Monteferrato, Manfrido<br /> +Borgia, Lucrezia<br /> +Boscán Almogaver, Juan<br /> +Botticelli, Alessandro<br /> +Brabine, Thomas<br /> +Brackley, Viscount, <i>see</i> Egerton<br /> +Braga, Teofilo<br /> +Braida, Bartolommeo<br /> +Brandt, Sebastian.<br /> +Brathwaite, Richard<br /> +Breton, Nicholas<br /> +Bridgewater, Earl of, <i>see</i> Egerton.<br /> +<i>Brief Discourse about Baptism</i><br /> +<i>Britannia's Pastorals</i><br /> +Brome, Richard<br /> +Brooke, Dr.<br /> +Brooke, Christopher<br /> +Brooke, Samuel<br /> +Brookes, Mr.<br /> +<i>Broom of Cowdenknows</i><br /> +Brotanek, Rudolf<br /> +Browne, William<br /> +Brunhuber, K.<br /> +Bruni, Lionardo<br /> +Bryskett, Lodovic<br /> +Buc, Sir George<br /> +Buchanan<br /> +Buck, George, <i>Gent.</i><br /> +<i>Bucolica Quirinalium</i><br /> +<i>Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII</i><br /> +<i>Bucolics</i> (Vergil)<br /> +Bulifon, Antonio<br /> +Bullen, A. H.<br /> +Buonarroti, Michelangelo, the younger<br /> +<i>Burd Helen</i><br /> +Byse, Fanny</p> + +<p>C., H.<br /> +Caccia, G. A., <i>see</i> Cazza, G. A.<br /> +<i>Caccia col falcone</i><br /> +<i>Caccia d' amore</i><br /> +Calderon de la Barca, Pedro<br /> +<i>Calendar of Shepherds</i><br /> +<i>Calisto</i><br /> +Callimachus<br /> +Calmo, Andrea<br /> +Calpurnius<br /> +Calvin, Jean<br /> +Campori, G.<br /> +<i>Canace</i><br /> +Canello, Ugo Angelo<br /> +<i>Canterbury Tales</i><br /> +<i>Canzoniere</i> (Petrarca)<br /> +Camoens, Luis de<br /> +Caperano, Alessandro<br /> +<i>Capitolo pastorale</i> (Machiavelli)<br /> +Cardona, Antonia<br /> +Carducci, Giosuè<br /> +<i>Careless Shepherdess</i><br /> +Carew, Thomas<br /> +<i>Caride</i><br /> +Carlton, Sir Dudley<br /> +Carlo emanuele, <i>Duke of Savoy</i><br /> +<i>Carmen bucolicum</i> (Endelechius)<br /> +Caro, Annibale<br /> +Carretto, Galeotto Del<br /> +<i>Carte du Tendre</i><br /> +Casalio, Giambattista<br /> +Cassio da Narni<br /> +Castalio<br /> +Castelletti, Cristoforo<br /> +Castelvetri, Giacopo<br /> +Castiglione, Baldassarre<br /> +<i>Castle of Labour</i><br /> +Catharine of Austria<br /> +Catherine of Siena, <i>Saint</i><br /> +Catullus<br /> +Cavassico, Bartolommeo<br /> +Cavendish, George<br /> +Cazza, Giovanni Agostino<br /> +<i>Cecaria</i><br /> +Cecco di Mileto<br /> +<i>Cefalo</i><br /> +<i>Cefalo y Pocris</i><br /> +<i>Celos aun del aire matan</i><br /> +<i>Cent Nouvelles nouvelles</i><br /> +Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de<br /> +Cesana, Gasparo<br /> +Chaloner, Thomas<br /> +Chamberlain, John<br /> +Chambers, E. K.<br /> +Chandos, Lord<br /> +Chapman, George<br /> +Chariton<br /> +Charles I<br /> +Charles II<br /> +Châteillon, Sébastien<br /> +Chaucer, Geoffrey<br /> +<i>Chester mysteries</i><br /> +Chettle, Henry<br /> +Chetwood, W. R.<br /> +Child, F. J.<br /> +<i>Child Waters</i><br /> +<i>Chloridia</i><br /> +<i>Chloris</i><br /> +<i>Chloris and Ergasto</i><br /> +<i>Cicro</i><br /> +<i>Cid</i><br /> +<i>Cintia</i><br /> +Ciotti, Giovanbattista<br /> +Claudio of Savoy<br /> +<i>Clio</i><br /> +<i>Clorys and Orgasto</i><br /> +Ciacco dell'Anguillaja<br /> +<i>Citizen and Uplondishman</i><br /> +Clement VI, <i>Pope</i><br /> +Coello, Antonio<br /> +<i>Coelum Britannicum</i><br /> +Coleridge, S. T.<br /> +<i>Colin Clout's come home again</i><br /> +Colisano, Count of<br /> +Colleoni, Bartolommeo<br /> +Collier, J. P.<br /> +Colonna, Giovanni, <i>Cardinal</i> (at Avignon)<br /> +Colonna, Giovanni, <i>Cardinal</i> (at Rome)<br /> +<i>Columbia University Studies in Literature</i><br /> +Compani, A.<br /> +<i>Compendio della poesia tragicomica</i><br /> +<i>Complete Angler</i><br /> +<i>Comus</i><br /> +<i>Conflictus veris et hiemis</i><br /> +Conington, John<br /> +Constable, Henry<br /> +Contarini, Francisco<br /> +<i>Converted Robber</i><br /> +<i>Copa</i><br /> +<i>Coplas de Mingo Revulgo</i><br /> +Corazzini, Francesco<br /> +Corneille, Pierre<br /> +<i>Cornhill Magazine</i><br /> +Corrado, Gregorio<br /> +Correggio, Niccolò da<br /> +<i>Cortegiano</i><br /> +Count Palatine (Frederick V, Elector Palatine)<br /> +Courthope, W. J.<br /> +<i>Coventry mysteries</i><br /> +<i>Cowdenknows,</i> see <i>Broom of Cowdenknows.</i><br /> +Cowley, Abraham<br /> +Cox, Robert<br /> +Coxeter, Thomas<br /> +Creizenach, Wilhelm<br /> +Cresci, Pietro<br /> +Crescimbeni, G. M.<br /> +Croce, B.<br /> +Crusca, Accademia della<br /> +Cuchetti, Giovanni Donato<br /> +<i>Cuestion de amor</i><br /> +Cunningham, Peter<br /> +<i>Cupid and Psyche</i><br /> +<i>Cupid's Revenge</i><br /> +<i>Cyclops</i><br /> +<i>Cynthia</i> (Barnfield)<br /> +<i>Cynthia</i> (Dyer)</p> + +<p>D., D.<br /> +D., E.<br /> +Dancer, John<br /> +Daniel, Samuel<br /> +Dante Alighieri<br /> +<i>Danza di Venere</i><br /> +<i>Daphnaïda</i><br /> +<i>Daphne</i><br /> +<i>Daphnis and Chloe</i><br /> +Δάφνις Πολυστέφανος<br /> +Davenant, Sir William<br /> +Davies, Sir John<br /> +Davison, Francis<br /> +Day, Angel<br /> +Day, John<br /> +<i>Decameron</i><br /> +<i>Défense de la langue française</i><br /> +<i>Defence of Poesy</i><br /> +<i>Defence of Rime</i><br /> +Deighton, Kenneth<br /> +Dekker, Thomas<br /> +Delaval, Lady Elizabeth<br /> +<i>Delia</i><br /> +Denny, Sir William<br /> +Denham, Sir John<br /> +Denores, Giasone, <i>see</i> Nores, Giasone de.<br /> +<i>Deorum Dona</i><br /> +<i>De Remedio Amoris</i><br /> +Derby, Countess Dowager of<br /> +Dering, Sir E.<br /> +<i>Descensus Astraeae</i><br /> +Devonshire, Duke of<br /> +<i>De Vulgari Eloquio</i><br /> +<i>Dialogo di tre ciechi</i><br /> +<i>Dialogue at Wilton</i><br /> +<i>Dialogue in Praise of Astrea</i><br /> +<i>Dialogues and Dramas</i><br /> +<i>Diana</i><br /> +<i>Diane</i><br /> +Diane de Poitiers<br /> +Dickenson, John<br /> +<i>Dictionary of National Biography</i><br /> +<i>Dido</i><br /> +Digby, Sir Kenelm<br /> +Digby, Lady Venetia<br /> +Dionisio, Alessandro<br /> +Dionisio, Scipione<br /> +<i>Discorso intorno alla commedia</i><br /> +<i>Discourse of English Poetry</i><br /> +<i>Discourse on Pastoral</i><br /> +<i>Discoveries</i><br /> +<i>Dispraise of a Courtly Life</i><br /> +<i>Divina Commedia</i><br /> +<i>Dodsley's Old Plays</i><br /> +Dodus<br /> +Dolce, Lodovico<br /> +<i>Donald of the Isles</i><br /> +Donati, Alesso<br /> +Donne, John<br /> +<i>Don Quixote</i><br /> +<i>Dorastus and Fawnia</i><br /> +Dorset, Earl of<br /> +Dossi, Dosso<br /> +Dove, John<br /> +Drake, Sir Francis<br /> +Drayton, Michael<br /> +<i>Driadeo d'amore</i><br /> +Drummond, Jean<br /> +Drummond, William<br /> +Dryden, John<br /> +Du Bartas, Seigneur (Guillaume de Salluste)<br /> +<i>Due pellegrini</i><br /> +Dunlop, J. C.<br /> +Dulfo, Floriano<br /> +Dyce, Alexander<br /> +Dyer, Sir Edward<br /> +Dymocke, Mr.<br /> +Dymocke, Charles<br /> +Dymocke, Sir Edward<br /> +Dymocke, John</p> + +<p><i>Earl Lithgow</i><br /> +<i>Earl Richard</i><br /> +Early English Text Society<br /> +Ebsworth, J. W.<br /> +<i>Ecatommiti</i><br /> +<i>Ecloga di amicizia</i><br /> +<i>Ecloga di justizia</i><br /> +<i>Ecloga duarum sanctimonialium</i><br /> +<i>Ecloga Theoduli</i><br /> +<i>Éclogas</i> (Encina)<br /> +<i>Éclogue au Roi</i> (Marot)<br /> +<i>Éclogue Gratulatory</i> (Peele)<br /> +<i>Éclogue, ou Chant pastoral</i>(I. D. B.)<br /> +<i>Éclogues sacrées</i> (Belleau)<br /> +Edward IV, <i>King of England</i><br /> +Edward V, <i>King of England</i><br /> +Edward VI, <i>King of England</i><br /> +Egerton, Lady Alice<br /> +Egerton, John (first Earl of Bridgewater)<br /> +Egerton, John (third Viscount Brackley and second Earl of Bridgewater)<br /> +Egerton, Sir Thomas (Baron Ellesmere and first Viscount Brackley)<br /> +Egerton, Thomas (son of John, first Earl of Bridgewater)<br /> +<i>Egle</i><br /> +Elizabeth, <i>Queen of England</i><br /> +Elizabeth, <i>Duchess of Urbino, see</i> Gonzaga, Elizabeta.<br /> +<i>Elpine</i><br /> +Encina, Juan del<br /> +Encinas, Pedro de<br /> +Endelechius, Severus Sanctus<br /> +<i>England's Helicon</i><br /> +<i>England's Mourning Garment</i><br /> +<i>England's Parnassus</i><br /> +<i>Englische Studien</i><br /> +<i>English Grammar</i> (Jonson)<br /> +<i>English Miscellany</i><br /> +Enrique IV, <i>King of Spain</i><br /> +<i>Entertainment at Althorp</i><br /> +<i>Entertainment at Elvetham</i><br /> +<i>Entertainment at Kenilworth</i><br /> +<i>Entertainment at Richmond</i><br /> +Epicuro de' Marsi<br /> +<i>Epithalamium</i> (Spenser)<br /> +Erasmus, Desiderius<br /> +<i>Erbusto</i><br /> +Ἐροτοπαίγνιον<br /> +Erythraeus, Janus Nicius<br /> +Essex, Earl of<br /> +Este, House of (Estensi)<br /> +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso I), <i>Duke of Ferrara</i><br /> +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso II), <i>Duke of Ferrara</i><br /> +Este, Ercole d' (Ercole I), <i>Duke of Ferrara</i><br /> +Este, Ercole d'(Ercole II), <i>Duke of Ferrara</i><br /> +Este, Francesco d'<br /> +Este, Ippolito d', <i>Cardinal</i><br /> +Este, Laura Eustoccia d'<br /> +Este, Leonora d'<br /> +Este, Lucrezia d' (wife of Annibale Bentivogli)<br /> +Este, Lucrezia d' (daughter of Ercole II)<br /> +Este, Luigi d', <i>Cardinal</i> (son of Ercole II)<br /> +Este, Renata d' (wife of Ercole II, and daughter of Louis XII of France)<br /> +<i>Euphormus</i><br /> +Euripides</p> + +<p><i>Faery Queen</i><br /> +Fairfax, Edward<br /> +<i>Fairy Pastoral</i><br /> +<i>Faithful Shepherdess</i><br /> +Falkland, Viscount<br /> +<i>Fancy's Theatre</i><br /> +Fanfani, P.<br /> +Fanshawe, Sir Richard<br /> +<i>Faunus</i><br /> +<i>Faustus, Dr.</i><br /> +<i>Feast of Adonis</i><br /> +Ferdinand I, <i>King of Naples</i><br /> +Ferrario, Giulio<br /> +Ferraby, George<br /> +FF. Anglo-Britannus (<i>pseud.</i>)<br /> +<i>Fiammella</i><br /> +<i>Fickle Shepherdess</i><br /> +<i>Fida Armilla</i><br /> +<i>Fida ninfa</i><br /> +<i>Fida pastora</i><br /> +<i>Fidus Pastor</i><br /> +Field, Nathan<br /> +<i>Fig for Momus</i><br /> +<i>Figlia di Iorio</i><br /> +<i>Figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli</i><br /> +Figueroa, Cristóbal Suárez de<br /> +Figueroa, Francisco de<br /> +<i>Filena</i><br /> +Fileno Addiacciato<br /> +<i>Filide</i><br /> +Filleul, Nicolas<br /> +<i>Filli di Sciro</i><br /> +<i>Filli di Sciro</i> (Bonarelli), English translations:<br /> + Sidnam<br /> + Talbot<br /> + [Latin] <i>(Scyros)</i><br /> +<i>Finta Fiammetta</i><br /> +Firenzuola, Agnolo<br /> +<i>Fischerin</i><br /> +<i>Fisherman's Tale</i><br /> +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James<br /> +<i>Five Plays in One</i><br /> +Flamini, F.<br /> +Fleay, F. G.<br /> +Fleming, Abraham<br /> +Fletcher, Giles, the elder<br /> +Fletcher, John<br /> +Fletcher, Phineas<br /> +<i>Florimene</i><br /> +<i>Flower of Fidelity</i><br /> +Folengo, Teofilo<br /> +Fontanini, Giusto<br /> +Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de<br /> +<i>Forbonius and Prisceria</i><br /> +Forde, Thomas<br /> +Fortini, Pietro<br /> +François I, <i>King of France.</i><br /> +Frati, L.<br /> +Fratti, Giovanni<br /> +Fraunce, Abraham<br /> +Frederick of Aragon, <i>King of Naples</i><br /> +Frezzi, Frederigo<br /> +<i>Frutti d'amore</i><br /> +Furness, H. H.</p> + +<p>G., T.<br /> +<i>Galatea</i> (Cervantes)<br /> +<i>Galatea</i> (Lollio)<br /> +<i>Galizia</i><br /> +<i>Gallathea</i><br /> +<i>Gammer Gurton's Needle</i><br /> +Garcia de Toledo<br /> +Garcilaso de la Vega<br /> +Gardner, E. G.<br /> +Gascoigne, George<br /> +<i>Gaudeamus!</i><br /> +Gauricus, Pomponius<br /> +<i>Gentle Shepherd</i><br /> +<i>Georgics</i><br /> +<i>Gerusalemme liberata</i><br /> +<i>Gesta Romanorum</i><br /> +Gifford, William<br /> +Ginguené, P. L.<br /> +<i>Giornale storico della letteratura italiana</i><br /> +<i>Giostra</i><br /> +Giovanni del Virgilio<br /> +Giraldi <i>Cintio</i>, Giovanni Battista<br /> +Giunta, Filippo di<br /> +Glapthorne, Henry<br /> +<i>Glasgow Peggie</i><br /> +<i>God's Revenge against Murder</i><br /> +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang<br /> +Goffe, Thomas<br /> +<i>Golden Age</i> (Graham)<br /> +<i>Golden Age</i> (Heywood)<br /> +<i>Golden Fleece</i><br /> +Golding, Arthur<br /> +Gollancz, Israel<br /> +Gomersall, Robert<br /> +Gonzaga, Cesare<br /> +Gonzaga, Elisabetta (wife of Guidubaldo II of Urbino)<br /> +Gonzaga, Francesco<br /> +Gonzaga, Gianvincenzo, <i>Cardinal</i><br /> +Gonzaga, Isabella<br /> +Gonzaga, Scipione<br /> +Gonzaga, Vincenzo<br /> +Goodere, Anne<br /> +Goodwin, Gordon<br /> +Googe, Barnabe<br /> +Gosse, E. W.<br /> +Gosson, Stephen<br /> +Gower, Lady<br /> +Gower, John<br /> +Gozze, Gauges de<br /> +Graham, Kenneth<br /> +<i>Grateful Servant</i><br /> +Gravina, Gian Vincenzo<br /> +<i>Great Plantagenet</i><br /> +Greene, Robert<br /> +Gregory XI, <i>Pope</i><br /> +Greville, Dorothy<br /> +Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke)<br /> +Grimaldi, Bartolommeo Ceva, <i>Duke of Telese</i><br /> +Grimani, Marin, <i>Doge</i><br /> +Gringore, Pierre<br /> +<i>Gripus and Hegio</i>,<br /> +Grosart, A. B.<br /> +Groto, Luigi<br /> +<i>Guardian</i><br /> +Guarini, Alessandro<br /> +Guarini, Battista<br /> +Guerrini, O.<br /> +Guidubaldo I, <i>see</i> Montefeltro, G.<br /> +Guidubaldo II, <i>see</i> Rovere, G. della.<br /> +Gustavus Adolphus, <i>King of Sweden</i></p> + +<p>H., I.<br /> +Hall, Edward<br /> +Hall, Joseph<br /> +Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O.<br /> +Hardy, Thomas<br /> +<i>Harmony of the Church</i><br /> +<i>Harpelus' Complaint</i><br /> +Harvey, Gabriel<br /> +Harvey, Richard<br /> +Harvey, Thomas<br /> +<i>Havelok the Dane</i><br /> +Hawes, Stephen<br /> +Hazlewood, Joseph<br /> +Hazlitt, W. C<br /> +Heber, Richard<br /> +<i>Hecatompathia</i><br /> +Heliodorus<br /> +Henneman, J. B.<br /> +Henrietta Maria<br /> +<i>Henry VI</i><br /> +Henry VIII, <i>King of England</i><br /> +Henryson, Robert<br /> +Henslowe, Philip<br /> +<i>Heptameron</i><br /> +Herbert, Sir Henry<br /> +Herd, David<br /> +Herford, C. H.<br /> +<i>Hermophus</i><br /> +Herrick, Robert<br /> +Hewlett, Maurice<br /> +Heywood, John<br /> +Heywood, Thomas<br /> +Hiero of Syracuse<br /> +<i>Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane</i><br /> +Homer<br /> +<i>Honour's Academy</i><br /> +Horace<br /> +Hortis, Attilio<br /> +<i>Hospital of Lovers</i><br /> +<i>House of Fame</i><br /> +Howard, Douglas<br /> +Howard, Sir Edward<br /> +Hunt, Leigh<br /> +<i>Hunting of Cupid</i><br /> +<i>Hymen's Triumph</i><br /> +<i>Hymn to Pan</i><br /> +<i>Hymns in honour of Love and Beauty</i></p> + +<p><i>Idea</i><br /> +<i>Idropica</i><br /> +<i>Idyllia</i> (Ausonius)<br /> +<i>Idyls</i> (Theocritus)<br /> +Immerito (<i>pseud.</i>)<br /> +Index, Congregation of the<br /> +<i>Index Expurgatorius</i><br /> +<i>Index Librorum Prohibitorum</i><br /> +<i>Inedited Poetical Miscellany</i><br /> +Ingegneri, Angelo<br /> +<i>Inner Temple Masque</i><br /> +Innocent VIII, <i>Pope</i><br /> +<i>Intricati</i><br /> +<i>Intrichi d' amore</i><br /> +Intronati, academy at Siena<br /> +<i>Iphis and Ianthe</i><br /> +Isauro, Fileno di (<i>pseud.</i>)<br /> +<i>Isle of Dogs</i><br /> +<i>Isle of Gulls</i><br /> +<i>Ivychurch</i></p> + +<p>Jackson, Henry<br /> +Jacobs, James<br /> +James I, <i>King of England</i><br /> +James, M. R.<br /> +James, William<br /> +Jauregui, Juan de<br /> +<i>Jealous Lovers</i><br /> +Jeanne de Laval<br /> +Jennaro, Pietro Jacopo de<br /> +<i>John, King</i><br /> +John of Bologna, <i>see</i> Giovanni del Virgilio.<br /> +<i>Johnie Faa</i><br /> +Johnson, Samuel<br /> +Jones, Inigo<br /> +Jones, John<br /> +Jones, Richard<br /> +Jones, Stephen<br /> +Jonson, Benjamin<br /> +<i>Jonsonus Verbius</i><br /> +Julius Caesar<br /> +<i>Jupiter and Io</i><br /> +Jusserand, J. J.<br /> +Juvenal, 6.</p> + +<p>K., E.<br /> +Ker, Robert (Earl of Roxburgh)<br /> +Ker, W. P.<br /> +King, Edward<br /> +Kipling, Rudyard<br /> +Kirke, Edward<br /> +Kirkman, Francis<br /> +Klein, J. L.<br /> +Kluge, Friedrich<br /> +<i>Knave in Grain</i><br /> +Knevet, Ralph<br /> +<i>Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter</i><br /> +<i>Knight of the Burning Pestle</i><br /> +Koeppel, Emil<br /> +Kynder, Philip</p> + +<p><i>Lady of May</i><br /> +<i>Lady Pecunia</i><br /> +La Fayette, Comtesse de<br /> +<i>Lagrime di San Pietro</i><br /> +Laidler, Josephine<br /> +Lamb, Charles<br /> +<i>Lamentations of Amyntas</i><br /> +<i>Lamenta di Cecco da Varlungo</i><br /> +Landau, Marcus<br /> +Lang, Andrew<br /> +Langland, William<br /> +Languet, Hubert,<br /> +Laud, William<br /> +<i>Laune des Verliebten</i><br /> +Laura<br /> +Lauro, Cristoforo<br /> +Lawes, Henry<br /> +<i>Lawyer's Logic</i><br /> +<i>Lear, King</i><br /> +Lee, Elizabeth<br /> +Lee, Honoria<br /> +Lee, Margaret L.<br /> +Lee, S. L.<br /> +Lee, William<br /> +Lee Priory Press<br /> +Legacci dello Stricca, Piero Antonio<br /> +Legge, Cantrell<br /> +Leicester, Earl of<br /> +<i>Leir, King</i><br /> +<i>Lenore</i><br /> +Leo X, <i>Pope</i><br /> +L'Estrange, Sir Roger<br /> +<i>Lettere memorabili</i><br /> +<i>Licia</i><br /> +<i>Ligurino</i><br /> +<i>Lilia</i><br /> +<i>Literaturblatt für germanische und romanische Philologie</i><br /> +<i>Lizie Baillie</i><br /> +<i>Lizie Lindsay</i><br /> +Lodge, Thomas<br /> +<i>Lodovick Sforza</i><br /> +Logan, W. H.<br /> +Lollio, Alberto<br /> +Longus<br /> +<i>Love Crowns the End</i><br /> +<i>Love in its Ecstasy</i><br /> +<i>Love-Sick Court</i><br /> +<i>Love Tricks</i><br /> +<i>Love's Changelings' Change</i><br /> +<i>Love's Labour's Lost</i><br /> +<i>Love's Labyrinth</i><br /> +<i>Love's Metamorphosis</i><br /> +<i>Love's Mistress</i>, 407.<br /> +<i>Love's Riddle</i><br /> +<i>Loves Victory</i><br /> +Loyse de Savoye<br /> +Luca di Lorenzo<br /> +Lucian<br /> +Lucretius<br /> +Lungo, Isidore del<br /> +<i>Lusus Pastorales</i><br /> +Luther, Martin<br /> +Lydgate, John<br /> +<i>Lycidas</i><br /> +Lyly, John</p> + +<p>Macaulay, Lord<br /> +Machiavelli, Niccolo<br /> +Machiavelli, Paolo<br /> +Machin, Lewis<br /> +Macrì-Leone, F.<br /> +Madan, Falconer<br /> +Mahaffy, J. P.<br /> +Maidment, James<br /> +<i>Maid's Metamorphosis</i><br /> +<i>Maid's Revenge</i><br /> +Malacreta, Giovan Pietro<br /> +<i>Man in the Moon</i><br /> +Mancina, Faustina<br /> +<i>Mandragola</i><br /> +<i>Mangora</i><br /> +Manso, Giovanni Battista<br /> +Mantegna, Andrea<br /> +Mantuanus<br /> +Manuscripts quoted:--<br /> + Bodleian:--<br /> + Ashmole<br /> + Douce<br /> + Rawl. Poet.<br /> + British Museum:--<br /> + Addit. 10,444<br /><br /> + " 11,743<br /><br /> + " 14,047<br /><br /> + " 18,638<br /><br /> + " 29,493<br /> + Egerton, 1994<br /> + Harl. 6924<br /><br /> + " 7044<br /> + Lansd. 1171<br /> + Sloane, 836<br /><br /> + " 857<br /> + Caius College, Cambridge<br /> + Cambridge University Library<br /> + Emmanuel College, Cambridge<br /> + Trinity College, Cambridge<br /> +Manwood, Sir Peter<br /> +Manwood, Thomas<br /> +Marchesa, Cassandra<br /> +Margaret of Navarre<br /> +Marini, Giovanbattista<br /> +Marlowe, Christopher<br /> +Marot, Clement<br /> +Marsi, E., <i>see</i> Epicuro de' Marsi.<br /> +Marston, John<br /> +Martin Mar-prelate (<i>pseud.</i>)<br /> +Martino da Signa<br /> +Mason, I. M.<br /> +Masson, David<br /> +<i>Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas</i><br /> +<i>Mauriziano</i><br /> +<i>May Lord</i><br /> +Mazzi, Curzio<br /> +Mazzoni, G.<br /> +McKerrow, R. B.<br /> +Medici, Eleonora de'<br /> +Medici, Ferdinando de' (Ferdinando I), <i>Grand Duke of Florence</i><br /> +Medici, Giuliano de' (brother of Lorenzo)<br /> +Medici, Giuliano de' (son of Lorenzo)<br /> +Medici, Lorenzo de', <i>Il Magnifico</i><br /> +<i>Melanthe</i><br /> +<i>Meliboeus</i><br /> +Menagio, Egidio<br /> +<i>Menaphon</i><br /> +Mendoza, Iñigo de<br /> +<i>Menina e moça</i><br /> +Menzini, Benedetto<br /> +Meres, Francis<br /> +<i>Merry Wives of Windsor</i><br /> +<i>Metamorphoses</i><br /> +<i>Metellus</i><br /> +Meung, Jean de<br /> +Meyers, Ernest<br /> +<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i><br /> +Milton, John<br /> +Mirari, Alessandro<br /> +<i>Mirrha</i><br /> +<i>Mirror for Magistrates</i><br /> +<i>Mirzia</i><br /> +<i>Modern Language Association of America, Publications of the</i><br /> +<i>Modern Language Notes</i><br /> +<i>Modern Language Quarterly</i><br /> +<i>Modern Language Review</i><br /> +Molza, Francesco Maria<br /> +Montagu, Walter<br /> +Montefeltro, Guidubaldo (Guidubaldo I), <i>Duke of Urbino</i><br /> +Montemayor, Jorge de<br /> +Moore, Thomas<br /> +Moore, Sir Thomas<br /> +Moorman, F. W.<br /> +Moraldi, Giannantonio<br /> +<i>Moretum</i><br /> +<i>Morte del Danese</i><br /> +<i>Morte della Nencia</i><br /> +Moschus<br /> +<i>Mother Bombie</i><br /> +<i>Mother Hubberd's Tale</i><br /> +<i>Mourning Garment</i><br /> +<i>Mucedorus</i><br /> +Munday, Anthony<br /> +<i>Muses' Elizium</i><br /> +<i>Muses' Looking Glass</i><br /> +Mussato, Albertino<br /> +<i>Mutability</i><br /> +<i>Mydas</i></p> + +<p>Nappi, Cesare<br /> +<i>Narcissus</i><br /> +<i>Narcissus' Change</i><br /> +Nashe, Thomas<br /> +Nemesianus<br /> +<i>Nencia da Barberino</i><br /> +Nettleship, Henry<br /> +<i>Never too Late</i><br /> +<i>New English Dictionary</i><br /> +Nichols, John<br /> +Nicolas de Montreux<br /> +<i>Nigella</i><br /> +<i>Ninfa tiberina</i><br /> +<i>Ninfale fiesolano</i><br /> +Noci, Carlo<br /> +Nores, Giasone de<br /> +Norris of Rycote, Baron<br /> +Northampton, Earl of<br /> +Northumberland, Earl of<br /> +Notker the German<br /> +<i>Novelle de Novizi</i><br /> +Numerianus<br /> +<i>Nuova Antologia</i><br /> +<i>Nut-brown Maid</i></p> + +<p><i>Oberon</i><br /> +Occleve, Thomas<br /> +Octavianus<br /> +<i>Old-fashioned Love</i><br /> +<i>Old Fortunatus</i><br /> +<i>Old Law</i><br /> +Oldmixon, John<br /> +<i>Old Wives' Tale</i><br /> +Ollenix du Mont-Sacré<br /> +<i>Ombres</i><br /> +<i>Omphale</i><br /> +Ongaro, Antonio<br /> +Oporinus, Joannes<br /> +<i>Orfeo</i><br /> +<i>Orlando furioso</i><br /> +<i>Orlando innamorato</i><br /> +<i>Orphei Tragoedia</i><br /> +Orsini family<br /> +<i>Osiers</i><br /> +<i>Otranto, Castle of</i><br /> +Ovid</p> + +<p>P., G.<br /> +Paglia, Francesco Baldassare<br /> +<i>Palladis Tamia</i><br /> +Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio<br /> +<i>Palmers Ode</i><br /> +Palmerini, I.<br /> +<i>Pan his Syrinx</i><br /> +<i>Pandosto</i><br /> +<i>Pan's Anniversary</i><br /> +<i>Pan's Pipe</i><br /> +<i>Paradise Lost</i><br /> +<i>Paradiso</i><br /> +Parsons, Philip<br /> +<i>Parthenia</i><br /> +<i>Parthenophil and Parthenope</i><br /> +Pasqualigo, Luigi (Alvisi)<br /> +<i>Passionate Pilgrim</i><br /> +<i>Passionate Shepherd</i><br /> +<i>Passionate Shepherd to his Love</i><br /> +Paston, Edward<br /> +Paston, Sir William<br /> +<i>Pastor fido</i><br /> +<i>Pastor fido</i> (Guarini), English translations:<br /> + 'Dymock,'<br /> + Sidnam<br /> + Fanshawe<br /> + Settle<br /> + [Latin]<br /> + Grove, Clapperton<br /> +<i>Pastor lobo</i><br /> +<i>Pastor vedovo</i><br /> +<i>Pastoral ending in a Tragedy</i><br /> +<i>Pastores de Balue</i><br /> +<i>Pastoureau crestien</i><br /> +Patrizi, Francesco<br /> +<i>Paul et Virginie</i><br /> +Pausanias<br /> +<i>Pazzia</i><br /> +Peaps, William<br /> +<i>Pearl</i><br /> +Pearson, John<br /> +Peele, George<br /> +Pelliciari, Ercole<br /> +Pembroke, Countess of<br /> +<i>Pembroke's Arcadia, Countess of</i>, see <i>Arcadia</i> (Sidney).<br /> +<i>Pembroke's Ivychurch, Countess of</i>, see <i>Ivychurch</i>.<br /> +<i>Penseroso</i><br /> +<i>Pentimento amoroso</i><br /> +Pepys, Samuel<br /> +Pèrcopo, Erasmo<br /> +Percy Society<br /> +Percy, Thomas<br /> +Percy, William<br /> +Pérez, Alonzo<br /> +<i>Perimedes the Blacksmith</i><br /> +Perth, Earl of<br /> +Perugino (Pietro Vespucci)<br /> +<i>Pescatoria amorosa</i><br /> +Pescetti, Orlando<br /> +Petit de Julleville, L.<br /> +Petowe, Henry<br /> +Petrarca, Francesco<br /> +Petrarca, Gherardo<br /> +Phanocles<br /> +<i>Philaster</i><br /> +Philetas<br /> +<i>Phillida and Corin</i><br /> +<i>Phillida and Corydon</i><br /> +<i>Phillida flouts me</i><br /> +Phillips, Edward<br /> +<i>Phillis</i><br /> +<i>Phillis of Scyros</i>, see <i>Filli di Sciro</i>.<br /> +Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, <i>see</i> Pius II.<br /> +Pico delia Mirandola, Giovanni<br /> +<i>Piers Plowman</i><br /> +Pigna, Giovanbattista<br /> +<i>Pilgrim</i><br /> +<i>Pinacoteca</i><br /> +Pinturicchio, Bernardo<br /> +Pio, Ercole<br /> +Pius II, <i>Pope</i><br /> +Plato<br /> +<i>Podere</i><br /> +<i>Poems Lyric and Pastoral</i><br /> +<i>Poetical Diversions</i><br /> +<i>Poetical Rhapsody</i><br /> +<i>Poetics</i> (Aristotle)<br /> +<i>Poet's Willow</i><br /> +<i>Poimenologia</i><br /> +Poliziano (Angelo Ambrogini)<br /> +Pollard, A. W.<br /> +<i>Pollio</i><br /> +Polo, Gaspar Gil<br /> +Polybius<br /> +<i>Polyolbion</i><br /> +Ponce, Bartolomé<br /> +Ponsonby, William<br /> +Pontana, Accademia<br /> +Pontano<br /> +Pope, Alexander<br /> +Porcacchi, Tommaso<br /> +<i>Porta Pietatis</i><br /> +<i>Primavera</i><br /> +<i>Primelion</i><br /> +<i>Prince d'Amour</i><br /> +<i>Princesse de Clèves</i><br /> +<i>Propugnatore</i><br /> +<i>Prova amorosa</i><br /> +Prynne, William<br /> +Ptolemy Philadelphus<br /> +Pulci, Bernardo<br /> +Pulci, Luca<br /> +Pulci, Luigi<br /> +<i>Pulicane</i><br /> +<i>Purgatorio</i><br /> +<i>Purple Island</i><br /> +Puteanus (Hendrik van der Putten)<br /> +Puttenham, (George?)<br /> +Pynson, Richard<br /> +Pyper, John</p> + +<p><i>Quadriregio</i><br /> +Quaritch, Bernard<br /> +Quarles, Francis<br /> +<i>Queen's Arcadia</i><br /> +<i>Quetten und Forschungen</i></p> + +<p>R., J.<br /> +Raleigh, Walter<br /> +Raleigh, Sir Walter<br /> +<i>Rambler</i><br /> +Ramsay, Allan<br /> +Randolph, Thomas<br /> +Rapin, René<br /> +<i>Rapture</i><br /> +Reid, J. S.<br /> +Reinolds, <i>see</i> Reynolds.<br /> +Reissert, Oswald<br /> +<i>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</i><br /> +René of Anjou<br /> +Renier, R.<br /> +Rennert, H. A.<br /> +<i>Retrospective Review</i><br /> +Reynolds, Henry<br /> +Reynolds, John:<br /> + Fellow of New College<br /> + of Exeter<br /> + author of <i>God's Revenge</i><br /> + translator<br /> +Reynolds, Sir John, Colonel<br /> +<i>Rhodon and Iris</i><br /> +Ribeiro, Bernardim<br /> +<i>Rinaldo</i><br /> +<i>Risposta al Malacreta</i><br /> +<i>Robene and Makyne</i><br /> +Robert of Sicily<br /> +<i>Robin Hood and Little John</i><br /> +<i>Robins et Marion</i><br /> +Rodrígues de Lobo, Francisco<br /> +Rollinson, Anthony<br /> +<i>Roman de la Rose</i><br /> +<i>Romeo and Juliet</i><br /> +Rondinelli, Dionisio<br /> +Ronsard, Pierre de<br /> +<i>Rosalynde</i><br /> +Rossi, Bartolommeo<br /> +Rossi, Giovanni Vittorio<br /> +Rossi, Vittorio<br /> +Rota, Bernardino<br /> +Rovere, Francesco Maria delia<br /> +Rovere, Guidubaldo delia (Guidubaldo II), <i>Duke of Urbino</i><br /> +Rowley, William<br /> +Roxburghe Club<br /> +Royden, Matthew<br /> +<i>Royster Doyster</i><br /> +Rozzi, Congrega dei<br /> +Ruberto, Luigi<br /> +<i>Rural Sports of the Nymph Oenone</i><br /> +Russell, Lady<br /> +Rutter, Joseph</p> + +<p>S., E.<br /> +S., H.<br /> +J. (translater of the <i>Filli di Sciro</i>)<br /> +S., J. (author of <i>Andromana</i>)<br /> +Sâ de Miranda, Francisco de<br /> +Sabie, Francis<br /> +Sacchetti, Franco<br /> +Sackville, Edward<br /> +<i>Sacrifizio</i> (Beccari)<br /> +<i>Sacrifizio</i> (Intronati masque)<br /> +<i>Sacrifizio pastorale</i><br /> +<i>Sad Shepherd</i><br /> +Sagredo, Giovanni<br /> +Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri Bernardin de<br /> +Saintsbury, George<br /> +<i>Salices</i><br /> +Salviati, Lionardo<br /> +Samson, M. W.<br /> +Sand, George<br /> +Sandys, J. E.<br /> +Sannazzaro, Jacopo<br /> +Sansovino, F.<br /> +San vitale, Gualtiero<br /> +Sappho<br /> +<i>Saturday Review</i><br /> +Savio, Giovanni<br /> +Schlegel, A. W. von<br /> +Schönherr, J. G.<br /> +Schucking, L. L.<br /> +<i>Scilla's Metamorphosis</i><br /> +Scott, Mary A.<br /> +Scott, Sir Walter<br /> +<i>Scyros</i>, see <i>Filli di Sciro</i><br /> +Seneca<br /> +<i>Selva d' amore</i><br /> +<i>Selva sin amor</i><br /> +Serassi, Pierantonio<br /> +Serono, Orazio<br /> +<i>Session of the Poets</i><br /> +Settle, Elkanah<br /> +Seward, Thomas<br /> +Seyffert, Oskar<br /> +<i>Sfortunato</i><br /> +Sforza, Giovanni<br /> +Sforza, Lodovico<br /> +<i>Shadow of Sannazar</i><br /> +Shakespeare, William<br /> +Shakespeare Society<br /> +Shepherd Tony <i>(pseud.)</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Calendar</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Complaint</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Content</i><br /> +<i>Shepherds' Holiday</i> (Angel Day)<br /> +<i>Shepherds' Holiday</i> (Denny)<br /> +<i>Shepherds' Holiday</i> (Rutter)<br /> +<i>Shepherd's Hunting</i><br /> +<i>Shepherds' Masque</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Ode</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Oracle</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Oracles</i><br /> +<i>Shepherds' Paradise</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Pipe</i><br /> +<i>Shepherds' Sirena</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Taies</i><br /> +<i>Shepherd's Wife's Song</i><br /> +Sherburne, Sir Edward<br /> +Sherley, James<br /> +<i>Ship of Fools</i><br /> +Shuckburgh, E. S.<br /> +<i>Sicelides</i><br /> +Sidnam, Jonathan<br /> +Sidney, Lady<br /> +Sidney, Sir Philip<br /> +<i>Siglo de Oro</i><br /> +Signorelli, Luca<br /> +Silesio, Mariano<br /> +<i>Silvanus</i><br /> +<i>Silver Age</i><br /> +<i>Silvia</i> (Fileno)<br /> +<i>Silvia</i> (Kynder)<br /> +Sincerus, Actius, <i>see</i> Sannazzaro, Jacopo.<br /> +<i>Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes</i><br /> +<i>Sirena</i>, see <i>Shepherds' Sirena.</i><br /> +Skeat, W. W.<br /> +Skelton, John<br /> +Smith, G. C. M.<br /> +Smith, Homer<br /> +Smith, William, 124.<br /> +Solerti, Angelo<br /> +Solisy Rivadeneira, Antonio de<br /> +Sommer, H. O.<br /> +<i>Somnium Puteani (Cornus, sive Phagesiposia Cimeria)</i><br /> +<i>Song of Solomon</i><br /> +Sophocles<br /> +<i>Sophy</i><br /> +Southampton, Earl of<br /> +<i>Speeches at Bisham, &c.</i><br /> +Speed, John<br /> +Spencer, Sir John<br /> +Spenser, Edmund<br /> +Speroni, Sperone<br /> +Spinelli, A. G.<br /> +Stanley, Ferdinando (Lord Strange)<br /> +<i>Steel Glass</i><br /> +Steele, Sir Richard<br /> +Stesichorus<br /> +Stevenson, R. L.<br /> +Stiefel, A. L.<br /> +Stockdale, Percival<br /> +<i>Stonehenge</i><br /> +Strange, Lord, <i>see</i> Stanley, F.<br /> +<i>Stultifera Navis</i><br /> +Suckling, Sir Thomas<br /> +Suidas<br /> +<i>Summer's Last Will and Testament</i><br /> +Summo, Faustino<br /> +Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard)<br /> +<i>Sweet Sobs and Amorous Complaints</i><br /> +Swinburne, A. C.<br /> +Symonds, J. A.</p> + +<p>T., I.<br /> +Taccone, Baldassare<br /> +Talbot, Sir George<br /> +<i>Tale of Troy</i><br /> +<i>Tancia</i><br /> +Tansillo, Luigi<br /> +<i>Tarlton's News out of Purgatory</i><br /> +Tasso, Torquato<br /> +Tatham, John<br /> +Taylor, John<br /> +<i>Taylor's Pastoral</i><br /> +<i>Tears of the Muses</i><br /> +Tebaldeo, Antonio<br /> +<i>Tempest</i><br /> +Texeda, Jerónimo de<br /> +<i>Theatrum Poetarum</i><br /> +Theocritus<br /> +Thomason, George<br /> +Thorndike, A. H.<br /> +<i>Thracian Wonder</i><br /> +Thynne, William<br /> +Tibullus<br /> +Ticknor, George<br /> +<i>Timone</i><br /> +Tiraboschi, Girolamo<br /> +<i>Tirena</i><br /> +<i>Tirsi</i><br /> +<i>Titirus and Galathea</i><br /> +Tofte, Robert<br /> +<i>Tottel's Miscellany</i><br /> +<i>Townley mysteries</i><br /> +<i>Triumph of Beauty</i><br /> +<i>Triumph of Peace</i><br /> +<i>Triumph of Virtue</i><br /> +Torraca, Francesco<br /> +Turberville, George<br /> +Turnbull, W. B.<br /> +<i>Twelfth Night</i><br /> +<i>Tivo Gentlemen of Verona</i><br /> +<i>Two Noble Kinsmen</i></p> + +<p>Ugolino, Braccio<br /> +Ulloa, Alonzo de<br /> +<i>Under der linden</i><br /> +Underhill, J. G.<br /> +Uniti, Accademia degli<br /> +Urceo<br /> +Urfe, Honoré d'</p> + +<p><i>Valle tenebrosa</i> (<i>Vallis Opaca</i>)<br /> +Valle, Cesare della<br /> +Valois, House of<br /> +Vega, Lope de<br /> +<i>Vendemmiatore</i><br /> +<i>Venus and Adonis</i><br /> +<i>Verato</i><br /> +<i>Verato secondo</i><br /> +Vergil<br /> +Vergna, Maria della, <i>see</i> La Fayette, Comtesse de<br /> +Vicente, Gil<br /> +Vida, Marco Girolamo<br /> +Villon, François<br /> +<i>Volpone</i><br /> +<i>Vuelta de Egypto</i></p> + +<p>W., A.<br /> +Waldron, F. G.<br /> +Walsingham, Sir Francis<br /> +Walther von der Vogelweide<br /> +Walton, Isaac<br /> +<i>War without Blows and Love without Suit (? Strife)</i><br /> +Ward, A. W.<br /> +Warner, William<br /> +Warton, Thomas<br /> +Waterson, Simon<br /> +Watson, Thomas, III<br /> +Web, William, <i>Lord Mayor</i><br /> +Webbe, William<br /> +Weber, H. W.<br /> +Webster, John<br /> +Webster, William<br /> +Weinberg, Gustav<br /> +Weise, Berthold<br /> +White, Edward<br /> +Wicksteed, P. H.<br /> +Wilcox, Thomas<br /> +Wilde, George<br /> +Wilson, H.<br /> +Wilson, Thomas<br /> +<i>Wily Beguiled</i><br /> +Windscheid, Katharina<br /> +Winstanley, William<br /> +<i>Winter's Tale</i><br /> +Wither, George<br /> +Wolfe, John<br /> +Wolsey, Thomas, <i>Cardinal</i><br /> +<i>Woman in the Moon</i><br /> +<i>Wonder of Women</i><br /> +Wood, Anthony à<br /> +Wotton, Sir John<br /> +Wotton, Sir Henry<br /> +Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder<br /> +Wynkyn de Worde</p> + +<p>Yong (or Young), Bartholomew</p> + +<p><i>Zanitonella</i><br /> +Zinano, Gabriele<br /> +Zola, Emil<br /> +Zurla, Lodovico</p> +</div> + + +<h4>Oxford: Horace Hart, Printer to the University.</h4> + + + +<div class="chapter" id="footnotes"> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> + + + + +<p id="fn1">1. The often cited pastoralism of the <i>Song of Solomon</i> resolves itself +on investigation into an occasional simile. These argue familiarity with +the scenes of pastoral life, but equally reveal the existence of the +contrast in the mind of the writer. It was on the orthodox interpretation +of this love-song that Remi Belleau founded his <i>Éclogues sacrées</i>, but +they contain little or nothing of a pastoral nature. The same may be said +of Drayton's paraphrase, included in his <i>Harmony of the Church</i> in 1591, +which is chiefly remarkable for the evident and honest pleasure with which +he rendered the unsophisticated meaning of the original. It is, however, +just possible that the Hebrew poem may have had some influence on pastoral +poetry in Italy. There is a monograph on the subject by A. Abbruzzese, <i>Il +Cantico dei Cantici in alcune parafrasi poetiche italiane: contributo alla +storia del dramma pastorale</i>, which, however, I have not seen. With regard +to possible Greek predecessors of Theocritus, it must be borne in mind +that there were singing contests between shepherds at the Sicilian +festival of Artemis, and it is possible that the competitors may have been +sufficiently influenced by other orders of civilization to have given a +definitely pastoral colouring to their songs. Little is known of their +nature beyond the fact that they probably contained the motive of the +lament for Daphnis, which appears to be as old as Stesichorus. They have +perished all but two lines which are found prefixed by way of motto to the +<i>Idyls</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> δέξαι τὰν ἀγαθὰν τύχαν, δέξαι τὰν ὑγίειαν,<br /> + ἃν φέρομεν παρὰ τᾶσ θεοῦ, ἃν ἐκαλέσσατο τήνα.</p></blockquote> + +<p>What I have wished to emphasize above is the fact that because shepherds +sang songs we have no reason to assume that these were distinctively +pastoral. In later times the pastoral generally acknowledged a theoretical +dependence on rustic song, and the popular compositions did actually now +and again affect literary tradition. But this was rare.</p> + +<p id="fn2">2. Details concerning the conception of the golden age will be found in +Moorman's <i>William Browne</i>, p. 59.</p> + +<p id="fn3">3. The tendency to form an ideal picture of his own youth is common both +to mankind and man. The romance of childhood is the dream with which age +consoles itself for the disillusionments of life. This it is that gives a +peculiar appropriateness to the title of Mr. Graham's pictures of +childhood in <i>The Golden Age</i>, a work of the profoundest insight and +genius, as delightful as it is unique. I am not aware that there has ever +been another author in English who could have written thus intimately of +children without once striking a false note.</p> + +<p id="fn4">4. There is some truth in the charge. Even Symonds wrote of Theocritus, +possibly with Fontenelle's words in his mind: 'As it is, we find enough of +rustic grossness on his pages, and may even complain that his cowherds and +goatherds savour too strongly of their stables.' (<i>Greek Poets</i>, ii. p. +246.)</p> + +<p id="fn5">5. Landscapes as decoration may be seen on the walls of the so-called +Casa Nuova at Pompeii. It should be remarked that one idyl is addressed to +Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, and it is quite possible that Theocritus may +have been a frequent visitor there.</p> + +<p id="fn6">6. Theocritus flourished in the first half of the third century B.C. Some +authorities place the younger poets more than a hundred years later.</p> + +<p id="fn7">7. Familiar to English readers through Matthew Arnold's translation.</p> + +<p id="fn8">8. Suidas says that Moschus came from Sicily, and some authorities speak +of him as a Syracusan. But in his 'Lament' he alludes to his 'Ausonian' +song, apparently as distinguished from that of Theocritus 'of Syracuse.' +The passage, however, is rendered obscure by an hiatus. Another tradition +made Theocritus a native of the island of Cos. More probably it was +between the time of his leaving Syracuse and that of his settling at +Alexandria that he was the pupil of the Coan poet and critic, Philetas.</p> + +<p id="fn9">9. Ernest Myers' version from Andrew Lang's delightful volume in the +Golden Treasury Series.</p> + +<p id="fn10">10. Placing the romance, that is, in the third century A.D. Authorities +assign it to various dates from the second to the sixth centuries, +according as they regard it as a model or an imitation of Heliodorus' +work.</p> + +<p id="fn11">11. A similar use of ἀναγνώρισις is very frequent in the Italian +pastoral drama, where, however, it is more probably derived from Latin +comedy.</p> + +<p id="fn12">12. This was not the first Italian version of Longus. <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> +had been translated directly from the Greek by Annibale Caro in the +previous century.</p> + +<p id="fn13">13. Two poems, written in close imitation of Theocritus' natural manner, +and entitled respectively <i>Moretum</i> and <i>Copa</i>, have sometimes, but +wrongly, been attributed to Vergil.</p> + +<p id="fn14">14. <i>Greek Poets</i>, ii. p. 265.</p> + +<p id="fn15">15. Symonds speaks strongly on the point. 'Virgil not only lacks his +[Theocritus'] vigour and enthusiasm for the open-air life of the country, +but, with Roman bad taste, he commits the capital crime of allegorising.' +(<i>Greek Poets</i>, ii. p. 247.)</p> + +<p id="fn16">16. Seyffert's classical dictionary, as revised by Nettleship and Sandys +(1899), definitely assigns Calpurnius to the middle of the first century. +In that case the amphitheatre mentioned was no doubt the wooden structure +that preceded the Colosseum.</p> + +<p id="fn17">17. See, in Conington and Nettleship's <i>Virgil</i>, 1881, the essay on 'The +Later Bucolic Poets of Rome,' in which will be found a detailed account of +this very intricate controversy.</p> + +<p id="fn18">18. It would appear that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue +deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their +purpose. Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the +pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is +characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear. He +was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian +eclogue, and adopted it for definite purposes of utility. Boccaccio is +even more explicit, and I cannot do better than transcribe the very +interesting summary of the history of pastoral verse down to his day, +given in a letter addressed by him to Martino da Signa, which I shall +again have occasion to mention in dealing with his own contributions to +the kind. He writes: 'Theocritus Syracusanus Poeta, ut ab antiquis +accepimus, primus fuit, qui Graeco Carmine Buccolicum escogitavit stylum, +verum nil sensit, praeter quod cortex verborum demonstrat. Post hunc +Latine scripsit Virgilius, sed sub cortice nonnullos abscondit sensus, +esto non semper voluerit sub nominibus colloquentium aliquid sentiremus. +Post hunc autem scripserunt et alii, sed ignobiles, de quibus nil curandum +est, excepto inclyto Praeceptore meo Francisco Petrarca qui stylum praeter +solitum paululum sublimavit et secundum Eclogarum suarum materias continue +collocutorum nomina aliquid significantia posuit. Ex his ego Virgilium +secutus sum quapropter non curavi in omnibus colloquentium nominibus +sensum abscondere.' <i>Lettere di G. Boccaccio</i>, ed. Corazzini, 1877, p. +267.</p> + +<p id="fn19">19. Line 1228. See Skeat's note in the <i>Athenæum</i>, March 1, 1902.</p> + +<p id="fn20">20. On all points connected with these compositions see the elaborate +monograph by Wicksteed and Gardner.</p> + +<p id="fn21">21. Dante's poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect. It +would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also +some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in +support of the above remarks. It is significant of their independence of +medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of +Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the +whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus.</p> + +<p id="fn22">22. Boccaccio was of course acquainted with Dante's eclogues, and in his +life of the poet he allows them considerable beauty. It seems never to +have occurred to him, however, to regard them as serious contributions to +pastoral literature, for, as we have already seen, he stigmatizes all +bucolic writers between Vergil and Petrarch as <i>ignobiles</i>. I do not think +this attitude was due to the influence of Petrarch having lessened his +admiration of Dante, as maintained by Wicksteed and Gardner, but simply to +his recognition of the absolute unimportance of the poems in question from +the historical point of view.</p> + +<p id="fn23">23. In this connexion it will be remembered that Dante places Brutus and +Cassius, the betrayers of Julius, in company with Judas, the betrayer of +Christ, as arch-traitors in the innermost circle of hell (<i>Inferno</i>, +xxxiv). He was no doubt influenced in this by his philosophical Ghibelline +tendencies.</p> + +<p id="fn24">24. The evolution of this idea, suggested of course by John X. II, can be +clearly traced in the mosaics at Ravenna.</p> + +<p id="fn25">25. So Hortis (<i>Scritti inediti di F. Petrarca</i>, pp. 221, &c.), who +combats A. W. von Schlegel's view that the Epy of Eclogue VII stands for +Avignon.</p> + +<p id="fn26">26. This spelling was current for some centuries, Spenser among others +adopting it. Indeed, <i>egloghe</i> is still the prevalent form among Italian +scholars.</p> + +<p id="fn27">27. One other was discovered and published from MS. by Hortis, in his +<i>Studi sulle opere latini</i>, p. 351.</p> + +<p id="fn28">28. It is not impossible that Boccaccio may have begun composing eclogues +before his acquaintance with Petrarch, since the influence of the poems +sent by Dante to Giovanni del Virgilio has been traced in the eclogue +printed by Hortis, and in an early version of the <i>Faunus</i>, as well as in +the work of Boccaccio's correspondent, Cecco di Mileto.</p> + +<p id="fn29">29. So Aeneas Sylvius, in his <i>De Remedio Amoris</i>, after a particularly +virulent tirade against women, explained: 'De his loquor mulieribus quae +turpes admittunt amores.'</p> + +<p id="fn30">30. 'Syncerius' is the form used, but there can be little doubt who was +intended.</p> + +<p id="fn31">31. In the days when it was fashionable for men of learning to discuss +the laws of pastoral composition, a certain northern giant fell foul of +the Neapolitan's piscatory eclogues on somewhat theoretical grounds. +Having never seen the blue smile of the bay of Naples, he suggested that +the sea was an object of terror; forgetful of the monotonous setting of +pastoral verse, he complained that the piscatory life offered little +variety; finally, he contended that the technicalities of the craft were +unfamiliar to readers--but are we to suppose that the learned author of +the <i>Rambler</i> was competent to tend a flock?</p> + +<p id="fn32">32. They were at least the first to appear in print. The contributors +were Girolamo Benivieni, of Florence, and Francesco Arsocchi and Fiorino +Boninsegni, of Siena. The first possibly deserves mention as having +introduced Pico della Mirandola as a character in his eclogues: some of +the poems of the last are noteworthy as having been composed as early as +1468. There exists a poem by Luca Pulci on the story of Polyphemus and +Galatea in the form of an eclogue. Luca died in 1470. Leo Battista +Alberti, the famous architect, who died in 1472, also left a poem, which +was published from MS. in 1850, with the heading 'Egloga.' This, however, +proves not to be strictly pastoral. Among other early ventures were ten +Italian eclogues in <i>terza rima</i>, by Boiardo. These, and also his ten +Latin eclogues, will be found printed from MS. in his <i>Poesie volgari e +latine</i> (ed. A. Solerti, Bologna, 1894), while full accounts of both will +be found in the essays contributed by G. Mazzoni and A. Campani to the +<i>Studi su M. M. Boiardo</i>, edited by N. Campanini (Bologna, 1894). There +can be no doubt that the court of Lorenzo was full of pastoral experiments +in the vernacular for some time before the publication mentioned above.</p> + +<p id="fn33">33. Having regard to the general character of the <i>Ameto</i>, I am not sure +that it might not be possible to find some hidden meaning in the poem in +question, if one were challenged to do so. The allegory is, however, +mostly of the abstract kind, and the eclogue can hardly conceal allusions +to any actual events.</p> + +<p id="fn34">34. A very useful and representative, though of course by no means +complete, collection is that by G. Ferrario, in the 'Classici italiani.'</p> + +<p id="fn35">35. Castiglione also figured among the Latin eclogists of his day, and +the influence of his <i>Alcon</i> is even traced by Saintsbury in <i>Lycidas</i> +(<i>Earlier Renaissance</i>, p. 34).</p> + +<p id="fn36">36. It is said to have been by way of penance for having written the +<i>Vendemmiatore</i> that he later undertook the composition of the <i>Lagrime di +San Pietro</i>, a lengthy religious poem, which remained unfinished at his +death in 1568.</p> + +<p id="fn37">37. <i>La Beca</i> is ascribed by mistake to Luca Pulci in the first edition +of Symonds' <i>Renaissance</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn38">38. The best imitation is said to be the <i>Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo</i> +by Francesco Baldovini (1643-1700), which is graceful, though rather more +satiric in tone than its model.</p> + +<p id="fn39">39. It differs, however, from most poems of the sort, in that the +langnage of the fisher craft in Italy was capable of the same wantonly +double meaning as was suggested to English writers by the name and terms +of the noble art of venery. This serves to differentiate it from the style +of pastoral, and suggests that we should rather class it along with such +works as Berni's <i>Caccia d'amore.</i></p> + +<p id="fn40">40. It is occasionally traceable in the French <i>pastourelles</i>, but that +form of courtly composition never became popular south of the Alps. Its +vogue passed completely with the decline of Provençal tradition. D'Ancona +quotes one Italian example of the thirteenth century, the work of a +Florentine, Ciacco dell' Anguillaja. It begins gracefully enough:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O gemma leziosa,<br /> + Adorna villanella, <br /> + Che se' più virtudiosa<br /> + Che non se ne favella, <br /> + Per la virtude ch' hai<br /> + Per grazia del Signore, <br /> + Aiutami, che sai<br /> + Che son tuo servo, amore.</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn41">41. Further evidence of the popularity of this poem will be found in the +existence of a religious parody beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> O vaghe di Gesù, o verginelle, <br /> + Dove n' andate si leggiadre e belle?</p></blockquote> + +<p>(<i>Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari</i>, &c., Firenze, 1863, p. 105.) It is +founded on the fourteenth ceutury, not on the popular, version.</p> + +<p id="fn42">42. The foregoing remarks follow very closely Symonds' treatment in the +third chapter of his <i>Italian Literature</i>. In point of fact, I lit on +Donati's poem quite accidentally, before reading the chapter in question, +but I have made no scruple of availing myself of his guidance wherever it +was to be had.</p> + +<p id="fn43">43. Symonds has some very severe strictures on these songs from the moral +point of view. Judging from the actual songs themselves his remarks would +appear somewhat exaggerated, but if we take into consideration the +historical circumstances they are probably amply justified.</p> + +<p id="fn44">44. It is perhaps worth putting in a word of warning against the possible +confusion of this poem with Politian's Latin composition bearing the same +title. Ambra was a rustic resort in the neighbourhood of Florence, to +which Lorenzo was much attached. By the lover Lauro the author seems to +have meant himself. At least this is rendered probable by some lines near +the end of Politian's poem, in which the villa is again personified as a +nymph:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Et nos ergo illi grata pietate dicamus<br /> + Hanc de Pierio contextam flore coronam, <br /> + Quam mihi Caianas inter pulcherrima nymphas<br /> + Ambra dedit patriae lectam de gramine ripae: <br /> + Ambra mei Laurentis amor, quam corniger Vmbro, <br /> + Vmbro senex genuit domino gratissimus Arno: <br /> + Vmbro suo tandem non erupturus ab alneo. <br /> + (<i>Opera,</i> Basel, 1553, p. 581.)</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn45">45. He was born at Montepulciano in 1454, and died, at the age of forty, +two years after Lorenzo.</p> + +<p id="fn46">46. Symonds, <i>Renaissance</i>, iv. p. 232, note 3.</p> + +<p id="fn47">47. It has been sometimes thought that the description of Mars in the lap +of Venus, in stanzas 122-3, suggested Botticelli's picture in the National +Gallery; but, though the lines are worthy of having inspired even a more +successful example of the painter's art, the resemblance is in this case +too general to warrant any such conclusion.</p> + +<p id="fn48">48. A favourite phrase of his. 'What has been well called <i>la voluttà +idillica</i>--the sensuous sensibility to beauty, finding fit expression in +the Idyll--formed a marked characteristic of Renaissance art and +literature.' <i>Renaissance</i>, v. p. 170.</p> + +<p id="fn49">49. The similar alternation of verse and prose found in the French and +Provençal <i>cante-fables,</i> notably in <i>Aucassin et Nicolette,</i> is of a +different nature, for in them the prose served properly to explain and +connect the verse-passages which contained the actual story, and it +probably formed no part of the original composition.</p> + +<p id="fn50">50. I quote from the handy edition of Boccaccio's <i>Opere minori</i> in the +'Biblioteca classica economica.' The passages cited above will be found on +pp. 246 and 250, or in the <i>Opere volgari</i>, 1827-34. xv. pp. 186 and 194.</p> + +<p id="fn51">51. It is probably no accident that, like Dante's poem, Boccaccio's +romance is styled a 'comedy.' Both represent, in allegorical form, the +ascent of the human soul from sin, through purgation, to the presence of +God.</p> + +<p id="fn52">52. It has been suggested that there is a gradual spiritualization in the +motives of the tales; but this would appear to be a somewhat fanciful +view.</p> + +<p id="fn53">53. Proemio, <i>Opere minori</i>, p. 145; <i>Opere volgari</i>, xv. p. 4.</p> + +<p id="fn54">54. <i>Opere minori</i>, p. 176, <i>Opere volgari</i>, xv. p. 60.</p> + +<p id="fn55">55. While greatly shortening the passage, and taking considerable +liberties in the way of paraphrase, I have endeavoured, as far as +possible, to preserve the style and diction of the original. This will be +found in the <i>Opere minori</i>, pp. 213, &c., <i>Opere volgari</i>, xv. pp. 126, +&c.</p> + +<p id="fn56">56. The description of the spring is from Ovid, <i>Metamorphoses</i>, III, +407, &c. No doubt a great deal more could be traced to Latin sources.</p> + +<p id="fn57">57. For details concerning tree-lists see Moorman's <i>William Brown</i>, p. +154.</p> + +<p id="fn58">58. Dunlop's notion of the verse being the important part, and the prose +only written to connect the varions eclogues, is clearly wrong. Verse +started by being subordinate in Boccaccio's romance, and remained so in +all subsequent examples.</p> + +<p id="fn59">59. <i>Prosa</i> VIII. The whole passage was versified in Spanish by +Garcilaso, whence a portion found its way into Googe's eclogues. Among +other ingenions devices Sannazzaro mentions that of pinning down a crow by +the extremity of its wings and waiting for it to entangle its fellows in +its claws. If any reader should be tempted to imagine that the author has +been drawing on a fertile imagination, let him turn to the adventures of +one Morrowbie Jukes, as related by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, for a description +of this identical method of crow-catching as practised on the banks of an +Indian stream.</p> + +<p id="fn60">60. It may be well to point out that at times, as in Carino's invocation +to the Dryads, Symonds has infused into his version a beauty of diction of +which Sannazzaro appears to be innocent.</p> + +<p id="fn61">61. The <i>Arcadia</i> must have been extant in its original form as early as +1481, when it served as model for the eclogues of Pietro Jacopo de +Jennaro. The earliest known MS. dates from 1489, and contains the first +ten <i>Prose</i> and <i>Ecloghe</i>. In this form it was surreptitiously printed in +1502; the complete work first appeared in 1504. The earliest commentary, +that of Tommaso Porcacchi, appeared in 1558, and went through several +editions. An elaborate variorum edition was printed at Padua in 1723. I +have followed the text in the 'Classici italiani.'</p> + +<p id="fn62">62. Arcadia had been called 'the mother of flocks' in the Homeric <i>Hymn +to Pan</i>, and Polybius had described the softening effects of music upon +its rude inhabitants. See some interesting remarks on the snbject by J. E. +Sandys, in his lectures on the <i>Revival of Learning</i>, Cambridge, 1905; +also J. P. Mahaffy, <i>Rambles and Studies</i>, ch. xii.</p> + +<p id="fn63">63. Having had occasion in the course of the following pages to call +attention to certain inaccuracies of Ticknor's, I should like in this +place to record my indebtedness to what still remains the standard history +of Spanish literature. I have likewise made free use of +Fitzmaurice-Kelly's admirable monograph.</p> + +<p id="fn64">64. <i>Don Quixote</i>, pt. ii. ch. 62.</p> + +<p id="fn65">65. Calderon wrote an early play on the tale of Cephalus and Procris, +which met, it is said, with success. It was entitled <i>Celos aun del aire +matan</i>, and was styled a 'fiesta cantada.' Later in life he parodied it in +the 'comedia burlesca' entitled <i>Cefalo y Pocris</i> (sic). Neither play +appears to have any connexion with the <i>Cefalo</i> of Niccolò da Correggio +(<i>v. post</i>, ch. iii). Both are printed in the third volume of Calderon's +comedies in the 'Biblioteca de autores españoles,' 1848-50. The <i>Pastor +fido</i> will be found in vol. iv.</p> + +<p id="fn66">66. Mr. Gosse has protested against the use of such terms as 'exotic' in +connexion with products of literary art, and no doubt the word has been +not a little abused. I employ it in its strict sense of 'introduced from +abroad, not indigenons,' and without implying any critical censure.</p> + +<p id="fn67">67. Though a Portuguese, and one of the most notable poets in his own +dialect, much of his poetical work is in Castillan.</p> + +<p id="fn68">68. So, at least, Theophilo Braga interprets what he calls 'o drama +amoroso das Eclogas,' in his monograph on <i>Bernardim Ribeiro e o +bucolismo</i>. Porto, 1897.</p> + +<p id="fn69">69. Ticknor is responsible for an unfortunate error, and much consequent +confusion, respecting this date. Some one had cited an imaginary edition +of 1545. Of this Ticknor confessed ignorance, but stated that he had in +his possession a copy consisting of 112 quarto leaves, printed at Valencia +in 1542. This description applies exactly to the earliest edition extant +in the British Museum, except in the matter of the date. There can be no +doubt that this is a mistake. The date 1542 is intrinsically impossible. +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, who himself dates the work 1558-9, points out that one +of the songs refers to events which took place in 1554. The sudden crop of +reprints, dated 1561 and 1562, proves the <i>Diana</i> to have been then a new +book, and inclines me to place the actual publication somewhat after the +date suggested by Kelly. I may mention that Ticknor is also in error over +the date of Ribeiro's work, which he assigns to 1557.</p> + +<p id="fn70">70. See the collection of Latin student songs, <i>Gaudeamus! Carmina +uagorum selecta in usum laetitiae</i>, Leipzig, 1879, p. 124.</p> + +<p id="fn71">71. The novels alluded to will be found in the <i>Ecatommiti</i>, I. i, <i>Cent +Nouvelles nouvelles</i>, No. 82, and <i>Novelle de' Novizi</i>, No. 12.</p> + +<p id="fn72">72. <i>Knight of the Burning Pestle</i>, II. viii. (Dyce, ii. p. 172), and +<i>The Pilgrim</i>, IV. ii. (Dyce, viii. p. 66).</p> + +<p id="fn73">73. B. M., Roxburghe, III. 160, also II. 30.</p> + +<p id="fn74">74. References are best given to F. J. Child's monumental collection, in +five volumes, where all variants are printed. <i>Cowdenknows</i> and the <i>Bonny +May</i> are No. 217; <i>The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter</i> 110, the <i>Bonny +Ilynd</i> 50, <i>Child Waters</i> 63, <i>The Laird of Drum</i> 236, <i>Lizie Lindsay</i> +226, <i>Lizie Baillie</i> 227, <i>Glasgow Peggie</i> 228, and <i>Johnie Faa</i> 200. No +doubt further examples might be collected.</p> + +<p id="fn75">75. Similar shepherd-scenes are found not only in French but even in +Italian miracle plays. The tendency they indicate, however, is not +traceable in later pastoral, as it is with us. That such representations +as those of the Sienese 'Rozzi' formed no exception to this general +statement I shall have to show later.</p> + +<p id="fn76">76. For the literary history of the Wakefield cycle, see A. W. Pollard's +admirable introduction to the edition published by the Early English Text +Society.</p> + +<p id="fn77">77. They also criticize the angels' singing in curiously technical +language.</p> + +<p id="fn78">78. Towneley Plays, XII. l. 377, &c., and l. 386, &c., cf. Vergil, +<i>Bucolics</i>, IV. 6.</p> + +<p id="fn79">79. It is perhaps necessary to define the above use of 'idealization' as +that modification of photographie reality observable in all true art. It +is only when the methods of art have become self-conscious that realism +can become an end in itself.</p> + +<p id="fn80">80. <i>An English Garner</i>: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. +Pollard, 1903, p. 87. The carol is from a MS. at Balliol College.</p> + +<p id="fn81">81. The poem will be found in Arber's edition of the 'Miscellany,' p. +138, and in A. H. Bullen's reprint of <i>England's Helicon</i>, p. 56. In +dealing with isolated poems I have quoted, wherever possible, from +Bullen's reprints of the song books, &c.</p> + +<p id="fn82">82. Forst = cared for.</p> + +<p id="fn83">83. It first appeared as 'The Ploughman's Song' in the 'Entertainment at +Elvetham' in 1591. This has been recently claimed for Lyly. Without +expressing any opinion in this place as to the likelihood of such an +ascription for the bulk of the piece, it may be remarked that the song in +question is as like the rest of Breton's work in style as it is unlike +anything to be found in Lyly's writings.</p> + +<p id="fn84">84. Of all pedestrian, not to say reptilian, metres, this is perhaps the +most intolerable; indeed, it was not until touched to new life by the +genius of Blake that it deserved to be called a metre at all.</p> + +<p id="fn85">85. See R. B. McKerrow's articles on the Elizabethan 'classical metres' in +the <i>Modern Language Quarterly</i> for December, 1901, and April, 1902, iv. +p. 172, and v. p. 6.</p> + +<p id="fn86">86. Eclogues i-iv were printed by Pynson, and the fifth by Wynkyn de +Worde early in the century; i-iii were twice reprinted about 1550. Barclay +died in 1552.</p> + +<p id="fn87">87. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II. I suppose that +it is on account of this statement of Barclay's that English critics have +constantly referred to the work as pastoral. It is nothing but a prose +invective against court life.</p> + +<p id="fn88">88. See Dyce's <i>Skelton</i>, Introduction, p. xxxvi.</p> + +<p id="fn89">89. 'Eglogs Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Newly written by Barnabe Googe: +1563. 15. Marche.' Reprinted by Professer Arber from the Huth copy.</p> + +<p id="fn90">90. The title of the collection as originally published is obviously +ambiguous--is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There +is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases +by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice +seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be +little doubt that the title of Spenser's work was suggested by the +<i>Calender of Shepherds</i>. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear +that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin +Clout--that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the +shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for +shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I +think, a defensible spelling.</p> + +<p id="fn91">91. The alternative view, which would make Spenser his own commentator, +is not without supporters both in Germany and in this country. Even were +the question, however, one of greater importance from our point of view, +the 'proofs' so far adduced do not constitute sufficient of an <i>a priori</i> +case to justify discussion here.</p> + +<p id="fn92">92. <i>Anglia</i>, iii. p. 266, and ix. p. 205.</p> + +<p id="fn93">93. At the end of the <i>Calender</i> Spenser placed as his motto 'Merce non +mercede'--as merchandise, not for reward.</p> + +<p id="fn94">94. On all questions relating to the <i>Shepherd's Calender</i> see C. H. +Herford's edition, to which I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. So +far as I am aware, we possess no more admirable edition of any monument of +English literature.</p> + +<p id="fn95">95. Cf. the titles of Drayton's <i>Idea</i> and Basse's MS. eclogues, <i>infra</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn96">96. <i>Discoveries</i>, 1640 (-41), p. 116 (Gifford, 1875; § cxxv). The +'ancients,' as appears from the context, are Chaucer and Gower.</p> + +<p id="fn97">97. <i>Apology for Poetry</i>, 1595; Arber's edition, p. 63.</p> + +<p id="fn98">98. Even Sidney's authorities break down to some extent. Theocritus +certainly modified the literary dialect in his pastoral idyls, and we may +recall that when Vergil began his third eclogue with the line--</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei?</p></blockquote> + +<p>a wit of Rome retorted:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Die mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus?' anne Latinum?</p></blockquote> + +<p>Or again it may be asked whether Lorenzo de' Medici is not as good a name +to conjure by as Jacopo Sannazzaro.</p> + +<p id="fn99">99. Some of the eclogues are mucn more pronouncedly dialectal than +others, but even within the limits of a single one, literary and dialectal +forms may often be found used indiscriminately. See Herford's remarks on +the subject.</p> + +<p id="fn100">100. 'February,' l. 33, &c. Lines 35-6 contain one of the few direct +reminiscences of Chaucer. Cf. <i>House of Fame</i>, II. 1225-6. Spenser +repeated the imitation, <i>Faery Queen</i>, VI. ix. 43-5, and was followed by +Fletcher, <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>, V. v. 183-4.</p> + +<p id="fn101">101. <i>Pastime of Pleasure</i>, xxxv. 6, from the edition of 1555 (Percy +Soc., 1845, p. 113).</p> + +<p id="fn102">102. In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that +all anomalous lines in Spenser's measure become strict decasyllables when +done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident. My point is +that Chaucer's verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have +often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser's. The view I have +indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (<i>History of English +Poetry</i>, ii. p. 253). Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to +Chancer's influence to explain Spenser's anomalies, regards the metre in +question as derived from the old alliterative line. From this view I am +reluctantly forced to dissent. The alliterative line may be readily traced +in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes +and such comedies as <i>Royster Doyster</i>; and this tradition may have +affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even +the popular ideas concerning Chaucer's metre. But as to the actual origin +of Spenser's four-beat line there can surely be no doubt.</p> + +<p id="fn103">103. The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of +literary casuistry <i>(Spenser</i>, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly +astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and +similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the <i>Calender</i> and +elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores +the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done +nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a +Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his +own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for +their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, +while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their +authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. +Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at +all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily +unknown.</p> + +<p id="fn104">104. The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is +contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue. It is entitled +<i>Poimenologia</i>. The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, +fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596. Dove became Master of Arts in +1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation +probably belongs to an earlier date. I am indebted for knowledge of and +information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof. Moore Smith, and +of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College.</p> + +<p id="fn105">105. Winstanley (<i>Lives of the English Poets</i>, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it +to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin +version of the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn106">106. <i>Faery Queen</i>, VII. vi. 349, &c.</p> + +<p id="fn107">107. Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the <i>Orlando</i> and the +<i>Gerusalemme</i>, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in +Spenser can be directly referred.</p> + +<p id="fn108">108. See A. H. Bullen's edition, two vols., 1890-91. The poems in question +will be fonnd in vol. i, pp. 48, 58, 63 and 76.</p> + +<p id="fn109">109. It is worth noting that in the last stanza all the early editions +read 'Thenot' instead of 'Wrenock'; Thenot being the corresponding +character in Spenser.</p> + +<p id="fn110">110. Perhaps Anne Goodere: but the question is alien to our present +discussion. Some of the allusions in the eclogues are obvious, and +probably all the names, except perhaps the speaker's, conceal real +personalities. In the <i>Muses' Elizium</i>, on the other hand, most of the +names and characters appear to me fictitious. In connexion with the name +'Idea,' in which certain critics have wished to see a deep philosophical +meaning, I would suggest that it may be nothing but the feminine of +'Idaeus,' that is, a shepherd of Mount Ida, a name found in the second +eclogue of Petrarch. It is, however, true that the word 'idea' bore the +meaning of 'an ideal,' in which sense, no doubt, we occasionally find it +applied to England.</p> + +<p id="fn111">111. Concerning translations of Watson's Latin poems, I may be allowed to +refer to a paper contributed to the <i>Modern Language Quarterly</i>, February, +1904, vi. p. 125.</p> + +<p id="fn112">112. Cf. the passage from Spenser's October eclogue, quoted on p. 88.</p> + +<p id="fn113">113. A certain similarity between this poem and the song in <i>Love's +Labour's Lost</i>, beginning:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> On a day--alack the day!-- <br /> + Love, whose month was ever May;</p></blockquote> + +<p>has caused them to be at times ascribed to Shakespeare. They are +subscribed 'Ignoto' in <i>England's Helicon</i>, but appeared among the poems +published with Barnfield's <i>Lady Pecunia</i> in 1598, a tail of thirty lines +of very inferior quality being substituted for the singularly perfect and +effective final couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in +the <i>Passionate Pilgrim</i>, this time with both the couplet and the +addition. The <i>Helicon</i> version is certainly by far the best, and not +improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of +Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in <i>An English Miscellany</i>, +Oxford, 1901.</p> + +<p id="fn114">114. Gascoigne's <i>Steel Glass</i> is far rather medieval in conception.</p> + +<p id="fn115">115. Compare with the lines in <i>Rosalynd</i>, beginning 'Phoebe sat, sweet +she sat,' those in <i>Tarlton's News out of Purgatory</i>, beginning, 'Down I +sat, I sat down,' and see A. H. Bullen's <i>Poems from Elizabethan Romances</i>, +1890, p. xi.</p> + +<p id="fn116">116. The copy of <i>Pan's Pipe</i> in the British Museum wants the <i>Tale</i>, but +this will be found by itself marked C. 40. e. 68 (2, 3).</p> + +<p id="fn117">117. Collier and Hazlitt supposed two William Basses, but the balance of +evidence seems against the theory. See S. L. Lee in <i>Dic. Nat. Biog</i>., and +the edition by R. W. Bond, 1893.</p> + +<p id="fn118">118. Fleay (<i>Biographical Chronicle</i>, i. p. 67) identifies Musidore with +Lodge, and 'Hero's last Musaeus' with H. Petowe. The latter +identification, which had already been proposed by Collier +(<i>Bibliographical Account</i>, i. p. 130), is in all probability correct.</p> + +<p id="fn119">119. Printed by me in the <i>Modern Language Quarterly</i>, July, 1901, iv. p. +85.</p> + +<p id="fn120">120. These are missing in most copies of the book; the only one I know +containing them is in the Bodleian.</p> + +<p id="fn121">121. I do not know who started the idea. It was mentioned in the +<i>Retrospective Review</i> (ii. p. 180) in 1820, accepted by Sommer, and +elaborated with small success by K. Windscheid. Masson makes no mention of +it in his edition of Milton's poetical works. The author of <i>Lycidas</i> was +probably a reader and admirer of Browne's poems, but of <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i> rather than of the decidedly inferior eclogues.</p> + +<p id="fn122">122. The <i>Arcadian Princess</i>, translated by Brathwaite from Mariano +Silesio, a kind of metaphorical manual of judicial polity, is in no way +pastoral. It may be remarked that in 1627 there appeared as the work of +one I. D. B. an 'Eclogue, ou Chant Pastoral,' on the marriage (1625) of +Charles and Henrietta Maria, in which two Scotch Shepherds, Robin and +Jacquet, discourse in French Alexandrines. <i>Taylor's Pastoral</i> of 1624 +again, a fanciful treatise of religious and secular history, does not +properly belong to pastoral tradition.</p> + +<p id="fn123">123. One of these appeared two years previously, entitled <i>The Shepherd's +Oracle</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn124">124. Appended to the third edition of the <i>Arcadia</i>, 1598.</p> + +<p id="fn125">125. Appended to the <i>Arcadia</i> in 1613.</p> + +<p id="fn126">126. <i>Arcadia</i>, 1590, fol. 237 verso.</p> + +<p id="fn127">127. <i>Opera</i>, Basel, 1553, p. 622.</p> + +<p id="fn128">128. The song is said to be between 'two nymphs, each answering other +line for line'; but the simple alternation adopted by Spenser makes +nonsense of the present poem. The above arrangement seems to distribute +the lines best; viz. the first quatrain to Phillis, with interposition of +lines 2 and 4 by Amaryllis, the second quatrain to Amaryllis, with +interposition of line 2 only by Phillis.</p> + +<p id="fn129">129. Others in the <i>Passionate Pilgrim</i>, 1599, and Walton's <i>Complete +Angler</i>, 1653.</p> + +<p id="fn130">130. So, rather than 'Fair-lined,' as Bullen prints; but query +'Fur-lined.'</p> + +<p id="fn131">131. This is the text of <i>England's Helicon</i>, which is superior to that +in the play, except for the omission of the couplet in brackets, and +possibly in the reading 'hath sworn' for 'is sworn,' in l. 11.</p> + +<p id="fn132">132. From E. K. Chambers' <i>English Pastorals</i>, p. 113. The date is +uncertain, but a tune of the name was extant in 1603. The earliest +recorded text is a broadside, of about 1650, in the Roxburghe collection +(III. 142). The conjecture of an 'original issue, <i>circa</i> 1600,' is on the +whole plausible. In that case there was, somewhere, a poet capable of +anticipating the particular cadences of <i>Sirena</i> and <i>Agincourt</i>, and that +poet is more likely to have been Drayton than another. See Ebsworth's +edition for the Ballad Society (<i>Roxburghe Ballads</i>, vi. p. 460).</p> + +<p id="fn133">133. <i>Lycidas</i> is almost too familiar, one might suppose, to need +comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different +authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt +to view the work critically in relation to pastoral tradition as a whole.</p> + +<p id="fn134">134. When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as 'easy, +vulgar, and therefore disgusting,' he was but exhibiting a critical +incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters.</p> + +<p id="fn135">135. For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of +parallel passages--as well as some of doubtful relevance--the reader may +be referred to F. W. Moorman's monograph. I use the text of G. Goodwin's +edition of Browne's poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., +1894.</p> + +<p id="fn136">136. K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third +book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne. Its merit +is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; +and Browne's work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for +depriving or relieving him of its authorship.</p> + +<p id="fn137">137.</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> The hatred which they bore was only this, <br /> + That every one did hate to do amiss; <br /> + Their fortune still was subject to their will; <br /> + Their want--O happy!--was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> First of all joys that unto sin belong--<br /> + The sweet felicity of doing wrong.</p></blockquote> + +<p id="fn138">138. Pail.</p> + +<p id="fn139">139. The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to +ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful +minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been +constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on <i>Spanish +Literature in England</i>, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his +wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this +country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. +18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both +on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke +Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator +himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' +The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of +Spanish by Thomas Wilsõ Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle +of Southamptõ who was then uppon y<sup>e</sup> Spanish voiage w<sup>th</sup> my Lord of +Essex--Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers +are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish +nation, as is of y<sup>e</sup> English of [<i>sic</i>] y<sup>t</sup> admirable & never enough +praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.'</p> + +<p id="fn140">140. Arber's edition, p. 83.</p> + +<p id="fn141">141. See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his +paper on the <i>Pastoral Influence in the English Drama</i>. All needful +apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness' +'Variorum' edition of the play.</p> + +<p id="fn142">142. Macaulay once remarked of the <i>Faery Queen</i>, that few and weary are +the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. It might with +equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere +the Arcadian princesses in Sidney's romance are rescued from the power of +Cecropia.</p> + +<p id="fn143">143. Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the +Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here.</p> + +<p id="fn144">144. Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile +of the first edition, 1891.</p> + +<p id="fn145">145. Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10.</p> + +<p id="fn146">146. K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the <i>Arcadia</i> (<i>Sir Philip Sidneys +Arcadia und ihre Nachläufer</i>, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to +find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's +influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style +and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet +belonged essentially to the Spanish school.</p> + +<p id="fn147">147. Analyses of the <i>Arcadia</i> will be fouud in all works upon the novel +from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which +is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the <i>Retrospective +Review</i>, 1820, ii. p. 1.</p> + +<p id="fn148">148. An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the +critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his <i>Art of English +Poesy</i> (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas +Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the <i>Diana</i>, +given above (p. 141, note).</p> + +<p id="fn149">149. A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum.</p> + +<p id="fn150">150. See Jusserand's <i>English Novel in the time of Shakespeare</i>, 1890, p. +274.</p> + +<p id="fn151">151. The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the <i>Astrée</i> +as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most +concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here.</p> + +<p id="fn152">152. I should at once say that the view of the development of the +pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set +forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have +swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, +however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I +believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an +appendix.</p> + +<p id="fn153">153. 'Orfeo cantando giugne all' Inferno' is one of the stage directions.</p> + +<p id="fn154">154. For an elaborate example (1547) of this kind of stage, on which +various localities were simultaneously represented, see Petit de +Julleville, <i>Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française</i>, ii. +pp. 416-7.</p> + +<p id="fn155">155. Concerning the play see the account given by Symonds, together with +his admirable translation in <i>Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece</i>, +ii. p. 345, also an elaborate essay, 'L'Orfeo del Poliziano alla corte di +Mantova,' by Isidoro del Lungo, in the <i>Nuova antologia</i> for August, 1881, +and A. D'Ancona, <i>Origini del teatro italiano</i>, ii. pp. 2 and 106. The +standard edition of Poliziano's Italian works, that by Carducci, is +unfortunately not in the British Museum.</p> + +<p id="fn156">156. A note concerning the use of the term 'nymph' may save confusion. +Creizenach remarks that the introduction of a nymph as the beloved of a +shepherd is a peculiarity of the renaissance pastoral which manifestly +owes its origin to Boccaccio's <i>Ninfale fiesolano</i> (<i>Geschichte des +neueren Dramas</i>, ii. p. 196). In so far as this view implies that the +'nymphs' of pastoral convention are the same order of beings as those +either of the <i>Ninfale</i> or of classical myth, it appears to me utterly +erroneous. The 'nymphs' who love the shepherds in the renaissance +pastorals are nothing but shepherdesses. The confusion no doubt began with +Boccaccio. The nymph of Diana in the <i>Ninfale</i> is, as we have already +seen, nothing but a nun in pagan disguise. The nymphs of the <i>Ameto</i> are +represented as of the classical type, but their amorous confessions reveal +them as in nowise differing from mortal woman. The gradual change in the +connotation of the word is one of the results of the blending of Christian +and classical ideas. The original elemental or local spirits even in Greek +myth acquired some of the characteristics of votaries (as in the legeud of +Calisto), and these Christian tradition tended to accentuate, while +popular romance, and in many cases contemporary manners, facilitated the +connecting of such characters with tales of secret passion. Gradually, +however, the idea of illicit love gave place to one merely of unrestrained +natural desire, the religious elements of the character were forgotten as +the supernatural had been earlier, and 'nymph' came to be no more than the +feminine of 'shepherd' in an ideal society which by its freedom of +intercourse, as by its honesty of dealing, presented a complete contrast +to the polished circles of aristocratic Italy.</p> + +<p id="fn157">157. A small circular picture in <i>chiaroscuro</i> among the arabesques of +the <i>cappella nova</i> in the cathedral at Orvieto. It represents the +youthful Orpheus crowned with the laureate wreath playing before Pluto and +Proserpine upon a fiddle or crowd of antique pattern. At his feet lies +Eurydice, while around are spirits of the other world.</p> + +<p id="fn158">158. In some passages of this speech the resemblance with Ovid is very +close:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> famaque si ueteris non est mentita rapinae, <br /> + uos quoque iunxit Amor... <br /> + omnia debentur nobis, paulumque morati<br /> + serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam... <br /> + haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos, <br /> + iuris erit uestri; pro munere poscimus usum. <br /> + quod si fata negant ueniam pro coniuge, certum est<br /> + nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum. (<i>Met.</i> x. 28, &c.)</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn159">159. Cf. <i>Amores</i>, II. xii, ll. 1, 2, 5, and 16.</p> + +<p id="fn160">160. This interpretation of the passion of Orpheus, characteristic as it +is of renaissance thought, was not original. Though unknown in early +times, it is found in Phanocles, a poet probably of the third or fourth +century B. C.</p> + +<p id="fn161">161. So original: revision 'oè oè.'</p> + +<p id="fn162">162. The earliest edition I have seen is that contained in the 'Opere' of +June 10, 1507, where the heading runs: 'Fabula di Caephalo cõposta dal +Signor Nicolo da Correggia a lo Illustrissimo. D. Hercole & da lui +repsentata al suo floráº1/2tissimo Populo di Ferrara nel. M. cccc. lxxxvi. +adi. xxi. Ianuarii.' In this edition, printed at Venice by Manfrido Bono +de Monteferrato, the works are said to be 'Stampate nouamente: & ben +corrette.' Bibliographers record no edition previous to 1510. The date in +the heading is either a misprint, or refers to the year 1486-7 according +to the Venetian reckoning. See D'Ancona, <i>Origini del teatro</i>, ii. p. +128-9. Symonds (<i>Renaissance</i>, v. p. 120) quotes some Latin lines as from +the prologue to this play. This is an error. He has misread D'Ancona, to +whom he refers (ed. 1877), and from whom he evidently copied the +quotation. The lines actually occur in the prologue to a Latin play on the +subject of the taking of Granada.</p> + +<p id="fn163">163. Rossi, <i>Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido</i>, 1886, p. 171, note 2.</p> + +<p id="fn164">164. I do not, of course, mean that no mythological plays were produced +between the days of Correggio and those of Beccari, but that they show no +signs of consistent development in a pastoral or indeed in any other +direction.</p> + +<p id="fn165">165. <i>Il Verato secondo</i>, 1593, p. 206.</p> + +<p id="fn166">166. <i>Compendio della poesia tragicomica, tratto dai duo Verati</i>, 1602, +pp. 49-50.</p> + +<p id="fn167">167. In this and the following section I have used the texts of the +exceedingly useful collection of <i>Drammi de' boschi</i> in the 'Biblioteca +classica economica,' which comprises the <i>Aminta, Pastor fido, Filli di +Sciro</i>, and <i>Alceo</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn168">168. Symonds, in dealing with Tasso in the sixth volume of his <i>Italian +Renaissance</i>, lays, to my mind very justly, considerable stress upon this +quality.</p> + +<p id="fn169">169. Quoted by Serassi, Tasso's biographer, in his preface to the Bodoni +edition of the play (Crisopoli, 1789), p. 8.</p> + +<p id="fn170">170. See Angelo Solerti, <i>Vita di T. Tasso</i>, Torino, Loescher, 1895, i. +p. 181, &c. Carducci, 'Storia dell' <i>Aminta</i>,' the third of the <i>Saggi</i>, +80, 1st edition.</p> + +<p id="fn171">171. Leigh Hunt pointed out, in some interesting if rather uncritical +remarks prefixed to his translation of the <i>Aminta</i> (London, 1820), that +some at any rate of the regular choruses cannot have formed part of the +original composition. In fact the first edition (Aldus, 1581) contains +those to Acts I and V only; that to Act II appeared in the second edition +(Ferrara, 1581), and also in the collected <i>Rime</i> (Aldus, 1581); the rest +were added in the Aldine quarto of 1590.</p> + +<p id="fn172">172. Supposing always that this representation, of which Filippo +Baldinucci, in his <i>Notizie dei professori del disegno</i> (sec. iv, dec. +vii; 1688, p. 102), has left a glowing account, was a representation of +the <i>Aminta</i>, and not, as some have maintained, of the <i>Intrichi d' +amore</i>, another play sometimes ascribed to Tasso.</p> + +<p id="fn173">173. Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce's <i>Dido</i>; +and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is +extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of +the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209). The prologue to +the <i>Pastor fido</i> is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of +Bonarelli's <i>Filli di Sciro</i>, which begins with another Ovidian +reminiscence (<i>Amores</i>, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken +by a personification of night, that of Ongaro's <i>Alceo</i> by Venus, of +Castelletti's <i>Amarilli</i> by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' of Cristoforo +Lauro's <i>Frutti d'amore</i> by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana's <i>Prova +amoroso</i>, by Hercules. The list might be extended indefinitely. Contarini, +at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his +<i>Finta Fiammetta</i> has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, +Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of <i>amoretti</i>; that +of his <i>Fida ninfa</i> is spoken by the shade of Petrarch.</p> + +<p id="fn174">174. Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, +1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would +identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt +possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience +conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino +contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see +Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and +sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal +Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the +part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent +attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred +the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on +his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on +three of Pigna's wooden <i>canzoni</i>, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is +appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the +words:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava<br /> + Pur di colei che nell' istessa rete<br /> + Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse; <br /> + E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo<br /> + Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.)</p></blockquote> + +<p>The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. +94), be sought in an epigram, <i>Ad Licorim</i>, found among Pigna's Latin +<i>Carmina</i> (1553). The whole incident throws a curious light on the +pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, +however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while +mentioning that by the <i>antro dell' Aurora</i> was no doubt intended the room +in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of +Leonora, still known as the <i>sala dell' Aurora</i>, from a wretched fresco on +the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi.</p> + +<p id="fn175">175. <i>Aminta</i>, I. i; <i>Canace</i>, IV. ii.</p> + +<p id="fn176">176. <i>Lettere del Guarini</i>, Veneta, Ciotti, 1615, p. 92. See Rossi, +56<sup>1</sup></p> + +<p id="fn177">177. I have already had occasion to point out that, from the time of +Boccaccio onwards, a nymph of Diana might represent a nun, but the whole +of Silvia's relations with Dafne make it plain that she is in no way vowed +to virginity. Her being represented as a follower of Diana implies no more +than that she is fancy-free, and so in a sense under the protection of the +virgin goddess. This use of the phrase is as old as Theocritus: 'Artemis, +be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow' (<i>Idyl</i> 27). And it is so used +by Silvia herself in her proud and petulant retort to Aminta: 'Pastor, non +mi toccar; son di Diana' (III. i).</p> + +<p id="fn178">178. The idea passed from Italian into English verse:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> tell me why<br /> + This goblin 'honour,' by the world enshrined, <br /> + Should make men atheists, and not women kind--</p></blockquote> + +<p>to improve upon the exceedingly neat bowdlerization which the Rev. J. W. +Ebsworth has sought to palm off as the genuine text of Tom Carew.</p> + +<p id="fn179">179. We have, in the passages quoted, a foretaste of the priggish +extravagance of the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i>. That there should have been +found critics to combine just but wholly otiose condemnation of Cloe with +reverential appreciation of the absurdities of Clorin and Thenot, and to +clap applause to the self-conscious virtue, little removed from smugness, +in which the 'moral grandeur' of the Lady of the Ludlow masque is clothed, +is indeed a striking witness to the tyranny of conventional morality. If +virginal purity were in fact the hypocritical convention which it is to +some extent possible to condone in the <i>Aminta</i>, but which becomes wholly +loathsome in the work of Fletcher, the sooner it disappeared from the +region of practical ethics the better for the moral health of humanity.</p> + +<p id="fn180">180. Menagio's edition is said to have appeared in 1650, but I have only +seen the edition of 1655, which I also notice is the date given by Weise +and Pèrcopo (p. 319). The play is said to have been printed in Italy alone +some two hundred times; there are twenty French translations, five German, +at least nine English, several in Spanish and other languages. A version +in the Slavonic Illyrian dialect appeared in 1598; a Latin one in iambic +trimeters by Andrea Hiltebrando, a Pomeranian physician, in 1615; another +in modern Greek in 1745. See Carducci, p. 99.</p> + +<p id="fn181">181. Published, together with Paglia's reply, by Antonio Bulifon in his +<i>Lettere memorabili</i>, Naples, 1698, iii. p. 307. The play had already been +adversely criticized by Francesco Patrizi and Gian Vincenzo Gravina.</p> + +<p id="fn182">182. 'L'Aminta difeso e illustrato da G. Fontanini,' Roma, 1700. Another +edition appeared in 1730 at Venice, with further annotations by Uberto +Benvoglienti.</p> + +<p id="fn183">183. It is, however, perfectly true that the play, together with the +writings in its defence and the notes, to be considered later, occupied +the attention of the author for a period of fully twenty years, and it is +possibly thus that the tradition arose. I may say that throughout this +section I am under deep obligations to Rossi's monograph.</p> + +<p id="fn184">184. Rossi, p. 183. I shall return to the point.</p> + +<p id="fn185">185. In later days he was often called Giovanbattista, but the addition +is without authority, in spite of its appearance in the British Museum +catalogue.</p> + +<p id="fn186">186. This preliminary history is drawn, as Guarini himself points out in +his notes of 1602, from Pausanias (VII. 21), though less closely than he +there implies. The rest of the plot he claimed as original, but it is to a +large extent merely a rehandling of the same motive.</p> + +<p id="fn187">187. Carino is said to represent Guarini in the same manner as Tirsi does +Tasso.</p> + +<p id="fn188">188. There is a legend that this scene was placed on the Index. This, +anyhow, cannot refer to the <i>Index Librorum Prohibitorum</i>, but only to the +<i>Index Expurgatorius</i>, which was at no time an officiai publication. But +the whole story appears to be without foundation.</p> + +<p id="fn189">189. In comparing the two pieces, it is worth remembering that, whereas +the <i>Aminta</i> contains about 2,000 lines, the <i>Pastor fido</i> runs to close +upon 7,000.</p> + +<p id="fn190">190. <i>Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo XVI</i>, Milano, 1880, +pp. 244-7. See Rossi, p. 264. His argument is that it anticipated a revolt +against the conventional nature of domestic love, reflecting better than +any other dramatic work the ideas that towards the end of the +<i>cinquecento</i> were, according to him, leading in the direction of a moral +regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile +his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the +counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a +tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical +convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of +domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid tragedy +of Guarini's own family.</p> + +<p id="fn191">191. The quotations are from the opening scene of either play. The +parallel is that selected by Symonds for quotation, and is among the most +striking examples of Guarini's method, but similar instances might be +collected from almost every scene.</p> + +<p id="fn192">192. G. B. Manso, <i>Vita di T. Tasso</i>, Venezia, Denchino, 1621, p. 329. +Carducci, p. 99.</p> + +<p id="fn193">193. 'Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale di Battista Guarini, Dedicata +al Ser'mo. D. Carlo Emanuele Duca di Sauoia, &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S. A. +con la Ser'ma. Infante D. Caterina d'Austria.' The tradition of a +performance on this occasion dates from early in the seventeenth century, +and is endorsed by the poet's nephew and biographer, Alessandro Guarini. +It is in part due to a confusion of words: the play was <i>presentato</i>, but +not <i>rappresentato</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn194">194. Guarini, <i>Lettere</i>, Venetia, Ciotti, 1615, p. 174. Rossi, 228<sup>7</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn195">195. At least one of these, a worthless production by a certain Niccolo +Averara, is extant. That of 1598 was probably spoken by Hymen. Rossi, pp. +232-3.</p> + +<p id="fn196">196. It has sometimes been supposed that the Baldini edition, Ferrara, +1590, was the earlier, but Guarini's letter is conclusive.</p> + +<p id="fn197">197. Of this edition the British Museum possesses a magnificent copy on +large and thick paper, bearing on the title-page the inscription: 'Al +Ser<sup>mo</sup>. Principe di Vinegia Marin Grimani,' showing that it was the +presentation copy to the Doge at the time of publication. Another copy on +large but not on thick paper is in my own possession, and has on the +title-page the remains of a similar inscription beginning apparently 'All +Ill<sup>mo</sup> et R<sup>mo</sup>...' I rather suspect it of being the copy presented to +the ecclesiastic, whoever he was, who represented the Congregation of the +Index at Venice. Innumerable editions followed; I have notes of no less +than fifty during the half-century succeeding publication, i.e. 1590-1639.</p> + +<p id="fn198">198. The authorship of the notes is placed beyond doubt by a letter of +Guarini's, otherwise it might have been doubted whether even he could have +been guilty of the fulsome self-laudation they contain. On the controversy +see Rossi, pp. 238-43.</p> + +<p id="fn199">199. Certain modern writers have shown themselves worthy descendants of +the criticaster of Vicenza by insisting that the play should properly be +called the <i>Pastorella fida</i>. Guarini was weak enough to reply to +Malacreta's carpings in his notes, and thereby exposed himself to similar +attacks from posterity.</p> + +<p id="fn200">200. The absurdity lies of course in the commanding merit ascribed to the +piece. As Saintsbury has pointed out in his <i>History of Criticism</i>, had +Aristotle known the romantic drama of the renaissance, the <i>Poetics</i> would +have been largely another work.</p> + +<p id="fn201">201. Summo evidently thought that Pescetti's defence at least was the +work of Guarini himself. There is no evidence that this was so, but Rossi +considers it not improbable that Guarini at least directed the labours of +his supporters.</p> + +<p id="fn202">202. It is unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of these +plays. The following titles, however, quoted by Stiefel in his review of +Rossi, may be mentioned. Scipione Dionisio, <i>Amore cortese</i>, 1570 (?) (not +the Alessandro Dionisio whose <i>ecloga</i>, entitled <i>Amorosi sospiri</i>, with +intermezzos of a mythological character, was printed in 1599); Niccolò +degli Angeli, <i>Ligurino</i>, 1574 (so Allacci, <i>Drammaturgia</i>, 1755; the only +edition in the British Museum is dated 1594; Venus and Silenus are among +the characters, and the prologue is spoken by 'Tempo'); Cesare della +Valle, <i>Filide</i>, 1579; Giovanni Fratta, <i>La Nigella</i>, 1580; Cristoforo +Castelletti, <i>Amarilli</i>, 1580 (which edition, though given by Allacci, +appears to be now unknown, as is also the date of composition; a second +edition appeared in 1582; the prologue was spoken by 'Apollo in habito +pastorale,' and Ongaro contributed a commendatory sonnet); Giovanni Donato +Cuchetti, <i>La Pazzia</i>, 1581; Pietro Cresci, <i>Tirena</i>, 1584; Alessandro +Mirari, <i>Mauriziano</i>, 1584; Dionisio Rondinelli, <i>Galizia</i>, 1583 (his +<i>Pastor vedovo</i> was printed in 1599, with a prologue spoken by +'Primavera,' and an echo scene).</p> + +<p id="fn203">203. Preface to the Bodoni edition of the <i>Aminta</i>, p. 12.</p> + +<p id="fn204">204. This episode of the double love of Celia formed the subject of an +attack on the play. The author wrote an elaborate defence which was +printed at Ancona in 1612. It runs to 221 quarto pages.</p> + +<p id="fn205">205. I am aware that attempts have been made to find evidence of Italian +influence in Lyly, but of this later.</p> + +<p id="fn206">206. The piece appeared anonymously, but the authorship is attested by +Nashe in his preface to Greene's <i>Menaphon</i>, 1589. Some songs from the +play also appear over Peele's signature in <i>England's Helicon</i>, 1600. I +have quoted from A. H. Bullen's edition of Peele's works, 2 vols. 1888.</p> + +<p id="fn207">207. Fraunce's translation in his <i>Ivychurch</i> (<i>vide post</i>), and J. +Wolfe's edition, together with the <i>Pastor fido</i>, both 1591.</p> + +<p id="fn208">208. Like Dove. Cf. p. 98.</p> + +<p id="fn209">209. i.e. coupled impartially with its reward.</p> + +<p id="fn210">210. Umpire.</p> + +<p id="fn211">211. Groves.</p> + +<p id="fn212">212. The entry of the piece to R. Jones, on July 26, 1591, in the +Stationers' Register, coupled with the fact that <i>England's Parnassus</i> +quotes almost entirely from printed works, puts this practically beyond +doubt. It is of course possible that a copy may yet be discovered.</p> + +<p id="fn213">213. Dr. Henry Jackson, than whom no classical scholar has devoted more +study to the Elizabethan drama, draws my attention to the fact that a +somewhat indelicate passage in the play, obscurely hinted at in Drummond's +notes (ed. Bullen, ii. p. 366), evidently forms the basis of that poet's +own epigram 'Of Nisa' (ed. Turnbull, p. 104).</p> + +<p id="fn214">214. Two other plays of Lyly's appear at first sight to present pastoral +features. There are five 'shepherds' among the dramatis personae of +<i>Mydas</i>, but they appear in one scene only (IV. ii), and merely represent +the common people, introduced to comment on the actions of the king. The +names, as is usual with Lyly, except in the case of comic characters, are +classical. The other play is <i>Mother Bombie</i>, which, however, is nothing +but a comedy of low life, combining the tradition of the Latin comedy with +the native farce, which goes back through <i>Gammer Gurton</i> to the old +interludes. It contains a good deal of honest fun and a notable lack of +Euphuism.</p> + +<p id="fn215">215. For many years, indeed, his romance continued to run through +ever-fresh editions, that of 1636 being the twelfth. It is clear, however, +that its public had changed.</p> + +<p id="fn216">216. It is a curious fact that the authorship of these songs, though it +has never been seriously questioned, rests on very uncertain evidence. I +may refer to an article on the subject in the <i>Modern Language Review</i> for +October, 1905, i. p. 43.</p> + +<p id="fn217">217. A play entitled 'Iphis and Ianthe, or A marriage without a man,' was +entered on the Stationers' Register on June 29, 1660, as the work of +Shakespeare.</p> + +<p id="fn218">218. Lyly may very possibly have known the story of Hesione cited by R. W. +Bond (ii. 421), but it presents no particular points of similarity, and the +outline of the legend was of course common property. A similar sacrifice +forms an episode in <i>Orlando furioso</i>, VIII. 52, &c.; the sacrifice of a +youth to an <i>orribile serpe</i> also forms the central incident in Orazio +Serono's <i>Fida Armilla</i>, 1610; while the motive of the annual sacrifice +occurs of course in the <i>Pastor fido</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn219">219. There can be little doubt as to the identity of the 'Commoedie of +Titirus and Galathea,' entered on the Stationers' Register under date +April 1, 1585; and now that, thanks to Bond's researches, it is evident +that the reference to <i>Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus</i> (see III. iii) +was no <i>ex post facto</i> prophecy, but borrowed from Richard Harvey's +<i>Astrological Discourse</i> of 1583, there is no reason to suppose a double +date.</p> + +<p id="fn220">220. Bond argues in favour of the extant text being mutilated, and +representing a late revival about 1600. I am not prepared, and in the +present place certainly not concerned, to dispute his hypothesis; whatever +the cause, the literary result is unsatisfactory, and from his remarks +concerning its dramatic merits I must emphatically dissent.</p> + +<p id="fn221">221. Bond's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for <i>nip</i> of the quarto.</p> + +<p id="fn222">222. This story, strangely characterized as 'extremely attractive' by +Bond, is elaborated from that given by Ovid in the eighth book of the +<i>Metamorphoses</i>. I have elsewhere alluded to the theory of Italian +pastoral influence in Lyly. I had in mind L. L. Schiicking's monograph on +<i>Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komodie zur italienischen bis +Lilly</i>, Halle, 1901, but must here state that to my mind he has completely +failed to prove his thesis. I need not enter into details in this place, +but may refer to Bond's discussion in his 'Note on Italian influence in +Lyly's plays' (ii. p. 473). There is, however, one passage in <i>Love's +Metamorphosis</i> (not mentioned by Schucking) which suggests a reminiscence +of the <i>Aminta</i>; Cupid, namely, describes himself (V. i.) as 'such a god +that maketh thunder fall out of Joves hand, by throwing thoughts into his +heart.' Compare the lines in Tasso's Prologue:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> un dio... <br /> + Che fa spesso cader di mano a Marte<br /> + La sanguinosa spada... <br /> + E le folgori eterne al sommo Giove.</p></blockquote> + +<p>I give the parallel for what it is worth. So far as I am aware it is the +only one which can claim the least plausibility, and alone it is clearly +insufficient to prove any borrowing on the part of the English playwright.</p> + +<p id="fn223">223. Bond adduces some fairly strong reasons for supposing it later than +1590. A. W. Ward was evidently unable to make up his mind upon the +question, and treats the play at the head of the list of Lyly's works, in +which it seems to me that he hardly does justice to his critical powers.</p> + +<p id="fn224">224. A very similar reminiscence of Marlowe's rhythm: /p And think I wear +a rich imperial crowne, p/ occurs in the old play of <i>King Leir</i>, which +must belong to about the same date, <i>c.</i> 1592.</p> + +<p id="fn225">225. It is possible, though of course by no means necessary, that we have +a specifie reminiscence of the lines in <i>Faustus</i>:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> More lovely than the monarch of the sky<br /> + In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.)</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn226">226. I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays +which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the +question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, +mention the <i>Atalanta</i> of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than +Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 +to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though +the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion +with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced.</p> + +<p id="fn227">227. See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to +the <i>Ivychurch</i>, in which the translation appeared, 1591.</p> + +<p id="fn228">228. The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that +Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the +Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in +the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's +relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die +englischen Tasso-Übersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in <i>Anglia</i>, vol. xi +(1889), p. 11.</p> + +<p id="fn229">229. 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would +be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oimè! tu vivi; +Altri non già': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules.</p> + +<p id="fn230">230. Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as +happened to be more familiar with that language.</p> + +<p id="fn231">231. Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the +opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has +surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests +ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose <i>Theatrum +Poetarum</i>, 1675, we find <i>s.v.</i> Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): +'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' +Who this John was is open to question. The <i>Dic. Nat. Biog.</i> recognizes +three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John +Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, +Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (<i>fl.</i> 1621-50), author of <i>God's +Revenge against Murder</i>, and of translations from French and Dutch; and +(3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British +Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, +of Exeter, author of <i>God's Revenge</i> and other works, and John Reynolds +the translator (to whom the <i>Aminta</i> is tentatively ascribed). I am not +aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in +the composition of <i>God's Revenge</i> to make one suppose the author capable +of producing the translation of the <i>Aminta</i>. On the other hand, it must +be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably +in the <i>Flower of Fidelity</i>, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on +a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John +Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is +second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present +case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with +this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which +appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end +of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with +Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable +series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the +Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. +112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice +in the <i>Dic. Nat. Biog.</i> This ascription is based upon the entry in the +Stationers' Register, which runs: '7º Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred +for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A +booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... +vj<sup>d</sup>' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an +epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more +reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the <i>Dic. Nat. Biog.</i> +further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is +proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his +remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the <i>Aminta</i> (Parma, 1789), +ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the +dates 1628 and 1698.</p> + +<p id="fn232">232. Streams or inlets.</p> + +<p id="fn233">233. The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the +translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line.</p> + +<p id="fn234">234. Later translations of the <i>Aminta</i> may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, +1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; +Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by +Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had +the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of +the <i>Aminta</i> as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention +that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of +Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the +B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared <i>c.</i> 1650. I +have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the +second belongs to <i>c.</i> 1730.</p> + +<p id="fn235">235. The facts are as follow. The entry on the Stationers' Register is +dated September 16, 1601, and does not mention the translator's name. The +first edition, quarto, 1602, contains a sonnet by Daniel, addressed to Sir +Edward Dymocke, in which he refers to the translator as the knight's +'kinde Countryman.' This is followed by 'A Sonnet of the Translator, +dedicated to that honourable Knight his kinsman, Syr Edward Dymock.' After +this comes an epistle dedicatory addressed to Sir Edward, and signed by +Simon Waterson, the publisher, dated 'London this last of December. 1601.' +In it the writer speaks of Sir Edward's 'nearenesse of kinne to the +deceased Translator.' The play was reprinted in 1633, in 12mo, with an +epistle dedicatory by John Waterson to 'Charles Dymock, Esquire,' +beginning: 'That it may appeare unto the world, that you are Heire of what +ever else was your Fathers, as well as of his vertues, I heere restore +what formerly his gracious acceptance made onely his: Which as a +testimonie to all, that it received Life from none but him, was content to +loose its being with us, since he ceased to bee.' Through the hyperbolical +ambiguity of this passage it clearly appears that Charles was Sir Edward's +son, but not in the least that he was the translator as has been supposed, +still less that he was the son of the translator, as has also been +suggested. The play is first mentioned in the second edition (1782) of the +<i>Biographia Dramatica</i>, where the translator is said to be a 'Mr. Dymock,' +and Charles is identified as his son. This was copied in the 1812 edition, +and also by Halliwell, while Mr. Hazlitt has the astonishing statement +that the version was by 'Charles Dymock and a second person unknown.' The +<i>Dic. Nat. Biog.</i> does not recognize any of the persons concerned. There +is, however, one curious piece of evidence which has been so far +overlooked. In the list of plays, namely, appended by the publisher Edward +Archer to his edition of the <i>Old Law</i> in 1656, occurs the entry: +'Faithfull Shepheardesse. C[omedy]. John Dymmocke.' The compiler has of +course confused the translation with Fletcher's play, but the ascription +is nevertheless interesting. If we insist on identifying the translator at +all, it must be with this John Dymocke. The entries in Archer's list, +however, are far too untrustworthy for their unsupported evidence to carry +much weight. A translation 'by D. D. Gent. 12mo. 1633,' recorded by +Halliwell and others, is evidently due to a series of blunders on the part +of bibliographers, though what the origin of the initials is I have been +unable to discover. They are probably due to Coxeter.</p> + +<p id="fn236">236. MS. Addit. 29,493.</p> + +<p id="fn237">237. I understand that an edition of Fanshawe's works is in preparation +for Mr. Bullen.</p> + +<p id="fn238">238. Later translations of the <i>Pastor fido</i> appeared in 1782 [by +William Grove], and in 1809 [by William Clapperton?].</p> + +<p id="fn239">239. MS. Ff. ii. 9.</p> + +<p id="fn240">240. The allusion, which has hitherto escaped notice, will be found +quoted below, p. 252 note.</p> + +<p id="fn241">241. In this note the <i>Pastor fido</i> is said to have been 'Translated by +some Author before this,' but the context makes it evident that 'some' is +a misprint for 'the same.'</p> + +<p id="fn242">242. It might be objected that J. S. is called 'Gent,' while Sidnam is +termed esquire; but it should be remarked that in the MS. the 'Esq;' has +been added in a later hand.</p> + +<p id="fn243">243. MS. Sloane 836, folio 76<sup>v</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn244">244. MS. Sloane 857, folio 195<sup>v</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn245">245. MS. Addit. 12,128. Another MS. in the Bodleian.</p> + +<p id="fn246">246. No doubt the Samuel Brooke who became Master in 1629. He was the +brother of the Christopher Brooke who appears in Wither's eclogues under +the pastoral name of Cuddie. Cf. p. 116.</p> + +<p id="fn247">247. There is something wrong with this date. The princes were at +Cambridge 2-4 March, 1612-13. (See Nichols' <i>James I</i>, iii. (iv.) p. +1086-7. The date 'March 6' in ii. p. 607 is an error.) Probably 'Martij +30º,' which appears in the University Library MS., as well as in several +MSS. at Trinity, is a slip of the transcriber for 'Martij 3º,' which would +set both day and year right. Nichols, indeed, gives the date as 'Martii +3º,' but he refers to the Emmanuel MS., which, like the others, reads +'30.'</p> + +<p id="fn248">248. MS. Ee. 5. 16.</p> + +<p id="fn249">249. An anonymous writer in B. M. MS. Harl. 7044, quoted by Nichols +(<i>James I</i>, i. p. 553), has the following description: '<i>Veneris</i>, 30º +<i>Augusti</i> [1605]. There was an English play acted in the same place before +the Queen and young Prince, with all the Ladies and Gallants attending the +Court. It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which +was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cambridge. I was not there +present, but by report it was well acted and greatly applauded. It was +named "Arcadia Reformed."' This has led Fleay into a strange error. '<i>The +Queen's Arcadia</i>' he says <i>(Biog. Chron.</i> i. p. 110), 'although it is not +known to have been acted till 1605, Aug. 30, had been prepared earlier +(and perhaps acted at Herbert's marriage, 1604, Dec. 27), for it is called +"<i>Arcadia, reformed</i>."' Of course the allusion is to the reformation of +Arcadia, not the revision of the play. The play was printed the following +year.</p> + +<p id="fn250">250. For further details concerning the occasion of this piece, as also +for information on the state of the text, I may refer to an article of +mine in the <i>Modern Language Quarterly</i> for August, 1903, vi. p. 59. The +first edition appeared in 1615.</p> + +<p id="fn251">251. Grosart's edition, printed, not always very correctly, from the +collected works of 1623, offers too unsatisfactory a text for quotation. I +have therefore quoted from the edition of 1623 itself, corrected, where +necessary, by the separate editions, and, in the case of <i>Hymen's +Triumph</i>, by Drummond's MS.</p> + +<p id="fn252">252. Dramatic prologues occur in some of the later Italian pastorals (see +p. 185, note). That to <i>Hymen's Triumph</i> recalls the dialogue between +Comedy and Envy prefixed to <i>Mucedorus</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn253">253. Alexis is one of those characters whose appearance, while not +essential to the plot, lends life to the romantic drama, and whose +conspicuous absence in the neo-classic type is ill compensated by the +prodigal introduction of superfluous confidants.</p> + +<p id="fn254">254. It is just possible that Daniel took a hint for this episode from +Dickenson's romance, <i>Arisbas</i> (1594), meutioned above, p. 147.</p> + +<p id="fn255">255. The similarity between Silvia and Shakespeare's Viola and Beaumont's +Euphrasia-Bellario is too obvious to need comment. It may, however, be +remarked that in Noci's <i>Cintia</i> (1594) the heroine returns home disguised +as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. See p. 212.</p> + +<p id="fn256">256. This narrative has been much admired, notably by Lamb and Coleridge, +critics from whom it is not good to differ; but I must nevertheless +confess that, to my taste, Daniel's sentiment, here as elsewhere, is +inclined to verge upon the fulsome and the ludicrous.</p> + +<p id="fn257">257. It is evident that this pompous inflation of style damaged the piece +upon the stage, for on Feb. 10, 1613-4, John Chamberlain, writing to Sir +Dudley Carleton, described the performance as 'solemn and dull.'</p> + +<p id="fn258">258. The corresponding passage in the <i>Aminta</i> (I. ii.) is marred by a +series of rather artificial conceits.</p> + +<p id="fn259">259. Architecture or building. A very rare use not recognized by the New +English Dictionary, though it is also found in Browne's <i>Britannia's +Pastorals</i> (I. iv. 405):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> To find an house ybuilt for holy deed, <br /> + With goodly architect, and cloisters wide.</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn260">260. Guarini had already called dreams (<i>Pastor fido</i>, I. iv):</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Immagini del dì, guaste e corrotte + Dall' ombre della notte.</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn261">261. Saintsbury, in his <i>Elizabethan Literature</i>, insists, not +unnaturally, on Daniel's lack of strength. Upon this Grosart commented in +his edition (iv. p. xliv.): 'This seems to me exceptionally uncritical.... +One special quality of Samuel Daniel is the inevitableness with which he +rises when any "strong" appeal is made to ... his imagination.' The +partiality of an editor could surely go no further.</p> + +<p id="fn262">262. The prodigality of <i>Oh's</i> and <i>Ah's</i> is an obvious characteristic of +his verse, which may possibly have been in Jonson's mind when, in the +prologue to the <i>Sad Shepherd</i>, he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> But that no stile for Pastorall should goe<br /> + Current, but what is stamp'd with <i>Ah</i>, and <i>O</i>;<br /> + Who judgeth so, may singularly erre.</p></blockquote> + + +<p id="fn263">263. This could hardly be maintained as literally true were we to include +the Latin plays of the Universities. Of these, however, I propose to take +merely incidental notice. In no case do they appear to be of considerable +importance, and they are, as a rule, only preserved in MSS. which are +often difficult of access. I may here mention one which reached the +distinction of print, and is of a more regularly Italian structure than +most. The title-page reads: 'Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Iacobus +Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniæ Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, +ibidemq; Musarum, atque eius animi gratiâ dies quinque Commoraretur. +Egerunt alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. +Excudebat Cantrellus Legge. Mart. 27. 1615.' The play was acted, according +to the invaluable John Chamberlain, on March 10, 1614-5, and appears to +have made a very favourable impression. It belongs to the series of +entertainments which included the representation of <i>Albumazar</i>, and was +to have included that of Phineas Fletcher's <i>Sicelides</i>, had the king +remained another night. The author of <i>Melanthe</i> is said to have been 'Mr. +Brookes,' probably the Dr. Samuel Brooke who had produced the +already-mentioned translation of Bonarelli's <i>Filli di Sciro</i> two years +before. See Nichols' <i>Progresses of James I</i>, iii. p. 55.</p> + +<p id="fn264">264. Fleay considers the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> a joint production of +Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory +is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten +yeers since, hath [<i>sic</i>] written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a +Tragicomedie, well done.' Considering that the same authority makes Jonson +ascribe the <i>Inner Temple Masque</i> to Fletcher, his statement as to the +<i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think +that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher +in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to +think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his <i>Biographical +Chronicle</i>, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For +myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand +Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on +account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but +A. H. Thorndike (<i>The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere</i>, +Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that +dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than +Fleay imagined.</p> + +<p id="fn265">265. Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of +Thenot and the unconventional rôle of the satyr, find parallels in the +earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls +the enchanted lake of the <i>Sacrifizio</i>; the introduction of a supernatural +agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's +<i>Mirzia</i>; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, +indebted to the revised version of the <i>Orfeo</i>; the character of Thenot is +anticipated in the <i>Sfortunato</i>. I give the resemblances for what they are +worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have +been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not +impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a +survival of the ordeal by fire.</p> + +<p id="fn266">266. Certain critics have suggested that the <i>Pastor fido</i> might more +appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, +since it would mean giving the title-rôle to the wholly secondary Dorinda. +Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. +With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely +nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the +piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central +character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I +incline to believe that it is the latter that is the 'faithful +shepherdess,' since it might be contended that, in the conventional +language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the +'constant shepherdess.' (Cf. II. ii. 130.)</p> + +<p id="fn267">267. See Homer Smith's paper on <i>Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama</i>. His theory concerning the <i>Faithful Shepherdess</i> will be found on +p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the +detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular +instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea.</p> + +<p id="fn268">268. 'Poems' [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral +poetry already quoted, p. 18, note.</p> + +<p id="fn269">269. One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is +the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to +sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent +absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the +good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in +the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score.</p> + +<p id="fn270">270. I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added +the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the 'Temple Dramatists.'</p> + +<p id="fn271">271. The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr +is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's +beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle +disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious +power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage +nature appears a little fatuous.</p> + +<p id="fn272">272. Specifically from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is +almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when +we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been.</p> + +<p id="fn273">273. In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of <i>La +Fida pastora,</i> by 'FF. Anglo-Britannus,' namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as +appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page.</p> + +<p id="fn274">274. As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to +court representation.</p> + +<p id="fn275">275. Randolph's familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there +is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis' humorous +expansion of Corisca's remark about changing her lovers like her clothes:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Other Nymphs<br /> + Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne, <br /> + Nay, every petticote; I have only one, <br /> + The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.)</p></blockquote> + +<p id="fn276">276. A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, ὀμφή, a divine +voice or prophecy. He may possibly have associated the word with the +Delphic ὀμφαλός.</p> + +<p id="fn277">277. It is possible that Laurinda's indecision may owe something to the +<i>doppio amore</i> of Celia in the <i>Filli di Sciro</i>. See especially III. i. of +that play.</p> + +<p id="fn278">278. Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as +'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking +of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a +servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the +comments in the <i>Dictionary of Plays</i> are original. The above first +appears in the <i>Biographia Dramatica</i> of 1812, and may therefore be +ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further +words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' +The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical +claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his <i>Illustrations of +the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> (Shakespeare Soc., +1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we +are not informed.</p> + +<p id="fn279">279. 1822, p. 61. This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of +the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever +better deserved than that administered by the <i>Saturday Review</i> on August +21, 1875. As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have +had recourse to the very correct first edition of the <i>Poems</i>, 1638, +checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues.</p> + +<p id="fn280">280. The sense in the original is defective.</p> + +<p id="fn281">281. i.e. Tethys, a very common confusion.</p> + +<p id="fn282">282. The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes +it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole +collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 +twice. In 1703 appeared the <i>Fickle Shepherdess</i>, 'As it is Acted in the +New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all +by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to +be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose +rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the +language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good +verse into bad prose.</p> + +<p id="fn283">283. Vide post, p. 382.</p> + +<p id="fn284">284. For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to +the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the <i>Materialien zur Kunde +des älteren Englischen Dramas</i> (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may +be quoted. '(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed +more of the <i>Sad Shepherd</i> than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of +the substantial identity of the <i>Sad Shepherd</i> and the <i>May Lord</i> must be +rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at +all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected +in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. +(iv) The <i>May Lord</i> was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) +The date of the <i>Sad Shepherd</i> cannot be fixed with certainty; but there +is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and +the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in <i>Jonsonus Virbius</i>], which agree in +placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.'</p> + +<p id="fn285">285. The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected +editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary +state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a +separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldrou, whose edition, with +continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. +viii), was given in Lamb's <i>Specimens</i>. In quoting from the play I have +preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely +correcting certain obvions errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which +wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text.</p> + +<p id="fn286">286. Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion.</p> + +<p id="fn287">287. It involves, moreover, the critical fallacy of supposing that poetry +is a sort of richly embroidered garment wherewith to clothe the nakedness +of the underlying substance. This may be so in certain cases in which the +poet is made and not born, or in which he forces himself to work at an +uncongenial theme. But in a genuine work of art the substance cannot so be +separated from the form without injury to both. The poetry in this case is +not an external adornment, but a necessary part of the structure, without +which it would be something else than what it is. Verse, when in organic +relation with the subject, modifies the character of that subject itself, +and the subject can only be rightly apprehended through the medium of the +verse. I contend that the <i>Sad Shepherd</i> is a case in point, and Mr. +Swinburne's remarks, I conceive, bear out my view. I shall not, therefore, +seek to analyse the types represented by the characters--styling poor +little Amie a modification of the type of the 'forward shepherdess'!--nor +count the number of lines assigned respectively to the shepherds, to the +huntsmen, or to the witch; but shall endeavonr to ascertain the particular +object Jonson had in view in adopting a particular presentation of the +subject, the means he employed, and the measure of success he achieved.</p> + +<p id="fn288">288. The distinction which appears to belong peculiarly to the drama is +most likely a survival of the influence of the mythological plays, in +which the huntress nymphs of Diana frequently appear. We find, however, a +tendency to a similar dualism in Mantuan's upland and lowland swains.</p> + +<p id="fn289">289. It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is +originally none other than the familiar figure of French <i>pastourelles</i>. +However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. +It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough +material. See E. K. Chambers, <i>The Mediaeval Stage</i>, i. p. 175.</p> + +<p id="fn290">290. The author, however, is at fault in his terms of art. If the quarry +to which he likens Aeglamour had a dappled hide, it was a fallow and not a +red deer. In this case it should have been called a buck, and not a hart. +Again, the female should have been a doe: deer is a generic name including +both sexes of red, fallow, and roe alike.</p> + +<p id="fn291">291. A translation of the <i>Astrée</i> appeared as early as 1620, but the +French fashion obtained no hold over the popular taste till the later days +of the Commonwealth.</p> + +<p id="fn292">292. I may say that this section was written as it stands before K. +Brunhuber's essay on <i>Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaufer</i> came into my +hands. He gives a superficial account of several printed plays, but was +unaware of the existence of those in MS.</p> + +<p id="fn293">293. The quotations are from the Gifford-Dyce edition of Shirley's Works +(1833), the only collected edition that has appeared. The text stands +badly in need of revision, but I have had to content myself with a few +obvious corrections. For instance, in the passage quoted above, the +editors have followed the quarto in reducing l. 13 to nonsense, by reading +'no man,' and l. 20 by reading 'And the imagination.'</p> + +<p id="fn294">294. So at least in the printed play. In the original draft, and probably +also in the acting version, as Fleay has pointed out, they were king and +queen, and of this traces remain. Thus we twice find Gynetia addressed as +'Queen,' while elsewhere 'Duke' rimes with 'spring,' and 'Duchess' with +'spleen.' The alteration was no doubt made from motives of prudence. Even +so the play was, according to Fleay, published surreptitiously, i.e. it +does not appear on the Stationers' Register.</p> + +<p id="fn295">295. A. H. Bullen's reprint of Day's works was privately printed in 1881. +Though the text is not in all respects satisfactory, I have thought myself +justified in quoting from it as the only edition available.</p> + +<p id="fn296">296. Not tennis, as Mr. Bullen states (Introd. p. 17), oblivious for the +moment of the impossibility of representing a tennis match on the stage, +as well as of the fact that the game was never, in Elizabethan times, +played by ladies.</p> + +<p id="fn297">297. There is one printed play, the relation of which to the <i>Arcadia</i> is +not very clear. The title, <i>Mucedorus</i>, at once suggests some connexion, +but it is difficult to follow it out in detail. Mucedorus, 'the king's +sonne of Valentia,' leaves his father's court and goes disguised as a +shepherd to win the love of Amadine, 'the king's daughter of Arragon.' He +twice rescues the princess, is sentenced to banishment, and reveals his +identity just as his father arrives in search of him. The play was +originally printed in 1598, but no doubt originated some years earlier, +<i>c.</i> 1588 according to Fleay. Most of the resemblances with the <i>Arcadia</i>, +however, are due to scenes which first appeared in 1610, in which edition +the king of Valentia first plays a part. Beyond Mucedorus' disguise there +is absolutely nothing pastoral in the play. With the exception of some of +the additional scenes, which are undoubtedly by a different hand from the +rest, the play is unrelieved rubbish. Probably the original author +utilized in the composition of his piece such elements and incidents of +the <i>Arcadia</i> as he had gathered orally while the unfinished work still +circulated in MS. Later the reviser, being aware of this source, expanded +the play from a knowledge of the completed work. It cannot be said to be a +dramatization of the romance, though it is undoubtedly in a manner founded +upon it.</p> + +<p id="fn298">298. Egerton MS. 1994. Not <i>Love's Changelings Changed</i>, as usually +quoted.</p> + +<p id="fn299">299. <i>Old Plays</i>, ii. p. 432.</p> + +<p id="fn300">300. Rawl. Poet, 3.</p> + +<p id="fn301">301. In the Bodleian MS. Ashmole 788 is a Latin epistle by Philip Kynder, +a miscellaneous writer and court agent under Charles I, born in 1600 at +latest, which was 'prefixt before my <i>Silvia</i>, a Latin comedie or +pastorall, translated from the <i>Archadia</i>, written at eighteen years of +age.' (See Halliwell's <i>Dic. of Plays</i>.) The 'Archadia' might, of course, +refer either to Sannazzaro's or Lope de Vega's romances, though this is +highly improbable.</p> + +<p id="fn302">302. So much we learn from the title-page itself. The play had very +likely been acted at court some years earlier, but the document mentioning +such a performance, printed by Cunningham, is of doubtful authenticity, +while Fleay contradicts himself upon the subject. The question is, +happily, immaterial to our present purpose.</p> + +<p id="fn303">303. Here, as in the <i>Isle of Gulls</i>, the titles of Duke and Duchess have +been imperfectly substituted for King and Queen, probably for court +performance.</p> + +<p id="fn304">304. The story in the romance is very different. Erona, after many +adventures, marries her lover. Both episodes are related in Book II, +chapters xiii and following (ed. 1590). They are epitomized by Dyce, whose +edition I have of course used.</p> + +<p id="fn305">305. Here, again, the catastrophe of the play bears no resemblance to the +romance.</p> + +<p id="fn306">306. See III. v. According to Chetwood (<i>British Theatre</i>, 1752, p. 47), +the play was revived in 1671, with a prologue attributing it to Shirley. +This is, of course, possible, but it requires more than Chetwood's +unsupported authority to render it probable. Fleay suggests that the +author is the same as the J. S. of <i>Phillis of Scyros</i>, namely, as I have +shown, Jonathan Sidnam. This seems to me highly improbable. The play is +printed in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xiv, whence I quote, with necessary +corrections.</p> + +<p id="fn307">307. Bk. I. chaps. v-viii, Bk. III. chap. xii, in the edition of 1590.</p> + +<p id="fn308">308. Quotations are taken, with corrections, from Pearson's reprint of +Glapthorne's works (1874).</p> + +<p id="fn309">309. K. Deighton's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for 'Love' of the +original. (<i>Conjectural Readings</i>, second series, Calcutta, 1898, p. 136.)</p> + +<p id="fn310">310. I have been unable to trace this work beyond a reference to Heber's +sale given in Hazlitt's <i>Handbook</i>. The original story will be found in +<i>Albion's England</i>, Book IV, chap. xx, of the first Part, published in +1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of +Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to +Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base +scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has +sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the +princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this +Argentile is ignorant, and when she hears of her uncle's purpose, she +contrives to escape from court and lives disguised as a shepherdess. After +her flight Curan also leaves the court and assumes a shepherd's garb, and +meeting Argentile by chance again falls in love with her without knowing +who she is. After a while he reveals his identity, and she hers; they are +married, and he conquers back her kingdom from the usurping Edel.</p> + +<p id="fn311">311. So far as I am aware, A. B. Grosart was the first to point this out. +(<i>Spenser</i>, iii. p. lxx.)</p> + +<p id="fn312">312. It is printed in Hazlitt's <i>Webster</i>, vol. iv. Fleay, with +characteristic assurance, identifies the <i>Thracian Wonder</i> with a lost +play of Heywood's, known only from Henslowe's Diary, and there called 'War +without blows and love without suit.' He argues: 'in i. 2, "You never +shall again renew your suit;" but the love is given at the end without any +suit; and in iii. 2, "Here was a happy war finished without blows."' The +identification, however, will not bear examination. No battle, it is true, +is fought at Sicily's first appearance, but the title, <i>War without Blows</i> +could hardly be applied to a play in which the whole of the last act is +occupied with fierce fighting between three different nations. So with the +second title, <i>Love without Suit</i>. Serena indeed grants her love in the +end without any reason whatever, but only after her lover has 'suited' +himself clean out of his five wits. Moreover, it is not certain that this +second title should not be <i>Love without Strife</i>. Heywood's play, I have +little doubt, was a mere love-comedy (cf. such titles as <i>The Amorous +War</i>, and similar expressions in the dramatists <i>passim</i>). The +identification, moreover, would necessitate the date 1598, though this +does not prevent Fleay from stating that the piece is founded on William +Webster's poem published in 1617. So early a date seems to me rather +improbable. Since William Webster's poem has nothing to do with the +present piece, the suggestion that Kirkman's attribution of the play to +John Webster was due to a confusion of course falls to the ground.</p> + +<p id="fn313">313. According to S. L. Lee in the <i>Dic. Nat. Biog.</i>, who follows the +<i>Biographia Dramatica.</i></p> + +<p id="fn314">314. It will be found in Mr. Bullen's admirable collection, <i>Lyrics from +the Dramatists</i>, 1889, p. 231.</p> + +<p id="fn315">315. Reprinted in 1882 by A. H. Bullen in the first volume of his <i>Old +English Plays</i>, and more recently by R. W. Bond in his edition of Lyly. In +quoting, I have generally followed the latter, though I have preferred my +own arrangement of certain passages. None of the suggestions that have +been put forward as to the authorship of the play appear to me to carry +much weight. The ascription of the whole to Lyly, first made by Archer in +1656, and repeated by Halliwell as late as 1860, is now utterly +discredited. The view, first advanced by Edmund Gosse, that the author was +John Day, has been tentatively endorsed by both editors of the piece; but +I agree with Professer Gollancz in thinking it unlikely on the ground of +style. Fleay assigns the serious (verse) portion of the play to Daniel, +and the comic (prose) scenes to Lyly. It seems to me unlikely, however, +that Daniel, who was shortly to appear as the chief exponent of the +orthodox Italian tradition, should at this date have been concerned in the +production of a typical example of the hybrid pastoral of the English +stage. Nor do I believe that Lyly was in any way concerned in the piece, +though some scenes are evident imitations of his work. This, however, +involves the question of the authorship of the lyrics found in Lyly's +plays, and I must refer for a detailed discussion to my article upon the +subject already cited (p. 227).</p> + +<p id="fn316">316. <i>Metamorphoses</i>, ix. 667, &c. Ward is moved to characterize the plot +as a theme of 'Ovidian lubricity.' I question whether any such censure is +merited. That the theme is one which would have become intolerably +suggestive in the hands of the Sienese Intronati, for instance, may be +admitted, but the author has treated the story with complete <i>naïveté</i>. +The obscene passages referred to later on (p. 345) occur in the comic +action, and are in no way connected with the point in question. Ward +further informs us that the play is 'throughout in rime,' notwithstanding +the fact that something approaching a quarter of the whole is in prose.</p> + +<p id="fn317">317. I must repeat that I see no advantage to be gained from the method +adopted by Homer Smith, who tries to extract and separate the strictly +pastoral elements from the medley. A play is not a child's puzzle that can +be taken to pieces and labelled, nor even a chemical compound to be +analysed into its component parts. What is of interest is to note the +various influences which have affected and modified the growth of the +literary organism.</p> + +<p id="fn318">318. Though the author may very likely have known Spenser's description +of the house of Morpheus <i>(Faery Queen</i>, I. i. 348, &c.), he certainly +drew his own account straight from Ovid (<i>Metam.</i> xi. 592, &c.), to which, +of course, Spenser was also indebted. I am rather inclined to think the +author drew his material from Golding's translation (xi. 687, &c.). With +the second passage quoted, cf. <i>Faery Queen</i>, II. xii. 636, &c.</p> + +<p id="fn319">319. 'Trip and go' was a proverbial expression, and is found, with its +obvious rime 'to and fro,' in several old dance-songs.</p> + +<p id="fn320">320. The only composition I can recall which at all anticipates the +peculiar effect of this lyric is Thestylis' song in the <i>Arraignment of +Paris</i> (III. ii.), to which, in the old edition, is appended the quaint +note, 'The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.'</p> + +<p id="fn321">321. Fleay gives the date 1601, following Halliwell, but Haslewood has +1603.</p> + +<p id="fn322">322. According to Fleay, it 'was intended to be presented to James I on +13th Mar. 1614.' This date must be a slip, since it was not till 1615 that +the king was at Cambridge. It is, moreover, correctly given in his +<i>History of the Stage</i>. The preparations also appear to have been for the +eleventh, not the thirteenth. Fleay further mentions a performance at +King's before Charles I, but gives no authority.</p> + +<p id="fn323">323. An exception must be made of Ward, whose remarks are almost +excessively laudatory, though his treatment of the piece is necessarily +slight.</p> + +<p id="fn324">324. The incidents occur, however, in Book II of Browne's work (Songs 4 +and 5), which was not printed till 1616. Either, therefore, Fletcher had +seen Browne's poem in manuscript, or else the play, as originally +performed, differed from the printed version. I think it unlikely that the +borrowing should have been the other way.</p> + +<p id="fn325">325. Fleay confuses the two performances, and, by placing Goffe's death +in 1627, is forced to suppose that the 'praeludium' was added by another +hand. It may be noticed that, if this introduction is by Goffe, Salisbury +Court was probably opened in the spring, a point otherwise unsettled.</p> + +<p id="fn326">326. The resemblance with the <i>Sad Shepherd</i>, I. i, is almost too close +to be fortuitous. It is, on the other hand, not easily accounted for. The +whole passage quoted above is somewhat markedly superior to the general +level of the verse in the play, not merely the two or three lines in which +a distinct resemblance to Jonson can be traced. Is it possible that both +Goffe and Jonson were following, the one slavishly, the other with more +imagination, one common original, now unknown? Or can it be that Goffe is +here reproducing a passage from an early unpublished work of Jonson's own, +a passage which Jonson later refashioned into the singularly perfect +speech of Aeglamour?</p> + +<p id="fn327">327. Homer Smith, in making these assertions, overlooks historical +evidence. It is, however, only fair to Goffe to say that other critics +apparently take a very much more favourable view of the merits of the +piece than I am able to do.</p> + +<p id="fn328">328. Hardly in those of the prologue to <i>Hymen's Triumph</i>, as suggested +by Homer Smith.</p> + +<p id="fn329">329. W. C. Hazlitt (<i>Manual of Plays</i>, p. 25) records: 'Bellessa, the +Shepherd's Queen: The scene, Galicia. An unpublished and incomplete drama +in prose and verse. Fol.' In the absence of further evidence I conclude +that this is an imperfect MS. of Montagu's piece.</p> + +<p id="fn330">330. The designs for the scene, by Inigo Jones, are preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Lansd. 1,171, fols. 15-16. Fols. 5-6 of the same MS. +contain the ground-plans 'for a pasterall in the hall at whitthall w'ch +was ackted by the ffrench on St Thomas day the 23th of decemb'r 1635,' +which may refer to the same piece.</p> + +<p id="fn331">331. It may, however, be founded on some French romance.</p> + +<p id="fn332">332. The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I +quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have +had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and +Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of +Dorset's <i>liaison</i> with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought +necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author +explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a +pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely +overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, +apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in +pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts +the scene is laid at court.</p> + +<p id="fn333">333. See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in +question.</p> + +<p id="fn334">334. Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed +Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's +Plautine comedy into confusing it with the <i>Amyntas</i>. The criticism is +from an article in the <i>Cornhill</i> for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites +it.</p> + +<p id="fn335">335. The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the +Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be +accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name.</p> + +<p id="fn336">336. II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition.</p> + +<p id="fn337">337. Halliwell, <i>Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to +which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished</i>. +MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. +Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, +1899; I have been unable to trace it.</p> + +<p id="fn338">338. I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin +plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. +Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play +entitled <i>Parthenia</i>, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but +concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan +Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was +influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. +The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male +characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be +recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. +Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no +correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any +allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the <i>Silvanus</i>, a MS. of +which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, +1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson--the +name is erased.</p> + +<p id="fn339">339. Bullen's <i>Peele</i>, i.p. 363.</p> + +<p id="fn340">340. The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but +is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at +present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different +edition, is found in Nichols' <i>Progresses of Elisabeth</i>, from which a +modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, +it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote.</p> + +<p id="fn341">341. See the excellent edition by W. Bang, <i>Materialien zur Kunde des +alteren englischen Dramas</i>, vol. iii, 1903.</p> + +<p id="fn342">342. All necessary apparatns for the study of this literary curiosity +will be fonnd in Miss M. L. Lee's edition, 1893. The original is a MS. in +the Bodleian.</p> + +<p id="fn343">343. See A. H. Thorndike, <i>Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on +Shakspeare</i>, 1901, p. 32. In <i>Mucedorus</i> (I. i. 51) we find mention of a +shepherd's disguise used 'in Lord Julio's masque.' The passage occurs in +the additional scenes of 1610, and there are numerous masques of the +period that might claim to be that referred to. Fleay conjectures '<i>The +Shepherds' Mask</i> of James I.'s time,' and elsewhere identifies this title, +which he gets from Halliwell's <i>Dictionary</i>, with Jonson's masque, <i>Pan's +Anniversary, or the Shepherds' Holiday</i>. This, however, was produced at +earliest in 1623, and can hardly therefore have been alluded to in 1610. +Halliwell took his title from the British Museum MS. Addit. 10,444, in +which appears the music for a number of 'masques,' or dances taken from +masques, and in which this particular <i>Shepherds' Masque</i> (fol. 34<sup>v</sup>) is +dated 1635.</p> + +<p id="fn344">344. The date here assigned presents obvions difficultes. It would +naturally mean that it was performed after March 24, 1625; but as James +died after about a fortnight's serious illness on March 27, this can +hardly be accepted. Nichols placed the performance conjecturally in +August, 1624, for reasons which I am inclined to regard as satisfactory. +Fleay pronounces in favour of June 19, 1623, with a confidence not +altogether calculated to inspire the like feeling in others.</p> + +<p id="fn345">345. <i>Lives</i>, Oxford, 1898, i. p. 251.</p> + +<p id="fn346">346. 'The Dramatic Works of John Tatham,' 1879. In Maidment and Logan's +<i>Dramatists of the Restoration</i>.</p> + +<p id="fn347">347. Another parallel may be found in Shirley's <i>Maid's Revenge</i>, IV. iv, +where the wounded Antonio exclaims:</p> + +<blockquote class="poetry"><p> Where art, Berinthia? let me breathe my last<br /> + Upon thy lip; make haste, lest I die else.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The situation, however, is different. Shirley's play was licensed in 1626.</p> + +<p id="fn348">348. In a small quarto volume, classed as Addit. MS. 14,047. The piece +has hitherto been ascribed to George Wilde, on the authority of Halliwell. +There appears to be no reason for this ascription, beyond the fact that +the same volume also contains two pieces by Wilde. His name, however, does +not occur in connexion with the present play, and the volume, which is in +a variety of hands, certainly includes work not by him. Wilde was scholar +and fellow of St. John's, chaplain to Laud, and Bishop of Londonderry +after the restoration. His plays consist of the two comedies in this +volume, viz. the Latin <i>Euphormus, sive Cupido Adultus</i>, acted on Feb. 5, +1634/5, and the <i>Hospital of Lovers</i>, acted before the king and queen on +Aug. 29, 1636, both at St. John's. He is also said to have written another +Latin play, called <i>Hermophus</i>, though nothing is known of it beyond the +record of its being acted. It was most probably the same as <i>Euphormus</i>, +the titles being anagrams of each other.</p> + +<p id="fn349">349. The <i>Dic. Nat. Biog</i>. gives the date as 1635.</p> + +<p id="fn350">350. The stage directions for these entries are interesting: (l) 'Enter +An Antique [i.e. antimasque] of Sheapheards'; (2) 'enter the Masque'; (3) +'the masque enters and dances, and after wardes exit.' The terms 'masque' +and 'antimasque' appear to have been used technically for the dances of +the masque proper, and of its burlesque counterpart. In this sense the +words occur repeatedly in the British Museum Addit. MS. 10,444, which +contains the music only. In the present case the masquers appear to have +been distinct from the characters of the play.</p> + +<p id="fn351">351. R. Brotanek, <i>Die englischen Maskenspiele</i>, 1902, p. 201. See also +the edition by R. Brotanek and W. Bang, <i>Materialien zur Kunde des älteren +Englischen Dramas,</i> vol. ii, 1903; and further in the <i>Modern Language +Quarterly</i> for April, 1904, vii. p. 17.</p> + +<p id="fn352">352. The first issue was printed 'for the use of the Author,' without +date, but was received by Thomason on Sept. 1, 1656, which would appear to +dispose of the fiction that Cox died in 1648.</p> + +<p id="fn353">353. This letter was prefixed to the masque in the collected edition of +the Poems (1645), but was written to the author without view to +publication.</p> + +<p id="fn354">354. Fifty-eight lines in decasyllabic couplets--not eighty-three lines +of blank verse, as for some inexplicable reason Masson asserts (i. p. +150).</p> + +<p id="fn355">355. Specific references will be found scattered through Masson's notes. +To supplement his work I may refer to some interesting remarks on <i>Comus</i> +as a masque, and a useful comparison with Peele's play, by M. W. Samson, of +Indiana University, in the introduction to his edition of Milton's Minor +Poems, New York, 1901. Here, as elsewhere in the case of Milton's Works, I +follow H. C. Beeching's admirable text, Oxford, 1900.</p> + +<p id="fn356">356. Not wishing to pursue this point further, I may be allowed to refer +to certain candid and judicious remaries in Saintsbury's <i>Elizabethan +Literature</i>, p. 387.</p> + +<p id="fn357">357. I am perfectly aware of, and in writing the above have made every +allowance for, three considerations which may be urged in explanation of +the passages in question. In the first place, it must be remembered that +the age was an outspoken one, and used to giving free expression to +thoughts and feelings which we are in the habit of passing over in +silence. Secondly, the age was unquestionably one of considerable licence, +which must be held to have warranted somewhat direct speaking on the part +of those who held to a stricter code of morals; and, moreover, it must be +conceded that the Puritan failing of self-righteous protestation was as a +rule combined with very genuine practice of the professed virtues. +Thirdly, there is the fact that the age of thirteen was at that time, by +common consent, regarded as already mature womanhood. On one and all of +these heads a good deal might be written, but it would only extend yet +further a discussion which has already, it may be, exceeded reasonable +limits.</p> + +<p id="fn358">358. I ought, perhaps, to apologize for thus alluding to these poems as +subsequent to <i>Comus</i>, seeing that criticism usually places them some +years earlier. There is, however, no external evidence of any kind, and to +me the internal evidence of style points strongly to a later date. +Possibly, since they are not fonnd in the Trinity MS., they were composed +during Milton's travels, which would place them after <i>Lycidas</i> even, +somewhere about 1638 or 1639. One of the ablest of our living critics, +himself a close and original student of Milton, writes in a private +letter: 'I long ago heard a good critic say that <i>Comus</i> seemed to him +prentice work beside <i>L'Allegro</i> and <i>Il Penseroso</i>; and these do seem to +me, I must confess, the maturer poems.' The point was raised by F. Byse in +the <i>Modern Language Quarterly</i> for July, 1900, iii. p. 16.</p> + +<p id="fn359">359. Conversations, IV and III, Shakespeare Society, 1842, pp. 4 and 2.</p> + +<p id="fn360">360. Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find the necessary +references in Sommer's <i>Erster Versuch über die Englische Hirtendichtung</i>, +and a full discussion in an elaborate 'Inquiry into the propriety of the +rules prescribed for Pastoral Poetry,' prefixed to the edition of Ramsay's +<i>Gentle Shepherd</i>, published at Edinburgh in 1808. Some judicious remarks +will also be found in the Introduction to Chambers' <i>English Pastorals</i>, +pp. xliv, &c.</p> + +<p id="fn361">361. This limitation, it may be observed, does not necessarily apply to +all literary forms. It may, I think, reasonably be maintained that the +form of the drama, for instance, is essentially conditioned by the +psychological relation of author to audience, through the medium of actual +representation, and that this relation is equivalent to, or at least +capable of forming the basis of, a theory of drama. I am aware that such +an abstract view as this finds little favour with the majority of modern +critics, but while myself doubtful as to its practical value, I do not see +that it involves any critical absurdity.</p> + +<p id="fn362">362. This impulse can certainly be traced in some of the eclogues, and +still more markedly in the purely lyrical verse of a pastoral sort. But +the cross influences are too complex to be recapitulated here.</p> + +<p id="fn363">363. The influence of the Latin eclogue of the renaissance was +undoubtedly also direct, but though widespread it was hardly vital, and +its importance, as compared with that of the vernacular tradition, may be +not inadequately measured by the relative importance of the chief +exponents of either, Googe and Spenser.</p> + +<p id="fn364">364. Especially the allusions to religions controversy. The romance was, +of course, highly topical in Spain, but, waiving the rather debatable +point of Sidney's allusive intentions, it never appears to have been +generally so regarded in this country.</p> + +<p id="fn365">365. Possibly I ought to add a fourth, the masques at court; but their +influence in large measure duplicated that of the Italian drama, and +cannot be distinguished from it.</p> + +<p id="fn366">366. See Rossi, p. 175, note 1.</p> + +<p id="fn367">367. Ferrara, Caraffo, 1588, p. 50. Rossi, 175<sup>1</sup>. Carducci, 59.</p> + +<p id="fn368">368. <i>Discorso</i>, Padova, Meieto, 1587; Rossi, 175<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn369">369. <i>Apologia contro l'autor del Verato</i>, Padova, Meietti, 1590.</p> + +<p id="fn370">370. <i>Il Verato secondo</i>, Firenze, Giunti, 1593, pp. 206-7; Carducci, +59-60.</p> + +<p id="fn371">371. I make no pretence at having myself examined all the texts mentioned +in the following discussion. Many, indeed, are only to be found in +out-of-the-way provincial libraries in Italy, and have, I believe, never +been examined by any one but Carducci himself. The references in my notes +equally testify my indebtedness to Rossi's monograph; indeed, my whole +treatment of the subject is based on his work.</p> + +<p id="fn372">372. I shall endeavour to note the various verse-forms employed, as the +evidence is often of use in determining the question of development. It +may, however, be very easily misleading if unduly pressed, as by Carducci. +In general, the <i>terza rima</i> may be taken as pointing to the influence of +Sannazzaro's <i>Arcadia; ottava rima</i>, courtly or rustic, to that of +Poliziano's <i>Orfeo</i> and <i>Giostra</i> and Lorenzo de' Medici's <i>Nencia</i> +respectively; the <i>endecasillabi sciolti</i>, or blank verse, to that of the +regular drama. Of the free measures, <i>endecasillabi e settinarî</i>, of the +later plays I shall have to speak more in detail hereafter.</p> + +<p id="fn373">373. Edited from MS. by Felice Bariola, with other poems of Taccone's, +Firenze, 1884, p. 14. Rossi, 166<sup>2</sup>; Carducci, 28<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn374">374. Printed in the 'Opere dello elegante poeta Seraphino Aquilano,' +Venetia, Bindoni, 1516, sig. D5. Rossi, 167<sup>1</sup>. For the date, Carducci, +29<sup>2</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn375">375. Of these authors little or nothing appears to be known. Both pieces +have come down to us in MS.; see Adolfo Bartoli, <i>Mss. italiani della +Nazionale di Firenze</i>, Firenze, 1884, ii. pp. 138 and 163. Concerning the +first, see further, <i>Poesie inedite di G. Del Carretto</i>, by A. G. Spinelli, +Savona, pp. 10-15; concerning the second, R. Renier, in the <i>Giornale +storico della letteratura italiana</i>, 1885, v. p. 236, note 1. Rossi, +167<sup>2</sup>,<sup>3</sup>; Carducci, 30<sup>2</sup>, 28<sup>3</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn376">376. <i>Opere</i>, 1516, as cited, sig. E. Rossi, 167<sup>4</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn377">377. In <i>Rime</i>, ed. P. Fanfani, 1876-8, ii. p. 225. Rossi, 168<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn378">378. Rossi, 169<sup>2</sup>. Carducci, 26<sup>3</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn379">379. See B. Croce, 'Napoli dal 1508 al 1512 (da un antico romanzo +spagnuolo),' in <i>Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane</i>, anno xix, +fasc. i, pp. 141 and 157. Carducci, 29<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn380">380. <i>Opera nova</i>, Venetia, Rusconi, 1508. In the old edition the pieces +are merely termed 'commedie,' the designation 'pastorali' being due to the +'Arcadian,' G. M. Crescimbeni, whose <i>Istoria delia volgar poesia</i> +originally appeared in 1698. Carducci, 41<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn381">381. See Carducci, p. 35. Stiefel, being only aware of the edition of +1543, hoped to find in the piece a link between Casalio and Beccari. Among +several female characters introduced is one 'la quale volentieri starebbe +in mezzo di due amanti o mariti: il che,' pursues Carducci, 'è del tutto +opposto all' idealità delia favola pastorale.' One would have thought that +certain traits in the characters of Dafne and Corisca would have occurred +to him. Bitter satire on women was indeed one of the most permanent +features of pastoral comedy, as it had been of the Latin eclogue.</p> + +<p id="fn382">382. See D'Ancona, 'II teatro mantovano nel secolo <i>XVI</i>,' in the +<i>Giornale storico</i>, v. p. 19. Rossi, 170<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn383">383. See G. Campori, <i>Notizie sulla vita di L. Ariosto</i>, Modena, 1871, p. +68. Rossi, 172<sup>1</sup>. No mention of these is made by Carducci, his thesis +being that the <i>ecloga rappresentativa</i> did not obtain at Ferrara, the +home <i>par excellence</i> of the Arcadian drama. Thus, on p. 54 he writes: +'Delie parecchie ecloghe pastorali e rusticali passate in rassegna fin qui +non una ce n' è o scritta o rappresentata o stampata in Ferrara, non una +d'origine ferrarese. In Ferrara entriamo classicamente e signorilmente con +l'<i>Egle</i> [1545].'</p> + +<p id="fn384">384. Rossi, 173<sup>1</sup>. Carducci, 37.</p> + +<p id="fn385">385. See L. Frati, 'Un' ecloga msticale del 1508,' in the <i>Giornale +storico</i>, xx(1892), p. 186. Carducci, 27<sup>2</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn386">386. See O. Guerrini, <i>Narrazione di Paolo Palliolo</i>, Bologna, Romagnoli, +1885, p. 96. Carducci, 31<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn387">387. See C. Mazzi, <i>La congrega dei Rozzi di Siena</i>, i. p. 139 and ii. p. +100. Carducci, 31<sup>2</sup>. Also Rossi, 174<sup>3</sup>; his suggestion of the possible +identity of the two last-mentioned pieces has been shown by later research +to be inadmissible.</p> + +<p id="fn388">388. A battle was fought at Tai, near Pieve di Cadore.</p> + +<p id="fn389">389. The number of such pieces is very large. A list appended to the +<i>Assetta</i> in 1756 runs to 109 items. An exhaustive bibliography will be +found in Mazzi's work. See also the useful collection by Giulio Ferrario, +forming vol. x of the 'Teatro antico' in the 'Classici italiani,' Milan, +1812. It is unfortunate that Symonds should have referred to Ferrario's +list as evidence of the fertility of the pastoral drama, even though +adding that the list is 'devoted solely to rural scenes of actual life,' +since he can hardly escape the charge of regarding the rustic compositions +as part of the pastoral drama proper--a position to which they certainly +have no claim.</p> + +<p id="fn390">390. Not, of course, to be confused with the <i>sacra rappresentazione</i> so +called.</p> + +<p id="fn391">391. See F. Flamini's edition of Tansillo's poems, Napoli, 1893. Rossi, +171<sup>1</sup>; Carducci, 39<sup>2</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn392">392. Used, for example, by Sannazzaro, in his <i>Farsa</i>. See his 'Opere +volgari,' Padova, 1723, p. 422.</p> + +<p id="fn393">393. See E. Pèrcopo, 'M. Ant. Epicuro,' in the <i>Giornale storico</i>, 1888, +xii. p. 1. Carducci, 39<sup>1</sup>. The earliest edition with the later title I +have met with is one dated 1533, in my possession. The British Museum has +none earlier than 1535.</p> + +<p id="fn394">394. Siena, Mazochi, 1530. Carducci, 44<sup>3</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn395">395. It continued to be occasionally reprinted till as late as 1612. +Carducci, 44.</p> + +<p id="fn396">396. Venezia, Zoppino, 1538. Carducci, 43<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn397">397. It may have been a direct borrowing, for we know that Tasso was +acquainted with the plays of Epicuro, whom he imitated in his <i>Rinaldo</i> +(V. 25, &c.). The <i>Mirzia</i> is printed in 'I drammi pastorali di A. Marsi,' +ed. I. Palmerini, Bologna, 1887-8. See also Pèrcopo in the <i>Giornale</i>, as +cited. Carducci, 62. The authorship is a little doubtful. Creizenach, ii. +365<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn398">398. Firenze, 1545. Carducci, 46<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn399">399. <i>Rime</i>, Venezia, Giolito, 1546. Carducci, 51<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn400">400. Vinegia, Bertacagno, 1553. Carducci, 53<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn401">401. <i>Egle</i>, s.l. et a. Rossi, 176<sup>1</sup>; Carducci, 54.</p> + +<p id="fn402">402. This strong feeling concerning the incestuous nature of connexion +between cousins, however strange to us, appears to have been very real in +Italy in the sixteenth century. <i>Sorella germana</i>, a common term for a +female cousin, is in itself sufficient evidence of the feeling. Readers of +the <i>novelle</i> will remember the discussion on the subject by Pietro +Fortini in his <i>Novelle de' Novizi</i>, xxxi. The explanation of the +phenomenon is no doubt to be sought in the peculiar conventions of Italian +society.</p> + +<p id="fn403">403. Speaking of the <i>Favola</i>, Carducci says: 'lo stile è quel nobile del +Giraldi.' This is a point on which the opinion of a foreigner can never +carry very much weight; but with all deference to Signer Carducci's +judgement, I cannot help expressing my opinion that the verse is +characterized by awkward verbal repetitions and a certain stiffness of +expression, which impart to it a quality of heaviness similar to that +found in the prose of the <i>Ecatommiti</i>. It seems to be the result of a +conscious endeavour on the part of the Ferrarese to write pure Tuscan, and +the reader is constantly reminded of the memorable words in the preface to +the <i>Cortegiano</i>, in which Castiglione announces his intention 'di farmi +più tosto conoscere per Lombardo, parlando Lombardo, che per non Toscano, +parlando troppo Toscano.'</p> + +<p id="fn404">404. Ferrara, De Rossi, 1555. Rossi, 176<sup>1</sup>; Carducci, 57. The piece +must not, of course, be confused either with the <i>Sacrifizio pastorale</i>, +paraphrased by Firenzuola from the <i>Arcadia</i>, or with the masque called +<i>El Sacrifizio</i>, performed by the Intronati at Siena in 1531, and printed +in 1537.</p> + +<p id="fn405">405. The remark is Rossi's, and, though strongly controverted by +Carducci, appears to me absolutely true.</p> + +<p id="fn406">406. 'Comedia pastorale di nuovo composta per mess. Barth. Brayda di +Summariva,' Torino, Coloni da Saluzzo, 1556. Carducci, 64<sup>2</sup>. The date is +given as 1550 in the note, and correctly, I take it, as 1556 in the text.</p> + +<p id="fn407">407. Vinezia, Zopini, 1583, B. M. The preface is dated Sept, 1, 1580. +Carducci (71<sup>1</sup>) speaks of the edition of 1586 as the first.</p> + +<p id="fn408">408. Ferrara, Panizza, 1564. Carducci, 69<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn409">409. Edited by A. Solerti in the <i>Propugnatore</i>, 1891, new series, iv. p. +199. Carducci, 70<sup>1</sup>.</p> + +<p id="fn410">410. Venezia, Giolito, 1568. Carducci, 71<sup>2</sup>; Klein, v. p. 61.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama +by Walter W. Greg + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + +***** This file should be named 12218-h.htm or 12218-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1/12218/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Greg + +Release Date: April 30, 2004 [EBook #12218] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end.] + +[Note on characters: There are several MASCULINE ORDINAL INDICATORs +( - U+00BA) used in this book. These should not be confused with the +DEGREE SIGN ( deg. - U+00B0).] + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + + + _Far, far from here ... + The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, + And by the sea, and in the brakes + The grass is cool, the sea-side air + Buoyant and fresh._ + + Matthew Arnold. + + + + +Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama + +A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in +England. + +By Walter W. Greg, M.A. + +MCMVI. + +Oxford: Horace Hart +Printer to the University + + + + +MAGISTRIS MEIS +AMICISQVE + + + + +Preface + + + +Some ten years ago, it may be, Mr. St. Loe Strachey suggested that I +should write an article on 'English Pastoral Drama' for a magazine of +which he was then editor. The article was in the course of time written, +and in the further course of time appeared. I learnt two things from +writing it: first, that to understand the English pastoral drama it was +necessary to have some more or less extensive knowledge of the history of +European pastoralism in general; secondly, that there was no critical work +from which such knowledge could be obtained. I set about the revision and +expansion of my crude and superficial essay, proposing to prefix to it +such an account of pastoral literature generally as should make the +special form it assumed on the English stage appear in its true light as +the reasonable and rational outcome of artistic and historical conditions. +Unfortunately perhaps, but at least inevitably, this preliminary inquiry +grew to ever greater and more alarming proportions as I proceeded, till at +last it swelled to something over half of the whole work. Part of this +bulk was claimed by foreign pastoral poetry, the origins of the kind; part +by English pastoral poetry, and the introduction of the fashion into this +country; part by the pastoral drama of Italy, the immediate parent of that +of England. The original title proved too narrow to cover the subject with +which I dealt. Hence the rather vague and perhaps ambitions title of the +present volume. I make no pretence of offering the reader a general +history of pastoral literature, nor even of pastoral drama. The real +subject of my work remains the pastoral drama in Elizabethan +literature--understanding that term in the wide sense in which, quite +reasonably, we have learnt to use it--and even though I may have been +sometimes carried away by the interest of the immediate subject of +investigation, I have done my best to keep the main object of my inquiry +at all times in view. The downward limit of my work is a little vague. The +old stage traditions, upon which all the dramatic production of the time +was at least in some measure, and in different cases more or less +consciously, based, were killed by the act of 1642: the new traditions, +created or imported by a company of gentlemen who had come under the +influence of the French genius during the eleven years of their exile, +first announced themselves authoritatively in 1660. During the intervening +eighteen years a number of works were produced, some of which continued +the earlier traditions, while some anticipated the later. My treatment has +been eclectic. Where a work appeared to me to belong to or to illustrate +the older school I have included it, where not, I have refrained from +doing so. Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ (1647) will be found mentioned in the +following pages, T. R.'s _Berger extravagant_ (1654) will not. + +Some explanation may be advisable with regard to my method of quotation. +Where a satisfactory modern edition of the work under discussion was +available I have taken my quotations from it, whether the spelling of the +text was modernized or not. Where none such existed I have had recourse to +the original. This explains the perhaps alarming mixture of old and modern +orthographies which appear in my pages. Such inconsistency seemed to me a +lesser evil than making nonce texts to suit my immediate purpose. I have, +however, exercised the right of following my own fancy in the matter of +punctuation throughout, and also in that of capitalization, though I have +been chary of alterations in the case of old-spelling texts. This applies +to English works. I have found it necessary myself to modernize to some +extent the spelling of the quotations from early Italian in order to +render it less bewildering to readers who may possibly, like myself, have +no very profound knowledge of the antiquities of that tongue. I have been +as sparing as possible, however, and trust I may have committed no +enormities to shock Romance scholars. Lastly, the italics and contractions +which are of more or less frequent occurrence in the original editions +have been disregarded, and certain typographical details made to conform +to modern practice. + +My indebtedness is not small to a number of friends who, during the +progress of my work, have helped me more or less directly in a variety of +ways. A few have received specific mention in the notes. Alike to those +who have, and to the far greater number, I fear me, who have not, I desire +hereby to confess my debt, and humbly to beg them to claim their share in +the dedication of this volume. More specifically I should mention Mr. R. +B. McKerrow, who was the first to read the following pages in manuscript, +and to make many useful suggestions, and Mr. Frank Sidgwick, to whose +careful revision alike of manuscript and proof and to whose kind and +candid criticism I am indebted perhaps more than an author's vanity may +readily allow me to acknowledge. Lastly, it would argue worse than +ingratitude to pass over my obligation to the admirable readers of the +Clarendon Press, whose marvellous accuracy in the most diverse fields and +whose almost infallible vigilance form a real asset of English +scholarship. + +W. W. G. +Park Lodge, Wimbledon. +_December_, 1905. + + + + +Contents + + + +Chapter I. Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + Introduction + I. The origin and nature of pastoral + II. Greek pastoral poetry + III. The bucolic eclogue in classical Latin + IV. Medieval and humanistic eclogues + V. Italian pastoral poetry + VI. The Italian pastoral romance + VII. Pastoral in Spain +VIII. Pastoral in France + + +Chapter II. Pastoral Poetry in England + + I. Early pastoral verse + II. Spenser + III. Spenser's immediate followers + IV. The regular eclogists + V. Lyrical and occasional verse + VI. Milton's _Lycidas_ and Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_ + VII. The pastoral romances + + +Chapter III. Italian Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays containing pastoral elements + II. Evolution of the pastoral drama (see Appendix I) + III. Tasso and his _Aminta_ + IV. Guarini and the _Pastor fido_ + V. Minor pastoral drama + + +Chapter IV. Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + I. Mythological plays + II. Translations from the Italian + III. Daniel's imitations of Tasso and Guarini + + +Chapter V. The Three Masterpieces + + I. Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ + II. Randolph's _Amyntas_ + III. Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ + + +Chapter VI. The English Pastoral Drama + + I. Plays founded on the pastoral romances + II. The English stage pastoral + + +Chapter VII. Masques and General Influence + + I. Pastoral in the masques and slighter dramatic compositions + II. Milton's masques: _Arcades_ and _Comus_ + III. General influence. Pastoral theory. Conclusion. + + +Appendix I. On the origin and development of the Italian pastoral drama +Appendix II. Bibliography + +Index + + + + +Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama + + + +Chapter I. + +Foreign Pastoral Poetry + + + +In approaching a subject of literary inquiry we are often able to fix upon +some essential feature or condition which may serve as an Ariadne's thread +through the maze of historical and aesthetic development, or to +distinguish some cardinal point affording a fixed centre from which to +survey or in reference to which to order and dispose the phenomena that +present themselves to us. It is the disadvantage of such an artificial +form of literature as that which bears the name of pastoral that no such +_a priori_ guidance is available. To lay down at starting that the +essential quality of pastoral is the realistic or at least recognizably +'natural' presentation of actual shepherd life would be to rule out of +court nine tenths of the work that comes traditionally under that head. +Yet the great majority of critics, though they would not, of course, +subscribe to the above definition, have yet constantly betrayed an +inclination to censure individual works for not conforming to some such +arbitrary canon. It is characteristic of the artificiality of pastoral as +a literary form that the impulse which gave the first creative touch at +seeding loses itself later and finds no place among the forces at work at +blossom time; the methods adopted by the greatest masters of the form are +inconsistent with the motives that impelled them to its use, and where +these motives were followed to their logical conclusion, the resuit, both +in literature and in life, became a byword for absurd unreality. To live +at all the ideal appeared to require an atmosphere of paradox and +incongruity: in its essence the most 'natural' of all poetic forms, +pastoralism came to its fairest flower amid the artificiality of a +decadent court or as the plaything of the leisure hours of a college of +learning, and its insipid convention having become 'a literary plague in +every European capital,' it finally disappeared from view amid the +fopperies of the Roman Arcadia and the puerile conceits of the Petit +Trianon. + +Wherein then, it may be wondered, does the pastoral's title to +consideration lie. It does not lie primarily, or chiefly, in the fact that +it is associated with names of the first rank in literature, with +Theocritus and Vergil, with Petrarch, Politian, and Tasso, with Cervantes +and Lope de Vega, with Ronsard and Marot, with Spenser, Ben Jonson, and +Milton; nor yet that works such as the _Idyls_, the _Aminta_, the +_Faithful Shepherdess_, and _Lycidas_ contain some of the most graceful +and perfect verse to be found in any language. Rather is its importance to +be sought in the fact that the form is the expression of instincts and +impulses deep-rooted in the nature of humanity, which, while affecting the +whole course of literature, at times evince themselves most clearly and +articulately here; that it plays a distinct and distinctive part in the +history of human thought and the history of artistic expression. Moreover, +it may be argued that, from this point of view, the very contradictions +and inconsistencies to which I have alluded make it all the more important +to discover wherein lay the strange vitality of the form and its power of +influencing the current of European letters. + +From what has already been said it will be apparent that little would be +gained by attempting beforehand to give any strict account of what is +meant by 'pastoral' in literature. Any definition sufficiently elastic to +include the protean forms assumed by what we call the 'pastoral ideal' +could hardly have sufficient intension to be of any real value. If after +considering a number of literary phenomena which appear to be related +among themselves in form, spirit, and aim we come at the end of our +inquiry to any clearer appreciation of the term I shall so far have +attained my object. I notice that I have used the expression 'pastoral +ideal,' and the phrase, which comes naturally to the mind in connexion +with this form of literature, may supply us with a useful hint. It +reminds us, namely, that the quality of pastoralism is not determined by +the fortuitous occurrence of certain characters, but by the fact of the +pieces in question being based more or less evidently upon a philosophical +conception, which no doubt underwent modification through the ages, but +yet bears evidence of organic continuity. Thus the shepherds of pastoral +are primarily and distinctively shepherds; they are not mere rustics +engaged in sheepcraft as one out of many of the employments of mankind. As +soon as the natural shepherd-life had found an objective setting in +conscious artistic literature, it was felt that there was after all a +difference between hoeing turnips and pasturing sheep; that the one was +capable of a particular literary treatment which the other was not. The +Maid of Orleans might equally well have dug potatoes as tended a flock, +and her place is not in pastoral song. Thus pastoral literature must not +be confounded with that which has for its subject the lives, the ideas, +and the emotions of simple and unsophisticated mankind, far from the +centres of our complex civilization. The two may be in their origin +related, and they occasionally, as it were, stretch out feelers towards +one another, but the pastoral of tradition lies in its essence as far from +the human document of humble life as from a scientific treatise on +agriculture or a volume of pastoral theology. Thus the tract which lies +before us to explore is equally remote from the idyllic imagination of +George Sand, the gross actuality of Zola, and the combination of simple +charm with minute and essential realism of Mr. Hardy's sketches in Wessex. +Nor does the adoption of the pastoral label suffice to bring within the +fold the fanciful animalism of Mr. Hewlett. By far the most remarkable +work of recent years to assume the title is Signor d'Annunzio's play _La +Figlia di Iorio_, a work in which the author's powerful and delicate +imagination and wealth of pure and expressive language appear in matchless +perfection. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that there is nothing +in common between the 'pastoral ideal' and the rugged strength and +suppressed fire of the great modern Italian's portrait of his native land +of the Abruzzi. + + + +I + + +Some confusion of thought appears to have prevailed among writers as to +the origin of pastoral. We are, for instance, often told that it is the +earliest of all forms of poetry, that it characterizes primitive peoples +and permeates ancient literatures. Song is, indeed, as old as human +language, and in a sense no doubt the poetry of the pastoral age may be +said to have been pastoral. It does not, however, follow that it bears any +essential resemblance to that which subsequent ages have designated by the +name. All that we know concerning the songs of pastoral nations leads us +to suppose that they bear a close resemblance to the type of popular verse +current wherever poetry exists, folk-songs of broad humanity in which +little stress is laid on the peculiar circumstances of shepherd life. An +insistence upon the objective pastoral setting is of prime importance in +understanding the real nature of pastoral poetry; it not only serves to +distinguish the pastoral proper from the more vaguely idyllic forms of +lyric verse, but helps us further to understand how it was that the +outward features of the kind came to be preserved, even after the various +necessities of sophisticated society had metamorphosed the content almost +beyond recognition. No common feature of a kind to form the basis of a +scientific classification can be traced in the spontaneous shepherd-songs +and their literary counterpart. What does appear to be a constant element +in the pastoral as known to literature is the recognition of a contrast, +implicit or expressed, between pastoral life and some more complex type of +civilization. At no stage in its development does literature, or at any +rate poetry, concern itself with the obvious, with the bare scaffolding of +life: whenever we find an author interested in the circle of prime +necessity we may be sure that he himself stands outside it. Thus the +shepherd when he sang did not insist upon the conditions amid which his +uneventful life was passed. It was left to a later, perhaps a wiser and a +sadder, generation to gaze with fruitless and often only half sincere +longing at the shepherd-boy asleep under the shadow of the thorn, lulled +by the low monotonous rustle of the grazing flock. Only when the +shepherd-songs ceased to be the outcome of unalloyed pastoral conditions +did they become distinctively pastoral. It is therefore significant that +the earliest pastoral poetry with which we are acquainted, whatever half +articulate experiments may have preceded it, was itself directly born of +the contrast between the recollections of a childhood spent among the +Sicilian uplands and the crowded social and intellectual city-life of +Alexandria[1]. + +As the result of this contrast there arises an idea which comes perhaps as +near being universal in pastoral as any--the idea, namely, of the 'golden +age.' This embraces, indeed, a field not wholly coincident with that of +pastoral, but the two are connected alike by a common spring in human +emotion and constant literary association. The fiction of an age of +simplicity and innocence found birth among the Augustan writers in the +midst of the complex and luxurious civilization of Rome, as an +illustration of the principle enunciated by Professer Raleigh, that +'literature has constantly the double tendency to negative the life +around it, as well as to reproduce it.' Having inspired Ovid and Vergil, +and been recognized by Lucretius, it passed as a literary legacy to +Boethius, Dante, and Jean de Meung; it was incorporated by Frezzi in his +strange allegorical composition the _Quadriregio_, and was thrice handled +by Chaucer; it was dealt with humorously by Cervantes in _Don Quixote_, +and became the prey of the satirist in the hands of Juvenal, Bertini, and +Hall. The association of this ideal world with the simplicity of pastoral +life was effected by Vergil, and in this form it was treated with loving +minuteness by Tasso in his _Aminta_ and by Browne in his _Britannia's +Pastorals_[2]. The fiction no doubt answered to some need in human nature, +but in literature it soon came to be no more than a polite convention. + +The conception of a golden age of rustic simplicity does not, indeed, +involve the whole of pastoral literature. It does not account either for +the allegorical pastoral, in which actual personages are introduced, in +the guise of shepherds, to discuss contemporary affairs, or for the +so-called realistic pastoral, in which the town looks on with amused envy +at the rustic freedom of the country. What it does comprehend is that +outburst of pastoral song which sprang from the yearning of the tired soul +to escape, if it were but in imagination and for a moment, to a life of +simplicity and innocence from the bitter luxury of the court and the +menial bread of princes[3]. + +And this, the reaction against the world that is too much with us, is, +after all, the keynote of what is most intimately associated with the name +of pastoral in literature--the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness +in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, +lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini. For everywhere +in these soft melodies of luscious beauty, even in the studied sketches of +primitive innocence itself, there is an undercurrent of tender melancholy +and pathos: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +I have said that a sense of the contrast between town and country was +essential to the development of a distinctively pastoral literature. It +would be an interesting task to trace how far this contrast is the source +of the various subsidiary types--of the ideal where it breeds desire for a +return to simplicity, of the realistic where the humour of it touches the +imagination, and of the allegorical where it suggests satire on the +corruption of an artificial civilization. + +When the kind first makes its appearance in a world already old, it arises +purely as a solace and relief from the fervid life of actuality, and comes +as a fresh and cooling draught to lips burning with the fever of the city. +In passing from Alexandria to Rome it lost much of its limpid purity; the +clear crystal of the drink was mixed with flavours and perfumes to fit the +palate of a patron or an emperor. The example of adulteration being once +set, the implied contrast of civilization and rusticity was replaced by +direct satire on the former, and later by the discussion under the +pastoral mask of questions of religious and political controversy. Proving +itself but a left-handed weapon in such debate, it became a court +plaything, in which princes and great ladies, poets and wits, loved to see +themselves figured and complimented, and the practice of assuming pastoral +names becoming almost universal in polite circles, the convention, which +had passed from the eclogue on to the stage, passed from the stage into +actual existence, and court life became one continual pageant of pastoral +conceit. From the court it passed into circles of learning, and grave +jurists and administrators, poets and scholars, set about the refining of +language and literature decked out in all the fopperies of the fashionable +craze. One is tempted to wonder whether anything more serious than light +loves and fantastic amours can have flourished amid eighteenth-century +pastoralism. When the ladies of the court began to talk dairy-farming with +the scholars and statesmen of the day, the pretence of pastoral simplicity +could hardly be long kept up. Nor was there any attempt to do so. In the +introduction to his famous romance d'Urfe wrote in answer to objectors: +'Responds leur, ma Bergere, que pour peu qu'ils ayent connoissance de toy, +ils scauront que tu n'es pas, ny celles aussi qui te suivent, de ces +Bergeres necessiteuses, qui pour gaigner leur vie conduisent les troupeaux +aux pasturages; mais que vous n'avez toutes pris cette condition que pour +vivre plus doucement et sans contrainte.' No wonder that to Fontenelle +Theocritus' shepherds 'sentent trop la campagne[4].' But the hour of +pastoralism had come, and while the ladies and gallants of the court were +playing the parts of Watteau swains and shepherdesses amid the trim hedges +and smooth lawns of Versailles, the gates were already bursting before the +flood, which was to sweep in devastation over the land, and to purge the +old order of social life. + + + +II + + +The Alexandria of the Ptolemies was not the nurse of a great literature, +though the age was undoubtedly one of considerable literary activity. +Scholastic learning and poetic imitation were rife; the rehandling of +Greek masterpieces was a fashionable pastime. For serious and original +composition, however, the conditions were not favourable. That the age +produced no great epic was less due to the disparagement of the form +indulged in by Callimachus, chief librarian and literary dictator, than to +the inherent temper of society. The prevailing taste was for an arrogant +display of rare and costly pageantry. At the coronation of Ptolemy +Philadelphus the brilliant city surfeited on a long-drawn golden pomp, +decked out in all the physical beauty the inheritance of Greek thought and +memories of Greek mythology could suggest, together with a wealth of +gorgeous mysticism and rapture of sensuous intoxication, which was the +fruit of its intercourse with the oriental world. The writers of +Alexandria lacked the 'high seriousness' of purpose to produce an +_Aeneid_, the imaginative enthusiasm needed for a _Faery Queen_. What they +possessed was delicacy, refinement, and wit; what they created, while +perfecting the epigram and stereotyping the hymn, was a form intermediate +between epic and lyric, namely the idyl as we find it in the works of +Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. + +It is interesting to note that the literary _milieu_ in which Theocritus +moved at Alexandria must have abounded in all those temptations which +proved the bane of pastoral poetry at Rome, Florence, and Ferrara. There +were princes and patrons to be flattered, there were panegyrics to be sung +and ancestral feats of arms to be recorded; nor does Theocritus appear to +have stood aloof from the throng of court poetasters. In spite of the +doubtful authenticity of some of the pieces connected with his name, there +appears no sufficient reason to deprive him of the rather conventional +hymns and other poems composed with a view to court-favour. These have +little interest for us to-day: his fame rests on works which probably +gained him little advantage at the time. It was for his own solace, +forgetful for a moment of the intrigues of court life and the uncertain +sunshine of princes, that he wrote his Sicilian idyls. For him, as at a +magic touch, the walls of the heated city melted like a mirage into the +sands of the salt lagoon, and he wandered once more amid the green woods +and pastures of Trinacria, the noonday sun tempered by the shade of the +chestnuts and the babbling of the brook, and by the cool airs that glide +down from the white cliffs of Aetna. There once more he saw the shepherds +tend their flocks, singing or wrangling with one another, dreamily piping +on their wax-stopped reeds or plotting to annex their neighbours' gear; or +else there sounded in his ears the love-song or the dirge, or the +incantation of the forsaken girl rose amid the silence to the silver moon. +Once again he stood upon the shore and watched the fishers cast their +nets, while around him the goats browsed on the close herbage of the +cliff, and the crystal stream leapt down, and the waves broke upon the +rocks below, till he saw the breasts of the nymphs shine in the whiteness +of the foam and their hair spread wide in the weed, and the fair Galatea, +the enticing and the fickle, mocked the clumsy suit of the Cyclops, as she +tossed upward the bitter spray from off her shining limbs. All these +memories he recorded with a loving faithfulness of detail that it is even +now possible to verify from the folk-songs of the south. To this day in +the Isles of Greece ruined girls seek to lure back their lovers with +charms differing but little from that sung by the Syracusan to Lady +Selene, and the popular poetry alike of Italy and Greece is full of those +delicate touches of refined sentiment that in Theocritus appear so +incongruous with the rough coats and rougher banter of the shepherds. For +though the poet raised the pastoral life of Sicily into the realms of +ideal poetry, he was careful not to dissociate his version from reality, +and he allowed no imaginary conceptions to overmaster his art. He depicted +no age of innocence; his poetry reflects no philosophical illusion of +primitive simplicity; he elaborated no imaginary cult of mystical worship. +His art, however little it may tempt us to the use of the term realism, is +nevertheless based on an almost passionate sympathy with actual human +nature. This is the fount of his inspiration, the central theme of his +song. The literary genius of Greece showed little aptitude for landscape, +and seldom treated inanimate nature except as a background for human +action and emotion, or it may be in the guise of mythological allegory. +Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that Theocritus, so tenderly concerned +with the homely aspects of human life, was not likewise sensitive to the +beauties of nature. At least it is impossible to doubt his attachment to +the land of his childhood, and it is at worst a welcome dream when we +imagine him, as the evening of life drew on, leaving the formal gardens +and painted landscapes of Alexandria and returning to Syracuse and his +beloved Sicily once more.[5] + +The verse of Theocritus was echoed by his younger contemporaries, Bion +and Moschus.[6] The former is best known through the oriental passion of +his 'Woe, woe for Adonis,' probably written to be sung at the annual +festival of Syrian origin commemorated by Theocritus in his fifteenth +idyl.[7] The most important extant work of Moschus is the 'Lament for +Bion,' characterized by a certain delicate sentimentality alien to the +spirit of either of his predecessors. It is perhaps significant that +Theocritus appears to have been of Syracusan, Bion of Smyrnian, and +Moschus of Ausonian origin.[8] With the exception of this poem, which is +modelled on Theocritus' 'Lament for Daphnis,' there is little in the work +of either of the younger poets of a pastoral nature. Certain fragments, +however, if genuine, suggest that poems of the kind may have perished. +Among the remains of Moschus occurs the following: + + Would that my father had taught me the craft of a keeper of sheep, + For so in the shade of the elm-tree, or under the rocks on the steep, + Piping on reeds I had sat, and had lulled my sorrow to sleep;[9] + +lines in which we already take leave of the genuine love of the pastoral +life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and +see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the +imaginary swain. + +Once again, five centuries later,[10] the spirit of Greece shone for one +brief moment in a work of pastoral elegance that has survived the +changing tastes of succeeding generations. The 'romance of _Daphnis and +Chloe_ is the last word of a world of sensuous enervation toying with the +idea of vernal freshness and virginity. It is a genuine picture of the +purity of awakening love, wrought with every delicacy of sentiment and +expression, and yet in such manner as by its very _naivete_ and innocence +to serve as a goad to satiated appetite. It has been suggested that the +work should properly be styled the _Lesbiaca_, a name which recalls the +_Aethiopica_ and _Babylonica_, and reminds us that the author, though a +student of Alexandrian literature, belonged to the school of the erotic +romanciers and traditional bishops, Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius. Of his +life we know nothing, and even his name--Longus--has been called in +question. The story, unlike those of most later pastoral romances, is of +the simplest. The author, however, was no longer satisfied with the +natural refinement of popular love poetry; the central characters are +represented as foundlings nurtured by the shepherds of Lesbos, and are +ultimately identified, on much the same conventional evidence as Ion and +others had been before, as the children of certain rich and aristocratie +families.[11] The interest of the story lies in the growth of their +unconscious love, which constitutes the central theme of the work, though +relieved here and there by wholly colourless adventure. + +A Latin translation made the book popular after the introduction of +printing, and the renaissance saw the French version by Amyot, a work of +European reputation. This was translated into English under Elizabeth; an +Italian translation followed in the seventeenth century,[12] and a Spanish +is also extant. There is no doubt that it was widely read throughout the +sixteenth and following centuries, but it exercised little influence on +the development of pastoral literature. By the time it became generally +known the main features of renaissance pastoral were already fixed, and in +motive and treatment alike it was alien to the spirit that animated the +fashionable masterpieces. The modern pastoral romance had already evolved +itself from a blending of the eclogue with the mythological tale. The +drama was developing on independent lines. Thus although, like the other +romances of the late Greek school, it supplied many incidents and +descriptions to be found in later works, it played no vital part in the +history of pastoral, and left no mark either on the general form or on the +spirit that animated the kind. Longus' romance finds its true descendant, +as well as its closest imitation, in a work that achieved celebrity on the +eve of the French revolution, that masterpiece of unreal and sentimental +simplicity, Saint-Pierre's _Paul et Virginie_. + + + +III + + +A faithful reproduction of the main conditions of actual life was the +characteristic of Theocritus' poetry. It was subject to this ever-present +limitation that his graceful fancy exercised its power of idealization. He +took the singing match, the dirge, and the love-song or complaint as he +found them among the shepherd-folk of Sicily, and gave them that objective +setting which is as necessary to pastoral as to every other merely +accidental form of poetry; for the true subjective lyric is independent of +circumstances. The first of his great successors made the bucolic eclogue +what, with trifling variation, it was to remain for eighteen centuries, a +form based upon artificiality and convention. I have already pointed out +that the literary conditions at Alexandria did not differ materially from +those of Rome; it follows that the change must have been due to the +character of Vergil himself. That intense love of beauty for its own sake +which characterized the Greek mind had little hold over the Roman. Nor did +the latter understand the charm of untaught simplicity. It is true that to +the Roman poets of the Augustan period we owe the conception of the golden +age, but it remained with them rather a philosophical mythus than the +dream of an idyllic poet. To writers of the stamp of Ovid, Lucretius, and +Vergil the Idyls of the Syracusan poet can have possessed but little +meaning, and in his own Bucolics the last named seems never to have +regarded the pastoral form as anything but a cloak for matters of more +pith and moment. Although he followed Theocritus in his use of the several +types of song and stamped them to all future ages in pastoral convention, +though he may have begun with fairly close imitation of his model and only +gradually diverged into a more independant style, he at no time showed +himself content with the earlier poet's simplicity of motive.[13] The +eclogue in which he followed Theocritus most closely, the eighth, is +equally, perhaps, the most pleasing of the series. It combines the motives +of the love-lament and incantation, and the closeness with which it +follows while playing variations on its models is striking. One instance +will suffice. Take the passage in the second Idyl thus rendered by +Symonds:[14] + + Hail, Hecate, dread dame! to the end be thou my assistant, + Making my medicines work no less than the philtre of Circe, + Or Medea's charms, or yellow-haired Perimede's. + Wheel of the magic spells, draw thou that man to my dwelling. + +Corresponding to this we find the following passage in the Latin poem: + + Song hath power to draw from heaven the wandering huntress, + Song was the witch's spell transformed the mates of Ulysses.... + Home from the city to me, my song, lead home to me Daphnis. + +Vergil was the first to begin the dissociation of pastoral from the +conditions of actual life, and just as his shepherds cease to present the +features and characters of the homely keepers of the flock, so his +landscape becomes imaginary and undefined. This peculiarity has been +noticed by Professor Herford in some very suggestive remarks prefixed to +his edition of the _Shepherd's Calender_. 'The profiles of the Sicilian +uplands,' he writes, 'waver uncertainly amid traits drawn from the Mantuan +plain. In this confusion lay, perhaps, the germ of those debates between +highland and lowland shepherds which reverberate through the later +pastoral, and are still loud in Spenser.' The gulf that separated Vergil +from his predecessor, in so far as their treatment of shepherd-life is +concerned, may be measured by the manner in which they respectively deal +with the supernatural. In the Greek Idyls we find the simple faith or +superstition as it lived among the shepherd-folk; no Pan appears to sow +dismay in the breasts of the maidens, nor do we find aught of the mystical +worship that later gathered round him in the imaginary Arcadia. He is +mentioned only as the rugged patron of herds and song, the wild indweller +of the savage woods as he appeared to the minds of the simple swains, who +hushed their midday piping fearful lest they should disturb the sleep of +the god. It is true that Theocritus introduces mythological characters in +the tale of Galatea, but it should be noticed that this merely forms the +theme of a song or the subject of a poetical epistle to a friend. +Moreover, it is open to more than one rationalistic interpretation. +Symonds treats it as an allegory in harmony with the mythopoeic genius of +Greek poetry. It is equally possible to regard the Cyclops as emblematic +merely of the rough neatherd flouted by the more delicate +shepherd-maiden--the contrast is of constant occurrence in later +works--for, alike in one of his own fragments and in Moschus' lament, Bion +is represented as courting this same Galatea after she has rid herself of +the suit of Polyphemus. Vergil was content with no such simple mythology +as this. He must needs shake Silenus from a drunken sleep and bid him tell +of Chaos and old Time, of the infancy of the world and the birth of the +gods. This mixture of obsolescent theology and Epicurean philosophy +probably possessed little reality for Vergil himself, and would have +conveyed no meaning whatever to the Sicilian shepherds. Its introduction +stamps his eclogues with that unreality which has been the reproach of the +pastoral from his day to ours. The didactic homily was one fresh +convention introduced. Far more important was the tendency to make every +form subserve some ulterior purpose of allegory and panegyric.[15] For the +Roman its own beauty was no sufficient end of art. That the _Aeneid_ was +written for the glorification of Rome cannot be made a reproach to the +poet; the greatness of the end lent dignity to the means. That the +pastoral was forced to serve the menial part of a vehicle of sycophantic +praise is less easily pardoned. In Vergil's hands a conversation between +shepherds becomes an expression of gratitude to the emperor for the +restitution of his villa, a lament for Daphnis is interwoven with an +apotheosis of Julius Caesar, and in the complaint of the forsaken +shepherd, whom Apollo and Pan seek in vain to comfort, we may trace the +wounded vanity of his patron deserted by his mistress for the love of a +soldier. The fourth eclogue was written after the peace of Brundisium, and +describes the golden age to which Vergil looked forward as consequent upon +the birth of a marvellous infant, perhaps some offspring of the marriages +of Antonius and Octavianus, celebrated in solemnization of the treaty. The +poem achieved considerable fame, which lasted as late as the time of +Dryden, owing to the belief that it contained a prophecy of the birth of +Christ drawn from the Sibylline books, and won for Vergil throughout the +middle ages the title of prophet and magician. Whether this belief was +well founded or not may be left to those whom it may interest to inquire; +it is sufficient for our purpose to note that in the poem in question +Vergil first introduced the convention of the golden age into pastoral +verse. + +The first of the long line of imitators of whom we have any notice was a +certain Calpurnius. His diction is correct and his verse smooth, but the +suggestion that he belonged to the age of Augustus has not met with much +favour among those competent to judge. He followed Vergil closely, chiefly +developing the panegyric. His poems, however, include all the usual +conventions, singing matches, invocations, cosmologies, and the rest, in +the treatment of which originality never appears to have been his aim. +Some of his pieces deal with husbandry, and belong more strictly to the +school of the _Georgics_ and didactic poetry. The most interesting of his +eclogues is one in which he contrasts the life of the town with that of +the country, the direct comparison of which he appears to have been the +first to treat. The poem likewise possesses some antiquarian interest, +owing to a description of a wild-beast show in an amphitheatre in which +the animals were brought up in lifts through the floor of the arena. +Calpurnius is sometimes supposed, on account of a dedication to Nemesianus +found in some manuscripts, to have lived at the end of the third century, +but even supposing the dedication to be genuine, which is more than +doubtful, it does not follow that the person referred to is that +Nemesianus who contested the poetic crown with Prince Numerianus about the +year 283[16]. This Nemesianus was probably the author of some eclogues +which have been frequently ascribed to Calpurnius (numbers 8 to 11 in most +editions), but which must be discarded from the list of his authentic +works on a technical question of the employment of elision[17]. The +_editio princeps_ of these eclogues is not dated, but probably appeared in +1471, so that they were at any rate accessible to writers of the +_cinquecento_. It is not easy to trace any direct influence, unless, as +perhaps we should, we credit to Calpurnius the suggestion of those poems +in which a 'wise' shepherd describes to his less-travelled hearers the +manners of the town. + +A few pieces from the _Idyllia_ of Ausonius appear in some of the bucolic +collections, but they cannot strictly be regarded as coming within the +range of pastoral poetry. + + + +IV + + +Events conspired to make Vergil the model for later writers of eclogues. +The fame of the poet was a potent cause among many. Another reason why +Theocritus found no direct imitators may be sought in the respective +methods of the two poets. Work of the nature of the _Idyls_ has to depend +for its value and interest upon the artistic qualities of the poetry +alone. Such work may spring up spontaneously under almost any conditions; +it is seldom produced through imitation. On the other hand, any scholar +with a gift for easy versification could achieve a certain distinction as +a follower of Vergil. His verse depended for its interest not on its +poetic qualities but upon the importance of the themes it treated. +Accidental conditions, too, told in favour of the Roman poet. During the +middle ages Latin was a universal language among the lettered classes, +while the knowledge of Greek, though at no time so completely lost as is +sometimes supposed, was a far rarer accomplishment, and was restricted for +the most part to a few linguistic scholars. Thus before the revival of +learning had made Greek a possible source of literary inspiration, the +Vergilian tradition, through the instrumentality of Petrarch and +Boccaccio, had already made itself supreme in pastoral[18]. + +During the middle ages the stream of pastoral production, though it +nowhere actually disappears, is reduced to the merest trickle. Notices of +such isolated poems as survive have been carefully collected by +Macri-Leone in the introduction to his elaborate but as yet unfinished +work on the Latin eclogue in the Italian literature of the fourteenth +century. As early as the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth +century we find a poem by Severus Sanctus Endelechius, variously entitled +'Carmen bucolicum de virtute signi crucis domini' or 'de mortibus boum.' +It is a hymn to the saint cross, and in it for the first time the pastoral +suffered violence from the tyranny of the religious idea. The 'Ecloga +Theoduli' alluded to by Chaucer in the _House of Fame_[19] appears to be +the work of an Athenian writer, and is ascribed to various dates ranging +from the fifth to the eighth centuries. While preserving as its main +characteristic a close subservience to its Vergilian model, the eclogue +participated in the general rise of allegory which marked the later middle +ages. Pastoral colouring of no very definite order had shown itself in the +elegies of Alcuin in the eighth century, as also in the 'Conflictus veris +et hiemis,' traditionally ascribed to the Venerable Bede, but more +probably the work of one Dodus, a disciple of Alcuin. Of the tenth century +we possess an allegorical religious lament entitled 'Ecloga duarum +sanctimonialium.' About 1160 a Benedictine monk named Metellus composed +twelve poems under the title of _Bucolica Quirinalium_, in honour of St. +Quirinus and in obvious imitation of Vergil. Reminiscences and paraphrases +of the Roman poet are scattered throughout the monk's own barbarous +hexameters, as in the opening verses: + + Tityre tu magni recubans in margine stagni + Silvestri tenuique fide pete iura peculi! + +It would hardly be worth recording these medieval clerks, the +undistinguished writers, 'de quibus,' Boccaccio said, 'nil curandum est,' +were it not that they show how the memory at least of the classical +pastoral survived amid the ruins of ancient learning, and so serve to lead +up to one last spasmodic manifestation of the kind in certain poems which +else appear to stand in a curiously isolated position. + +It was in 1319, during the bitter years of his exile at Ravenna, that +Dante received from one John of Bologna, known, on account of his fame as +a writer of Latin verse, as Giovanni del Virgilio, a poetical epistle +inviting him to visit the author in his native city. His correspondent, +while doing homage to his poetic genius, incidentally censured him for +composing his great work in the base tongue of the vulgar[20]. Dante +replied in a Vergilian eclogue, courteously declining Giovanni's +invitation to Bologna, on the ground that it was a place scarcely safe for +his person. As regarded the strictures of his correspondent, his +triumphant answer in the shape of the _Paradiso_ lay yet unfinished, so +the author of the _De Vulgari Eloquio_ trifled with the charge and +purported to compose the present poem in earnest of reform. There is a +tone of not unkindly irony about the whole. Was it an elaborate jest at +the expense of Giovanni, the writer of Vergilian verse? The Bolognese +replied, this time also in bucolic form, repeating his invitation and +holding out the special attraction of a meeting with Mussato, the most +regarded poet of his day in Europe. Dante's second eclogue, if indeed it +is correctly ascribed to his pen, introduces several historical +characters. It is said not to have reached Bologna till after his death. +These poems were not included in any of the early bucolic collections, and +first appeared in print in the eighteenth century. They seem, from their +purely occasional nature, their inconspicuous bulk, and lack of any +striking characteristics, to have attracted little notice in their own +day, and to have been ignored by later writers on pastoral as forming no +link in the chain of historical development. Given, indeed, the Bucolics +of Vergil, they are imitations such as might at any moment have appeared, +irrespective of date and surroundings, and independent of any living +literary tradition[21]. It is therefore impossible to regard them as in +any way belonging to, or foreshadowing, the great body of renaissance +pastoral, a division of literature endowed with remarkable vitality and +evolutionary force, which must in its growth and decay alike be studied in +close connexion with the ideas and temperament of the age, and in +relation to the general development of the history of letters[22]. + +The grandeur of the Roman Empire, the background against which in +historical retrospect we see the bucolic eclogues of Vergil and his +immediate followers, had vanished when Italian literature once more rose +out of chaos. The political organism had resolved itself into its +constituent elements, and fresh combinations had arisen. Nevertheless, +though the Empire was hardly now the shadow of its pristine greatness, men +still looked to Rome as the centre of the civilized world. As the seat of +the Church, it stood for the one force capable of supplying a permanent +element among the warring interests of European politics. Nothing was more +natural than that the poetic form that had reflected the glories of +imperial Rome should bow to the fascination of Rome, the visible emblem on +earth of the spiritual empire of Christ. To the medieval mind, so far from +there being any antagonism between the two ideas, the one seemed almost to +involve and necessitate the other. It saw in the splendeur of the Empire +the herald of a glory not of this world, a preparation as it were, a +decking of the chamber against the advent of the bride; and thus the +pastoral which sang of the greatness of pagan Rome appeared at the same +time a hymn prophetic of the glory of the Church[23]. + +Moreover, during the centuries that had elapsed since the days of Vergil +the term 'pastoral' had gained a new meaning and new associations. In the +days of Augustus Pan was a boorish anachronism; it was left to medieval +Christianity to create a god who was in fact a shepherd of men[24] and so +to render possible a pastoral allegory that should embody the dearest +hopes and aspirations of the human heart. That Christian pastoralists +availed themselves successfully of the possibilities of the theme it would +be difficult to maintain. It is a singular fact that, at a time when +allegory was the characteristic literary form, it was yet so impossible +even for the finer spirits to follow a train of thought clearly and +consistently, that it was only when a mind passed beyond the limitations +of its own age, and assumed a position _sub specie aeternitatis_, that it +was able to free itself from the prevalent confusion of the imaginary and +the real, the word and the idea, and to perceive that success in allegory +depends, not on the chaotic intermingling of the attributes of the type +and the thing typified, but on so representing the one as to suggest and +illuminate the other. + +In the early days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral +tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. It is +not without significance that the first modern eclogues were from the same +pen as the sonnet 'Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,' expressive of the +shame with which earnest sons of the Church contemplated the captivity of +the holy father at Avignon; for thus on the very threshold of Arcadia we +are met with those bitter denunciations of ecclesiastical corruption which +strike so characteristic a note in the works of the satirical Mantuan, and +seem so out of place in the songs of Spenser and Milton. In one eclogue +the poet mourns over the ruin and desolation of Rome, as a mother deserted +of her children; another is a dialogue between two shepherds, in which St. +Peter, under the pastoral disguise of Pamphilus, upbraids the licentious +Clement VI with the ignoble servitude in which he is content to abide; a +third shows us Clement wantoning with the shameless mistress of a line of +pontifical shepherds, a figure allegorical of the corruption of the +Church[25]; in yet a fourth Petrarch laments his estrangement from his +patron Giovanni Colonna, a cardinal in favour at the papal court, whom it +would appear his outspoken censures had offended. Petrarch's was not the +only voice that was raised urging the Pope to return from the 'Babylonian +captivity,' but the protest had peculiar significance from the mouth of +one who stood forth as the embodiment of the new age still struggling in +the throes of birth. When 'the first Italian' accepted the laurel crown at +the Capitol, he dreamed of Rome as once more the heart of the world, the +city which should embody that early Italian idea of nationality, the ideal +of the humanistic commonwealth. The course urged alike by Petrarch and by +St. Catherine was in the end followed, but the years of exile were yet to +bear their bitterest fruit of mortification and disgrace. In 1377 Gregory +XI transferred the seat of the papacy from Avignon to Rome, with the +resuit that the world was treated to the edifying spectacle of three +prelates each claiming to be the vicar of Christ and sole father of the +Church. + +These ecclesiastical eclogues form the most important contribution made by +Italy's greatest lyric poet to pastoral. Others, one in honour of Robert +of Sicily, another recording the defeat of Pan by Articus on the field of +Poitiers, follow already existing pastoral convention. Some few, again, of +less importance in literary history, are of greater personal or poetic +interest. In one we see Francesco and his brother Gherardo wandering in +the realm of shepherds, and there exchanging their views concerning +religious verse. A group of three, standing apart from the rest, connect +themselves with the subject of the _Canzoniere_. The first describes the +ravages of the plague at Avignon; the second mourns over the death of +poetry in the person of Laura, who fell a victim on April 6, 1348; the +third is a dirge sung by the shepherdesses over her grave. One, lastly, a +neo-classic companion to Theocritus' tale of Galatea, recounts the poet's +unrequited homage to Daphne of the Laurels, thus again suggesting the +idealized source of Petrarch's inspiration. This poem is not only the gem +of the series, but embodies the mythopoeic spirit of classical imagination +in a manner unknown in the later days of the renaissance. + +The, eclogues, twelve in number, appear to have been mostly composed +about the middle of the fourteenth century. In the days of Petrarch the +art of Latin verse was yet far from the perfection it attained in those of +Poliziano and Vida; it was a clumsy vehicle in comparison with the vulgar +tongue, which he affected to despise while setting therein the standard +for future ages. Nevertheless, Petrarch's Latin poems bear witness to the +natural genius for composition and expression to which we owe the +_Canzoniere_. The _editio princeps_ of the pastorals appeared in the form +of a beautifully printed folio at Cologne in 1473, ninety-nine years after +the poet's death. They were entitled _Eglogae_[26] (i.e. _aeglogae_), by +which, as Dr. Johnson remarked, Petrarch, finding no appropriate meaning +in the form _eclogae_, 'meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it +will only mean the talk of goats.' + +No two men ever won for themselves more diverse literary reputations than +Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio. The Latin eclogue is one of their few +points of literary contact. The bucolic collections contain no less than +sixteen such poems from the pen of the younger writer[27], which, though +not devoid of merit as poetical exercises, show that as a metrist +Boccaccio fell almost as far short of his friend in the learned as in the +vulgar tongue. They were composed at various dates, mostly, it would +appear, after 1360, though some are certainly earlier; and it would be +difficult to say whether to him or to Petrarch belonged the honour of +reviving the form, were it not that, both in the poems themselves and in +his correspondance, he explicitly mentions Petrarch as his master in the +kind[28]. In any case the dates of composition must cover a wide period, +for the poems reflect varions phases of his life. 'Le Egloghe del +Boccaccio,' says an Italian critic, 'rappresentano tutta la vita +psicologica del poeta, dalle febbri d'amore alle febbri ascetiche.' The +amorous eclogues, to which in later life Boccaccio attached little +importance, are early; several are historical in subject and are probably +of later date, though one may be as early as 1348; there are others of a +religions nature which belong to the author's later years. The allusions +in these poems are so obscure that it would in most cases be hopeless to +seek to unravel the meaning had not the author left us a key in a letter +to Martino da Signa, prior of the Augustinians. Many of the subjects are +purely conventional, such as those of the early poems on the loves of the +shepherds, the historical panegyrics and laments, and the satire on rich +misers. The same may be said of a dispute on the respective merits of +poetry and commerce, and of a poem in praise of poetry; although the +former has an obvious relation to the author's own circumstances, and the +latter appears to be inspired by genuine enthusiasm and love of art. The +forces of confusion that have dogged the pastoral in all ages show +themselves where the poet tells a Christian fable in pagan guise; the +antithesis of human and divine love, while suggesting Petrarch's influence +over his life, is a theme that runs throughout medieval philosophy and was +later embodied by Spenser in his _Hymns_. One poem stands out from the +rest somewhat after the manner of Petrarch's _Daphne_. In it Boccaccio +tells us, under the thinnest veil of pastoral, how his daughter Violante, +dead in childhood many years before, appeared to him bearing tidings of +the land beyond the grave. The theme is the same as that of the almost +contemporary _Pearl_; and in treating it Boccaccio achieves something of +the sweetness and pathos of the English poem. One eclogue, finally, the +_Valle tenebrosa (Vallis Opaca)_, which appears to owe something to +Dante's description of hell, is probably historical in its intention, but +the gloss explains _obscurum per obscurius_, and we can only suppose that +the author intended that the inner sense should remain a mystery. + +When Boccaccio wrote, the eclogue had not yet degenerated into the +literary convention it became in the following century; and, though he was +no doubt tempted to the use of the form by Vergilian tradition and the +example of Petrarch, he must also have followed therein a natural +inclination and no mere dictate of fashion. Even in these poems the +humanity of the writer's personality makes itself felt. While Laura tends +to fade into a personification of poetry, and Petrarch's strongest +convictions find expression through the mouth of St. Peter, we feel that +behind Boccaccio's humanistic exercise lies his own amorous passion, his +own religious enthusiasm, his own fatherly tenderness and love. His +eclogues, however, never attained the same reputation as Petrarch's, and +remained in manuscript till the appearance of Giunta's bucolic collection +of 1504. + + * * * * * + +As humanism advanced and the golden age of the renaissance approached, +Latin bucolic writers sprang up and multiplied. The fullest +collection--that printed by Oporinus at Basel in March, 1546--contains the +poems of thirty-eight authors, and even this makes no pretence of giving +those of the middle ages. The collection, however, ranges from Calpurnius +to Castalio (i.e. the French theologian Sebastien Chateillon), and +includes the work of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Spagnuoli, Urceo, Pontano, +Sannazzaro, Erasmus, Vida, and others. There is a strong family likeness +in the pastoral verse of these authors, and the majority are devoid of +individual interest. A few, however, merit separate notice. + +It was in the latter half of the fifteenth century that the renaissance +eclogue, abandoning its last claims to poetic inspiration, assumed its +definitive form in the works of Battista Spagnuoli, more commonly known +from the place of his birth by the name of Mantuanus. His eclogues, ten in +number, were accepted by the sixteenth century as models of pastoral +composition, inferior to those of Vergil alone, were indeed any +inferiority allowed. Starting with the simple theme of love, the author +proceeds to depict its excess in the love-lunes of the distraught Amyntas. +Thence he passes to one of those satires on women in which the fifteenth +century delighted, so bitter, that when Thomas Harvey came to translate it +in 1656 he felt constrained, for his credit's sake, to add the note, +'What the author meant of all, the translater intends only of ill +women[29].' There follows the old complaint of the niggardliness of rich +patrons towards poor poets, and a satire on the luxury of city life. The +remaining poems are ecclesiastical. One is in praise of the religious +life, another describes the simple faith of the country folk and the joys +of conversion; finally, we have a satire on the abuses of Rome, and a +discussion on points of theological controversy. None of these subjects +possess the least novelty; the author's merit, if merit it can be called, +lies in having stamped them with their definitive form for the use of +subsequent ages. Combined with this lack of originality, however, it is +easy to trace a strong personal element in the bitterness of the satire +that pervades many of the themes, the orthodox eclogue on conversion +standing in curious contrast with that on ecclesiastical abuses. + +It is not easy to account for Spagnuoli's popularity, but the curiously +representative quality of his work was no doubt in part the cause. His +poems were what, through the changing fashions of centuries, men had come +to expect of bucolic verse. They crystallized into a standard mould +whatever in pastoral, whether classical or renaissance, was most obviously +and easily reducible to a type, and so attained the position of models +beyond which it was needless to go. They were first printed in 1498, and +went through a number of editions during the author's lifetime. As a young +man--and it is to his earlier years that the bulk of the eclogues must be +attributed--Spagnuoli was noted for the elegance of his Latin verse; but +his facility led him into over-production, and Tiraboschi reports his +later writings as absolutely unreadable. He was of Spanish extraction, as +his name implies, became a Carmelite, and rose to be general of the order, +but retired in 1515, the year before his death. + +Three eclogues are extant from the pen of Pontano, a distinguished +humanist at the court of Ferdinand I and his successors at Naples, and a +Latin poet of considerable grace and feeling. His poems were first +published by Aldus in 1505, two years after his death. In one +characteristic composition he laments the loss of his wife, to whom he was +deeply attached; another introduces under a pastoral name his greater +disciple Sannazzaro[30]. + +Jacopo Sannazzaro, known to humanism as Actius Sincerus, disciple of the +'Accademia Pontana,' and editor of his master's works, the greatest +explorer, if not the greatest exponent, of the mysteries of Arcadia, was +born of parents of Spanish origin at Naples in 1458. His boyhood was spent +at San Cipriano, but he soon returned to Naples, where he fell in love +with Carmosina Bonifacia. His passion does not appear to have been +reciprocated, but the lady has her place in literature as the Phillis of +the eclogues. He attached himself to the court of Frederick of Aragon, +whom he followed into exile in France. Returning to Naples after his +patron's death in 1503, he again fell in love, this time with a certain +Cassandra Marchesa, to whom he continued to pay court, _more Platonico_, +till his death in 1530. He is said to have died at her house. + +To his Italian work I shall have to return later; here it is his five +Latin piscatory eclogues that demand notice. There is nothing in the +subject-matter to arrest attention--they consist of a lament for +Carmosina, a lover's complaint, a singing match, a panegyric, and a poem +in honour of Cassandra--but the form is interesting. Of course the claim +sometimes put forward for Sannazzaro, as the inventor of the piscatory +eclogue, ignores various passages in Theocritus, notably the twenty-first +Idyl, whence he presumably borrowed the idea. But it is certainly +refreshing, after wandering in an unreal Sicily and an imaginary Arcadia, +and listening to shepherds discourse of the abuses of the Roman Curia, to +dive into the waters of the bay of Naples, or wanton in fancy along its +sunlit shore from the low rocks of Baiae to the sheer cliffs of Sorrento, +and to feel that, even though Jacopo was no Neapolitan fisher-boy, and +Carmosina no nymph of Posilipo, yet the poet had at least before him the +blue water and the dark rocks, and in his heart the love that formed the +theme of his song[31]. + +Sannazzaro also wrote a mythological poem entitled _Salices_, in which +certain nymphs pursued by satyrs are changed by Diana into willows. The +tale was evidently suggested by Ovid, and cannot strictly be classed as +pastoral, though it may have helped to fix in pastoral convention the +character of the satyr; who, however, at no time enjoyed a very savoury +reputation. The Latin works were first published at Naples in 1536, and +though far from rivalling the popularity of the _Arcadia_, went through +several editions. + +The Latin eclogues of the renaissance are distinguished from all other +forms of allegory by the obscure and recondite allusions that they +affected. There were few among their authors for whom the narration of +simple loves and sorrows or the graces of untutored nature possessed any +attraction; we find them either making their shepherds openly discuss +contemporary affairs, or more often clothing their references to actual +events in a sort of pastoral allegory, fatuous as regards its form and +obscure as regards its content. Tityrus and Mopsus are alternately lovers, +courtiers and spiritual pastors; Pan, when he does not conceal under his +shaggy outside the costly robes of a prince, is a strange abortive +monster, drawing his attributes in part from pagan superstition, in part +from Christian piety; a libel upon both. The seed sown by Petrarch and +Boccaccio bore fruit only too freely. The writers of eclogues, either +debarred from or incapable of originality, sought distinction by ever more +and more elaborate and involved allusions; and their works, in their own +day held the more sublime the more incomprehensible they were, are now the +despair of those who would wring from them any semblance of meaning. + +The absurdities of the conventional pastoral did not, indeed, pass +altogether unnoticed in their own day, for early in the sixteenth century +Teofilo Folengo composed his _Zanitonella_ in macaronic verse. It consists +of eclogues and poems in hexameter and elegiac metre ridiculing polite +pastoralism through contrast with the crudities of actual rusticity. In +the same manner Berni travestied the courtly pastoral of vernacular +writers in his realistic pictures of village love. But though the satirist +might find ample scope for his wit in anatomizing the foible of the day, +fashionable society continued none the less to encourage the exquisite +inanity, and to be flattered by the elegant obscurity, of the allegorical +pastoral. + + + +V + + +In 1481 appeared an Italian translation of the Bucolics of Vergil from the +pen of Bernardo Pulci. The same volume also contained a collection of +eclogues in the vernacular by various authors, none of which have any +particular interest beyond what attaches to them as practically heading +the list of Italian pastorals[32]. It will be noticed that these poems +correspond in date with the later school of Latin bucolic writers, +represented by Mantuan; and the vernacular compositions developed +approximately parallel to, though usually in imitation of, those in the +learned tongue. But the fourteenth-century school of Petrarch had not been +entirely without its representative in Italian. At least one poem included +by Boccaccio in his _Ameto_ is a strict eclogue, composed throughout in +_terza rima_, which was destined to become the standard verse-form for +'pastoral,' as _ottava rima_ for 'rustic,' composition. The poem is a +contention between an upland and a lowland shepherd, and begins in genuine +pastoral fashion: + + Come Titan del seno dell' aurora + Esce, cosi con le mie pecorelle + I monti cerco sema far dimora. + +It is chiefly differentiated from many similar compositions in Latin--and +the distinction is of some importance--in that the interest is purely +pastoral; no political or religious allusions being discernible under the +arguments of the somewhat quarrelsome swains[33]. This peculiarity is on +the whole characteristic of the later vernacular pastoral likewise, which, +after the appearance of the collection of 1481, soon became extremely +common, Siena and Urbino, Ferrara, Bologna and Padua, Florence and Naples, +all alike bearing practical witness to the popularity of the kind[34]. + +In 1506 Castiglione[35] and Cesare Gonzaga, in the disguise of shepherds, +recited an eclogue interspersed with songs before the court of Duke +Guidubaldo at Urbino. The Duchess Elizabeth was among the spectators. The +_Tirsi,_ as it is called, begins with the simple themes of pastoral +complaint, whence by swift transition it passes to a panegyric of the +court and the circle of the _Cortegiano_. It was not the first attempt at +bringing the pastoral upon the boards, since Poliziano's _Orfeo_ with its +purely bucolic opening had been performed as early as 1471; but +Castiglione's _ecloga rappresentativa_ was the first of any note to depend +purely on the pastoral form and to introduce on the stage the convention +of the allegorical pastoral. Some years later a further step was taken in +the dramatization of the eclogue by Luigi Tansillo in his _Due pelegrini_, +performed at Messina in 1538, though composed and probably originally +acted some ten years before. It is through these and similar poems that we +shall have to trace the gradual evolution of the pastoral drama in a later +section of this work. Tansillo was likewise the author, both of a poem +called _Il Vendemmiatore_, one of those obscene debauches of fancy which +throw a lurid light on the luxurious imagination of the age, and of a +didactic work, _Il Podere_, in which, as his editor somewhat naively +remarks, 'ci rende amabile la campagna e l'agricoltura[36].' + +The practice of eclogue-writing soon became no less general in the +vernacular than in Latin, and the band of pastoral poets included men so +different in temperament as Machiavelli, who left a 'Capitolo pastorale' +among his miscellaneous works, and Ariosto, whose eclogue on the +conspiracy contrived in 1506 against Alfonso d'Este was published from +manuscript in 1835. The fashion of the piscatory eclogue, set by +Sannazzaro in Latin, was followed in Italian by his fellow-citizen +Bernardino Rota, and later by Bernardino Baldi of Urbino, Abbot of +Guastalla, in whose poems we are able at times to detect a ring of simple +and refreshing sincerity. + +Though, as will be understood even from the brief summary given above, the +allusive element is not wholly absent from these poems, it is nevertheless +true, as already said, that it appears less persistently than in the Latin +works, the weighty matters of religion and politics being as a rule +avoided. The reason is perhaps not far to seek, since, being in the vulgar +tongue, they appealed to a wider and less learned audience, before whom it +might have been injudicious to utter too strong an opinion on questions of +church and state. + +So far the pastoral poetry of Italy had been composed exclusively in the +literary Tuscan of the day. To Florence and to Lorenzo de' Medici in +particular is due the honour of having first introduced the rustic speech +of the people. His two poems written in the language of the peasants about +Florence, _La Nencia da Barberino_ and a canzonet _In morte della Nencia_, +possess a grace to which the quaintness of the diction adds point and +flavour. A short extract must suffice to illustrate the style. + + Ben si potra tener avventurato + Chi sia marito di si bella moglie; + Ben si potra tener in buon di nato + Chi ara quel fioraliso senza foglie; + Ben si potra tenersi consolato + Che si contenti tutte le sue voglie + D' aver la Nencia, e tenersela in braccio + Morbida e bianca, che pare un sugnaccio. + + * * * * * + + Nenciozza mia, vuo' tu un poco fare + Meco a la neve per quel salicale?-- + Si, volentier, ma non me la sodare + Troppo, che tu non mi facessi male.-- + Nenciozza mia, deh non ti dubitare, + Che l' amor ch' io ti porto si e tale, + Che quando avessi mal, Nenciozza mia, + Con la mia lingua te lo leveria. + +This form of composition at once became fashionable. Luigi Pulci[37] +composed his _Beca di Dicomano_, which attained almost equal success and +passed for the work of Lorenzo. It is, however, a far inferior production, +in which the quaintness of the model is replaced by coarse caricature and +its delicate rusticity by a cruder realism. Other imitations followed, but +none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and +expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish +themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an +anonymous _Pescatoria amorosa_ printed about 1550. It is a Venetian +serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a certain grace +of language: + + Cortese donne, belle innamorae, + Donzelle, vedovette, e maridae, + Ascholte ste parole, che le no se cortelae, + Che intendere la causa del vegnir in ste contrae[39]. + +Symonds and D'Ancona alike remark, with perfect truth, that Lorenzo's +rustic style, in spite of its sympathetic grace, is not altogether +dissociated from burlesque. While free from the artificiality of court +pastoral, it is equally distinct from the natural simplicity of the +Theocritean idyl. Its flavour depends upon the half cynical, half kindly, +amusement afforded by the contrast between the _naivete_ of the country +and the familiar and conventional polish of town life. This theme had +already caught the fancy of the song-writers of the fourteenth century, +who produced some of the most delightful examples of native and +unconventional pastoral anywhere to be found[40]. Franco Sacchetti the +novelist, for example, gives us a series of charming vignettes of country +life and scenery, but always from the point of view of the town observer. +One poem of his in particular gained wide popularity, and a modernized and +somewhat altered version was iater printed among the works of Poliziano. +It was originally a _ballata_, but I prefer to quote some stanzas from the +traditional version: + + Vaghe le montanine e pastorelle, + Donde venite si leggiadre e belle?-- + + Vegnam dall' alpe, presso ad un boschetto; + Picciola capannella e il nostro sito; + Col padre e colla madre in picciol tetto, + Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito, + Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito + Ch' abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle.-- + + Ben si posson doler vostre bellezze, + Poiche tra valli e monti le mostrate, + Che non e terra di si grandi altezze + Che voi non foste degne ed onorate. + Ora mi dite, se vi contentate + Di star nell' alpe cosi poverelle?-- + + Piu si contenta ciascuna di noi + Gire alla mandria, dietro alla pastura, + Piu che non fate ciascuna di voi + Gire a danzare dentro a vostre mura; + Ricchezza non cerchiam, ne piu ventura, + Se non be' fiori, e facciam ghirlandelle[41]. + +Other writers besides Sacchetti produced songs of the sort, but in all +alike the strictly pastoral element was accidental, and merged insensibly +into the more delicately romantic of the _novelle_ themes. The following +lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in +English ballad poetry. They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of +Sacchetti's. A nun sings: + + La dura corda e 'l vel bruno e la tonica + Gittar voglio e lo scapolo + Che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica; + Poi teco a guisa d'assetato giovane, + Non gia che si sobbarcoli, + Venir me n' voglio ove fortuna piovane: + + E son contenta star per serva e cuoca, + Che men mi cocero ch' ora mi cuoca[42]. + +But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally +influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that +we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the +transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the _volutta idillica_ of +the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido._ This vein is strong in Lorenzo's +charming carnival songs, which at once recall Villon's burden, 'Ou sont +les neiges d'antan?' and anticipate Tasso's warning: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova. + +The 'triumph' of _Bacchus and Ariadne_, introduced with amorous nymphs and +satyrs, has the refrain: + + Quant' e bella giovinezza, + Che si fugge tuttavia! + Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: + Di doman non c' e certezza. + +The flower of lyric melancholy is already full blown. So, too, in another +carnival song of his: + + Or che val nostra bellezza? + Se si perde, poco vale. + Viva amore e gentilezza! + +_Gentilezza, morbidezza_--the yielding fancy in the disguise of pity, the +nerveless languor that passes for beauty--such is the dominant note of the +song upon men's lips in the troublous times of the renaissance[43]. + +Another of the outlying realms of pastoral is the mythological tale, more +or less directly imitated from Ovid. The first to introduce it in +vernacular literature was Boccaccio, who in his _Ninfale fiesolano_ uses +a pagan allegory to convey a favourite _novella_ theme. The shepherd +Affrico loves a nymph of Diana, and the tale ends by the goddess changing +her faithless votary into a fountain. It is written in somewhat cumbrous +_ottava rima_, and seldom shows any conspicuous power of narrative. +Belonging to the same class of composition, though of a very different +order of poetic merit, is Lorenzo's wonderfully graceful tale of _Ambra_. +The grace lies in the telling, for the plot was probably already stale +when Phoebus and Daphne were protagonists. The poem recounts how the +wood-nymph Ambra, beloved of Lauro, is pursued by the river-god Ombrone, +one of Arno's tributary divinities, and praying to Diana in her hour of +need, is by her transformed into a rock[44]. Lorenzo's _Selva d'amore_ and +_Caccia col falcone_ might also be mentioned in the same connexion. + +Less pastoral in motive and less connected in narrative, but of even +greater importance in the formation of pastoral taste, is the famous +_Giostra_ written in honour of the young Giuliano de' Medici. I have +already more than once had occasion to mention its author, Angelo +Ambrogini, better known from the place of his birth as Poliziano or +Politian[45], the contemporary, dependent, and fellow-litterateur of +Lorenzo il Magnifico, and the greatest scholar and learned writer of the +Italian renaissance. As the author of the _Orfeo_ he will occupy our +attention when we come to trace the evolution of the pastoral drama. +Though he left no poems belonging to the recognized forms of pastoral +composition, his work constantly borders upon the kind, and evinces a +genuine sympathy with rustic life which makes the ascription to him of the +already quoted modernization of Sacchetti not inappropriate. He left +several other pieces of a similar nature, some of which at least are known +to be adaptations of popular songs[46]. Such, for instance, is the +irregular _canzone_ beginning: + + La pastorella si leva per tempo + Menando le caprette a pascer fuora, + Di fuora, fuora: la traditora + Co' suoi begli occhi la m' innamora, + E fa di mezza notte apparir giorno. + +The _Giostra_ is composed, like its predecessors, in the octave stanza, +and presents a series of pictures drawn from classical mythology or from +the poet's own imagination, adorned with all the physical beauty the study +of antiquity could supply and a rich and refined taste crystallize into +chastest jewellery of verse[47]. This blending of luxuriance and delicacy +is the characteristic quality of Poliziano's and Lorenzo's poetry. It is +admirably expressed in the phrase of a recent critic, 'the decorum of +things exquisite.' After the lapse of another half-century, during which +the renaissance advanced from its graceful youth to the full bloom of its +maturity, appeared the _Ninfa tiberina_ of Francesco Maria Molza. 'The +_volutta idillica_[48],' writes Symonds, 'which opened like a rosebud in +the _Giostra_, expands full petals in the _Ninfa tiberina_; we dare not +shake them, lest they fall.' Like the earlier poem it possesses little +narrative unity--the taie of Eurydice introduced by way of illustration +occupies more than a third of the whole--but every point is made the +occasion of minute decoration of the richest beauty. It was written for +Faustina Mancina, a celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of +her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made +a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected +as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. +Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of +idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. +The _Driadeo d'amore_ earlier--a mythological medley variously ascribed in +different editions to Luca and to Luigi Pulci--and Marino's _Adone_ later, +were likewise among the works that went to form the courtly taste to which +the pastoral drama appealed. The detailed criticism, however, of such +compositions lies beyond the scope of this work. + + + +VI + + +We must now return to an earlier period in order to follow the development +of the pastoral romance. When dealing with _Daphnis and Chloe_ I pointed +out that the Greek work could claim no part in the formation of the later +prose pastoral. Between it and the work of Boccaccio and Sannazzaro there +exists no such continuity of tradition as between the bucolics of the +classical Mantuan and those of his renaissance follower. The Italian +pastoral romance, in spite of its almost pedantic endeavour after +classical and mythological colouring, was as essentially a product of its +age as the pastoral drama itself. So far as any influence on the evolution +of the subsequent Arcadia was concerned, Longus might as well never have +written of the pastures of Lesbos. Indeed, were we here concerned in +assigning to its historical source each particular trait in individual +works, rather than in tracing the general development of an idea, it would +be casier to distinguish a faint and slightly cynical reminiscence of +_Daphnis and Chloe _ in the _Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_ than in the _Ameto_ +or the _Arcadia_. + +In his pastoral romance, 'Ameto, ovvero Commedia delie ninfe fiorentine,' +Boccaccio set a fashion in literature, namely the intermingling for +purposes of narration of prose and verse[49], in which he was followed a +century and a half later by Pietro Bembo, the Socrates of Castiglione's +renaissance Symposium, in his dialogue on love entitled _Gli Asolani_, and +by Jacopo Sannazzaro in his still more famous _Arcadia_. The _Ameto_ is +one of Boccaccio's early compositions, written about 1341, after his +return from Naples, but before he had gained his later mastery of +language. It is not unfairly characterized by Symonds as 'a tissue of +pastoral tales, descriptions, and versified interludes, prolix in style +and affected with pedantic erudition.' It is, however, possible to +underrate its merits, and it would be easy to overlook its historical +importance. Ameto is a rude hunter of the neighbourhood of Florence. One +day, while in the woods, he discovers a company of nymphs resting by a +stream, and overhears the song of the beautiful Lia. His rough nature is +touched by the sweetness of the music and he falls in love with the +singer. Their meetings are interrupted by the advent of winter, but he +finds her again at the feast of Venus, when shepherds, fauns, and nymphs +forgather at the temple of the goddess. In this company Lia proposes that +each of the nymphs present, seven in number, shall narrate the story of +her love. This they in turn do, each ending with a song of praise to the +gods; and Ameto feels his love burn for each in turn as he listens to +their tales. When the last has ended a sudden brightness shines around and +'there descended with wondrous noise a column of pure flame, even such as +by night went before the Israelitish people in the desert places,' Out of +the brightness cornes the voice of Venus: + + Io son luce del cielo unica e trina, + Principio e fine di ciascuna cosa, + Del quai men fu, ne fia nulla vicina. + +Ameto, though half blinded by the heavenly effulgence, sees a new joy and +beauty shine upon the faces of the nymphs, and understands that the +flame-shrouded presence is that, not of the wanton _mater cupidinum_, but +of the goddess of divine fire who comes to reveal to him the mysteries of +love. Cleansed of his grosser nature by a baptismal rite, in which each of +the nymphs performs some symbolic ceremonial, he feels heavenly love +replacing human in his heart, and is able to bear undazzled the radiance +of the divine purity. He salutes the goddess with a song: + + O diva luce, quale in tre persone + Ed una essenza il ciel governi e 'l mondo + Con giusto amore ed eterna ragione, + Dando legge alle stelle, ed al ritondo + Moto del sole, principe di quelle, + Siccome discerniamo in questo fondo[50]. + +Various interpretations have been suggested for this work, with its +preposterous mixture of pagan and Christian motives. This peculiarity, +which we have already met with in Boccaccio's eclogues, and in his +_Ninfale fiesolano_, was indeed one of the most persistent as it was one +of the least admirable characteristics of pastoral composition. Francesco +Sansovino, who edited the _Ameto_ in 1545, discovered real personages +underlying the characters of the romance. Fiammetta is introduced by name, +and her lover Caleone can hardly be other than Boccaccio. More recent +commentators are probably right in detecting an allegorical intention. The +seven nymphs, according to them, represent the four cardinal and three +theological virtues, and their stories are to be interpreted symbolically. +This view derives support from the baptismal ceremony, in which after the +public lustration one of the nymphs removes the scales from Ameto's eyes, +while another, 'breathing between his lips, kindled within him a flame +such as he had never felt before.' In these ministrants it is not +difficult to recognize the virtues respectively of faith and love. Ameto +may be taken as typical of humanity, tamed of its savage nature by love, +and through the service of the virtues led to the knowledge of the divine +essence. The conception of love as a civilizing and humanizing power +already underlay the sensuous stanzas of the _Ninfale fiesolano_, while +the later part of the romance was not uninfluenced by recollections of the +_Divine Comedy_[51]. It is true that a modern mind will with difficulty be +able to reconcile the amorous confessions of the nymphs with the +characteristics of the virtues, but in Boccaccio's day the tradition of +the _Gesta Romanorum_ was still strong, and the age that mysticized +Vergil, and moralized Ovid, was capable of much in the way of allegorical +interpretation[52]. + +The point to which this allegorical interpretation can legitimately be +carried need not trouble us here. Having set himself to characterize the +virtues, it is moreover likely enough that Boccaccio sought at the same +time to connect his figures more or less definitely with actual persons. +It is sufficient for our present purpose if we recognize in the _Ameto_ +something of the same triple intention which, not to put too fine a +metaphysical point upon the parallel, we meet with in Dante and in the +_Faery Queen_. Having fashioned in accordance with these motives the +framework of his book, Boccaccio further concerned himself but little with +this philosophical intention, and the allegorical setting having served +its artistic purpose of linking them together into one connected whole, it +was upon the detail of the narratives themselves that the author's +attention was concentrated. It is, however, just in this artistic purpose +of the setting that one of the chief interests of the _Ameto_ lies; for if +in the mingling of verse and prose it is the forerunner of the _Arcadia_, +in the linking together of a series of isolated stories it anticipates +Boccaccio's own _Decameron_. + +While there is little that is distinctly bucolic about the _Ameto_, the +atmosphere is eminently pastoral in the wider sense. Nymphs and shepherds, +foresters and fauns meet at the temple of Venus; the limpid fountains and +shady laurels belong essentially to the conventional landscape, whether of +Sicily, of Arcadia, or of the hills overlooking the valley of the Arno. +The Italian imagination was not careful to differentiate between field and +forest: _favola boschereccia_ was used synonymously with _commedia +pastorale_; _drammi dei boschi_ is a term which covers the whole of the +pastoral drama. But what really gives the _Ameto_ its importance in the +history of pastoral literature is the manner in which, undisturbed by its +religions and allegorical machinery, it introduces us to a purely sensual +and pagan paradise, in which love with all its pains and raptures reigns +supreme. + +The narratives of the nymphs, and indeed the whole of the prose portions +of the work, are composed in a style of surcharged and voluptuous beauty, +congested with lengthy periods, and accumulated superlatives and relative +clauses, which, in its endeavour to maintain itself and its subject at the +highest possible pitch, only succeeds in being intensely and almost +uniformly monotonous and dull. It is perfectly true that the work +possesses some at least of the qualities of its defects. There are +passages which argue a feeling for beauty, none the less real for being of +a somewhat conventional order, while we not seldom detect a certain rich +luxuriance about the descriptions; but it must be admitted that on the +whole the style exhibits most of Boccaccio's faults and few of his merits. +The verse interspersed throughout is in _terza rima_, and offers small +attraction to the ordinary reader: 'meschinissima cosa' is a verdict +which, if somewhat severe, will probably find few to contradict it. + +In a certain passage, speaking of Poliziano's _Orfeo_, Symonds remarks +that 'while Arcady became the local dreamland of the new ideal, Orpheus +took the place of its hero.' Without inquiring too closely how far the +writers of the renaissance actually connected the hero of music, as a +power of civilization, with their newly discovered country, it is +interesting to note that the earliest work in the Italian language +containing in however amoebean a state the pastoral ideal opens with an +allusion to Orpheus. + + Quella vertu, che gia l'ardito Orfeo + Mosse a cercar le case di Plutone, + Allor che forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione, + E dal suon vinto dell' arguto legno, + E dalla nota della sua canzone, + Per forza tira il mio debile ingegno + A cantar le tue Iode, o Citerea, + Insieme con le forze del tuo regno[53]. + +Orpheus, however, does not stand alone. Venus, Phoebus, Mars, Cupid, and +finally Jove, are each in turn invoked, to say nothing of the incidental +mention of Aeneas, Mirra, and Europa. This love of mythology in and out of +season is one of the most prominent features of the work. One of the +nymphs describes her youth in the following words: + + il padre mio .... visse eccellentissimo ne' beni pubblici tra' reggenti, + e de' beni degli iddii copioso: me a lui donata da loro, nomino Mopsa, e + vedentemi nella giovanetta eta mostrante gia bella forma, ai servigi + dispose di Pallade, la quale me benivola ricevente nelle sante grotte + del cavallo Gorgoneo, tra le sapientissime Muse commise, la dov' io + gustai l'acque Castalie, e l'altezza di Cirra tentante, le stelle cercai + con ferma mano; e i pallidi visi, quelli luoghi colenti, sempre con + riverenza seguii; e molte volte sonando Apollo la cetera sua, lui nel + mezzo delle nove Muse ascoltai[54]. + +She continues for pages in the same strain with illustrative allusions to +Caius Julius, Claudius, and Britannicus. + +At the risk of devoting to the _Ameto_ an altogether disproportionate +amount of the space at my disposai I must before passing on attempt to +give some notion of the kind of narrative contained in the romance, all +the more so as it is little known except to students. With this object I +have translated a characteristic passage from the tale of Agape[55]. + + I came from my home nigh unto the temple, before whose altars, with due + devotion, I began thus to pray: 'O Venus, full of pity, sacred goddess + whose altars I am joyful to approach, lend thou thy merciful ears unto + my prayer; for I come to thee a young girl, though fairly fashioned yet + ill-starred in love, fearful lest my empty years lead comfortless to a + chill old age; therefore, if my beauty merit that I be counted among thy + followers, enter thou into my breast who so desire thee, and grant that + in the love of a youth not unworthy of my beauty, and through whom my + wasted hours may be with delight made good, I may feel those fires of + thine which many times and endlessly I have heard praised.' I know not + whether while I was thus engrossed in prayer I fell on sleep, and + sleeping saw those things whereof I am about to tell, or whether, + indeed, I was rapt thence in bodily form to see them; all I can tell is + that suddenly I found myself borne through the heavens in a gleaming + chariot drawn by white doves, and that inclining my eyes to things below + I beheld the fruitful earth shrunk to a narrow room, and the rivers + thereof after the fashion of serpents; and after that I had left behind + the pleasant lands of Italy and the rugged mountains of Emathia, I + beheld the waters of the Dircean fount and the ancient walls raised by + the sound of Amphion's lyre, and soon there appeared to me the pleasant + Cytherean mount, and on it resting the holy chariots drawn by the + spotless birds. Whereon having alighted I went straying, alike uncertain + of the way and of the fortune that might await me, when, as to Aeneas + upon the Afric shore, so to me there amid the myrtles there appeared the + goddess I had invoked, and I was filled with wonder such as I had never + known before. She was disrobed except for the thinnest purple veil, + which hid but little of her form, falling in double curve with many + artful foldings over her left side; her face shone even as the sun, and + her head was adorned with great length of golden hair rippling down over + white shoulders; her eyes flashed with light never seen till then. Why + should I labour to tell the loveliness of her mouth and of her snowy + neck, of her marble breast and of her every part, since to do so lies so + far beyond my powers, and even where I able, hardly should my words gain + credence? But whereas she was now at hand I bowed my knees before her + godhead, and with such voice as I could command, repeated my petition in + her presence. She listened thereto, and approaching bade me rise, + saying, 'Follow me; thy prayer is heard, thy desire granted,' and + thereupon withdrew me to a somewhat loftier spot. There hidden amidst + the dense foliage she discovered to me her only son, upon whom gazing in + admiration, I found his beauty such that in all things did he appear + fashioned like unto her, except in so far as being he a god and she a + goddess. O how oft, remembering Psyche, I counted her happy and unhappy; + happy in the possession of such a husband, unhappy in his loss, most + happy in receiving him again from Jove. But even as I gazed, he, beating + the air with his sacred wings that gleamed with clearest gold, departed + with his load of newly fashioned arrows from those parts, and at the + bidding of the goddess I turned to the spring wherein he used to temper + his golden darts fresh forged with fiercest fire. Its silver waters, + gushing of themselves from the earth and shaded along the margin by a + growth of myrtle and dogwood, were neither violated in their purity by + the approach of bird or beast, nor suffered aught from the sun's + distemperature, and as I leaned forward to catch the reflection of my + own figure I could discern the clear bottom free from every trace of + mud[56]. The goddess, for that the hour was already hot, had doffed her + transparent veil and plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded + me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet + disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and + gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and + shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred + water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should + behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to hide my + unwonted blushes. And in like manner at the sight of me he too changed + colour and was troubled; he stayed his steps and advanced no further. + Then at the pleasure of the goddess leaving the water we resumed our + apparel, and crowned with myrtle sought a neighbouring glade, full of + finest grass and diapered with many flowers, where in the freshness we + stretched our limbs to rest. Thereupon the goddess, having called the + youth to us, began to speak in these words: 'Agape, most dear to me, + this youth, Apyros by name, whom thou seest thus shy amid our glades, + shall satisfy thy longing; but see that with care thou preserve + inviolate our fires, which in thy heart thou shalt bear with thee + hence.' I was about to make answer when my tender breast was of a sudden + pierced by the flying arrow loosed by the strong hand of the son of her + who added these unto her former words: 'We give him thee as thy first + and only servant; he lacks nought but our fires, which, kindled even now + by thee in him, be it thy care to nourish, that the frost that bound him + like to Aglauros being driven from his heart, he may burn with the + divine fire no less than father Jove himself.' She ceased; and I, + trembling yet with fear, no sooner opened my lips to assent to her + command, than I found myself once more in prayer before her altars; + whereat marvelling not a little, and casting my eyes around in search of + Apyros, I became aware of the golden arrow in my breast, and near me the + pale youth, his intent gaze fixed upon me, and like me wounded by the + god; and so seeing him inflamed with a passion no other than that which + burned in me, I laughed, and filled with contentment and desire, made + sign to him to be of hopeful cheer. + +The advance in style that marks the transition from the _Ameto_ to the +_Arcadia_ must be largely accredited to Boccaccio himself. The language of +the _Decameron_ became the model of _cinquecento_ prose. Sannazzaro, +however, wrote in evident imitation not of the structural method only, but +of the actual style of the _Ameto_. Something, it is true, he added beyond +the greater mastery of literary form due to training. Even in his most +luxuriant descriptions and most sensuous images we find that grace and +clearness of vision which characterize the early poetry of the +Renaissance proper, and combine in literature the luminous purity of +Botticelli and the gem-like detail of Pinturicchio. The mythological +affectation of the elder work appears in the younger modified, refined, +subordinated; there is the same delight in detailed description, but +relieved by greater variety of imagination; while, even in the most +laboured passages, there is a poetical feeling as well as a more +subjective manner, which, combined with a remarkable power of +visualization, saves them from the danger of the catalogue. Again, there +is everywhere visible the same artificiality of style which characterizes +the _Ameto_, but purged of its more extravagant elements and less affected +and conceited than it became in the works of Lyly and Sidney. Like the +_Ameto_, lastly, but unlike its Spanish and English successors, the +_Arcadia_ is purely pastoral, free from any chivalric admixture. + +The narrative interest in the _Arcadia_ is of the slightest. It opens with +a description of the 'dilettevole piano, di ampiezza non molto spazioso,' +lying at the summit of Parthenium, 'non umile monte della pastorale +Arcadia,' which was henceforth to be the abode sacred to the +shepherd-folk. There, as in Vergil's Italy and in Browne's Devon, in +Chaucer's dreamland, and in the realm of the Faery Queen, 'son forse +dodici o quindici alberi di tanto strana ed eccessiva bellezza, che +chiunque li vedesse, giudicherebbe che la maestra natura vi si fosse con +sommo diletto studiata in formarli.'[57] The shepherds, who are assembled +with their flocks, are about to seek their homes at the approach of night, +when they meet Montano playing upon his pipe, and a musical contest ensues +between him and Uranio. Next day is celebrated the feast of Pales, an +account of which is given at length, and is followed by a song in which +Galicio sings the praises of his mistress Amaranta, of whom the narrator +proceeds to give a minute description. After another singing-match between +Logisto and Elpino the company betake themselves to the tomb of Androgeo, +whose praises are set forth in prose and rime. There follows a song by the +old shepherd Opico, on the superiority of the 'former age'; after which +Carino asks the narrator, Sincero--the pseudonym under which Sannazzaro +travelled in the realm of shepherds--to recount his history, which he +does at length, ending with a lament in _sestina_ form. By way of +consoling him in his exile Carino, in return, tells the tale of his own +amorous adventures. Next the reverend Opico is induced to discourse of the +powers of magic as the shepherds proceed to the sacred grove of Pan, who +shares with Pales the honours of Arcadian worship, and to the games held +at the tomb of sibyllic Massilia--a name under which Sannazzaro is said to +have commemorated his own mother. At this point the narrator is troubled +by a dream portending death to the lady of his love. As, tormented by this +thought, he wanders lonely in the chill dawn he meets a nymph, who leads +him through a marvellous cavern into the depths of the earth, where he +beholds the springs of many famous rivers, and finally, following the +course of the Sabeto, arrives at his native city of Naples, where he +learns the truth of his sorrowful forebodings. + +The form has been systematized since Boccaccio wrote, the whole being +divided into twelve _Prose_, alternating with as many _Ecloghe_, preceded +by a _Proemio_ and followed by an address _Alla sampogna_, both in prose. +The verse is mediocre, and several of the eclogues are composed in the +unattractive _sestina_ form, while others affect the wearisome _rime +sdrucciole_.[58] The most pleasing is Ergasto's lament at Androgeo's tomb, +beginning: + + Alma beata e bella, + Che da' legami sciolta + Nuda salisti ne' superni chiostri, + Ove con la tua stella + Ti godi insieme accolta; + E lieta ivi schernendo i pensier' nostri, + Quasi un bel sol ti mostri + Tra li piu chiari spirti; + E coi vestigi santi + Calchi le stelle erranti; + E tra pure fontane e sacri mirti + Pasci celesti greggi; + E i tuoi cari pastori indi correggi. (_Ecloga_ V.) + +One would hardly turn to the artificiality of the _Arcadia_ for +representations of nature, and yet there is in the romance a genuine love +of the woods and the fields, and of the rustic sports of the season. +'Sogliono il piu delle volte gli alti e spaziosi alberi negli orridi monti +dalla natura prodotti, piu che le coltivate piante, da dotte mani +espurgate negli adorni giardini, a' riguardanti aggradare,' remarks +Sannazzaro at the outset. Elsewhere he furnishes us with an entertaining +description of the various ways in which birds may be trapped, introduced +possibly in pursuance of a hint from Longus.[59] Yet, in spite of his +professed love of savage scenery and his knowledge of pastoral sports, it +is after all in a very artificial and straitened form that nature filters +to us through Sannazzaro's pages. Rather do we turn to them for the sake +of the paintings on the temple walls, of Amaranta's lips, 'fresh as the +morning rose,' of her wild lapful of flowers, and of a hundred other +incidental pictures, one of the most charming of which, interesting on +another score also, I make no apology for here transcribing. + + Subito ordino i premi a coloro, che lottare volessero, offrendo di dare + al vincitore un bel vaso di legno di acero, ove per mano del Padoano + Mantegna, artefice sovra tutti gli altri accorto ed ingegnosissimo, eran + dipinte molte cose: ma tra l' altre una ninfa ignuda, con tutti i membri + bellissimi, dai piedi in fuori, che erano come quelli delle capre; la + quale, sovra un gonfiato otre sedendo, lattava un picciolo satirello, e + con tanta tenerezza il mirava, che parea che di amore e di carita tutta + si struggesse: e 'l fanciullo nell' una mammella poppava, nell' altra + tenea distesa la tenera mano, e con l' occhio la si guardava, quasi + temendo che tolta non gli fosse. Poco discosto da costoro si vedean due + fanciulli pur nudi, i quali avendosi posti due volti orribili di + maschere cacciavano per le bocche di quelli le picciole mani, per porre + spavento a duo altri, che davanti loro stavano; de' quali l' uno + fuggendo si volgea in dietro, e per paura gridava; l' altro caduto gia + in terra piangeva, e non possendosi altrimenti aitare, stendeva la mano + per graffiarlo. (_Prosa_ XI.) + +I shall make no attempt at translation. Some versions, really wonderful +in the success with which they reproduce the style of the original, will +be found in Symonds' _Italian Literature_[60]. It is probably unnecessary +to put in a warning that the _Arcadia_ is a work of which extracts are apt +to give a somewhat too favourable impression. In its long complaints, +speeches, and descriptions it is at whiles intolerably prolix and dull, +but it caught the taste of the age and went through a large number of +editions, many with learned annotations, between the appearance of the +first authorized edition and the end of the sixteenth century[61], There +were several imitations later, such as the _Accademia tusculana_ of +Benedetto Menzini; Firenzuola imitated the third _Prosa_ in his +_Sacrifizio pastorale_; while collections of tales and _facetiae_ such as +the _Arcadia in Brenta_ of Giovanni Sagredo equally sought the prestige of +the name. A French translation published in 1544 went through three +editions, and another appeared in 1737, while it was translated into +Spanish in 1547, and again in 1578. It may have been due to the existence +of Sidney's more ambitious work of the same name that no translation ever +appeared in English. + + * * * * * + +Our survey of Italian pastoralism, in spite of the fact that its most +important manifestation has been reserved for separate treatment later, +has of necessity been lengthy. It was at Italian breasts that the infant +ideal, reborn into a tumultuous world, was nursed. The other countries of +continental Europe borrowed that ideal from Italy, though each in turn +contributed characteristics of its own. It was to Italy that England too +was directly indebted, while at the same time it absorbed elements +peculiar to France and Spain. It will therefore be necessary briefly to +review the forms that flourished in those countries respectively, though +they need detain us but a brief space in comparison with the Italian +fountain-head. + +Before proceeding, however, it may be worth while to pause for a moment in +order to take a general survey of the nature of the ideal, we might almost +say the religion, of pastoralism, which reached its maturity in the work +of Sannazzaro. Its location in the uplands of Arcadia may be traced to +Vergil, who had the worship of Pan in mind, but the selection of the +barren mountain district of central Peloponnesus as the seat of pastoral +luxuriance and primitive culture is not without significance in respect of +the severance of the pastoral ideal from actuality.[62] In it the +world-weary age of the later renaissance sought escape from the +materialism that bound it. Italy had turned its back upon mysticism in +religion, and upon chivalry in love; its literature was the negation of +what the northern peoples understand by romance. Yet it needed some relief +from the very saneness of its rationalism, and it found the antidote to +its vicious court life in the crystal springs of Castaly. What the pietism +of Perugino's saints is to the feuds of the Baglioni, such is the Arcadian +dream to the intellectual cynicism of Italian politics. + +When children weave fancies of wonderland they use the resources of the +imagination with economy; uninterrupted sunshine soon cloys. So too with +these other children of the renaissance. Their wonderland is a place +whither they may escape from the pressure of the world that is too much +with them; they seek in it at least the virtue that its evils shall be the +opposite of those from which they fly. They could not, it is true, believe +in an Arcadia in which all the cares of this world should end--the golden +age is always a time to be sung and remembered, or else to be dreamed of, +in the years to come, it is never the present--but if they cannot escape +from the changes and chances of this mortal life, if death and unfaith +are still realities in their dreamland as on earth, they will at least +utter their grief melodiously, and water fair pastures with their tears. +Like the garden of the Rose which satisfied the middle age before it, the +Arcadian ideal of the renaissance degenerated, as every ideal must. The +decay of pastoral, however, was in this unique, that it tended less to +exaggerate than to negative the spirit that gave it birth. Theocritus +turned from polite society and sought solace in his no doubt idealized +recollections of actual shepherd life. On the other hand, to the +allegorical pastoralists from Vergil to Spagnuoli, the shepherd-realm +either reflects, or is made directly to contrast with, the interests and +vices of the actual world; in their work the note of longing for escape to +an ideal life is heard but faintly or not at all. In the songs of the late +fifteenth century and in Sannazzaro there is a genuine pastoral revival; +the desire of freedom from reality is strong upon men in that age of +strenuous living. It has been happily said that Mantuan's shepherds meet +to discuss society, Sannazzaro's to forget it. And yet, after all, these +men are too strongly bound by the affections of this world to be able +wholly to sacrifice themselves to the joys of the ideal. Fiammetta must +have her place in Boccaccio's strange apotheosis of love; the foreboding +of Carmosina's death has power to draw her lover from his newly discovered +kingdom along the untrodden paths of the waters of the earth. And so when +Arcadia ceased to be a necessity of sentiment and became one of fashion, +where poets were no longer content to wander with their mistresses in the +land of fancy, alone, 'at rest from their labour with the world gone by,' +there appeared a tendency to return to the allegorical style, and to make +Arcadia what Sicily had already become--the mirror of the polite society +of the Italian courts. Thus it is that in the crowning jewels of Italian +pastoralism, in the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_, we trace a yearning +towards a simpler, freer, and more genuine life, side by side with such +incompatible and antagonistic elements as the reproduction in pastoral +guise of the personages and surroundings of the circle of Ferrara. Not +content with the pure ideal, the poets endeavoured, like Faust at the +sight of Helena, to find in it a place for the earthly affections that +bound them, and at the touch of reality the vision dissolved in mist. + + + +VII + + +When we turn to the literature of the western peninsula during the early +years of the sixteenth century, we find it characterized by a temporary +but very complete subjection to Italian models. This phenomenon, which is +particularly marked in pastoral, is readily explained by the fact that the +similarity of the dialects made the transference of poetic forms from +Italian to Spanish an easy matter. Thus when among the nations of Europe +Italy awoke to her great task of recovering an old and discovering a new +world of arts and letters, it was upon Spanish verse that she was able to +exercise the most immediate and overpowering influence. Under these +circumstances it was impossible but that she should drag the literature of +that country, for a while at least, in her train, away from its own proper +genius and natural course of development. Other countries were saved from +servitude by the very failure of their attempts to imitate the new Italian +style; and Spain herself, it must be remembered, was not long in +recovering her individuality and in endowing Europe with one of the +richest national literatures of the world. + +It is important, however, to distinguish from the pastoral work produced +under this dominating Italian influence certain other work in the kind, +which, while to some extent dependent for its form upon foreign models, +bears at the same time strong marks of native inspiration. In this earlier +and more popular tradition the tendencies of the national literature, the +pastoral possibilites of which appear at times in the ballads, mingle more +or less with elements of convention and allegory drawn from Vergil or his +humanistic followers. Little influence of this popular tradition can as a +rule be traced in the later pastoral work, but it acquires a certain +incidental interest in connexion with another branch of literature. It is, +namely, the remarkable part it played in the evolution of the national +drama that makes it worth while mentioning a few of its more important +examples in this place.[63] + +An isolated composition, in which lay not so much the germ of the future +drama as the index of its possibility, is the _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_, +the composition of an unknown author. It is an eclogue in which two +shepherds, representing respectively the upper and lower orders of Spanish +society, discourse together on the causes of national discontent and +political corruption prevalent about 1472, at the latter end of the weak +reign of Enrique IV. In this poem we find the king's infatuation for his +Portuguese mistress treated much as Petrarch had treated the relations of +Clement VI with the allegorical Epi, except for the striking difference +that the Latin of the Italian poet is replaced by straightforward and +vigorous vernacular. Of far greater importance in the history of +literature are certain poems--_Eclogas_ they are for the most part +styled--of Juan del Encina, which belong roughly to the closing years of +the fifteenth and opening years of the sixteenth century. Numbering about +a dozen, and composed with one exception in the short measures of popular +poetry, these dramatic eclogues, or amoebean plays, supply the connecting +link between the early popular and religious shows and the regular drama. +About half are religious in character; of the rest, three treat some +romantic episode, one is a study of unrequited passion ending in suicide, +and one is a market-day farce, the personae being in each case rude +herdsmen. Contemporary with, though a disciple of, Encina, is the +Portuguese Gil Vicente, who wrote in both dialects, and whose _Auto +pastoril castelhano_ may be cited as carrying on the tradition between his +master and Lope de Vega. + +With Lope's dramatic production as a whole we are not, of course, +concerned. He lies indeed somewhat off our track; the pastoral influence +in his work is capricious. It will be sufficient to note that the +influence, where it exists, is external; it is nowhere the outcome of +Christian allegory, nor does it arise out of the nature of the subject as +such titles as the _Pastores de Belen_ might suggest. It is found equally +in the religious or quasi-religious plays--such as the _Vuelta de Egypto_ +with its shepherds and gypsies, and the _Pastor lobo_, an allegorical +satire on the church Lope afterwards entered--and in such purely secular, +amorous, and on the whole less dramatic pieces as the _Arcadia_--not to be +confused with his romance of the same name--and the _Selva sin amor_, a +regular Italian pastoral in miniature, both of which were acted, besides +many others intended primarly for reading, though they may possibly have +been recited after the manner of Castiglione's _Tirsi_. + +While on the subject of the drama I may mention translations of the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_. Tasso's piece was rendered into Castilian by +Juan de Jauregui, and first printed at Rome in 1607, a revised edition +appearing among the author's poems in 1618. The _Pastor fido_ was +translated by Cristobal Suarez de Figueroa, the best version being that +printed at Valentia in 1609, from which Ticknor quotes a passage as +typical as it is successful. It was to these two versions of the +masterpieces of Italian pastoral that Cervantes accorded the highest meed +of praise, declaring that 'they haply leave it doubtful which is the +translation or original.'[64] There likewise exists a poor adaptation of +Guarini's play, said to be the work of Solis, Coello, and Calderon[65]. +The pastoral appears, however, never to have gained a very firm footing +upon the mature Spanish stage, no doubt for the same reason that led to a +similar result in England, namely, that the vigorous national drama about +it overpowered and choked its delicate and exotic growth[66]. + +Apart from the dramatic or semi-dramatic work we have been reviewing, the +pastoral verse which possesses the most natural and national character, +though it may not be the earliest in date, is to be found in the poems of +Francisco de Sa de Miranda[67]. He appears to have begun writing +independently of the Italian school, and, even after he came under the +influence of Garcilaso, to have preserved much of his natural simplicity +and genuineness of feeling. He probably had some direct knowledge of the +Italians, for he writes: + + Liamos.... + .... os pastores italianos + Do bom velho Sanazarro. + +He may also have been influenced by Encina, most of whose work had already +appeared. + +The first and foremost of those who deliberately based their style on the +Italian was Garcilaso de la Vega, whose pastoral work dates from about +1526. To him, in conjunction with Boscan and Mendoza, the vogue was due. +At his best, when he really assimilates the foreign elements borrowed from +his models and makes their style his own, he writes with the true genius +of his nation. The first of his three eclogues, which was probably +composed at Naples and is regarded as his best work, introduces the +shepherds Salico and Nemoroso, of whom the first stands for the author, +while in the other it is not hard to recognize his friend Boscan. This +poem, a portion of which is translated by Ticknor, should of itself +suffice to place Garcilaso in the front rank of pastoral writers. Yet he +does not appear to occupy any isolated eminence among his fellows, and +Ticknor may be right in thinking that, throughout, the regular pastoral +showed fewer of its defects in Spain than elsewhere. It is also true that +it appears to have been endowed with less vital power of development. + +Garcilaso's followers were numerous. Among them mention may be made of +Francisco de Figueroa, the Tirsi of Cervantes' _Galatea_; Pedro de +Encinas, who attempted religious eclogues; Lope de Vega; Alonso de Ulloa, +the Venetian printer, who is credited with having foisted the Rodrigo +episode into Montemayor's _Diana_; Gaspar Gil Polo, one of the +continuators of that work; and Bernardo de Balbuenas, one of its many +imitators, who incorporated in his _Siglo de Oro_ a number of eclogues +which in their simple and rustic nature appear to be studied from +Theocritus rather than Vergil. + +In spite of the fashion of writing in Castilian which prevailed among +Portuguese poets, we are not without specimens of pastoral verse composed +in the less important dialect. Sa de Miranda has been mentioned above. +Ribeiro too, better known for his romance, left a series of five +autobiographical eclogues[68] dating from about 1516-24, and consequently +earlier than Garcilaso's. They are composed, like some of Sa de Miranda's, +in the short measures more natural to the language than the _terza rima_ +and intricate stanzas of the Italianizing poets. Later on Camoens wrote +fifteen eclogues, four of which are piscatorial, and in one, a dialogue +between a shepherd and a fisherman, refers in the following terms to +Sannazzaro: + + O pescador Sincero, que amansado + Tem o pego de Prochyta co' o canto + Por as sonoras ondas compassado. + D'este seguindo o som, que pode tanto, + E misturando o antigo Mantuano, + Facamos novo estylo, novo espanto. + +Whereas in the case of the verse pastoral the Italian fashion passed from +Spain into Portugal, exactly the reverse process took place with regard to +the prose romance more or less directly founded upon Sannazzaro. The first +to imitate the _Arcadia_ was the Portuguese Bernardim Ribeiro, who during +a two-years' residence in Italy composed the 'beautiful fragment,' as +Ticknor styles it, entitled from the first words of the text _Menina e +moca_. This unfinished romance first appeared, in the form of an octavo +charmingly printed in gothic type, at Ferrara in 1554, though it must +have been written at least thirty years earlier. It differs considerably +from its model, the verse being purely incidental, and the intricacy of +the story anticipating later examples, as does likewise the admixture of +chivalric adventure. It is, indeed, to a large extent what might have +arisen spontaneously through the elaboration of the pastoral element +occasionally to be met with in the old chivalric romances themselves. On +the other hand it resembles the Italian pastoral in the introduction of +real characters, which, though their identity was concealed under anagrams +and all manner of obscurity, appear to have been traceable by the keen eye +of authority, for the book was placed on the Index. Such knowledge of +Sannazzaro's writings as Ribeiro possessed was of course direct, but +before his fragment saw the light there appeared, in 1547, a Spanish +translation of the _Arcadia_. It must be remembered that Sannazzaro was +himself of Spanish extraction, and that he may have had relations with the +land of his fathers of a nature to facilitate the diffusion of his works. + +The next and by far the most important contribution made by the peninsula +to pastoral literature was the work of an hispaniolized Portuguese, who +composed in Castilian dialect the famous _Diana_. 'Los siete libres de la +Diana de Jorge de Montemayor'--the Spanish form of Montemor's name and +that by which he became familiar to subsequent ages--appeared at Valencia, +without date, but about 1560.[69] As in the case of its Italian and +Portuguese predecessors, some at least of the characters of the romance +represent real persons. Sireno the hero, who stands for the author, is in +love with the nymph Diana, of whose identity Lope de Vega claimed to be +cognizant, though he withheld her name. The scene is laid in Spain, and +actual and ideal geography are intermixed in a bewildering fashion. Sireno +is obliged, for reasons not stated, to leave the country for a while, and +on his return finds his lady-love married by her parents to his rival +Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, +and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance +of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is +interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, +pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second +part, which however never came to be written, the author, as it appears, +being either murdered or killed in duel at Turin in 1561. + +Thanks probably to the combination in its pages of the popular chivalric +tradition with the fashionable Italian pastoral, and also to certain +graces of style which it possesses, the _Diana_ held the field until the +picaresque romance developed into a recognized _genre_, and exercised a +very considerable influence on pastoral writers even beyond the frontiers +of Spain. Googe imitated passages from it in his eclogues; Sidney +translated some of its songs, and took it as the model of his own romance; +Shakespeare borrowed from it the plot of the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_. In +the land of its birth its popularity was shown by the number of +continuations and imitations to which it gave rise. Irresponsible +publishers swelled the bulk of their editions with matter purloined from +less popular authors. The year 1564 saw the appearance of two second +parts. One in eight books, by the physician Alonzo Perez, only got so far +as disposing of Delio, and appears to exaggerate all the faults of the +original in compensation for the lack of its merits. The other, from the +pen of Gaspar Gil Polo, is in five books, and narrates, in a style +scarcely inferior to its model, the faithlessness and death of Delio, and +Sireno's marriage with Diana. Both alike promise continuations which never +appeared. A third part was, however, published so late as 1627, as the +work of Jeronimo de Texeda, but it is nothing more than a _rifacimento_ +of Gil Polo's continuation, altered apparently with a view to its forming +a sequel to Perez' work. Furthermore, in 1599 there appeared a religions +parody by Fra Bartolome Ponce, and there are said to be no less than six +French, two English, and two German translations, not to mention a Latin +one of Gil Polo's portion at least. + +Besides continuations, there are extant nearly a score of imitations of +varying interest and merit. In 1584 appeared the _Galatea_ of Cervantes, +imitated from Ribeiro and Montemayor; which in its turn is supposed to +have suggested the _Arcadia_, written a few years later at the instigation +of the Duke of Alva by Lope de Vega, and published in 1598. Each is more +or less autobiographic or else historical in outline: 'many of its +shepherds and shepherdesses are such in dress alone,' Cervantes confesses +of his romance, while Lope announces that 'the _Arcadia_ is a true +history.' Lastly may be mentioned the Portuguese _Primavera_ of Francisco +Rodrigues de Lobo, which appeared in three long parts between 1601 and +1614, and is pronounced by Ticknor to be 'among the best full-length +pastoral romances extant.' + +All these works resemble one another in their general features. The +characteristics of the _genre_ as found in Spain, in spite of a real +feeling for rural life traceable in the national character, are the +elements it borrows from the older chivalric tradition, combined with an +adherence to the circumstances of actual existence even closer than was +the case in Italy. Sannazzaro was content to transfer certain personages +from real life into his imaginary Arcadia, while in the Spanish romances +the whole _mise en scene_ consists of the actual surroundings of the +author disguised but little under the veil of pastoralism. Thus the ideal +element, the desire to escape from the world, is no less absent from these +works than from the Latin eclogues of the renaissance, and the chivalric +pastoral in Spain advances far along the road towards the fashionable +pastoral of France. Not only are knightly adventures freely introduced, +and the devices of disguise and recognition employed, but the hint of +magic in Sannazzaro is developed and made to play a prominent part in the +tales, while the nymphs and shepherds display throughout an alarming +knowledge of literature, metaphysics, and theology. The absurdities of the +style were patent, and did not escape uncomplimentary notice from the +writers of the day, for both Cervantes and Lope de Vega, in spite of their +own excursions into this kind, pilloried the fashion in their more serious +and enduring works. + + + +VIII + + +In France the interest of pastoralism, from our present point of view, is +summed up in the work of one man--Clement Marot. It is he who forms the +central figure on the stage of French poetry between the final collapse of +the medieval tradition and the ceasing of Villon's song earlier, and later +the full burst of the renaissance in the work of the Pleiade. While +belonging ostensibly to the literary circle of Margaret of Navarre, Marot +appears to have combined in his own person a strange number of conflicting +tendencies. His patroness followed the pastoral tradition in her imitation +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_ and her lament on the death of her brother +Francois I, and rehandled an already favourite theme in her _comedie_ of +human and divine love. Marot, on the other hand, while equally interested +in pastoral, betrayed in his verse little direct influence of the +Italians, and invariably impressed his own individuality upon his subject. +In his early work he continued the tradition of the _Romance of the Rose_; +later he voiced, somewhat crudely may be, the ideals of the renaissance. +By nature an easy-going _bon vivant_, his only real affection appears to +have been for the faithless mistress of his early years, whom a not very +probable tradition identifies with Diane de Poitiers. He had no higher +ambition than to retain unmolested a comfortable post at the court of +Francis. Yet he was destined by a strange irony of fate to pass his days +as a wanderer on the face of the earth, the homeless pilgrim of a cause he +no wise had at heart. He was accused by the Sorbonne, and ultimately +driven into the profession, of the heresy of Calvinism. Expelled from the +bosom of the church, he sought an uncongenial refuge among the apostles of +the new faith, only to be thrust forth from the city, for no more heinous +offence apparently than that playing back-gammon with the Prisoner of +Chillon. He died at Turin in 1544. + +But, however fascinating Marot may be as an historical figure, he was in +no sense a great poet. His chief merit in literature, apart from his often +delicate epigrams, his _elegant badinage_ and his graceful if at times +facile verse, lies in the power he possesses, in common with Garcilaso and +Spenser, of treating the allegorical pastoral without entirely losing the +charm of naive simplicity and genuine feeling. In his _Eclogue au Roi_ he +addresses Francis under the name of Pan, while in the _Pastoureau +chrestien_ he applies the same name to the Deity; yet in either case there +is a justness of sentiment underlying the convention which saves the verse +from degenerating into mere sycophancy or blasphemy. His chief claim to +notice as a pastoral writer is his authorship of an eclogue on the death +of Loyse de Savoye, the mother of Francis; a poem through which, more than +any other, he influenced his greater English disciple, and thereby +acquired the importance he possesses for our present inquiry. + +Marot, however, whose inspiration, in so far as it was not born of his own +genius, appears to be chiefly derived from Vergil, whose first eclogue he +translated in his youth, was far from being the only poet who wrote +bucolic verse or bore other witness to pastoral influence. France was not +behind other nations in embracing the Italian models. Margaret, as I have +said, imitated Sannazzaro in her _Histoire des satyres et nymphes de +Diane_. The _Arcadia_ was translated in 1544. Du Bellay was familiar with +the original and honoured its author with imitation, translation, and even +a respectful mention of it in his famous _Defense_. Elsewhere he asks: + + Qui fera taire la musette + Du pasteur neapolitain? + +The first part of Belleau's _Bergerie_ appeared in 1565, the complete +work, including a piscatory poem, in 1572. On the stage Nicolas Filleul +anticipated the regular Italian drama in a dramatized eclogue entitled +_Les Ombres_ in 1566. Later Nicolas de Montreux, better known under the +name of Ollenix du Mont-Sacre, a writer of a religious cast, and author +of a romantic comedy on the story of Potiphar's wife, composed three +pastoral plays, _Athlette_, _Diane_, and _Arimene_, which appeared in +1585, 1592, and 1597 respectively. They are conventional pastorals on the +Italian model, futile in plot and commonplace in style. He was also the +author of the _Bergerie de Juliette_, a romance published in 1592, which +Robert Tofte is credited with having translated in his _Honour's +Academy_,' or the Famous Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta,' which +appeared at London in 1610. Tofte's work, however, while purporting to be +'done into English,' makes no mention of the original author, and though +indebted for its form and title to Nicholas' romance does not appear to +bear much further resemblance to it. A far more important work in itself, +but one which does not much concern us here, is Honore d'Urfe's _Astree_, +an autobiographic compilation in which the fashionable pastoral romance +found its most consummate example. The work was translated into English as +early as 1620, but the history of its influence in this country belongs +almost exclusively to the French vogue, which began about the middle of +the century, and formed such an important element in the literature of the +restoration. + +The comparatively small influence exerted by the French pastoral of the +renaissance on that of England must excuse the scanty summary given in the +preceding paragraphs. It remains to be said that there had existed at an +earlier period in France another and very different tradition, which +supplied one of the regular forms of composition in vogue among +_trouveres_ and _troubadours_ alike. The _pastourelle_ has sometimes been +described as a popular form, but it would be difficult to determine +wherein its 'popularity,' in the sense intended, consists, for it is +easily recognized as the offspring of a knightly minstrelsy, and indeed is +scarcely less artificial or conventional than the Italian eclogue. +Although the situation is frequently developed with resource and invention +on the part of the individual poet, the general type is rigidly fixed. The +narrator, who is a minstrel and usually a knight, while riding along meets +a shepherd-girl, to whom he pays his court with varying success. This is +the simple framework on which the majority are composed. A few, on the +other hand, depart from the type and depict purely rustic scenes. +Others--and the fact is at least significant--serve to convey allusions, +political, personal or didactic: a variety found as early as the twelfth +century in Provencal, and about the fourteenth in northern French. +Wandering scholars adopted the form from the knightly singers and produced +a plentiful crop of Latin _pastoralia_, usually of a somewhat burlesque +nature. An idea of the general style of these may be gathered from such +lines as the following, which contain the reply of a country girl +hesitating before the advances of a merry student: + + Si senserit meus pater + uel Martinus maior frater, + erit mihi dies ater; + uel si sciret mea mater, + cum sit angue peior quater: + uirgis sum tributa.[70] + +Appropriated, lastly, and refashioned by the hand of an original genius, +the _pastourelle_ gave to German poetry the crowning jewel of its +_Minnesang_ in Walther's 'Under der linden,' with its irrepressibly +roguish refrain: + + Kuster mich? wol tusentstunt: + tandaradei, + seht wie rot mir ist der munt! + +Connected with the _pastourelles_ of the _langue d'oil_ is an isolated +dramatic effort, of a primitive and naive sort, but of singular grace and +charm. _Li jus Robins et Marion_, the work of Adan le Bochu or de le Hale, +is in fact a dramatized _pastourelle_ of some eight hundred lines +beginning with the rejection by a shepherdess of the advances of a knight +and ending with the rustic sports of the shepherds on the green. +Unsophisticated nature and playful cunning unite in no ordinary degree to +lend delicacy and savour to the work, while the literary quality of Adan's +verse is evident in such incidental songs as Marion's often quoted: + + Robins m'aime, Robins m'a, + Robins m'a demandee, si m'ara. + +In spite, however, of the genuine _naivete_ and natural realism of the +piece, it is easy to recognize in it something of the same spirit of +gentle raillery that sparkles in the graceful octaves of Lorenzo's +_Nencia_. + +A real and lively love of the country, rather than any idealization of the +actual shepherd class, is reflected in a poem written about 1460 by Rene +of Anjou, ex-king of Naples, describing in pastoral guise the rustic +retreat which he enjoyed in company with his wife, Jeanne de Laval, on the +banks of the Durance. The conventional pastoralism that veils the identity +of the shepherd and shepherdess is scarcely more than a pretence, for at +the end of the manuscript we find blazoned the arms of the royal pair, +with the inscription: + + Icy sont les armes, dessoubz ceste couronne, + Du bergier dessus dit et de la bergeronne. + +We have now completed the first section of our introductory survey of +pastoral literature. We have passed in review, in a necessarily rapid and +superficial, but, it is to be hoped, not altogether inadequate, manner, +the varions manifestations of the kind in the non-dramatic literature of +continental Europe. The Italian pastoral drama has been reserved for +separate and more detailed consideration in close connexion with that of +this country. It must, however, be borne in mind that in such a survey as +the present many of the byways and more or less obscure and devious +channels by which pastoral permeated the wide fields of literature have of +necessity been left unexplored. Nothing, for instance, has been said about +the pastoral interludes which occupy a not inconspicuous place in the +martial cantos both of the _Orlando_ and the _Gerusalemme_. Before passing +on, however, I should like to say a few words concerning one particular +department of renaissance literature, and that chiefly by way of +illustrating the limitations of the tradition of literary pastoral. I +refer to the _novelle_ or _nouvelles_, in which, although pastoral +subjects are occasionally introduced, the treatment is entirely +independent of conventional tradition. Without making any pretence at +covering the whole field of the _novellieri_, I may instance a tale of +Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, +of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are +represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own +business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their +literary fellows. More exclusively rustic in setting is an anecdote +concerning the amours of a shepherd and shepherdess, told with broad +humour in the _Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ and elaborated with +characteristic gusto and extraordinarily graphic art by Pietro Fortini. +The crude obscenity of the subject alone serves to show how free the +writer was from any influence of the pastoral of polite literature.[71] +Numerous other stories concerning shepherds or _villani_ might be cited, +from Boccaccio to Bandello, the point of which, whether openly licentious +or ostensibly moral, is brought home with a brutal and physical directness +utterly foreign to the spirit of the regular pastoral. This is, on the +whole, what one would expect. The coarse realism that gave life and +vitality to the novel, that characteristic product of middle-class +cynicism and humour, finds no place in the pastoral of literary tradition. +The conventional grace of the pastoral could offer no material to the +novel. It is true that when we speak of the _bourgeois_ spirit of the +_novella_ on the one hand, and the 'ideal' pastoral on the other, it is +well to remember that the author of the _Decameron_ also wrote the first +modern pastoral romance; that the century and country which saw the +publication of the _Arcadia_, the _Aminta_, and the _Pastor fido_, also +welcomed the work of Fortini, Giraldi, and Bandello; and that to Margaret +of Navarre, the imitator of Sannazzaro and patroness of Marot, we are +likewise indebted for the _Heptameron_. Nevertheless the tendencies, +though sometimes united in the person of a single author, yet keep +distinct. Both alike had become a fashion, both alike followed a more or +less conventional type. The novel remained coarse and realistic; the +pastoral, whatever may be said of its morality, remained refined and at a +conscious remove from real life. To examine thoroughly the cause of this +disseverance from actuality which haunted the pastoral throughout its many +transformations would lead us beyond all possible bounds of this inquiry. +One important point may, however, here be noted. The pastoral, whatever +its form, always needed and assumed some external circumstance to give +point to its actual content. The interest seldom arises directly from the +narrative itself. In Theocritus and Sannazzaro this objective point is +supplied by the delight of escape from the over-civilization of the city; +in Petrarch and Mantuan, by their allegorical intention; in Sacchetti and +Lorenzo, by the contrast of town and country, with all its delicate +humour; in Boccaccio and Poliziano, by the opening it gave for golden +dreams of exquisite beauty or sensuous delight; in Tasso, by the desire of +that freedom in love and life which sentimental philosophers have always +associated with a return to nature. In all these cases the content _per +se_ may be said to be matter of indifference; it only receives meaning in +relation to some ulterior intention of the author. Realism under these +circumstances was impossible. Nor could satire call it forth, for no one +would be at pains to satirize actual rusticity. The only loophole left by +which a realistic treatment could find its way into pastoral was when, as +in Folengo's macaronics, it was not the actual rustic life but the +conventional representation of it that was the object of satire. But this +case was naturally a rare one. + + + + +Chapter II. + +Pastoral Poetry in England + + + +I + + +We have seen how there arose in the Italian songs of the fourteenth +century a spontaneous form of pastoral independent of the regular +tradition, and somewhat similar examples are furnished by the dramatic +eclogues of Spain. In the former case, however, pastoral was never more +than a passing note; while in the latter, the impulse, though possessing +some vitality, was early overwhelmed by the rising tide of Italian +influence. In England it was otherwise. On the one hand the spontaneous +and popular impulse towards a form of pastoralism appears to have been +stronger and more consistent than elsewhere; on the other the foreign and +literary influence never acquired the same supreme importance. As a resuit +the earlier native fashion affected in a noticeable degree later pastoral +work, colouring and blending with instead of being overpowered by the +regular tradition. Thus it is possible to trace two distinct though +mutually reacting tendencies far down the stream of English literature, +and to this double origin must be referred many of the peculiar phenomena +of English pastoral work. There was furthermore a constant struggle for +supremacy between the two traditions, in which now one now the other +appeared likely to go under. The greatest poets of their day, Spenser and +Milton, threw the weight of their authority on to the side of pastoral +orthodoxy. Spenser, however, was himself too much influenced by the +popular impulse for his example to be decisive in favour of the regular +tradition, while, by the time Milton wrote, a hybrid form had established +itself on a more or less secure basis and a _modus vivendi_ had already +been achieved. Meanwhile the bulk of pastofal poets affected a less +weighty and more spontaneous song, whether they wrote in the light +fanciful mood of Drayton or the more passionate and romantic spirit of +Browne. + +To this double origin may be ascribed a certain noticeable vitality that +characterizes English pastoral composition. Since this quality has been +habitually overlooked by literary historians, I may be excused for +dwelling on it somewhat in this place. The stigma which, not altogether +undeservedly, attaches to pastoral as a whole has tempted critics to +confine their attention to the more notable examples of the kind, and to +treat these as more or less sporadic manifestations. Thus they have +failed, on the whole, to appreciate the relation in which these works +stand to the general pastoral tradition, which was mainly carried on in +works of little individual interest. It is no blame to them if they +considered that these undistinguished productions were of small importance +in the general history of literature: any one who goes through them with +care will probably arrive at a not very dissimilar conclusion. +Nevertheless the fact remains that the neglect of them has obscured both +the relative positions of the greater and more enduring works, and also +the general nature of the pastoral tradition in this country. That +tradition I believe to have been of a far more noteworthy character than +has hitherto been realized. I am not, of course, prepared to maintain that +pastoral composition in England ever attained, as a whole, to the rank of +great literature, or that it formed such a remarkable body of work as we +find, for example, in the Arcadian drama of Italy. But when we come to +regard the pastoral production of this country in the light of a more or +less connected tradition, it is impossible not be struck by the +originality and diversity of the various forms which it assumed. Though as +a literary kind it never rivalled its Italian model in fertility, it +evinced an individual and versatile quality which we seek in vain in other +countries. To substantiate this claim and to show how far the vitality of +the English pastoral was due to its hybrid origin will be my chief aim in +this chapter. When I come to deal with the main subject of this inquiry it +will be necessary to determine how far similar considerations apply in the +case of the pastoral drama. + +In the first place we have to consider what was produced on the one hand +by the purely native impulse, and on the other under the sole inspiration +of foreign tradition, at a period when these two influences had not yet +begun to interact. As an argument in favour of the spontaneous and genuine +nature of the earlier fashion may be noticed its appearance in that +miscellaneous body of anonymous literature which, whatever may be its +origin--and it is impossible to enter on so controversial a subject in +this place--is at least 'popular' in the sense of having been long handed +down from generation to generation in the mouths of the people. The +acceptance of pastoral ballads into this great mass of traditional +literature is at least as good evidence of their popular character as that +of authorship could be. In such a body of literature it would indeed be +surprising had the _pastourelle_ motive not found entrance; but it is +noteworthy that whereas the French and Latin poems are habitually written +from the point of view of the lover, the English ballads adopt that of the +peasant maiden to whom the high-born suitor pays his court. At once the +simplest and most poetical of the ballads on this model is that printed by +Scott as _The Broom of Cowdenknows_, a title to which in all probability +it has little claim. It is a delightful example of the minor ballad +literature, and I am by no means inclined to regard it as a mere +amplification of the much shorter and rather abrupt _Bonny May_ of Herd's +collection, though the latter, so far as it goes, probably offers a less +sophisticated text. In either case a gentleman riding along meets a girl +milking, obtains her love, and ultimately returns and marries her. A +similar incident, in which, however, the seducer marries the girl under +compulsion and then discovers her to be of noble parentage, is told in a +ballad, of which a number of versions have been collected in Scotland +under the title of _Earl Richard_ or _Earl Lithgow_, and of which an +English version was current in the seventeenth century and was quoted more +than once by Beaumont and Fletcher.[72] This was printed by Percy in the +_Reliques_, and two broadsides of it dating from the restoration are +preserved in the Roxburghe collection. It is inferior to the northern +versions, but both are probably late, and contain stanzas belonging to or +copied from other ballads, notably the _Bonny Hynd_ of the Herd manuscript +and _Burd Helen_ (the Scotch version of _Child Waters_). The title of the +broadsides is interesting as betraying the influence of the regular +pastoral tradition: 'The beautifull Shepherdesse of Arcadia. A new +pastarell Song of a courteous young Knight, and a supposed Shepheards +Daughter.'[73] Again, apparently from the Aberdeen district, comes a +ballad on the marriage of a shepherd's daughter to the Laird of Drum. On +the other hand we find three somewhat similar ballads, _Lizie Lindsay_ or +_Donald of the Isles, Lizie Baillie_, and _Glasgow Peggie_, recording the +elopement of a town girl with a highland gentleman in the disguise of a +shepherd. These are obviously late, though a certain resemblance in style +with _Johnie Faa_ makes it possible that they are as old as the middle of +the seventeenth century. None of the pastoral ballads, indeed, can show +any credentials which would suggest an earlier date than the second half +of the sixteenth century, nor can any of them lay claim to first-rate +poetic merit.[74] + +Another example of native pastoral, earlier and far more genuine in +character, is to be found in the religious drama. The romantic +possibilities of peasant life were to some extent reflected in the +ballads; it is the burlesque aspect that is preserved to us in the +'shepherd' plays of the mystery cycles. We possess the plays on the +adoration of the shepherds belonging to the four extant series, a +duplicate in the Towneley plays, and one odd specimen, making six in all. +The rustic element varies in each case, but it assumed the form of +burlesque comedy in all except the purely didactic 'Coventry' cycle of the +Cotton manuscript. Here, indeed, the treatment of the situation is +decorously dull, but in the others we can trace a gradual advance in +humorous treatment leading up to the genuine comedy of the alternative +Towneley plays. Thus, like Noah and his wife, the shepherds of the +adoration early became recognized comic characters, and there can be +little doubt of the influence exercised by these scenes upon the later +interludes. With the general evolution of the drama we are of course in no +wise here concerned: what it imports us to notice is that just as it was +the picture of the young gallant riding along on the mirk evening by the +fail dyke of the 'bought i' the lirk o' the hill' that caught the +imagination of the north-country milkmaids, so it was the rough +representation of rustic manners, with which they must have been familiar +in actual life, that appealed to the villagers flocking to York, +Leicester, Beverley, or Wakefield to witness the annual representation of +the guild cycle.[75] + +It will be worth while to give some account of the form taken by this +genuine pastoral comedy, as we find it in its highest development in the +two Towneley plays. These belong to the latest additions to the cycle, and +were probably first incorporated when the repertory underwent revision in +the early years of the fifteenth century.[76] Each play falls into three +portions: first, a rustic farce; secondly, the apparition and announcement +of the angels; and thirdly, the adoration. The two latter do not +particularly concern us. Though in the Chester cycle the shepherds show +themselves amusingly ignorant of the meaning of the _Gloria_, in the +Towneley plays they are apt to fall out of character, and certainly +display a singular knowledge of the prophets,[77] for + + Abacuc and ely prophesyde so, + Elezabeth and zachare and many other mo, + And david as veraly is witnes thereto, + Iohn Bapyste sewrly and daniel also. + +More remarkable still is one shepherd's familiarity with the classics: + + Virgill in his poetre sayde in his verse, + Even thus by gramere as I shall reherse; + 'Iam nova progenies celo demittitur alto, + Iam rediet virgo, redeunt saturnia regna.'[78] + +It is perhaps no matter for surprise that one of his less learned fellows +should break out with more force than delicacy: + + Weme! tord! what speke ye here in myn eeres? + Tell us no clerge I hold you of the freres. + +It is one of the little ironies of literature that in the earliest picture +of pastoral life in England the greatest pastoral writer of Rome should be +quoted, not as a pastoralist, but as a magician. + +Before the appearance of the angels, however, there is nothing to lead one +to expect this strange display of learning. A rougher, simpler set of +countrymen it would have been hard to find in the England of Chaucer and +Langland. In the shepherd-play known as _prima pastorum_ the comic element +consists mostly in quarrels and feasting among the shepherds, but in the +_secunda pastorum_ it constitutes a regular little three-scene farce, +which at its date was absolutely unique in literature. It is thence only a +step, and a very short one, to John Heywood's interludes--though it is a +step that took more than a century to accomplish. + +The first shepherd comes in complaining of the hard weather; his fingers +are chapped, the storms blow from every quarter in turn. 'Sely shepardes,' +moreover, are put upon by any rich upstart and have no redress. A second +shepherd appears with another grumble: 'We sely wedmen dre mekyll wo.' +Some men, indeed, have been known to desire two wives or even three, but +most would sooner have none at all. Whereupon enters Daw, a third +shepherd, complaining of portents 'With mervels mo and mo.' 'Was never syn +noe floode sich floodys seyn'; even 'I se shrewys pepe'--apparently a +portentous omen. At this point Mak comes on the scene. He is a notorious +bad character of the neighbourhood, who boasts himself 'a yoman, I tell +you, of the king,' and complains that his wife eats him out of house and +home. The shepherds suspect him of designs upon their flocks, so when they +lie down to rest they place him the middle man of three. As soon, however, +as the shepherds are asleep--'that may ye all here'--Mak borrows a sheep +and makes off. Arrived at home he would like to eat the sheep at once, but +he is afraid of being followed, so the animal is put in the cradle and +wrapped up to resemble a baby, and Mak goes back to take his place among +the shepherds. Before long these awake and rouse Mak, who, pretending he +has dreamt that Gill his wife has been brought to bed of another child, +goes off home. The shepherds miss one of their sheep and, following him, +find Gill on the bed while Mak sings a lullaby at the cradle. They proceed +to search the house, Gill the while praying she may eat the child in the +cradle if ever she deceived them. They find nothing, and are about to +depart when Daw insists on kissing the new baby. Gill vows she saw the +child changed by an elf as the clock struck midnight, but Mak pleads +guilty and gets off with a blanketing. + +So far, intentionally in the case of the drama, and if not intentionally +at least practically in that of the ballads, the appeal of the native +pastoral impulse--tradition it could hardly yet be called--was to an +audience little if at all removed from the actual condition of life +depicted. This ensured at least essential reality, for though in the one +case there may be idealization in a romantic and in the other in a +burlesque direction, either implies that familiarity with the actual world +which appears to underlie all vital art.[79] It was not long, however, +before the pastoral began to address itself to a more cultivated society, +and in so doing sacrificed that wholesome corrective of a genuinely +critical audience which is needed in the long run to keep any literary +form from degeneration. The impulse is still, however, found in all its +freshness and genuineness in such a poem as the following +fifteenth-century nativity carol, which, in its blending of piety and +humorous rusticity, is strongly reminiscent of the dramatic productions we +have just been reviewing: + + The shepherd upon a hill he sat, + He had on him his tabard and his hat, + His tar-box, his pipe, and his flagat, + His name was called Jolly, Jolly Wat! + For he was a good herds-boy, + Ut hoy! + For in his pipe he made so much joy. + Can I not sing but hoy. + + * * * * * + + The shepherd on a hill he stood, + Round about him his sheep they yode, + He put his hand under his hood, + He saw a star as red as blood. + Ut hoy! &c. + + * * * * * + + Now must I go there Christ was born, + Farewell! I come again to-morn, + Dog, keep well my sheep fro the corn! + And warn well Warroke when I blow my horn! + Ut hoy! &c.[80] + +So, again, in the delightful poem that has won for Robert Henryson the +title of the first English pastoralist the warm blood of natural feeling +yet runs full. _Robene and Makyne_ stands on the threshold of the +sixteenth century, a modest and pastoral counterpart of the _Nut-Brown +Maid_, as evidence that there were poets of purely native inspiration +capable of writing verses every whit as perfect in form as anything +produced by the Italianizers of the next generation, and commonly far more +genuine in feeling. Even in the work of Surrey and Wyatt themselves we +find poems which, were it not for the general tradition to which they +belong, one would have no difficulty in regarding as a natural development +and conventionalization of the native tendency. Such is the _Harpelus' +Complaint_ of 'Tottel's Miscellany.' This was originally printed among +the poems of uncertain authors, but when it re-appeared in _England's +Helicon_, in 1600, it was subscribed with Surrey's name. The ascription +does not carry with it much authority, but is in no way inherently +improbable.[81] The opening stanzas may be quoted as conveying a fair idea +of the whole, which sustains its character of sprightly elegance for over +a hundred lines, ending with the luckless Harpelus' epitaph: + + Phylida was a fayer mayde, + And fresh as any flowre: + Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed + To be his paramour. + + Harpalus and eke Corin + Were herdmen both yfere: + And Phillida could twist and spin + And therto sing full clere. + + But Phillida was all to coy + For Harpelus to winne. + For Corin was her onely joye, + Who forst her not a pynne.[82] + +The relation of the early Italianizers to pastoral is rather strange. +Pastoral names, imagery and conventions are freely scattered throughout +their works, yet with the exception of the above there is scarcely a poem +to which the term pastoral can be properly applied. They borrowed from +their models a kind of pastoral diction merely, not their partiality for +the form: 'shepherd' is with them merely another word for lover or poet, +while almost any act of such may be described as 'folding his sheep' or +the like. Allegory has reduced itself to a few stock phrases. In this +fashion Surrey complains to his fair Geraldine, and a whole company of +unknown lovers celebrate the cruelty and beauty of their ladies. It is +rarely that we catch a note of fresher reminiscence or more spontaneous +song as in Wyatt's: + + Ah, Robin! + Joly Robin! + Tell me how thy leman doth! + +Happily the seed of Phillida's coyness bore fruit, and the amorous +pastoral ballad or picture, a true _idyllion_, became a recognized type in +English verse. It certainly owed something to foreign pastoral models, +and, like the bulk of Elizabethan lyrics, a good deal to Italian poetry in +general; but in its freshness and variety, as in its tendency to narrative +form, it asserts its independence of any rigid tradition, and justifies us +in regarding it as an outcome of that native impulse which we have already +noticed. Such a poem is Nicholas Breton's ever charming _Phyllida and +Corydon_, printed above his signature in _England's Helicon_.[83] Although +we are thereby anticipating, it may be quoted as a representative specimen +of its kind: + + In the merry month of May, + In a morn by break of day, + Forth I walk'd by a wood-side, + When as May was in his pride: + There I spied all alone, + Phyllida and Corydone. + Much ado there was, God wot! + He would love and she would not. + She said, never man was true; + He said, none was false to you. + He said, he had loved her long; + She said, Love should have no wrong. + Corydon would kiss her then; + She said, maids must kiss no men, + Till they did for good and all; + Then she made the shepherd call + All the heavens to witness truth + Never loved a truer youth. + Thus with many a pretty oath, + Yea and nay, and faith and troth, + Such as silly shepherds use + When they will not Love abuse, + Love which had been long deluded + Was with kisses sweet concluded; + And Phyllida, with garlands gay, + Was made the lady of the May. + +We must now turn to the beginnings of regular pastoral tradition in this +country, springing up under direct foreign influence and in conscious and +avowed imitation of specific foreign models. Passing over the Latin +eclogues of Buchanan and John Barclay, as belonging properly to the sphere +of humanistic rather than of English letters, we come to the pretty +thoroughly Latinized pastorals of Alexander Barclay and Barnabe Googe. +Their preoccupation with the humanistic poets is, in Barclay's case at any +rate, no less dominant a factor than in that of the regular translators, +from whom it is neither very easy nor clearly desirable to distinguish +them. Of the professed translators themselves it may be well to say a few +words in this place and allow them at once to resume their veil of +well-deserved oblivion. Their influence may be taken as non-existent, and +their only interest lies in the indication they afford of the trend of +literary fashion. The earliest was George Turberville, who in 1567 +translated the first nine of Mantuan's eclogues into English fourteeners. +The verse is fairly creditable, but the exaggeration of style, +endeavouring by sheer brutality of phrase to force the moral judgement it +lacks the art of more subtly stimulating, produces neither a very pleasing +nor a very edifying effect. This translation went through three editions +before the end of the century. The whole ten eclogues did not find a +translator till 1656, when Thomas Harvey published a version in +decasyllabic couplets. The next poet to appear in English dress was +Theocritus, of whose works 'Six Idillia, that is, Six Small, or Petty, +Poems, or Aeglogues,' were translated by an anonymous hand and dedicated +to E. D.--probably or possibly Sir Edward Dyer--in 1588. As before, the +verse, mostly fourteeners, is far from bad, but the selection is not very +much to our purpose. Three of the pieces, a singing match, a love +complaint, and one of the Galatea poems, are more or less pastoral; but +the rest--among which is the dainty conceit of Venus and the boar well +rendered in a three-footed measure--do not belong to bucolic verse at all. +Incidental mention may be also made of a 'dialogue betwixt two sea nymphs, +Doris and Galatea, concerning Polyphemus, briefly translated out of +Lucian,' by Giles Fletcher the elder, in his _Licia_ of 1593; and a +version of 'The First Eidillion of Moschus describing Love,' in Barnabe +Barnes' _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_, which probably appeared the same +year. Lastly we have the Bucolics and Georgics of Vergil, translated in +1589 by Abraham Fleming into rimeless fourteeners.[84] Besides these there +are a few odd translations from Vergil among the experiments of the +classical versifiers. Webbe, in his _Discourse of English Poetry_ (1586), +gives hexametrical translations of the first and second eclogues, while +another version of the second in the same metre appears first in Fraunce's +_Lawyer's Logic_ (1588), and again with corrections in his _Ivychurch_ +(1591).[85] Several further translations followed in the seventeenth +century. + +But one step, and that a short one, removed from these writers is +Alexander Barclay, translater of Brandt's _Stultifera Navis_, priest and +monk successively of Ottery St. Mary, Ely, and Canterbury. It seems to +have been about 1514, when at the second of these houses, that he composed +at least the earlier and larger portion of his eclogues. They appeared at +various dates, the first complete edition being appended, long after the +writer's death, to the _Ship of Fools_ of 1570.[86] They are there headed +'Certayne Egloges of Alexander Barclay Priest, Whereof the first three +conteyne the misereyes of Courtiers and Courtes of all princes in +generall, Gathered out of a booke named in Latin, Miseriae Curialium, +compiled by Eneas Silvius[87] Poet and Oratour.' This sufficiently +indicates what we are to expect of Barclay as of the Latin eclogists of +the previous century. The interlocutors in these three poems are Coridon, +a young shepherd anxious to seek his fortune at court, and the old Cornix, +for whom the great world has long lost its glamour. The fourth eclogue, +'treating of the behavour of Rich men against Poets,' is similarly 'taken +out of' Mantuan. In it Barclay is supposed to have directed a not very +individual but pretty lusty satire against Skelton.[88] He also +introduces, as recited by one of the characters, 'The description of the +Towre of vertue and honour, into which the noble Howarde contended to +enter by worthy actes of chivalry,' a stanzaic composition in honour of +Sir Edward Howard, who died in 1513. The fifth eclogue, 'of the +disputation of Citizens and men of the Countrey,' or the _Cytezen and +Uplondyshman_, as it was originally styled, again presents us with a +familiar theme treated in the conventional manner, and closes the series. +These poems are written in what would be decasyllabic couplets were they +reducible to metre--in other words, in the barbarous caesural jangle in +which many poets of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries +imagined that they reproduced the music of Chaucer, and which, refashioned +however almost beyond recognition by a born metrist, we shall meet again +in the _Shepherd's Calender_. The following lines from the fifth eclogue +may serve to illustrate Barclay's style: + + I shall not deny our payne and servitude, + I knowe that plowmen for the most part be rude, + Nowe shall I tell thee high matters true and olde, + Which curteous Candidus unto me once tolde, + Nought shall I forge nor of no leasing bable, + This is true history and no surmised fable. + +It is in justice due to Barclay to say that the fact of his composing this +eclogue in the vernacular should possibly be counted to him as an original +step. The step had, indeed, been taken in Italy before he was born, but of +this he may, in spite of his travels, have been ignorant. Such credit as +attaches to the innovation should be allowed him. + +A somewhat more independent writer is Barnabe Googe--writer, indeed, as +original, may be, as the lesser Latin pastoralists of the renaissance. The +fact of his altering the conventional forms to fit the mood of a sturdy +protestantism, of a protestantism still bitter from the Marian +persecutions, is scarcely to be regarded so much as evidence of his +invention as of the stability of literary tradition under the varying +forms imposed by external circumstances. The collection of his poems, +'imprinted at London' in 1563,[89] includes eight eclogues written in +fourteeners, the majority of which may fairly be said to represent Mantuan +adjusted to the conditions of contemporary life in reformation England. +Others show the influence of the author's visit to Spain in 1561-3. The +best that can be said for the verse and style is that they pursue their +'middle flight' on the whole modestly, and that the diction is at times +not without a touch of simple dignity. There are, moreover, moments of +genuine feeling when the author recalls the fires of Smithfield, and of +generous if naive appreciation when he speaks of his predecessors in +English song. A brief summary of contents will give some idea of the +nature of these poems. The first recounts the pains of love; in the second +Dametas rails on the blind boy and ends his song by dying. The third +treats of the vices of the city, not the least of them being religious +persecution. In the next Melibeus relates how Dametas, having as we now +learn killed himself for love, appeared to him amid hell-fire. Eclogue V +contains the pitiful tale of Faustus who courted Claudia through the +agency of Valerius. Claudia unfortunately fell in love with the messenger, +and finding him faithful to his master slew herself. This is imitated, in +part closely, from the tale of the shepherdess Felismena in the second +book of Montemayor's _Diana_, the identical story upon which Shakespeare +is supposed ultimately to have founded his _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, +though it is difficult at first sight to trace much resemblance between +the play and Googe's poem. In the sixth eclogue Faustus--the Don Felix of +the Spanish and the Proteus of Shakespeare--himself appears, for no better +reason it would seem than to give his interlocutor an opportunity of +enlarging on the delights of country life and introducing the remarks on +fowling borrowed from Sannazzaro by way of Garcilaso's second eclogue. The +next is a discussion somewhat after the manner of the _Nut-Brown Maid_, +again paraphrased from the _Diana_ (Book I); while the eighth, lastly, is +a homily on the superiority of Christianity over Roman polytheism, in +which under obsolete forms the author no doubt intended an allusion to +contemporary controversies. Thus it will be seen that Googe follows Latin +and Spanish traditions almost exclusively: the only point in which it is +possible to see any native inspiration is in his partiality for some sort +of narrative ballad motive as the subject of his poems. + +So far the literary quality to be registered has not been high among those +owing allegiance to the regular pastoral tradition. The next step to be +taken is a long one. The pastoral writings of Spenser not only themselves +belong to a very different order of work, but likewise brings us face to +face with literary problems of a most complex and interesting kind. + + + +II + + +In the _Shepherd's Calender_ we have the one pastoral composition in +English literature which can boast first-rate historical importance. There +are not a few later productions in the kind which may be reasonably held +to surpass it in poetic merit, but all alike sink into insignificance by +the side of Spenser's eclogues when the influence they exercised on the +history of English verse is taken into account. The present is not of +course the place to discuss this wider influence of Spenser's work: it is +with its relation to pastoral tradition and its influence upon subsequent +pastoral work that we are immediately concerned. This is an aspect of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ to which literary historians have naturally devoted +less attention. These two reasons--namely, the intrinsic importance of the +work and the neglect of its pastoral bearing--must excuse a somewhat +lengthy treatment of a theme that may possibly be regarded as already +sufficiently familiar. + +The _Shepherd's Calender_[90], which first appeared in 1579, was published +without author's name, but with an envoy signed 'Immerito.' It was +dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and contained a commentary by one E. K., +who also signed an epistle to Master Gabriel Harvey, fellow of Pembroke +College, Cambridge. 'Immerito' was a name used by Spenser in his familiar +correspondence with Harvey, and can in any case have presented no mystery +to his Cambridge friends. Among these must clearly be reckoned the +commentator E. K., who may be identified with one Edward Kirke with all +but absolute certainty.[91] Within certain well defined limits we may also +accept E. K. as a competent exponent of his friend's work, and his +identity, together with that of Rosalind and Menalcas, being matters of +but indirect literary interest, may be left to Spenser's editors and +biographers to fight over. It will be sufficient to add in this place that +however 'literary' may have been Spenser's attachment to Rosalind there is +no reason to suppose that she was not a real person, while however little +response his advances may have met with there _is_ reason to suppose that +his sorrow at their rejection was not wholly conventional. + +Spenser's design in turning his attention to the pastoral form would not +seem hard to apprehend. Less readily may we suppose that any deep +philosophical impulse directed his mind towards certain modes of +expression, than that in an age of catholic experiment he turned from the +penning of impossible iambic trimeters, 'minding,' as E. K. directly +informs us, 'to furnish our tongue with this kind, wherein it faulteth.' +He was qualified for the task by a wide knowledge of previous pastoral +writers from Theocritus and Bion down to Marot, and deliberately ranged +himself in line with the previous poets of the regular pastoral +tradition. Yet we find side by side in his work two distinct and +apparently antagonistic though equally conscious tendencies; the one +towards authority, leading him to borrow motives freely and even to resort +to direct paraphrase; the other towards individuality, nationality, +freedom, informing his general scheme and regulating the language of his +imaginary swains. It is this double nature of his pastoral work that +justifies us as regarding him, in spite of his alleged orthodoxy, as in +reality the first of a series of English writers who combined the +traditions of regular pastoral with the wayward graces of native +inspiration. It is true that in Spenser the natural pastoral impulse has +lost the spontaneity of the earlier examples, and has passed into the +realm of conscious and deliberate art; but it is none the less there, +modifying the conventional form. The individual debts owed by Spenser to +earlier writers have been collected with admirable learning and industry +by scholars such as Kluge and Reissert[92], but the investigation of his +originality presents at once a more interesting and more important field +of inquiry. So, indeed, Spenser himself appears to have thought, for the +only direct acknowledgement he makes in the work is to Chaucer, although, +as a writer to whom the humours of criticism are ever present has +remarked, 'it might almost seem that Spenser borrowed from Chaucer nothing +but his sly way of acknowledging indebtedness chiefly where it was not +due.' + +The chief point of originality in the _Calender_ is the attempt at linking +the separate eclogues into a connected series. We have already seen how +with Googe the same characters recur in a sort of shadowy story; but what +was in his case vague and almost unintentional becomes with Spenser a +central artistic motive of the piece. The eclogues are arranged with no +small skill and care on somewhat of an architectural design, or perhaps we +should rather say with somewhat of the symmetry of a geometrical pattern. +This will best be seen in a brief analysis of the several eclogues, +'proportionable,' as the title is careful to inform us, 'to the twelve +monethes.' + +In the 'January,' a monologue, Spenser, under the disguise of Colin +Clout, laments the ill-success of his love for Rosalind, who meets his +advances with scorn. He also alludes to his friendship with Harvey, who is +introduced throughout under the name of Hobbinol. The 'February' is a +disputation between youth and age in the persons of Cuddie and Thenot. It +introduces the fable of the oak and the briar, in which, since he ascribes +it to Tityrus, a name he transferred from Vergil to Chaucer, Spenser +presumably imagined he was imitating that poet, though it is really no +more in the style of Chaucer than is the roughly accentual measure in +which the eclogue is composed. For the 'March' Spenser recasts in English +surroundings Bion's fantasy of the fight with Cupid, without however +achieving any conspicuous success. In the April eclogue Hobbinol recites +to the admiring Thenot Colin's lay + + Of fayre Eliza, Queene of shepheardes all, + Which once he made as by a spring he laye, + And tuned it unto the Waters fall. + +This lay is in an intricate lyrical stanza which Spenser shows +considerable skill in handling. The following lines, for instance, already +show the musical modulation characteristic of much of his best work: + + See, where she sits upon the grassie greene, + (O seemely sight!) + Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene, + And ermines white: + Upon her head a Cremosin coronet, + With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set: + Bay leaves betweene, + And primroses greene, + Embellish the sweete Violet. + +In the 'May' we return to the four-beat accentual measure, this time +applied to a discussion by the herdsmen Palinode and Piers of the +lawfulness of Sunday sports and the corruption of the clergy. Here we have +a common theme treated from an individual point of view. The eclogue is +interesting as showing that the author, whose opinions are placed in the +mouth of the precise Piers; belonged to what Ben Jonson later styled 'the +sourer sort of shepherds.' A fable is again introduced which is of a +pronounced Aesopic cast. In the 'June' we return to the love-motive of +Rosalind, which, though alluded to in the April eclogue, has played no +prominent part since January. It is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, +in which the former recounts his final defeat and the winning of Rosalind +by Menalcas. This eclogue contains Spenser's chief tribute to Chaucer: + + The God of shepheards, Tityrus, is dead, + Who taught me homely, as I can, to make; + He, whilst he lived, was the soveraigne head + Of shepheards all that bene with love ytake: + Well couth he wayle his Woes, and lightly slake + The flames which love within his heart had bredd, + And tell us mery tales to keepe us wake + The while our sheepe about us safely fedde. + +The July eclogue again leads us into the realm of ecclesiastical politics. +It is a disputation between upland and lowland shepherds, the descendant +therefore of Mantuan and Barclay, though the use of 'high places' as +typifying prelatical pride appears to be original. The confusion of things +Christian and things pagan, of classical mythology with homely English +scenery, nowhere reaches a more extravagant pitch than here. Morrell, the +advocate of the old religion, defends the hills with the ingeniously +wrong-headed argument: + + And wonned not the great God Pan + Upon mount Olivet, + Feeding the blessed flocke of Dan, + Which dyd himselfe beget? + +or else, gazing over the Kentish downs, he announces that + + Here han the holy Faunes recourse, + And Sylvanes haunten rathe; + Here has the salt Medway his source, + Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe. + +In the 'August' Spenser again handles a familiar theme with more or less +attempt at novelty. Willie and Peregot meeting on the green lay wagers in +orthodox fashion, and, appointing Cuddie judge, begin their singing +match. The 'roundel' that follows, a song inserted in the midst of +decasyllabic stanzas, is composed of alternate lines sung by the two +competitors. The verse is of the homeliest; indeed it is only a rollicking +indifference to its own inanity that saves it from sheer puerility and +gives it a careless and as it were impromptu charm of its own. Even in an +age of experiment it must have needed some self-confidence to write the +dialect of the _Calender_; it must have required nothing less than +assurance to put forth such verses as the following: + + It fell upon a holy eve, + Hey, ho, hollidaye! + When holy fathers wont to shrieve; + Now gynneth this roundelay. + Sitting upon a hill so hye, + Hey, ho, the high hyll! + The while my flocke did feede thereby; + The while the shepheard selfe did spill. + I saw the bouncing Bellibone, + Hey, ho, Bonibell! + Tripping over the dale alone, + She can trippe it very well. + +Many a reader of the anonymous quarto of 1579 must have joined in Cuddie's +exclamation: + + Sicker, sike a roundel never heard I none! + +Sidney, we know, was not altogether pleased with the homeliness of the +verses dedicated to him; and there must have been not a few among +Spenser's academic friends to feel a certain incongruity between the +polished tradition of the Theocritean singing match and the present poem. +Moreover, as if to force the incongruity upon the notice of the least +sensitive of his readers, Spenser followed up the ballad with a poem which +is not only practically free from obsolete or dialectal phrasing, but +which is composed in the wearisomely pedantic _sestina_ form. This song is +attributed to Colin, whose love for Rosalind is again mentioned. + +Passing to the 'September' we find an eclogue of the 'wise shepherd' type. +It is composed in the rough accentual metre, and opens with a couplet +which roused the ire of Dr. Johnson: + + Diggon Davie! I bidde her god day; + Or Diggon her is, or I missaye. + +Diggon is a shepherd, who, in hope of gain, drove his flock into a far +country, and coming home the poorer, relates to Hobbinol the evil ways of +foreign shepherds among whom, + + playnely to speake of shepheards most what, + Badde is the best. + +The 'October' eclogue belongs to the stanzaic group, and consists of a +dialogue on the subject of poetry between the shepherds Piers and Cuddie. +It is one of the most imaginative of the series, and in it Spenser has +refashioned time-honoured themes with more conspicuous taste than +elsewhere. The old complaint for the neglect of poetry acquires new life +through the dramatic contrast of the two characters in which opposite +sides of the poetic temperament are revealed. In Cuddie we have a poet for +whom the prize is more than the praise[93], whose inspiration is cramped +because of the indifference of a worldly court and society. Things were +not always so-- + + But ah! Mecaenas is yclad in claye, + And great Augustus long ygoe is dead, + And all the worthies liggen wrapt in leade, + That matter made for Poets on to play. + +And in the same strain he laments over what might have been his song: + + Thou kenst not, Percie, howe the ryme should rage, + O! if my temples were distaind with wine, + And girt with girlonds of wild Yvie twine, + How I could reare the Muse on stately stage, + And teache her tread aloft in buskin fine, + With queint Bellona in her equipage! + +Reading these words to-day they may well seem to us the charter of the new +age of England's song; and the effect is rendered all the more striking +by the rhythm of the last line with its prophecy of Marlowe and mighty +music to come. Piers, on the other hand, though with less poetic rage, is +a truer idealist, and approaches the high things of poetry more +reverentially than his Bacchic comrade. When Cuddie, acknowledging his own +unworthiness, adds: + + For Colin fittes such famous flight to scanne; + He, were he not with love so ill bedight, + Would mount as high, and sing as soote as Swanne; + +Piers breaks out in words fitting the poet of the _Hymnes_: + + Ah, fon! for love doth teach him climbe so hie, + And lyftes him up out of the loathsome myre. + +And throughout this high discourse the homely names of Piers and Cuddie +seem somehow more appropriate, or at least touch us more nearly, than +Mantuan's Sylvanus and Candidus, as if, in spite of all Spenser owes to +foreign models, he were yet conscious of a latent power of simple native +inspiration, capable, when once fully awakened, of standing up naked and +unshamed in the presence of Italy and Greece. One might well question +whether there is not more of the true spirit of prophecy in this poem of +Spenser's than ever went to the composition of Vergil's _Pollio_. + +The 'November,' like the 'April,' consists for the most part of a lay +composed in an elaborate stanza--there a panegyric, here an elegy. This +time it is sung by Colin himself, and we again find reference to the +Rosalind motive. The subject of the threnody is a nymph of the name of +Dido, whose identity can only be vaguely conjectured. The chief point of +external form in which Spenser has departed from his model, namely Marot's +dirge for Loyse de Savoye, and from other pastoral elegies, is in the use +of a different form of verse in the actual lament from that in which the +setting of the poem is composed. Otherwise he has followed tradition none +the less closely for having infused the conventional form with a poetry of +his own. The change by which the lament passes into the song of rejoicing +is traditional--and though borrowed by Spenser from Marot, is as old as +Vergil. Both Browne and Milton later made use of the same device. Spenser +writes: + + Why wayle we then? why weary we the Gods with playnts, + As if some evill were to her betight? + She raignes a goddesse now emong the saintes, + That whilome was the saynt of shepheards light, + And is enstalled nowe in heavens hight. + I see thee, blessed soule, I see + Walke in Elisian fieldes so free. + O happy herse! + Might I once come to thee, (O that I might!) + O joyfull verse! + +Although some critics, looking too exclusively to the poetic merit of the +_Calender_ as the cause of its importance, have perhaps overestimated the +beauty of this and the April lyrics, the skill with which the intricate +stanzas are handled must be apparent to any careful reader. As the +_Calender_ in poetry generally, so even more decidedly in their own +department, do these songs mark a distinct advance in formal evolution. +Just as they were themselves foreshadowed in the recurrent melody of +Wyatt's farewell to his lute-- + + My lute, awake! perform the last + Labour that thou and I shall waste, + And end that I have now begun; + For when this song is sung and past, + My lute, be still, for I have done-- + +so they in their turn heralded the full strophic sonority of the +_Epithalamium_. + +Lastly, in the 'December' we have the counterpart of the January eclogue, +a monologue in which Colin laments his wasted life and joyless, for + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + + Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; + Adieu, my deare, whose love I bought so deare; + Adieu, my little Lambes and loved sheepe; + Adieu, ye Woodes, that oft my witnesse were: + Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true, + Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu.[94] + +It will be seen from the above analysis that the architectonic basis of +Spenser's design consists of the three Colin eclogues standing +respectively at the beginning, in the middle, and at the close of the +year. These are symmetrically arranged: the 'January' and 'December' are +both alike monologues and agree in the stanza used, while the 'June' is a +dialogue and likewise differs in metrical form. This latter is supported +as it were by two subsidiary eclogues, those of April and August, in both +of which another shepherd sings one of Colin's lays and refers +incidentally to his passion for Rosalind. It is upon this framework that +are woven the various moral, polemical, and idyllic themes which Spenser +introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric +is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral +composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts +so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, +and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more +strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a +moment. The chief and most obvious device is that suggested by the +title--_The Shepherd's Calender_--'Conteyning twelve Aeglogues +proportionable to the twelve monethes.' This might, indeed, have been no +more than a fanciful name for any series of twelve poems;[95] with Spenser +it indicates a conscious principle of artistic construction. It suggests, +what is moreover apparent from the eclogues themselves, that the author +intended to represent the spring and fall of the year as typical of the +life of man. The moods of the various poems were to be made to correspond +with the seasons represented; or, conversely, outward nature in its cycle +through the year was to reflect and thereby unify the emotions, thoughts, +and passions of the shepherds. This was a perfectly legitimate artistic +device, and one based on a fundamental principle of our nature, since the +appearance of objective phenomena is ever largely modified and coloured by +subjective feeling. Nor can it reasonably be objected against the device +that in the hands of inferior craftsmen it degenerates but too readily +into the absurdities of the 'pathetic fallacy,' or that Spenser himself is +not wholly guiltless of the charge. + + Winter is come, that blowes the balefull breath, + And after Winter commeth timely death. + +These lines bear witness to Spenser's intention. But the conceit is not +fully or consistently carried out. In several of the eclogues not only +does the subject in no way reflect the mood of the season--the very nature +of the theme at times made this impossible--but the time of year is not so +much as mentioned. This is more especially the case in the summer months; +there is no joy of the 'hygh seysoun,' and when it is mentioned it is +rather by way of contrast than of sympathy. Thus in June Colin mourns for +other days: + + Tho couth I sing of love, and tune my pype + Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made: + Tho would I seeke for Queene-apples unrype, + To give my Rosalind; and in Sommer shade + Dight gaudy Girlonds was my common trade, + To crowne her golden locks: but yeeres more rype, + And losse of her, whose love as lyfe I wayd, + Those weary wanton toyes away dyd wype. + +In the same eclogue we may trace a deliberate contrast between various +descriptive passages. Thus Hobbinol feels the magie of the summer woods-- + + Colin, to heare thy rymes and roundelayes, + Which thou were wont on wastfull hylls to singe, + I more delight then larke in Sommer dayes: + Whose Echo made the neyghbour groves to ring, + And taught the byrds, which in the lower spring + Did shroude in shady leaves from sonny rayes, + Frame to thy songe their chereful cheriping, + Or hold theyr peace, for shame of thy swete layes. + +Closely following upon this stanza we have Colin's lament, 'The God of +shepheards, Tityrus, is dead,' containing the lines: + + But, if on me some little drops would flowe + Of that the spring was in his learned hedde, + I soone would learne these woods to wayle my woe, + And teache the trees their trickling teares to shedde. + +We have here a specifie inversion of the 'pathetic fallacy.' The moods of +nature are no longer represented as varying in sympathy with the passions +of man, but are deliberately used to heighten an effect by contrast. Even +this inverted correspondence, however, is for the most part lacking in the +subsequent eclogues, and it must be admitted that in so far as Spenser +depended on a cyclic correlation for the unifying of his design, he +achieved at best but partial effect. Another means by which he sought, +consciously or unconsciously, to produce unity of impression was by +consistently pitching his song in the minor key. This accounts for the +inverted correspondence just noted, and for the fact that even the +polemics have an undercurrent of regret in them. In this case the poet has +undoubtedly succeeded in carrying out the prevailing mood of the central +motive--the Rosalind drama--in the subsidiary scenes. Or should we not +rather say that he has extracted the general mood of the whole +composition, and infused it, in a kind of typical form, into the three +connected poems placed at critical points of the complex structure? The +unity, however, thus aimed at, and achieved, is very different from the +cyclic or architectonic unity described above, and of a much less definite +character. + +It remains to say a few words concerning the language of the _Calender_ +and the rough accentual metre in which parts of it are composed, since +both have a particular bearing upon Spenser's attitude towards pastoral in +general. + +Ben Jonson, in one of those utterances which have won for him the +reputation of churlishness, but which are often marked by acute critical +sense, asserted that Spenser 'in affecting the Ancients writ no +Language.'[96] The remark applies first and foremost, of course, to the +_Calender_, and opens up the whole question of archaism and provincialism +in literature. This is far too wide a question to receive adequate +treatment here, and yet it appears forced upon us by the nature of the +case. For Spenser's archaism, in his pastoral work at least, is no +unmeaning affectation as Jonson implies. He perceived that the language of +Chaucer bore a closer resemblance to actual rustic speech than did the +literary language of his own day, and he adopted it for his imaginary +shepherds as a fitting substitute for the actual folk-tongue with which he +had grown familiar, whether in the form of rugged Lancashire or +full-mouthed Kentish. And the homely dialect does undoubtedly naturalize +the characters of his eclogues, and disguise the time-honoured platitudes +that they repeat from their learned predecessors. With our wider +appreciation of literary effect, and our more historical and less +authoritative manner of judging works of art, we can no longer endorse +Sidney's famous criticism:[97] 'That same framing of his stile, to an old +rustick language, I dare not alowe, sith neyther Theocritus in Greeke, +Virgill in Latine, nor Sanazar in Italian, did affect it.'[98] If a writer +finds an effective and picturesque word in an old author or in a homely +dialect it is but pedantry that opposes its use, and it matters little +moreover from what quarter of the land it may hail, as Stevenson knew when +he claimed the right of mingling Ayrshire with his Lothian verse. Even +such archaisms as 'deemen' and 'thinken,' such colloquialisms as the +pronominal possessive, need not be too severely criticized. What goes far +towards justifying Jonson's acrimony is the wanton confusion of different +dialectal forms; the indiscriminate use for the mere sake of archaism of +such variants as 'gate' beside the usual 'goat,' of 'sike' and 'sich' +beside 'such'; the coining of words like 'stanck,' apparently from the +Italian _stanco_; and lastly, the introduction of forms which owe their +origin to mere etymological ignorance, for instance, 'yede' as an +infinitive, 'behight' in the same sense as the simple verb, 'betight,' +'gride,' and many others--all of which do not tend to produce the homely +effect of mother English, but reek of all that is pedantic and +unnatural.[99] + +The influence of Chaucer was not confined to the language: from him +Spenser borrowed the metre of a considerable portion of the _Calender_. It +may at first sight appear strange to attribute to imitation of Chaucer's +smooth, carefully ordered verse the rather rugged measure of, say, the +February eclogue, but a little consideration will, I fancy, leave no doubt +upon the subject. This measure is roughly reducible to four beats with a +varying number of syllables in the _theses_, being thus purely accentual +as distinguished from the more strictly syllabic measures of Chaucer +himself on the one hand and the English Petrarchists on the other. Take +the following example: + + The soveraigne of seas he blames in vaine, + That, once sea-beate, will to sea againe: + So loytring live you little heardgroomes, + Keeping you beastes in the budded broomes: + And, when the shining sunne laugheth once, + You deemen the Spring is come attonce; + Tho gynne you, fond flyes! the cold to scorne, + And, crowing in pypes made of greene corn, + You thinken to be Lords of the yeare; + But eft, when ye count you freed from feare, + Cornes the breme Winter with chamfred browes, + Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes, + Drerily shooting his stormy darte, + Which cruddles the blood and pricks the harte: + Then is your carelesse corage accoied, + Your careful heards with cold bene annoied: + Then paye you the price of your surquedrie, + With weeping, and wailing, and misery.[100] + +The syllabic value of the final _e_, already weakening in the London of +Chaucer's later days, was more or less of an archaism even with his most +immediate followers, none of whom use it with his unvarying correctness, +and it soon became literally a dead letter. The change was a momentous +one for English prosody, and none of the fifteenth-century writers +possessed sufficient poetic genius to adapt their verse to the altered +conditions of the language. They lived from hand to mouth, as it were, +without arriving at any systematic tradition. Thus it was that at the +beginning of the sixteenth century Hawes could write such verse as: + + Of dame Astronomy I dyd take my lycence + For to travayle to the toure of Chyvalry; + For al my minde, wyth percyng influence, + Was sette upon the most fayre lady + La Bell Pucell, so muche ententyfly, + That every daye I dyd thinke fyftene, + Tyl I agayne had her swete person sene.[101] + +It is this prosody, dependent usually upon a strong caesural pause to +differentiate it from prose, which may account for the harshness of some +of Wyatt's verse, and which rendered possible the barbarous metre of +Barclay. It was obviously impossible for a poet with an ear like Spenser +to accept such a metrical scheme as this; but his own study of Chaucer +produced a somewhat strange result. The one point which the late +Chaucerians preserved of their master's metric was the five-stress +character of his decasyllabic line; but in Spenser's day all memory of the +syllabic _e_ had long since vanished, and the only rhythm to be extracted +from Chaucer's verse was of a four-stress type. Professor Herford quotes a +passage from the Prologue of the _Canterbury Tales_ as it appears in +Thynne's second edition (1542), which Spenser would inevitably have read +as follows: + + When zephirus eke wyth hys sote breth + Enspyred hath every holte and heth, + The tendre croppes, and the yong sonne + Hath in the Ram halfe hys course yronne, + And smale foules maken melodye + That slepen al nyght with open eye, &c. + +This certainly bears on the face of it a close resemblance to Spenser's +measure. There are, moreover, occasional difficulties in this method of +scansion, some lines refusing to accommodate themselves to the Procrustean +methods of sixteenth-century editors, and exactly similar anomalies are to +be found in Spenser. Such, for instance, are the lines in the May eclogue: + + Tho opened he the dore, and in came + The false Foxe, as he were starke lame. + +Now these lines may be written in strict Chaucerian English thus: + + Tho opened he the dore, and inne came + The false fox, as he were starke lame, + +and they at once become perfectly metrical. Under these circumstances +there can, I think, be little doubt as to the literary parentage of +Spenser's accentual measure.[102] + +Like the archaic dialect, this homely measure tends to bring Spenser's +shepherds closer to their actual English brethren. And hereby, it should +be frankly acknowledged, the incongruity of the speakers and their +discourse is emphasized and increased. That discourse, it is true, runs on +pastoral themes, but the disguise and allegory have worn thin with +centuries of use. We can no longer separate the words from the allusions, +and consequently we can no longer accept the speakers in their +unsophisticated shepherd's role. Yet it was precisely the desire to give +reality to these transparent phantasms that led Spenser to endow them with +a rustic speech. Whether he failed or succeeded the paradox of the form +remains about equal.[103] + +The importance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ was early recognized, not +only by friendly critics, but by the general public likewise, and six +editions were called for in less than twenty years. Not long after its +appearance John Dove, a Christ Church man, who appears to have been +ignorant of the authorship, turned the whole into Latin verse, dedicating +the manuscript to the Dean.[104] Another Latin version is found in +manuscript in the British Museum copy of the edition of 1597, and after +undergoing careful revision finally appeared in print in 1653. This was +the work of one Bathurst, a fellow of Spenser's own college of Pembroke at +Cambridge.[105] + +The _Shepherd's Calender_ was Spenser's chief contribution to pastoral; +indeed it was by so much his most important contribution that it would +hardly be worth while examining the others did they not bear witness to a +certain change in his attitude towards the pastoral ideal. + +The first of these later works is the isolated but monumental eclogue +entitled _Colin Clouts come Home again_, of which the dedication to +Raleigh is dated 1591, though it was not published till four years later. +This, perhaps the longest and most elaborate eclogue ever written, +describes how the Shepherd of the Ocean, that is Raleigh, induced Colin +Clout, who as before represents Spenser, to leave his rustic retreat in + + the cooly shade + Of the greene alders by the Mallaes shore, + +and try his fortune at the court of the great shepherdess Cynthia, and how +he ultimately returned to Ireland. The verse marks, as might be expected, +a considerable advance in smoothness and command of rhythm over the +non-lyrical portions of the _Calender_, and the dialect, too, is much less +harsh, being far advanced towards that peculiar poetic diction which +Spenser adopted in his more ambitions work. On the other hand, in spite of +a certain _allegrezza_ in the handling, and in spite of the Rosalind wound +being at least partially healed, the same minor key prevails as in the +earlier poems. In the spring of the great age of English song Spenser's +note is like the voice of autumn, not the fruitful autumn of cornfield and +orchard, but a premature barrenness of wet and fallen leaves-- + + The woods decay, the woods decay and fall. + +Thus though time has purged the bitterness of his sorrow, the regret +remains; his early love is still the mistress of his thoughts, but years +have softened his reproaches, and he admits: + + who with blame can justly her upbrayd, + For loving not; for who can love compell?-- + +a petard, it may be incidentally remarked, which, sprung within the bounds +of pastoral, is of power to pulverize in an instant the whole artificial +system of amatory ethics. + +The most notable points in the poem are the loves of the rivers Bregog and +Mulla, the famous list of contemporary poets, and the presentation of the +seamy side of court life, recalling the more direct satire of the probably +contemporary _Mother Hubberd's Tale_. The first of these belongs to the +class of Ovidian myths already noticed in such works as Lorenzo's _Ambra_. +The subject, however, is treated in a more subtly allegorical manner than +by Ovid's direct imitators, and this mode of presentment likewise +characterizes Spenser's tale of Molanna in the fragment on +Mutability.[106] Browne returned to a more crudely metamorphical tradition +in the loves of Walla and Tavy, while a similarly mythological +_Naturanschauung_ may be traced in Drayton's chorographical epic. + +Of the miscellaneous _Astrophel_, edited and in part composed by Spenser, +which was appended to _Colin Clout_, and of the _Daphnaida_ published in +1596, though, like the former volume, containing a dedication dated 1591, +a passing mention must suffice. The former is chiefly remarkable as +illustrating the uniformly commonplace character of the verse called forth +by the death of one who, while he lived, was held the glory of Elizabethan +chivalry. It contains, beside other verse, pastoral elegies from the pens, +certainly of Spenser, and probably of the Countess of Pembroke, Matthew +Roydon, and Lodowick Bryskett. The last-named, or at any rate a +contributor with the same initiais, also supplied a 'Pastorall Aeglogue' +on the same theme. _Daphnaida_ is a long lament in pastoral form on the +death of Douglas Howard, daughter of the Earl of Northampton. + +Of far greater importance for our present purpose is the pastoral +interlude in the quest of Sir Calidore, which occupies the last four +cantos of the sixth book of the _Faery Queen_.[107] Here is told how Sir +Calidore, the knight of courtesy, in his quest of the Blatant Beast came +among the shepherd-folk and fell in love with the fair Pastorella, reputed +daughter of old Meliboee; how he won her love in return through his valour +and courtesy; how while he was away hunting she was carried off by a band +of robbers; how he followed and rescued her; and finally, how she was +discovered to be the daughter of the lord of Belgard--at which point the +poem breaks off abruptly. The story has points of resemblance with the +Dorastus and Fawnia, or Florizel and Perdita, legend; but it also has +another and more important claim upon our attention. For as Shakespeare in +_As You Like It_, so Spenser in this episode has, as it were, passed +judgement upon the pastoral ideal as a whole. He is acutely sensitive to +the charm of that ideal and the seductions it offers to his hero-- + + Ne, certes, mote he greatly blamed be, + +says the poet of the _Faery Queen_ recalling the days when he was plain +Colin Clout--but the + + perfect pleasures, which do grow + Amongst poore hyndes, in hils, in woods, in dales, + +are not allowed to afford more than a temporary solace to the knight; the +robbers break in upon the rustic quietude, rapine and murder succeed the +peaceful occupations of the shepherds, and Sir Calidore is driven once +again to resume his arduous quest. The same idea may be traced in the +knight's visit to the heaven-haunted hill where he meets Colin Clout. In +the + + hundred naked maidens lilly white + All raunged in a ring and dauncing in delight + +to the sound of Colin's bagpipe, and who, together with the Graces and +their sovereign lady, vanish at the knight's approach, it is surely not +fanciful to see the gracious shadows of the idyllic poet's vision trooping +reluctantly away at the call of a more lofty theme. With this sense of +regret at the vanishing of an ideal long cherished, but at last +deliberately abandoned for matters of deeper and more real import, we may +turn from the work of the most important figure in English pastoral poetry +to his less famous contemporaries. + + + +III + + +Besides its wider influence on English verse, and the stimulus it gave to +pastoral composition as a whole, the _Shepherd's Calender_ called forth a +series of direct imitations. Of these the majority are but of accidental +and ephemeral interest and of inconspicuous merit; and it is probable that +Spenser himself lived to see the end of this over-direct school of +discipleship. Several examples appeared in Francis Davison's famous +miscellany known as the _Poetical Rhapsody_, the first edition of which, +though it only appeared in 1602, contained the gleanings of the entire +sixteenth century.[108] Of these imitations, four in number, the first, +the work of the editor himself, is a very poor production. It is a love +lament, and the insertion of a song in a complicated lyrical measure in a +plain stanzaic setting is evidently copied from the _Calender_. The other +three poems are ascribed, either in the _Rhapsody_ itself or in Davison's +manuscript list, to a certain A. W., who so far remains unidentified, if, +indeed, the letters conceal any individuality and do not merely stand for +'Anonymous Writer,' as has been sometimes thought. The three eclogues at +any rate bear evidence of coming from the same pen, and the following +lines show that the writer was no incompetent imitator, and at the same +time argue some genuine feeling: + + Thou 'ginst as erst forget thy former state, + And range amid the busks thyself to feed: + Fair fall thee, little flock! both rathe and late; + Was never lover's sheep that well did speed. + Thou free, I bound; thou glad, I pine in pain; + I strive to die, and thou to live full fain. + +The first of these poems is a monologue 'entitled Cuddy,' modelled on the +January eclogue. The second is a lament 'made long since upon the death of +Sir Philip Sidney,' in which the writer wonders at Colin's silence, and +which consequently must, at least, date from before the appearance of +_Astrophel_ in 1595, and is probably some years earlier. It is in the form +of a dialogue between two shepherds, one of whom sings Cuddy's lament in +lyrical stanzas, thus recalling Spenser's 'November.' These stanzas do not +reveal any great metrical gift. The last poem is a fragment 'concerning +old age,' which connects itself by its theme with the February eclogue, +though the form is stanzaic.[109] Again we find mention of Cuddy, a name +evidently assumed by the author, though whether he can be identified with +the Cuddie of the _Calender_ it is impossible to say. Whoever he was, he +shows more disposition than most of his fellow imitators to preserve +Spenser's archaisms. + +But undoubtedly the greatest poet who was content to follow immediately +in Spenser's footsteps was Michael Drayton, who in 1593 published a volume +entitled 'Idea The Shepheards Garland, Fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands +Sacrifice to the nine Muses.' This connexion between the number of the +eclogues and the muses is purely fanciful; Rowland is Drayton's pastoral +name, and Idea, which re-appeared as the title of the 1594 volume of +sonnets, is that of his poetic mistress.[110] It can hardly be said that +the verse of these poems attains any very high order of merit, but the +imitation of Spenser is evident throughout. In the first eclogue Rowland +bewails, in the midst of spring, 'the winter of his grief.' In this and +the corresponding monologue at the end he clearly follows Spenser's +arrangement and likewise adopts his minor key-- + + Fayre Philomel, night-musicke of the spring, + Sweetly recordes her tunefull harmony, + And with deepe sobbes, and dolefull sorrowing, + Before fayre Cinthya actes her Tragedy. + +In Eclogue II a 'wise' shepherd warns a youth against love, and draws a +somewhat gruesome picture of human fate-- + + And when the bell is readie to be tol'd + To call the wormes to thine Anatomie, + Remember then, my boy, what once I said to thee! + +Even this, however, fails to shake the lover's faith in the gentle +passion, and his enthusiasm finds vent in an apostrophe borrowed from +Spenser: + + Oh divine love, which so aloft canst raise, + And lift the minde out of this earthly mire. + +The next eclogue, containing a panegyric on Elizabeth under the name of +Beta, is closely modelled on the 'April,' and abounds with such +reminiscences as the following: + + Make her a goodly Chapilet of azur'd Colombine, + And wreath about her Coronet with sweetest Eglantine: + Bedeck our Beta all with Lillies, + And the dayntie Daffadillies, + With Roses damask, white, and red, and fairest flower delice, + With Cowslips of Jerusalem, and cloves of Paradice. + +Here, however, Drayton shows himself more skilful in dealing with a +lyrical stanza than most of his fellow imitators. In the fourth eclogue +two shepherds sing a dirge made by Rowland on the death of Elphin, that is +Sidney. In the next Rowland himself sings the praises of Idea; and in the +sixth Perkin those of Pandora, doubtless the Countess of Pembroke. The +seventh is a singularly unentertaining dispute, in which typical +representatives of age and youth abuse one another by turns; the eighth is +a description of the golden age, a theme Spenser had omitted; and lastly, +in the ninth we return to the opening love-motive, this time, as in the +_Calender_, amid the frosts of winter. + +These eclogues were reprinted in a different order in the 'Poems Lyric and +Pastoral' (_c._ 1606) with one additional poem there numbered the ninth. +This describes a rustic gathering of shepherds and nymphs, and contains +several songs. The verse exhibits no small advance on the earlier work, +and one song at least is in the author's daintiest manner. He seldom +surpassed the graceful conceit of the lines: + + Through yonder vale as I did passe, + Descending from the hill, + I met a smerking bony lasse; + They call her Daffadill: + + Whose presence as along she went, + The prety flowers did greet, + As though their heads they downward bent + With homage to her feete. + +Spenser, in spite of the warning he addressed to his book-- + + Dare not to match thy pype with Tityrus his style, + Nor with the Pilgrim that the Ploughman playde awhyle-- + +could nevertheless assert in semi-burlesque rime: + + It shall continewe till the worlds dissolution; + +and his disciple is not to be outdone. Never was truer lover or sweeter +singer-- + + Oenon never upon Ida hill + So oft hath cald on Alexanders name, + As hath poore Rowland with an Angels quill + Erected trophies of Ideas fame: + Yet that false shepheard, Oenon, fled from thee; + I follow her that ever flies from me. + +Thus Drayton endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of a greater than he, +and small success befell him in his uncongenial task. He knew little and +cared less about the moral and philosophical rags that clung yet about the +pastoral tradition. He sang, in his lighter vein at least, for the mere +pleasure that his song could afford to himself and others: the Spenserian +and traditional garb fits him ill. His golden age is rather amorous than +philosophical; he is more concerned that love should be free and true than +that the earth should yield her fruits unwounded of the plough; and even +so he hastens away from that colourless age to troll the delightful ballad +of Dowsabel. The inspiration for this he found, not in Spenser and his +learned predecessors, but in the popular romances, and in it we hear for +the first time the voice of the real Michael Drayton, the accredited bard +to the court of Faery. So again in the barren dispute of the seventh +eclogue, he turns aside from his theme as the shadow of the winged god +flits across his path-- + + That pretie Cupid, little god of love, + Whose imped winges with speckled plumes been dight, + Who striketh men below and Gods above, + Roving at randon with his feathered flight, + When lovely Venus sits and gives the ayme, + And smiles to see her little Bantlings game. + +If these eclogues formed Drayton's only claim upon our attention as a +pastoral poet there would be no excuse for lingering over him. He left +other work, however, which, if but slightly pastoral in subject, is at +least thoroughly so in form and spirit. The _Muses Elizium_ did not appear +till 1630, and it is consequently not a little premature to speak of it in +this place. It is, however, so important as illustrating the freer and +more spontaneous vein traceable in many English pastoralists from Henryson +onwards, that it is worth while to place it for comparison side by side +with the more orthodox tradition as exemplified, in spite of his +originality, in the work of Spenser. + +The _Muses Elizium_ is in truth the culmination of a long sequence of +pastoral work. Of this I have already discussed the beginnings when +dealing with the native pastoral impulse; and however much it was +influenced at a later date by foreign models it never submitted to the +yoke of orthodox tradition, and to the end retained much of its freshness. +The early anthologies are full of this sort of verse, the song-books are +full of it, and so are the romances and the plays. To this lyrical +tradition belong Breton's songs, of which one has already been quoted; +there was hardly a poet of note at the end of the sixteenth century who +did not contribute his quota. We find it once more, intermingling with a +certain formal strain, in Drayton's _Shepherds' Sirena_ containing the +delightful song, with its subtle interchange of dactylic and iambic +rhythms, so admirably characteristic of the author of the _Agincourt_ +ballad: + + Neare to the Silver Trent + Sirena dwelleth, + Shee to whom Nature lent + All that excelleth; + By which the Muses late + And the neate Graces, + Have for their greater state + Taken their places: + Twisting an Anadem + Wherewith to Crowne her, + As it belong'd to them + Most to renowne her. + On thy Bancke, + In a Rancke + Let thy Swanes sing her + And with their Musick + along let them bring her. + +In this pervading impulse of pure and spontaneous pastoral the soul of +what is sweet and winning in things common and familiar as our household +fairies blends with the fresh glamour of early love and the dainty +delights of an ideal world, where despair is only less sweet than +fruition, and love only less divine than chastity, where, as Drayton +frankly tells us, + + The winter here a Summer is, + No waste is made by time, + Nor doth the Autumne ever misse + The blossomes of the Prime; + + The flower that July forth doth bring, + In Aprill here is seene, + The Primrose, that puts on the Spring, + In July decks each Greene, + +a world, in short, in which the nymphs may strew the laureate hearse, not +only with all the flowers and fruits of earth, but with the Amaranth of +paradise and the stars of heaven if the fancy takes them. Of a spirit +compounded of these elements and of its quintessence are the 'Nymphals' of +the _Muses Elizium_. There are portions of the work, it is true, in which +the more vulgar strains of the conventional pastoral make themselves +heard, as in the satires of the fourth and tenth Nymphals; but for the +most part we are allowed to wander undisturbed among the woods and +pastures of an earthly paradise, and revel in the fairy laureate's most +imaginative work. There we meet Lirope, of whom + + Some said a God did her beget, + But much deceiv'd were they, + Her Father was a Rivelet, + Her Mother was a Fay. + Her Lineaments so fine that were + She from the Fayrie tooke, + Her Beauties and Complection cleere + By nature from the Brooke. + +There Naiis sings, roguishly enough, in the martial metre of _Agincourt_: + + 'Cloe, I scorne my Rime + Should observe feet or time, + Now I fall, then I clime, + What is't I dare not?' + + 'Give thy Invention wing, + And let her flert and fling, + Till downe the Rocks she ding, + For that I care not'; + +the song then breaking off into gamesome anapaests: + + The gentle winds sally + Upon every Valley, + And many times dally + And wantonly sport, + About the fields tracing, + Each other in chasing, + And often imbracing, + In amorous sort. + +There, again, we listen to the litany of the Muses, with the response: + + Sweet Muse, perswade our Phoebus to inspire + Us for his Altars with his holiest fire, + And let his glorious, ever-shining Rayes + Give life and growth to our Elizian Bayes; + +or else hear the fairy prothalamium, most irrepressible and inimitable of +bridal songs-- + + For our Tita is this day + Married to a noble Fay. + +There, lastly, we behold the flutter of tender breasts half veiled when +Venus and her wayward archer are abroad, and listen as fair Lelipa reads +the decree: + + To all th' Elizian Nimphish Nation, + Thus we make our Proclamation + Against Venus and her Sonne, + For the mischeefe they have done: + After the next last of May, + The fixt and peremptory day, + If she or Cupid shall be found + Upon our Elizian ground, + Our Edict mere Rogues shall make them, + And as such, who ere shall take them, + Them shall into prison put; + Cupids wings shall then be cut, + His Bow broken, and his Arrowes + Given to Boyes to shoot at Sparrowes; + And this Vagabond be sent, + Having had due punishment, + To mount Cytheron, which first fed him, + Where his wanton Mother bred him, + And there, out of her protection, + Dayly to receive correction. + Then her Pasport shall be made, + And to Cyprus Isle convayd, + And at Paphos, in her Shryne, + Where she hath beene held divine, + For her offences found contrite, + There to live an Anchorite. + +We have here the very essence of whatever most delicately and quaintly +exquisite the half sincere and half playful ideal of pastoral had +generated since the days of Moschus. + +How is it then, we may pause a moment to inquire, that in spite of its +crudities of language and even of metre, in spite of its threadbare themes +but half repatched with homelier cloth, in spite of its tedious +theological controversies, its more or less conventional loves and more or +less exaggerated panegyrics--how is it that in spite of all this we still +regard the _Shepherd's Calender_ as serious literature; while with all its +exquisite justness, as of ivory carved and tinted by the hand of a master +and encrusted with the sparkle of a thousand gems, the _Muses' Elizium_ +remains a toy? It is not merely the prestige of the author's name: it is +not merely that we tend to accept the work of each at his own valuation. +We have to seek the explanation of the phenomenon in the fact that not +only has the _Shepherd's Calender_ behind it a vast tradition, reverend if +somewhat otiose--the devotion of men counts for something--but also that, +however stiffly laced in an unsuitable garb, it sought to deal with +matters of real import to man, or at any rate with what man has held as +such. It treated questions of religious policy which touched the majority +of men more nearly then than now; with moral problems calculated to +interest the mind of an age still tinged with medievalism; with +philosophical theories of human and divine love. In other words, the +_Shepherd's Calender_ lay in the main stream of literature, and reflected +the mind of the age, while the _Muses' Elizium_, in common with so much +pastoral work, did not. These considerations open up an interesting field +of speculation. Are we to suppose that there is indeed a line of +demarcation between great art and little art wholly independent of that +which divides good art from bad art? Are we to go further, and assume that +these two lines of division intersect, so that a work may be akin to +great art though it be not good art, while, however perfect a work of art +may be, it may remain little art for some wholly non-aesthetic reason? But +we digress. + + + +IV + + +It will be convenient, in dealing with the considerable volume of English +pastoral verse which has come down to us from the late sixteenth and early +seventeenth centuries, to divide it into two portions, according as it +tends to attach itself to orthodox foreign tradition on the one hand, or +to the more spontaneous native type on the other. To the former division +belong in the main the more ambitious set pieces and eclogue-cycles, to +the latter the lighter and more occasional verse, the pastoral ballads and +the lyrics. The division is necessarily somewhat arbitrary, for the two +traditions act and react on one another incessantly, and the types merge +almost imperceptibly the one into the other; but that does not prevent the +spirit that manifests itself in Drayton's eclogues being essentially +different from that which produced Breton's songs. I shall not, however, +try to draw any hard and fast line between the two, but shall rather deal +first with those writers whose most important work inclines to the more +formal tradition, and shall then endeavour to give some account of the +lighter pastoral verse of the time. + +After the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_ some years elapsed +before English poetry again ventured upon the domain of pastoral, at least +in any serious composition. In 1589, however, appeared a small quarto +volume, with the title: 'An Eglogue. Gratulatorie. Entituled: To the right +honorable, and renowmed Shepheard of Albions Arcadia: Robert Earle of +Essex and Ewe, for his welcome into England from Portugall. Done by George +Peele. Maister of arts in Oxon.' Like the 'A. W.' of the _Rhapsody_, Peele +followed Spenser more closely than most of his fellow imitators in the use +of dialect, but his eclogue on the not particularly glorious return of +Essex has little interest. His importance as a pastoralist lies elsewhere. + +The following year the poet of the _Hecatompathia_, Thomas Watson, a +pastoralist of note according to the critics of his own age, but whose +work in this line is chiefly Latin, published his 'Ecloga in Obitum +Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami, Equitis aurati, Divae +Elizabethae a secretis, & sanctioribus consiliis,' entitled _Meliboeus_, +and also in the same year a translation of the piece into English. The +latter is considerably shorter than the original, but still of tedious +length. The usual transition from the dirge to the paean is managed with +more than the usual lack of effect. The eclogue contains a good deal +beyond its immediate subject; for instance, a lament for Astrophel, a +passage in praise of Spenser, and a panegyric on + + Diana, matchless Queene of Arcadie-- + +all subjects hardly possible for a poet to escape, writing _more +pastorali_ in 1590. Watson also left several other pastoral compositions +in the learned tongue, which, from their eponymous hero, won for him the +shepherd-name of Amyntas. Thus in 1585 he published a work in Latin +hexameter verse with the title 'Amyntas Thomae Watsoni Londinensis I. V. +studiosi,' divided into eleven 'Querelae,' which was 'paraphrastically +translated' by Abraham Fraunce into English hexameters, and published +under the title 'The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis' in +1587. This translation, 'somewhat altered' to serve as a sequel to an +English hexametrical version of Tasso's _Aminta_, was republished in 'The +Countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch' of 1591. Again in 1592 Watson produced +another work entitled _Amintae Gaudia_, part of which was translated under +the title _An Old-fashioned Love_, and published as by I. T. in 1594.[111] + +Next in order--passing over Drayton, with whom we have been already +sufficiently concerned--is a writer who, without the advantage of original +genius or brilliant imagination, succeeded by mere charm of poetic style +and love of natural beauty, in lifting his work above the barren level of +contemporary pastoral verse. Richard Barnfield's _Affectionate Shepherd_, +imitated, as he frankly confesses, from Vergil's _Alexis_, appeared in +1594. Appended to it was a poem similar in tone and spirit, entitled _The +Shepherd's Content_, containing a description of country life and scenery, +together with a lamentation for Sidney, a hymn to love, a praise of the +poets, and other similar matters. The easy if somewhat monotonous grace +which pervades both these pieces is seen to better advantage in the +delightful _Shepherd's Ode_, which appeared in his _Cynthia_ of 1595, and +begins: + + Nights were short and days were long, + Blossoms on the hawthorn hong, + Philomel, night-music's king, + Told the coming of the spring; + +or in the yet more perfect song: + + As it fell upon a day + In the merry month of May, + Sitting in a pleasant shade + Which a group of myrtles made, + Beasts did leap and birds did sing, + Trees did grow and plants did spring, + Everything did banish moan, + Save the nightingale alone; + She, poor bird, as all forlorn, + Lean'd her breast against a thorn, + And there sung the dolefull'st ditty, + That to hear it was great pity.... + Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, + None takes pity on thy pain. + Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee; + Ruthless beasts, they will not cheer thee; + King Pandion he is dead, + All thy friends are lapp'd in lead[112]; + All thy fellow birds do sing, + Careless of thy sorrowing; + Even so, poor bird, like thee, + None alive will pity me[113]. + +No particular interest attaches to the four eclogues included in Thomas +Lodge's _Fig for Momus_, published in 1595, but they serve to throw light +on a kind of pastoral freemasonry that was springing up at this period. +Spenser and Sidney, under the names of Colin and Astrophel, or more rarely +Philisides, were firmly fixed in poetic tradition; Barnfield, by coupling +them with these, made Watson and Drayton free of the craft in his +complaint to Love in the _Shepherd's Content_: + + By thee great Collin lost his libertie, + By thee sweet Astrophel forwent his joy, + By thee Amyntas wept incessantly, + By thee good Rowland liv'd in great annoy. + +Now we find Lodge dedicating his four eclogues respectively to Colin, +Menalcus, Rowland, and Daniel. Who Menalcus was is uncertain; not, it +would seem, a poet. The themes are serious, even weighty according to the +estimation of the author, and befit the mood of the poet who first sought +to acclimatize the classical satire[114]. These eclogues do not, however, +testify to any high poetic gift, any more than do the couple in a lighter +vein found in the _Phillis_ of 1593. Lodge was happier in the lyric verses +with which he strewed his romances--such for instance as the lines to +Phoebe in _Rosalynde_, though these did certainly lay themselves open to +parody[115]. In the same romance Lodge rose for once to a perfection of +delicate conceit unsurpassed from his day to ours: + + Love in my bosom like a bee + Doth suck his sweet; + Now with his wings he plays with me, + Now with his feet. + + Within mine eyes he makes his nest, + His bed amidst my tender breast; + My kisses are his daily feast, + And yet he robs me of my rest. + Ah, wanton, will ye? + +The year 1595 also saw the publication of Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_, +which contains, according to the not wholly accurate title-page, 'Three +Pastorall Eglogues, in English Hexameter.' These constituted the first +attempt in English at writing original eclogues in Vergilian metre, and +the injudicious experiment has not, I believe, been repeated. The subjects +present little novelty of theme, but the treatment illustrates the natural +tendency of English pastoral writers towards narrative and the influence +of the romantic ballad motives. The same volume contains another work of +Sabie's, namely, the _Fishermaris Tale_, a blank-verse rendering of +Greene's _Pandosto_[116]. + +The three pastoral elegies of William Basse, published in 1602, the last +work of the kind to appear in Elizabeth's reign, form in reality a short +pastoral romance. The court-bred Anander falls in love with the +shepherdess Muridella, and charges the sheep-boy Anetor to convey to her +the knowledge of his passion. His love proving unkind he turns shepherd, +and resolves to remain so until his suit obtains better grace. More than +half a century later, namely in 1653, Basse prepared for press a +manuscript containing a series of pastorals headed 'Clio, or The first +Muse in 9 Eglogues in honor of 9 vertues,' and arranged according to the +days of the week. The whole composition is singularly lacking alike in +interest and merit.[117] + +It is not surprising to find the eclogues of the early years of James' +reign reflecting current events. In 1603 appeared a curious compilation, +the work of Henry Chettle, bearing the title: 'Englandes Mourning Garment: +Worne here by plaine Shepheardes; in memorie of their sacred Mistresse, +Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue while shee lived, and Theame of Sorrow, being +dead. To which is added the true manner of her Emperiall Funerall. After +which foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for entertainement of King +James our most potent Soveraigne. Dedicated to all that loved the deceased +Queene, and honor the living King.' The book is a strange medley of verse +and prose, elegies on Elizabeth in the form of eclogues, and political +lectures written in the style of the pastoral romance. The most +interesting passage is an address to contemporary poets reproaching them +for their neglect of the praises of the late queen. The pastoral names +under which they are introduced appear to be merely nonce appellations, +but are worth recording as they refer to a set outside the usual pastoral +circle. Thus Corin is Chapman; Musaeus, of course Marlowe; English Horace, +no doubt Jonson; Melicert, Shakespeare; Coridon, Drayton; Anti-Horace, +most likely Dekker, and Moelibee, mentioned with him, possibly Marston. To +Musidore, 'Hewres last Musaeus' (no doubt corrupt), and the 'infant muse,' +it is more difficult to assign an identity.[118] Throughout Chettle +assumes to himself Spenser's pastoral title. + +To the same or the following year belong the twelve eclogues by Edward +Fairfax, the translater of Tasso's _Gerusalemme_, which are now for the +most part lost. One, the fourth, was printed in 1737 from the original +manuscript, another in 1883 from a later transcript in the Bodleian, while +a third is preserved in a fragmentary state in the British Museum.[119] +All three deal chiefly with contemporary affairs, the two former being +concerned with the abuses of the church, while the last is a panegyric of +the 'present age,' and especially of English maritime adventure. This is +certainly the most pleasing of the three, though the style is at times +pretentious and over-charged with far-fetched allusions. There are, +however, fine passages, as for instance the lines on Drake: + + And yet some say that from the Ocean maine, + He will returne when Arthur comes againe. + +More directly concerned with the political events of the day is the +curious eclogue [Greek: Da/phnis Polyste/phanos] by Sir George Buc, +published in 1605, in praise of the Genest crown, the royal right by +Apollo's divine decree of a long line of English kings, who are passed +in review by way of introduction to the praises of their latest +representative. The work was revised by an unknown hand for the accession +of Charles, and republished under the title of _The Great Plantagenet_ in +1635, as by 'Geo. Buck, Gent.' Sir George held the post of Master of the +Revels from 1608 to 1622, and died the following year. + +In 1607 appeared a poem 'Mirrha the Mother of Adonis,' by William +Barksted, to which were appended three eclogues by Lewes Machin.[120] Of +these, one describes the love of a shepherd and his nymph, while the other +two treat the theme of Apollo and Hyacinth. Composed in easy verse of no +particular distinction these poems belong to that borderland between the +idyllic and the salacious on which certain shepherd-poets loved to dally. + +The years 1614 and 1615 saw the appearance of works of considerably +greater interest from every point of view, among others from that of what +I have described as pastoral freemasonry. In the former year there +appeared a small octavo volume entitled _The Shepherd's Pipe_. The chief +contributor was William Browne of Tavistock, the first book of whose +pastoral epic, _Britannia's Pastorals_, had appeared the previous year. +Besides seven eclogues from his pen, the volume contained one by +Christopher Brooke, one by Sir John Davies, and two by George Wither. +These last two were republished in 1615, with three additional pieces, in +Wither's collection entitled _The Shepherd's Hunting_. With the exception +of one or two of Browne's, these fourteen eclogues all deal with the +personal relation of the friends who disguise themselves respectively, +Browne as Willy, Wither as Roget (a name later exchanged for that of +Philarete), Brooke as Cuddie, and Davies as Wernock. Wither's were +written, as we learn from the title-page of the 1615 volume, while the +author was in prison in the Marshalsea for hunting vice with a pack of +satires in full cry, that is, the _Abuses Stript and Whipt_ of 1611. The +verse seldom rises above an amiable mediocrity, the best that can be said +for it being that it carries on, in a not wholly unworthy manner, the +dainty tradition of the octosyllabic couplet between the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ and Milton's early poems. Browne's eclogues are chiefly +remarkable for the introduction into the first of a long and rather +tedious tale derived from a manuscript of Thomas Occleve's. The last of +the series, an elegy on the death of Thomas, son of Sir Peter Manwood, has +been quoted as the model of _Lycidas_, but the resemblance begins and ends +with the fact that in either case the subject of the poem met his death by +drowning--a resemblance which will scarcely support a charge of +plagiarism[121]. + +In 1621 appeared six eclogues under the title of _The Shepherd's Tales_ by +the prolific miscellaneous writer Richard Brathwaite. Each in its turn +recounts the amorous misfortunes of some swain, which usually arise out of +the inconstancy of his sweetheart, and the prize of infelicity having been +adjudged, the author, not perhaps without a touch of malice, sends the +whole company off to a wedding. The _Tales_ are noteworthy for the very +pronounced dramatic gift they reveal, being in this respect quite unique +in their kind. The same year saw the publication of the not very +successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative +in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.' Brathwaite +had already in 1614 published the _Poet's Willow_, containing a +'Pastorall' which recounts the unsuccessful love of Berillus, an Arcadian +shepherd, for the nymph Eliza[122]. + +Pursuing the chronological order we come next to Phineas Fletcher's +'Piscatorie Eclogs' appended to his _Purple Island_ in 1633. Except that +the scene is laid on the banks of a river instead of in the pastures, and +that the characters spend their time looking after boats and nets instead +of tending flocks, they differ in nought from the strictly pastoral +compositions. They are seven in number, and deal either with personal +subjects or with conventional themes. As an imitation of the _Shepherd's +Calender_, without its uncouthness whether of subject or language, and +equally without its originality or higher poetic value, the work is not +wanting in merit, but it is most decidedly wanting in all power to arrest +the reader's attention. + +The last collection that will claim our notice is that of Francis Quarles, +which appeared posthumously in 1646 under the title of 'The Shepheards +Oracles: Delivered in Certain Eglogues[123]. The interest of the volume +lies not so much in its poetic merit, which however is considerable, as in +the fact that it deals with almost every form of religious controversy at +a critical point in English history. Quarles was a stanch Anglican, and he +lashes Romanists and Precisians with impartial severity. One of the +eclogues opens with a panegyric on Gustavus Adolphus, in the midst of +which a messenger enters bearing the news of his death, thus fixing the +date of the poem in all probability in the winter of 1632-3. In the +eleventh and last the Puritan party is mercilessly satirized in the person +of Anarchus, in allusion to the supposed socialistic tendency of its +teaching. He is thus described in a dialogue between Philarchus and +Philorthus (the lovers of order and justice presumably): + + _Philor._ How like a Meteor made of zeal and flame + The man appears! + + _Philar._ Or like a blazing Star + Portending change of State, or some sad War, + Or death of some good Prince. + + _Philor._ He is the trouble + Of three sad Kingdoms. + + _Philar._ Even the very Bubble, + The froth of troubled waters. + + _Philor._ Hee's a Page + Fill'd with Errata's of the present Age. + + _Philar._ The Churches Scourge-- + + _Philor._ The devils _Enchiridion_-- + + _Philar._ The Squib, the _Ignis fatuus_ of Religion. + +To their address Anarchus replies in a song which it would be easy to +illustrate from the dramatic literature of the time, and which well +indicates the estimation in which the faction was popularly held. Here is +one verse: + + Wee'l down with all the Varsities, + Where Learning is profest, + Because they practise and maintain + The Language of the Beast: + Wee'l drive the Doctors out of doores, + And Arts what ere they be, + Wee'l cry both Arts, and Learning down, + And, hey! then up goe we. + +The whole song for sheer rollicking hypocrisy is without parallel in the +language. The date of the poem is doubtful, but Quarles lived till 1644, +and after two years of civil strife the terms which the interlocutors in +the above passage apply to the Puritan party can hardly be regarded as +prophetic. + +Besides the works we have examined above, several others are known to have +existed, though they are not now traceable. Thus 'The sweete sobbes, and +amorous Complaintes of Shepardes and Nymphes in a fancye confusde by An +Munday' was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company on August 19, +1583. Two years earlier, on August 3, 1581, had been entered 'A Shadowe of +Sannazar.' Again we know, alike from Wood's _Athenae_ and Meres' _Palladis +Tamia_, that Stephen Gosson left works of the kind of which we have now no +trace; while Puttenham in his _Art of English Poesy_ mentions an eclogue +of his own, addressed to Edward VI, and entitled _Elpine_. Puttenham and +Meres in dealing with pastoral writers also mention one Challener, no +doubt the Thomas Chaloner who contributed to the _Mirror for Magistrates_, +and Nashe in his preface to _Menaphon_ adds Thomas Atchelow, who may be +plausibly identified with the Thomas Achelly who contributed verses to +Watson's _Hecatompathia_ and various sententious fragments to _England's +Parnassus_, among them a not very happy rendering of those lines of +Catullus which might almost be taken as a motto to pastoral poetry as a +whole: + + The sun doth set, and brings again the day, + But when our light is gone, we sleep for aye. + + + +V + + +It is not easy to arrange the mass of occasional lyric verse of a pastoral +nature in a manner to facilitate a general survey. We may perhaps divide +it roughly into general groups which possess certain points in common and +can be treated more or less independently. Little would be gained by +following a strictly chronological order, even were it possible to do so. + +We occasionally meet with translations, though from the nature of the case +these, as well as evidences of direct foreign influence, are less +prominent here than in the more formal type of pastoral verse. We have +already seen that Googe, besides borrowing from Garcilaso's version of a +portion of the _Arcadia_, himself paraphrased passages of the _Diana_ in +his eclogues, and the latter work also supplied material for the pen of +Sir Philip Sidney. His debt consists in translations of two songs from +Montemayor's romance, printed among his miscellaneous poems[124]. About a +dozen translations from the same source appeared in _England's Helicon_, +the work of Bartholomew Yong. They are for the most part very inferior to +the general average of the collection, but the opening of one at least is +worth quoting: + + 'Guardami las vaccas, + Carillo, por tu fe.-- + Besami primero, + Yo te las guardare.' + + I prithee keep my kine for me, + Carillo, wilt thou? tell.-- + First let me have a kiss of thee, + And I will keep them well. + +Another translation is the poem headed 'A Pastorall' in Daniel's _Delia_ +of 1592, a rendering of the famous chorus to the first act of Tasso's +_Aminta_. + +When we turn to original verse, the first group of poets to arrest our +attention is the court circle which gathered round Sir Philip Sidney. +There is a poem by his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, preserved in +Davison's _Poetical Rhapsody_, and there headed 'A Dialogue between two +Shepherds, Thenot and Piers, in Praise of Astrea.' It was composed for the +entertainment of the queen, and was no doubt sung or recited in character. +Such was likewise the mode of production of Sir Philip's 'Dialogue between +two Shepherds, uttered in a pastoral show at Wilton,'[125] which is more +rustic in character. _Astrophel and Stella_ supplies a graceful 'complaint +to his flock' against the cruelty of + + Stella, fiercest shepherdess, + Fiercest, but yet fairest ever; + Stella, whom the heavens still bless, + Though against me she persever. + Though I bliss inherit never. + +The _Poetical Rhapsody_ again preserves two others, the outcome of +Sidney's friendship with Greville and Dyer. The first is a song of +welcome; the second, headed 'Dispraise of a Courtly Life,' ends with the +prayer: + + Only for my two loves' sake, + In whose love I pleasure take; + Only two do me delight + With the ever-pleasing sight; + Of all men to thee retaining, + Grant me with these two remaining. + +Of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, the loyal admirer and biographer of +Sidney, who desired on his tomb no better passport to posterity than that +he had been Sir Philip's friend, we have among other works published in +1633 a series of so-called sonnets recording his love for the fair +Caelica. There is a thin veil of pastoralism over the whole, with here and +there a more definite note as in 'Sonnet' 75, a poem of over two hundred +lines lamenting his lady's cruelty-- + + Shepheardesses, yet marke well + The Martyrdome of Philocell. + +Of Sir Edward Dyer's works no early edition was published. Such isolated +poems as have survived were collected by Grosart in 1872 from a variety of +sources. If the piece entitled _Cynthia_ is authentic, it gives him a +respectable place beside Greville among the minor pastoralists of his day. +Lastly, in connexion with Sidney we may note a curious poem which appeared +in the first edition of the _Arcadia_ only.[126] It is a 'bantering' +eclogue, in which the shepherds Nico and Pas first abuse one another and +then fall to a comic singing match. It is evidently suggested by the fifth +Idyl of Theocritus, and is a fair specimen of a very uncommon class in +English. Akin to this is the burlesque variety, of which we have already +met with examples in Lorenzo's _Nencia_ and Pulci's _Beca_, and which is +almost equally rare with us. A specimen will be found in the not very +successful eclogue in Greene's _Menaphon_. The following is as near as the +author was able to approach to Lorenzo's delicately playful tone: + + Carmela deare, even as the golden ball + That Venus got, such are thy goodly eyes: + When cherries juice is jumbled therewithall, + Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies. + +It would, of course, be grossly unfair to judge Robert Greene, the +ever-sinning and ever-repentant, by the above injudicious experiment. His +lyrical powers appear in a very different light, for instance, in the +'Palmer's Ode' in _Never Too Late_ (1590), one of the most charming of his +many confessions: + + As I lay and kept my sheepe, + Came the God that hateth sleepe, + Clad in armour all of fire, + Hand in hand with Queene Desire, + And with a dart that wounded nie, + Pearst my heart as I did lie, + That, when I wooke, I gan sweare + Phillis beautie palme did beare. + +From the same romance I must do Greene the justice of quoting the +delightful, though but remotely pastoral, song of every loving nymph to her +bashful swain: + + Sweet Adon, darest not glance thine eye-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Upon thy Venus that must die? + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + + See how sad thy Venus lies-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami?-- + Love in heart and tears in eyes; + Je vous en prie, pity me: + N'oserez-vous, mon bel, mon bel-- + N'oserez-vous, mon bel ami? + +It is hard to refrain from quoting half a dozen other pieces. There is the +courting of Phillis in _Perimedes the Blacksmith_ (1588), with its purely +idyllic close; or again the famous 'Shepherd's Wife's Song' from the +_Mourning Garment_ (1590): + + Ah, what is love? It is a pretty thing, + As sweet unto a shepherd as a king; + And sweeter too, + For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, + And cares can make the sweetest love to frown: + Ah then, ah then, + If country loves such sweet desires do gain, + What lady would not love a shepherd swain? + +No one not utterly callous to the pathos of human life, or warped by some +ethical twist beyond the semblance of a man, has ever been able to pass +unmoved by the figure of Robert Greene. We see him, the poet of all that +is truest and tenderest in human affection, abandoning his young wife and +child, drawn by the power of some fatal fascination into the whirlpool of +low life in London, and then, as if inspired by a sudden revelation of +objective vision, penning the throbbing lines of the forsaken mother's +song: + + Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee, + When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. + +We see him again amid the despair and squalor of his death-bed, warning +his friends against his own example, and addressing to the wife he had not +seen for years those words endorsed on a bill for ten pounds, words ever +memorable in the history of English letters: 'Doll, I charge thee by the +love of our youth, and by my soul's rest, that thou wilt see this man +paid; for if he and his wife had not succoured me I had died in the +streets.' Such are the scenes of sordid misery which underlie some of the +choicest of English songs. It is best to return to the surface. + +The lyric 'sequences' published towards the close of the sixteenth +century frequently contain more or less pastoral matter. Barnabe Barnes +appended some poems of this sort to his _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_ (c. +1593), among others a version of Moschus' idyl of runaway love, a theme +which had long been a favourite one with pastoral writers. Poliziano's +Latin translation of Moschus[127] was commended by E. K. in his notes to +the _Shepherd's Calender_, and the same original supplied Tasso with the +subject of his _Amore fuggitivo_, which served as epilogue to the +_Aminta_. William Smith's _Chloris_ (1596), except for plentiful swearing +by pastoral deities, is less bucolic in spite of its dedication to Colin +Clout. The most important of the sequences from our present point of view +is Nicholas Breton's _Passionate Shepherd,_ which was not published till +1604. It contains five pastorals in praise of Aglaia: + + Had I got a kingly grace, + I would leave my kingly place + And in heart be truly glad + To become a country lad, + Hard to lie and go full bare, + And to feed on hungry fare, + So I might but live to be + Where I might but sit to see, + Once a day, or all day long, + The sweet subject of my song; + In Aglaia's only eyes + All my worldly paradise. + +This is a fair specimen of Breton's dainty muse, but his choicest work +appeared in that wonderful anthology published in 1600 under the title of +_England's Helicon_. To this collection Breton contributed such verses as +the following: + + On a hill there grows a flower-- + Fair befall the dainty sweet!-- + By that flower there is a bower, + Where the heavenly muses meet. + + In that bower there is a chair, + Fringed all about with gold; + Where doth sit the fairest fair, + That ever eye did yet behold. + + It is Phyllis fair and bright, + She that is the shepherd's joy; + She that Venus did despite, + And did bind her little boy. + +Or again: + + Good Muse, rock me asleep + With some sweet harmony; + The weary eye is not to keep + Thy wary company. + + Sweet Love, begone awhile, + Thou knowest my heaviness; + Beauty is born but to beguile + My heart of happiness. + +Another poem no less perfect has been already quoted at length. In its own +line, the delicate carving of fair images as in crystal or some precious +stone, Breton's work is unsurpassed. We cannot do better than take, as +examples of a very large class, some of the poems printed, in most cases +for the first time, in _England's Helicon_. Of Henry Constable, the poet +indicated doubtless by the initiais H. C., we have a charming song between +Phillis and Amaryllis, the counterpart and imitation of Spenser's +'Bonibell' ballad: + + _P._ Fie on the sleights that men devise-- + (Heigho, silly sleights!) + When simple maids they would entice. + (Maids are young men's chief delights.) + _A._ Nay, women they witch with their eyes-- + (Eyes like beams of burning sun!) + And men once caught they do despise; + So are shepherds oft undone. + + * * * * * + + _P._ If every maid were like to me-- + (Heigho, hard of heart!) + Both love and lovers scorn'd should be. + (Scorners shall be sure of smart.) + _A._ If every maid were of my mind-- + (Heigho, heigho, lovely sweet!) + They to their lovers should prove kind; + Kindness is for maidens meet[128]. + +Of Sir John Wotton, the short-lived half-brother of the more famous Sir +Henry, there is a spirited song, betraying unusual command over a +complicated rhythm: + + Jolly shepherd, shepherd on a hill, + On a hill so merrily, + On a hill so cheerily, + Fear not, shepherd, there to pipe thy fill; + Fill every dale, fill every plain; + Both sing and say, 'Love feels no pain.' + +Another graceful poet of _England's Helicon_ is the 'Shepherd Tony,' whose +identity with Anthony Munday was finally established by Mr. Bullen. He +contributed, among other verses, a not very interesting reply to Harpelus' +complaint in 'Tottel's Miscellany,' and the well-known and exquisite: + + Beauty sat bathing by a spring + Where fairest shades did hide her, + +which reappears in his translation of the Castilian romance _Primelion_. + +In Marlowe's 'Passionate Shepherd to his Love,' of which _England's +Helicon_ supplies one of three texts[129], we come to what is, with the +possible exception of _Lycidas_ alone, the most subtly modulated specimen +of pastoral verse in English. So far as internal evidence is concerned the +poem has absolutely nothing but its own perfection to connect it with the +name of Marlowe; it is utterly unlike all other verse, dramatic, +narrative, or lyric, ascribed to him. An admirable eclectic text, which +exhibits to the full the delicacy of the rhythm, has been prepared by Mr. +Bullen in his edition of Marlowe's works. It would be impossible not to +quote the piece in full: + + Come live with me and be my love, + And we will all the pleasures prove + That hills and vallies, dales and fields, + Woods or steepy mountain yields. + + And we will sit upon the rocks, + Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks + By shallow rivers to whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals. + + And I will make thee beds of roses + And a thousand fragrant posies, + A cap of flowers and a kirtle + Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. + + A gown made of the finest wool + Which from our pretty lambs we pull; + Fair-lined[130] slippers for the cold, + With buckles of the purest gold. + + A belt of straw and ivy-buds, + With coral clasps and amber studs; + And if these pleasures may thee move, + Come live with me, and be my love. + + The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing + For thy delight each May-morning: + If these delights thy mind may move, + Then live with me, and be my love. + +The popularity of this poem was testified by its widespread influence on +the poets of the day. _England's Helicon_ contains 'the Nymphs reply,' +commonly attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also a long imitation; +Donne wrote a piscatory version, and Herrick paid it the sincerest form of +flattery, while less distinct reminiscences are common in the poetry of +the time. Yet Kit Marlowe's verses stand unrivalled. + +The pastoral influence in Shakespeare's verse, both lyric and dramatic, is +too obvious to need more than passing notice. Every reader will recall +'Who is Sylvia,' from the _Two Gentlemen_, and 'It was a lover and his +lass,' the song of which, in Touchstone's opinion, 'though there was no +great matter in the ditty, yet the tune was very untuneable,' or again the +famous speech of the chidden king: + + O God! methinks it were a happy life, + To be no better than a homely swain; + (3 _Henry VI_, II. v. 21.) + +and Arthur's exclamation: + + By my christendom + So I were out of prison and kept sheep, + I should be as merry as the day is long. + (_K. John_, IV. i. 16.) + +One poem, bearing a certain resemblance to verses of Barnfield's already +discussed, may be quoted here. It was originally printed in the fourth +act of _Love's Labour's Lost_ in 1598, reappeared in the _Passionate +Pilgrim_ in 1599, and again in _England's Helicon_ in 1600. + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May, + Spied a blossom passing fair + Playing in the wanton air. + Through the velvet leaves the wind + All unseen gan passage find, + That the shepherd, sick to death, + Wish'd himself the heaven's breath. + Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; + Air, would I might triumph so! + But, alas, my hand hath sworn + Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn; + Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, + Youth is apt to pluck a sweet. + [Do not call it sin in me + That I am forsworn for thee;] + Thou for whom Jove would swear + Juno but an Ethiope were, + And deny himself for Jove, + Turning mortal for thy love.[131] + +Lastly, _England's Helicon_ preserves two otherwise unknown poems of +Drayton's, one probably an early work, having little to recommend it +beyond the pretty though not original conceit: + + See where little Cupid lies + Looking babies in her eyes! + +the other similar in style to the eclogue first published in the +collection of c. 1606. About contemporary possibly is the anonymous ballad +'Phillida flouts me,' which in command alike of rhythm and language is +remarkably reminiscent of some, and that some of the best, of Drayton's +work. + + Oh, what a plague is love! + How shall I bear it? + She will unconstant prove, + I greatly fear it. + + It so torments my mind + That my strength faileth; + She wavers with the wind, + As the ship saileth. + Please her the best you may, + She looks another way; + Alas and well-a-day! + Phillida flouts me[132]. + +I have already had occasion to mention the mysterious A. W. in Davison's +_Poetical Rhapsody_, but I cannot refrain from calling attention to one +other poem of his. It is headed 'A fiction, how Cupid made a nymph wound +herself with his arrows,' and is perhaps the nearest thing in English to a +Greek _idyllion_, though in the manner of Moschus rather than of +Theocritus. The opening scene will give an idea of the style: + + It chanced of late a shepherd's swain, + That went to seek a strayed sheep, + Within a thicket on the plain, + Espied a dainty nymph asleep. + + Her golden hair o'erspread her face, + Her careless arms abroad were cast, + Her quiver had her pillow's place, + Her breast lay bare to every blast. + + The shepherd stood, and gazed his fill; + Nought durst he do, nought durst he say; + When chance, or else perhaps his will, + Did guide the god of love that way. + +And so the long pageant troops by, not without its passages of dullness, +its moments of pedestrian gait, for it must be borne in mind that the +poems quoted above are for the most part the choice of what has survived +in a few volumes, and that this in its turn represents the gleanings from +a far larger body of verse that once existed. In spite of its perennial +freshness the charge of want of originality has not unreasonably been +brought even against the best compositions of the kind. It could hardly be +otherwise. Except in the rarest cases originality was impossible. The +impulse was to write a certain kind of amatory verse, for which the +fashionable medium was pastoral; not to write pastoral for its own sake. +The demand was for convention, the familiar, the expected; never for +originality or truth. The fault was in the poetic requirements of the age, +and must not be laid to the charge of those admirable craftsmen who gave +the age what it wanted; especially when in so doing they enriched English +poetry with some of its choicest gems. + +The pastoral lyric of the next two reigns is far too wide a subject to be +entered upon here. Grave or gay, satirical or idyllic, coy or wanton, +there is scarcely a poet of note or obscurity who did not contribute his +share. Nowhere is a rarer note of pastoral to be found than in +_L'Allegro_, with its + + every shepherd tells his tale + Under the hawthorn in the vale. + +Before, however, saying farewell to this, the lighter side of English +pastoral verse, I would call attention to a poem which perhaps more than +any other illustrates the spirit of _volutta idillica_, characteristic of +so much that possesses abiding value in pastoral. Unfortunately Carew's +_Rapture_ is almost throughout of a nature that forbids reproduction +except in a scientific edition, or an admittedly erotic collection. Though +its licence is coterminous with the bounds of natural desire, the candour +of its appeal to unvitiated nature saves it from reproach, and the +perfection of its form makes it an object of never-failing beauty. The +idea with which the poem opens, the escape to a land where all +conventional restrictions cease to have a meaning, was of course suggested +by the first chorus of the _Aminta_: + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno; + Quel che dal volgo insano + Onor poscia fu detto-- + Che di nostra natura 'l feo tiranno. + +I can only extract one short passage out of Tom Carew's poem, that which +describes how + + Daphne hath broke her bark, and that swift foot + Which th' angry Gods had fast'ned with a root + To the fix'd earth, doth now unfetter'd run + To meet th' embraces of the youthful Sun. + She hangs upon him, like his Delphic Lyre; + Her kisses blow the old, and breath new, fire; + Full of her God, she sings inspired lays, + Sweet odes of love, such as deserve the Bays, + Which she herself was. Next her, Laura lies + In Petrarch's learned arms, drying those eyes + That did in such sweet smooth-paced numbers flow, + As made the world enamoured of his woe. + +This is not itself pastoral, but it belongs to that idyllic borderland +which we previously noticed in dealing with Italian verse. And again, as +in Italy, so in England, we find the same spirit infusing the mythological +tales. Did time and space allow it would be an interesting diversion to +trace how the pastoral spirit evinced itself in such works as Peele's +_Tale of Troy_, Lodge's _Scilla's Metamorphosis_, Drayton's _Man in the +Moon_, Brathwaite's _Narcissus Change_ (in the _Golden Fleece_), and found +articulate utterance in the voluptuous cadences of _Venus and Adonis_. + + + +VI + + +There are two specimens of English pastoral verse which I have reserved +for separate discussion in this place, namely, _Lycidas_ and _Britannia's +Pastorals_. The one is probably the most perfect example of the +allegorical pastoral produced since first the form was invented by Vergil, +the other the longest and most ambitious poem ever composed on a pastoral +theme.[133] + +Milton's poem was written on the occasion of the death of Edward King, +fellow of Christ's College, who was drowned on his way to Ireland during +the long vacation of 1637, and first appeared in a collection of memorial +verses by his Cambridge friends published in 1638. It gathers together +within its narrow compass as it were whole centuries of pastoral +tradition, fusing them into an organic whole, and inspiring the form with +a poetic life of its own. + + Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more + Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sear, + I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude, + And with forc'd fingers rude, + Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. + +For Lycidas is dead and claims his meed of song. + + Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, + That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; + Begin, and somwhat loudly sweep the string. + +Sing first their friendship, nursed upon the self-same hill, their youth +spent together. But oh! the heavy change; now the very caves and woods +mourn his loss. Where then were the Muses, that their loved poet should +die? And yet what could they do for Lycidas, who had no power to shield +Orpheus himself, + + When by the rout that made the hideous roar, + His goary visage down the stream was sent, + Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore. + +What then avails the poet's toil? Were it not better to taste the sweets +of love as they offer themselves since none can count on reward in this +life? The prize, however, lies elsewhere-- + + Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. + +But such thoughts are too lofty for the swains of Arethusa and Mincius. +Listen rather as the herald of the sea questions the god of winds about +the fatal wreck. It was no storm drove the ill-starred boat to +destruction: + + The Ayr was calm, and on the level brine, + Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd, + +sounds the reply. Next, footing slow, comes the tutelary deity of Alma +Mater, and in one sad cry mourns the promise of a life so soon cut short. +Lastly, 'The Pilot of the Galilean lake,' with denunciation of the +corrupt hirelings of a venal age, laments the loss of the church in the +death of Lycidas. As his solemn figure passes by, the gracious fantasies +of pastoral landscape shrink away: now + + Return Alpheus, the dread voice is past, + That shrunk thy streams, + +bid the nymphs bring flowers of every hue, + + To strew the Laureat Herse where Lycid lies-- + +and yet indeed even this comfort is denied, we dally with false +imaginings, + + Whilst thee the shores, and sounding Seas + Wash far away, where ere thy bones are hurld, + Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, + Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide + Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world, + +or on the Cornish coast, + + Where the great vision of the guarded Mount + Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold. + +But enough! + + Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more, + For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar, + So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed, + And yet anon repairs his drooping head, + And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore, + Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. + +On this note the elegy ends, and there follow eight lines in which the +poet glances at his own pastoral self that has been singing, and realizes +that the world will go on even though Lycidas be no more, and that there +are other calls in life than that of piping on an oaten reed. These lines +correspond to the plain stanzaic frames in which Spenser set his lyrics in +the _Shepherd's Calender_: + + Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th' Okes and rills, + While the still morn went out with Sandals gray, + He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills, + With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay: + And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the Western bay; + At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew: + To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. + +The poem, in common with the whole class of allegorical pastorals, is +undoubtedly open to the charge of artificiality, since, in truth, the +pastoral garb can never illustrate, but only distort and obscure subjects +drawn from other orders of civilization. Yet none but a great master +could, to produce a desired effect, have utilized every association which +tradition afforded with the consummate skill observable in Milton's poem. +He has been blamed for the introduction of St. Peter, on the ground of +incongruity; but he has tradition on his side. St. Peter, as we have +already seen, figures, under the name of Pamphilus, in the eclogues of +Petrarch, and his introduction by Milton is in nicest keeping with the +spirit of the kind. The whole poem, and indeed a great deal more, must +stand or fall with the Pilot of the Galilean Lake, for to censure his +introduction here is to condemn the whole pastoral tradition of three +centuries, a judgement which may or may not be just, but which is not a +criticism on Milton's poem. So again with the flowers that are to be +strewn on the laureate hearse. Three kinds of berries and eleven kinds of +flowers are mentioned, and it has been pointed out with painful accuracy +that nine of the latter would have been over, and none of the former ripe +on August 11, when King was drowned; while all the flowers, with the +exception of the amaranth, if it were of the true breed, would have been +dead and rotten in November, when the poem was presumably written. It +would be foolish to quarrel with Milton on this point, since where all is +imaginary such licence is as natural as the strictest botany; yet it must +not be forgotten that it is just this disseverance from actuality that has +made the eclogue the type of all that is frigid and artificial in +literature. The dissatisfaction felt by many with _Lycidas_ was voiced by +Dr. Johnson, when he wrote: 'It is not to be considered the effusion of +real passion, for passion runs not after remote allusions and obscure +opinions.... Where there is leisure for fiction there is little +grief[134].' This is so absolutely true, with regard to the present poem +at all events, that it would appear hardly worth saying were it not that +there have always been found persons to maintain the contrary. There is no +reason whatever to suppose that Milton felt any keen personal grief at the +death of Edward King. There is nothing spontaneous, nothing, one might +almost say, genuine in the lament. This is indeed strictly irrelevant to +the question of its artistic merit, but it must nevertheless be admitted +that there is thus much justice in the censure, that the poem purports to +be the expression of an intimate sorrow, of the reality of which the +reader is never wholly convinced. In so far as it lacks this +'soul-compelling power,' it may be said, not unfairly, to fail of its own +artistic purpose. + +One further question, however, inevitably presents itself when we have to +consider such a work as _Lycidas_, a work, that is, in which art has +attained the highest perfection in one particular kind. Although the +objections urged against the individual poem may be shown to miss their +mark as criticisms on that poem, may they not have force as criticisms on +the class? The allegorical pastoral, though in one sense, as I have said, +created by Vergil, was yet, in another, a plant of slow growth, and +represents a tradition gradually evolved to meet the needs of a long line +of poets. Petrarch, Mantuan, Marot, Spenser were more than mere imitators +of Vergil or of one another; they wrote in a particular form because it +answered to particular requirements, and they fashioned it in the using. +Nevertheless it may be urged with undoubted force, that the requirements +were not primarily of an artistic nature, being ever governed by some +alien purpose, and that consequently the form which evolved itself in +answer to those requirements and to fulfil that purpose, was not by nature +calculated to yield the highest artistic results. And thus, though any +attempt to question the perfection of the art which Milton brought to the +composition of his elegy must needs be foredoomed to failure, the question +of the propriety of the form as an artistic medium remains open; and in so +far as critical opinion tends to give an unfavourable answer, in so far +does the form of pastoral instituted by Vergil and handed down without +break from the fourteenth century to Milton's own time stand condemned in +its most perfect flower. + +Few things could be less like _Lycidas_ than the work which next claims +our attention. Unique of its kind, and, in spite of its shortcomings, +possessed of no small poetic interest, William Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ may be regarded at pleasure either as a pastoral epic or as a +versified romance. It resembles the prose romances in being by nature +discursive, episodic and inconsequent, and like not a few it remained +unfinished. Little would be gained by giving any detailed analysis of the +plot developed through the leisurely amplitude of its 10,000 lines, while +any attempt to deal, however slightly, with the sources and literary +analogues of the work would lead us far beyond the scope of the present +chapter[135]. With regard to the latter, it must suffice to note that +among the works to which incidents can be directly traced are Tasso's +_Gerusalemme_, Montemayor's _Diana_, and Fletcher's _Faithful +Shepherdess_, while a more general indebtedness may in particular be +observed to Chaucer, _Piers Plowman_, and the _Faery Queen_. The plot +involves two more or less connected threads of action, the one dealing +with the adventures of the swains and shepherdesses, the other concerned +with the progress of Thetis and her court. This latter recalls the poetic +geography of Drayton's _Polyolbion_. The principal episodes in the former +are the loves of Celandine and Marina, and the allegorical story of Fida +and Aletheia, each of which leads to numerous ramifications. Indeed, so +far as the pastoral action is concerned, the whole is one string of barely +connected episodes. + +Celandine loves the shepherdess Marina, who is readily brought to return +his affection. To the love thus easily won he soon becomes indifferent, +and Marina in despair seeks to end her sorrows in a stream. Saved by the +god of the fountain, she is carried off to Mona, and there imprisoned in a +cave by the monster Limos (hunger). With her loss, Celandine's love +revives, and in his search for her he is led to visit the faery realm, +where he finds Spenser lying asleep. The poem ends abruptly in the midst +of his adventures. The story of Fida centres round the slaughter of her +pet hind by the monster Riot. From the mangled remains of the animal rises +the beautiful form of Aletheia (truth). The new-transformed nymph is the +daughter of Chronos (time), born, Pallas-like, without a mother. The +narrative of her rejection by the world gives occasion for some biting +satire on the ill-living of the religious orders, the vanity of the court, +and the dishonesty of the crafts. Meanwhile Riot, who from this point +ceases to be an embodiment of cruelty, and comes to typify fallen +humanity--the _Humanum Genus_ of the moralities--passing successively by +Remembrance, Remorse, and Repentance, is purged of his foul shape, and +appears as the shepherd Amyntas, finally to be united in marriage with +Aletheia. With these adventures is interwoven the progress of Thetis, who +comes to view her dominions. From the Euxine and the Hellespont her train +sweeps on by Adriatic and Atlantic shores, past lands which call up the +names of a long line of poets--Vergil, Ovid, Ariosto, Petrarch, Tasso, Du +Bartas, Marot, Ronsard--till ultimately she arrives off the coast of +Devon--the Devon of Browne and Drake. Here the shepherds assemble to do +her honour, from Colin Clout down to Browne's immediate circle, Brooke, +Davies, and Wither, and here the poet entertains her with the tale of +Walla and Tavy, which forms a charming incidental piece. The nymph Walla +loved the river-god Tavy, and while gathering flowers to weave a garland +for him was surprised by a satyr, who pursued her into a wood. She sought +refuge in a cave, where, being overtaken by her pursuer, she prayed to +Diana, and in the last resort to Ina, by whom she was transformed into a +spring, which, after drowning the venturesome satyr, ran on to join its +waters with those of her beloved Tavy. Thus Browne wove the common names +of his familiar home into a romance of pastoral invention. The +metamorphosis of Arethusa pursued by Alpheus, of Ambra by Ombrone, of the +nymphs by the satyrs of the _Salices_, or as frescoed on the temple of +Pales in the _Arcadia_, the loves of Mulla and Mollana in Spenser, and the +mythological impersonations of the _Polyolbion_, find, as it were, a +meeting-place in Browne's lay of Walla. + +The three parts of _Britannia's Pastorals_ did not appear together. Book +I was published during the winter of 1613-14, Book II in 1616, each +containing five songs; while the fragment of Book III, containing two +songs only, remained in manuscript till 1853, when it was discovered in +the Cathedral Library at Salisbury, and printed for the Percy +Society[136]. + +The narrative, as may have been inferred from what has already been said, +is sufficiently fantastic. In the introduction of allegorical characters +Browne was probably influenced by Spenser, and in a lesser degree by the +masque literature of his day and by the study of Langland. Since the work +is unfinished, we may in charity suppose that had Browne completed his +design the whole would have presented a somewhat less incongruous +appearance; there is, however, a marked tendency towards the accumulation +of unexplained incidents, which may most plausibly be referred to the +influence of the Spanish romances, especially of the _Diana_, which was +already accessible in Yong's translation, and one incident of which Browne +did undoubtedly borrow. + +In style and poetic merit Browne's work is most astonishingly unequal, +though the general level of _Britannia's Pastorals_ is distinctly higher +than that of the _Shepherd's Pipe_. The author passes at times abruptly +from careful and loving realism to the most stilted conventionality, and +from passages of impassioned eloquence to others grotesquely banal. In +some of his peculiarities, as in the perpetuai use of elaborate similes +and in the indulgence in inflated paraphrases, he anticipates some of the +worst faults of style cultivated by writers of the next century. There are +portions of the poem where the narrative is literally carried on through a +succession of highly wrought comparisons, each paragraph beginning with an +'As' followed by a correlative 'So' half a page further on. No such series +of pictures, however fairly wrought--and Browne's too often end in +bathos--can possibly convey the impression of continuons action. It is the +same with periphrasis. Used with discretion it may be one of the subtlest +ornaments of style, and even when fulfilling no particular purpose is +capable of imparting a luxuriant and somewhat rococo richness to the +verse. The effect, however, is frequently one of unrelieved frigidity, as +in the lines: + + And now Hyperion from his glitt'ring throne + Sev'n times his quick'ning rays had bravely shown + Unto the other world, since Walla last + Had on her Tavy's head the garland plac'd; + And this day, as of right, she wends abroad + To ease the meadows of their willing load. + (II. iii. 855.) + +At times it was Browne's moral preoccupation that curbed his muse, as in +his description of the golden age where, for the sensuous glow of Tasso +and for Carew's pagan paradise, he substitutes the insipid convention of a +philosophical age of innocence[137]. In his genuine mood as a loving +observer of country life he is a very different poet. His feeling is +delicate in tone and his observation keen; he was familiar with every tree +that grew in the woods, every fish that swam in the waters of his beloved +Devon; he entered tenderly into the homely life of the farm-- + + By this had chanticleer, the village clock, + Bidden the goodwife for her maids to knock, + And the swart ploughman for his breakfast stay'd, + That he might till those lands were fallow laid; + The hills and vailles here and there resound + With the re-echoes of the deep-mouth'd hound; + Each shepherd's daughter, with her cleanly peal,[138] + Was come afield to milk the morning's meal. + (I. iv. 483.) + +When, however, naturalism of this kind is introduced into pastoral it is +already on the high road toward ceasing to be pastoral at all. Nor are +touches of higher poetic imagination wanting, as when Time is described as + + a lusty aged swain, + That cuts the green tufts off th' enamell'd plain, + And with his scythe hath many a summer shorn + The plough'd-lands lab'ring with a crop of corn. + (I. iv. 307.) + +The love of his country is, however, the altar at which Browne's poetic +genius takes fire: + + Hail, thou my native soil! thou blessed plot, + Whose equal all the world affordeth not! + Show me who can so many crystal rills, + Such sweet-cloth'd valleys or aspiring hills,.... + And if the earth can show the like again, + Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. + Time never can produce men to o'ertake + The fames of Grenville, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, + Or worthy Hawkins, or of thousands more + That by their power made the Devonian shore + Mock the proud Tagus, for whose richest spoil + The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soil + Bankrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost + By winning this, though all the rest were lost. + (II. iii. 601.) + +It is after all in such a passage as this that we see the true William +Browne, with all his high-handedness and worthy enthusiasm, the poet who +not only loves his country with a lover's passion and cannot tolerate that +any should be compared to her in fairness of feature, in stateliness of +stature, or in virtue of mind; but who, first perhaps among English poets, +has that more local patriotism, narrower and more intimate, for his own +home, for its moors, its streams, its associations, all the actual or +imagined surroundings of his beloved Tavistock, and carries in his heart +for ever the cry of the wild west-- + + Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain! + + + +VII + + +Approaching the romance, as we do, from the point of view rather of the +development of the pastoral ideal than of the history of prose narrative +or of the novel, we may spare ourselves any detailed consideration of the +famous work of John Lyly. Although in the novel which has made 'Euphuism' +a word and a bye-word in the language he supplied the literary medium for +the work of subsequent pastoral writers such as Greene and Lodge, his +own compositions in this kind are confined entirely to the drama. + +The translations in this department are for the most part negligible. +There is, however, one notable exception, namely, the rendering by +Bartholomew Yong or Young of Montemayor's _Diana_, together with the +continuations of Ferez and Gil Polo. Completed as early as May, 1583, the +work remained in manuscript until 1598, when it was published in the form +of a handsome folio. Although, as we have already had occasion to notice, +the verse portions were not for the most part of a nature to add lustre to +an anthology such as _England's Helicon_, the whole forms a not unworthy +Tudor translation. We learn from Yong's preface that portions of the +romance had already been Englished by Edward Paston, a descendant of the +famous Norfolk letter-writers, who had family relations with Spain and +possessed an intimate knowledge of the language. Of this work nothing +further is known. Some two years, however, before Yong's version issued +from the press, the first book of Montemayor's portion was again +translated by Thomas Wilson, and of this a manuscript yet survives[139]. +Passing mention may also be made of Angel Day's translation of _Daphnis +and Chloe_ containing the original insertion of the _Shepherd's Holiday_ +with the praises of Elizabeth in verse, and of Robert Tofte's _Honours +Academy_ (1610), distantly following Ollenix du Mont-Sacre's _Bergerie de +Juliette_, but which, as also John Pyper's version of d'Urfe's _Astree_ +(1620), have received sufficient notice in being recorded in connexion +with their originals. + +Earlier in date of publication and belonging to an elder tradition than +the _Arcadia_, though later in date of composition, and it may be at times +betraying a familiarity with Sidney's manuscript, the romances of the +Bohemian Robert Greene, and the buccaneer-physician Thomas Lodge, are +naturally the first to claim our attention. + +With the exception of _Menaphon_, Greene's romances offer little that is +important in pastoral, apart from the more notable works which they +inspired. And even _Menaphon_, in so far as the general conception is +concerned, can hardly be said necessarily to involve the existence of any +antecedent pastoral tradition. Greene's novel is, indeed, far from being +purely pastoral; no more than in Sidney's, to use Professor Herford's +happy phrase, are we allowed to forget that Arcadia bordered on Sparta. In +this it undoubtedly resembles the Spanish romances, but the resemblance +does not appear to go much further; it is on the whole warlike without +being chivalric, the tone Greek, or what Greene considered such, rather +than medieval--indeed it might be argued that in its martial incidents it +rather recalls _Daphnis and Chloe_ than the _Diana_. There is certainly +nothing chivalric about King Democles, who, when some ten score shepherds +are besieging a castle, sends to the 'General of his Forces,' and not only +has ten thousand men brought secretly and by night at three days' +notice--in itself a notable piece of strategy--but when they arrive on the +scene places furthermore the whole force in ambush! No wonder that when +the soldiers are let loose out of their necessarily cramped quarters, +they kill many of the shepherds, and putting the rest to flight remain +masters of the situation. + +The plot might perhaps be considered improbable as well as intricate for +anything but a pastoral or chivalric romance: judged by the standards +prevailing in these species it is neither. Democles, king of Arcadia, has +a daughter Sephistia, who contrary to his wishes has contracted a secret +marriage with Maximus. When the birth of a son leads to discovery, +Democles has them placed in an oarless boat and so cast adrift. A storm +arising they are not unnaturally wrecked, and ultimately husband and wife +are cast upon different points of the Arcadian coast(!), where, either +supposing the other to have perished, they adopt the pastoral life, +assuming the names respectively of Melicertus and Samela. The young mother +has with her child Pleusidippus, but while still in early boyhood he is +carried off by pirates and presented as a gift to the King of Thessaly. In +the meantime Menaphon, 'the king's shepherd of Arcadia,' has fallen in +love with Samela, but while accepting his hospitality she meets her +husband in his shepherd's guise, and without recognizing one another +husband and wife again fall in love. Years pass on and Pleusidippus, who +has risen to fame at court, hears of the beauty of the shepherdess of +Arcadia, and must needs go to test the truth of the report himself. He +does so, and promptly falls in love with his own mother. Nor is this all, +for Democles equally hears of Samela's fame, and disguising himself as a +shepherd falls in love with his own daughter. He endeavours to command +Samela's affection by revealing to her his own identity, but Pleusidippus +is beforehand with more drastic measures, and with the help of a few +associates carries Samela off to a neighbouring castle, to which Democles +and the shepherds, headed by Melicertus, proceed to lay siege. A duel +between father and son is unceremoniously interrupted by the inroad of +Democles' soldiery. Upon this the identity of Samela is revealed by a +convenient prophetess, and all ends happily. + +In the relation of verse and prose Greene's work differs from that of +Sannazzaro and Sidney, the former being of considerably greater merit than +the latter. The style adopted exhibits a very marked Euphuism, and the +whole form of narrative is characterized by that fondness for petty +conceit which not seldom gives an air of puerility to the lighter +Elizabethan prose. Puerile in a sense it had every right to be, for modern +prose narration was then in its very infancy in this country. No artistic +form destined to contribute to the main current of literature is born +perfect into the world; the early efforts appear not only tentative, +uncouth, at times rugged, but often childish and futile, unworthy the +consideration of serions men. The substance of the _Gesta Romanorum_ and +the style of the _Novellino_ appear so, considered in relation to the +_Decameron_; the mystery plays are an obvious instance, not to be +explained by any general immaturity of medieval ideas. Traces of the +tendency may even be noticed where revival or acclimatization, rather than +original invention, is the aim; we find it in the _Shepherd's Calender_, +nor was it absent in the days of the romantic revival, either from the +German _Lenores_ or the English _Otrantos_. And so it is with the +novelists of the Elizabethan age. Renouncing the traditions of the older +romance, which was adult and perfect a hundred years before in Malory, but +had now fallen into a second childhood, and determined on the creation of +a new and genuine form of literary expression, they paid the price of +originality in the vein of childishness that runs through their writings. + +If, however, Greene was content in the main to adopt the style of the new +novel, he, as indeed Lyly too, could at times snatch a straightforward +thought or a vigorous phrase from current speech or controversial +literature, and invest it with all the greater effectiveness by +contrasting it with its surroundings. Here, as an example of euphuistic +composition, is Democles' address to the champions about to engage in +single combat: + + Worthy mirrors of resolved magnanimitie, whose thoughts are above your + fortunes, and your valour more than your revenewes, know that Bitches + that puppie in hast bring forth blind whelpes; that there is no herbe + sooner sprung up than the Spattarmia nor sooner fadeth; the fruits too + soone ripe are quickly rotten; that deedes done in hast are repented at + leisure: then, brave men in so weightie a cause,... deferre it some + three daies, and then in solemn manner end the combat[140]. + +With this we may contrast the closing sentence of the work: + + And lest there should be left any thing imperfect in this pastorall + accident, Doron smudged himselfe up, and jumped a marriage with his old + friend Carmela. + +This is, of course, intentionally cast in a homely style in contrast to +the courtliness of the main plot; but Greene, as some of his later works +attest, knew the value of strong racy English no less than his friend +Nashe, who, in the preface he prefixed to this very work, pushed +colloquialism and idiom to the verge of affectation and beyond. + +The incidental verse, on the other hand, though very unequal, is of +decidedly higher merit. Sephistia's famous song should alone suffice to +save any book from oblivion, while there are other verses which are not +unworthy of a place beside it. I may instance the opening of the +'roundelay' sung by Menaphon, the only character strictly belonging to +pastoral tradition, with its picture of approaching night: + + When tender ewes brought home with evening Sunne + Wend to their foldes, + And to their holdes + The shepheards trudge when light of day is done. + +Such as it was, _Menaphon_ appealed in no small degree to the taste of the +moment. We know how great was Greene's reputation as an author, how +publishers were ready to outbid one another for the very dregs of his wit. +Thomas Brabine was but voicing the general opinion when, in some verses +prefixed to _Menaphon_, he wrote, condescending to an inevitable pun, but +also to a less excusable mixed metaphor: + + Be thou still Greene, whiles others glorie waine. + +Of his other romances it is sufficient in this place to mention that +_Pandosto_, which contains the pastoral loves of Dorastus and Fawnia, and +supplied Shakespeare with the outlines of the _Winter's Tale_, appeared +the year before _Menaphon_, while the year after saw his _Never Too Late_, +which is likewise of a generally pastoral character, but does not appear +to have suggested or influenced any subsequent work. + +The remarks that have been made concerning Greene apply in a large +measure also to his fellow euphuist Thomas Lodge. His earliest romance, +_Forbonius and Prisceria_, published in 1584, is partly pastoral in plot, +a faithful lover being driven by the opposition of his lady's father into +assuming the pastoral habit; but it is chiefly the connexion of his +_Rosalynde_ of 1590 with Shakespeare's _As You Like It_ that gives him a +claim upon our attention. _Rosalynde_ is not only on this account the +best-known, but is also intrinsically the most interesting of his +romances. The story is too familiar to need detailing. Its origin, as is +also well known, is the _Tale of Gamelyn_, the story which Chaucer +intended putting into the mouth either of the cook, or more probably of +the yeoman, and the hero of which apparently belongs to the Robin Hood +cycle. The interest centres round the three sons of Sir John of Bordeaux, +who retains his name with Lodge and is Shakespeare's Sir Roland de Bois, +and whose youngest son, Lodge's Rosader and Shakespeare's Orlando, is +named Gamelyn, and the outlaw king, Lodge's king of France and +Shakespeare's Duke senior[141]. The entire pastoral element, as well as +the courtly scenes of the earlier portion of the novel, are Lodge's own +invention. His shepherds, whether genuine, as Coridon and Phoebe, or +assumed, as Rosalynde and Rosader, are all alike Italian Arcadians, +equally polished and poetical. Montanus, a shepherd corresponding to +Shakespeare's Silvius, is a dainty rimester, and is not only well posted +in the loves of Polyphemus and Galatea, but can rail on blind boy Cupid in +good French, and on his mistress too-- + + Son cuer ne doit estre de glace, + Bien que elle ait de Neige le sein. + +Thus Lodge added to the original story the figures of the usurper, +Rosalynde, Alinda (Celia), and the shepherds Montanus (Silvius), Coridon +(Corin) and Phoebe, while to Shakespeare we owe Amiens, Jacques, +Touchstone, Audre, and a few minor characters; whence it appears that +Lodge's contribution forms the mainstay of the plot as familiar to modern +readers. Moreover, in spite of the stiltedness of the style where the +author yet remembers to be euphuistic, in spite of the long 'orations,' +'passions,' 'meditations' and the like, each carefully labelled and giving +to the whole the air of a series of rhetorical exercises, in spite of the +mediocre quality of most of the verses, if we except its one perfect gem, +the romance yet retains not a little of its silvan and idyllic sweetness. + +Before leaving the school of Lyly, which included a number of more or less +famous writers, I may take the opportunity of mentioning two authors +usually reckoned among them. One, John Dickenson, left two works of a +pastoral nature. His short romance entitled _Arisbas_ appeared in 1594, +and may have supplied Daniel with a hint for the kidnapping of Silvia in +_Hymen's Triumph_. Another yet shorter work, entitled the _Shepherd's +Complaint_, which is undated, but was probably printed in the same year, +is remarkable for being composed more than half in verse, largely +hexameters. In it the author falls asleep and is transported in his dreams +to Arcady, where he listens to the lament of a shepherd for the love of +Amaryllis. The cruel nymph is, however, soon punished, for, challenging +Diana in beauty, she falls a victim to the shafts of the angry goddess, +and is buried with full bucolic honours, whereupon the author awakes. The +other writer is William Warner, well known from his _Albion's England_, +published in 1586, who left a work entitled _Pan his Syrinx_, which +appeared in 1584; but in this pastoralism does not penetrate beyond the +title-page. + +Of the books which everybody knows and nobody reads, _The Countess of +Pembroke's Arcadia_ is perhaps the most famous[142]. Yet though an account +of the romance may be found in the pages of every literary textbook, the +history of how the work came to be printed has never been fully cleared +up[143]. The _Arcadia_, as it remained at Sidney's death, was +fragmentary. Two books and a portion of a third were all that had +undergone revision, and possibly represented the portion which Sidney +compiled while living with his sister at Wilton, after his retirement from +court in 1581--the portion for the most part actually written in his +sister's presence. Even of this trustworthy manuscripts were rare, most of +those that circulated being copies of the unrevised text. Sidney died on +October 17, 1586, and even before the end of the year we find his friend +Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, writing to Sidney's father-in-law, +Sir Francis Walsingham, to the effect that the bookseller, William +Ponsonby, had informed him that some one was about to print the _Arcadia_, +and that if they were acting without authority a notification of the fact +should be lodged with the archbishop. Greville proceeds to say that he had +sent to Walsingham's daughter, that is, Lady Sidney, the corrected +manuscript of the work 'don 4 or 5 years sinse, which he left in trust +with me; wherof there is no more copies, and fitter to be reprinted then +the first, which is so common[144].' A complaint was evidently lodged, and +the publication stayed, and we may assume that Ponsonby was rewarded for +his notification by being entrusted with the publication of the revised +manuscript mentioned by Greville, for it was from his house that issued +the quarto edition of 1590. Evidence that it was Greville who was +responsible for the publication of the _Arcadia_ is found in the +dedication of Thomas Wilson's manuscript translation from the _Diana_, +where, addressing Greville, the translater speaks of Sir Philip's +_Arcadia_, 'w^{ch} by yo^{r} noble vertue the world so hapily enjoyes.' In +this edition, containing the first two and a half books only, the division +into chapters and the arrangement of the incidental verse were the work of +the 'over-seer of the print.' The text, however, was not considered +satisfactory, and when the romance was reprinted in 1593 the division into +chapters was discarded, certain alterations were made in the arrangement +of the verse, and there was added another portion of the third book, +together with a fourth and fifth, compiled by the Countess of Pembroke +from the loose sheets sent her from time to time by her brother. This +edition has been commonly regarded as the first published with due +authority, and the term 'surreptitious' has been quite unjustly applied to +the original quarto. The charge, indeed, receives colour from the preface, +signed H. S., to the second edition; but, whoever H. S. may have been, +there is nothing to make one suppose that he was speaking with authority. +The quarto of 1590 having been duly licensed on August 23, 1588, the +rights of the work were in Ponsonby's hands, and to him the publication of +the revised edition had to be entrusted. In 1598 a third edition, to which +other remains of the author were for the first time added, was also +published by Ponsonby. There still remained, however, a lacuna in Book +III, which was not remedied till 1621, when a supplement was added from +the pen of Sir William Alexander. In the edition of 1627 a sixth book was +appended, the work of one Richard Beling, whose initials alone, however, +appear. The early editors seem to have assumed that the unfinished state +of the work, or rather the unrevised state of the later portions, was due +to the author's early death, but most of it must have been written between +the years 1581 and 1583, and it may well be questioned whether in any case +Sidney would have bestowed any further attention upon it. Jonson, indeed, +has preserved the tradition that it had been Sir Philip's intention 'to +have transform'd all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthure[145],' +though how the transformation was to be accomplished he forbore to hint; +but the more familiar tradition of Sidney's having expressed on his +death-bed a desire that the romance should be destroyed assorts better +with what else we know of his regard for his 'idle worke.' + +For the name of his romance Sidney was no doubt indebted to Sannazzaro, +whom he twice mentions as an authority in his _Defence of Poesy_, but +there in all probability his direct obligation ends, since even the _rime +sdrucciole_, which he occasionally affected, may with equal probability be +referred to the influence of the _Diana_. It was, undoubtedly, +Montemayor's romance which served as a model for, or rather suggested the +character of, Sidney's work[146]. Thus the chivalric element, unknown to +Sannazzaro, is with Sidney even more prominent than with Montemayor and +his followers. It is, however, true that, like Greene's, his heroes are +rather of a classical than a medieval stamp, and he also chose to lay the +scene of the action in Greece rather than in his native land, as was the +habit of Spanish writers. The source upon which Sidney chiefly drew for +incidents was the once famous _Amadis of Gaul_, but a diligent reading of +the other French and Spanish romances of chivalry would probably lengthen +the list of recorded creditors. Heliodorus supplies several episodes, and +an acquaintance at least can be traced with both Achilles Tatius and +Chariton. + +The intricate plot, with its innumerable digressions, episodes, and +interruptions, need not here be followed in detail, especially as we shall +have ample opportunity of becoming familiar with its general features when +we come to discuss the plays founded upon it. Here it will be sufficient +to note one or two points. In the first place the romance contains no +really pastoral characters, the personae being all either shepherds in +their disguise only, or else, like Greene's Doron and Carmela, burlesque +characters of the rustic tradition. Secondly, it may be observed that the +amorous confusion is even greater than in _Menaphon_, Pyrocles disguising +himself as an Amazon in order to enjoy the company of his beloved +Philoclea, which leads to her father Basilius falling in love with him in +his disguise, and endeavouring to use his daughter to forward his suit, +while her mother Gynecia likewise falls in love with him, having detected +his disguise, and becomes jealous of her daughter, who on her part +innocently accepts her lover as bosom companion[147]. + +In general the _Arcadia_ is no more than it purports to be, the 'many +fancies' of Sidney's fertile imagination poured forth in courtly guise for +the entertainment of his sister, though his own more serious thoughts +occasionally find expression in its pages, and he even introduces himself +under the imperfect anagram of Philisides, and shadows forth his +friendship with the French humanist Languet. More than this it would be +rash to assert, and Greville did his friend an equivocal service when he +sought to find a deep philosophy underlying the rather formal characters +of the romance[148]. These characters, as we have seen, are for the most +part essentially courtly; the pastoral guise is a mere veil shielding them +from the crude uncompromising light of actuality, with its prejudice in +favour of the probable; while the few rustic personages merely supply a +not very successful comic antimasque. + +To the popularity of the _Arcadia_ it is hardly necessary to advert. It +has been repeatedly printed, added to, imitated, abbreviated, modernized, +popularized; four editions appeared during the last decade of the +sixteenth century, nine between the beginning of the seventeenth and the +outbreak of the civil wars[149]. It was first published at a moment when +the public was beginning to tire of Euphuism, and when the heroic death of +the author had recently set a seal upon the brilliance of his fame. +Looking back in after years, writers who, like Drayton, had lived through +the movement from its very birth, could speak of Sidney as of the author +who + + did first reduce + Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use, + +and could praise his style as a model of pure English. In spite of the +generous, if misguided, efforts of occasional critics, posterity has not +seen fit to endorse this view. While finding in Sidney's style the same +historical importance as in Lyly's, we cannot but recognize that in itself +Arcadianism was little if at all better than Euphuism. It is just as +formal, just as much a trick, just as stilted and unpliable, just as +painful an illustration of the fact that a figure of rhetoric may be an +occasional ornament, but cannot by any degree of ingenuity be made to +serve as a basis of composition. In the same way as Euphuism is founded +upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the +use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and +metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural +history'; so Sidney's style in the _Arcadia_ is based on a balance usually +obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, +together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the +pathetic fallacy. These last have been dangers in all periods of stylistic +experiment; the former, figures duly noted as ornaments by contemporary +rhetoricians, Sidney no doubt borrowed from Spain. There in one famous +example they were shortly to excite the enthusiasm of the knight of La +Mancha--'The reason of the unreason which is done to my reason in such +manner enfeebles my reason that with reason I lament your beauty'--a +sentence which one is sometimes tempted to imagine Sidney must have set +before him as a model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential +elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their +models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost +any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the +balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which +inclines perhaps towards Euphuism: + + I am no herald to enquire of mens pedegrees, it sufficeth me if I know + their vertues, which, if this young mans face be not a false witnes, doe + better apparrell his minde, then you have done his body. (1590, fol. + 8v.) + +Or again, as an instance of the jingle of words, take the following from +the steward's narration: + + I thinke you thinke, that these perfections meeting, could not choose + but find one another, and delight in that they found, for likenes of + manners is likely in reason to drawe liking with affection; mens actions + doo not alwaies crosse with reason: to be short, it did so in deed. (ib. + fol. 20.) + +Of Sidney's power of description the stock example is his account of the +Arcadian landscape (fol. 7), and it is perhaps the best and at the same +time the most characteristic that could be found; the author's peculiar +tricks are at once obvious. There are 'the humble valleis, whose base +estate semed comforted with refreshing of silver rivers,' and the +'thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so +to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds'; there are the +pastures where 'the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams +comfort,' where sat the young shepherdess knitting, whose 'voice comforted +her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices musick,' a +country where the scattered houses made 'a shew, as it were, of an +accompanable solitarines, and of a civil wildnes,' where lastly--_si sic +omnia_!--was the 'shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be +old.' It must not be supposed that these are occasional embroideries; they +are the very cloth of which the whole pastoral habit is made. The above +examples all occur within a few pages, and might even have been gathered +from a yet smaller plot. It is, however, on the prose, such as it is, that +the reputation of the _Arcadia_ rests; a good deal of occasional verse is +introduced, but it has often been subject of remark how wholly unworthy of +its author most of it is. + +Given the widespread popularity of the work, the influence exercised by +the story on English letters is hardly a matter for wonder. Of its general +influence on the drama it will be my business to speak later; at present +we may note that while yet in manuscript it probably supplied Lodge with +certain hints for his _Rosalynde_, and so indirectly influenced _As You +Like It_. One of the best-known episodes, again, that of Argalus and +Parthenia, was versified by Quarles in 1632, and, adorned with a series of +cuts, went through a large number of editions before the end of the +century, besides being dramatized by Glapthorne. The incident of Pyrocles +heading the Zelots has been thought to have suggested the scene in the +_Two Gentlemen of Verona_ in which Valentine consents to lead the robber +band, while to Sidney Shakespeare was likewise indebted, not only for the +cowards' fight in _Twelfth Night_, but in the 'story of the Paphlagonian +unkinde king,' for the original of the Gloster episode in _King Lear_. A +certain prayer out of the later portion of the romance was, as is well +known, a favourite with Charles I in the days of his misfortune, but the +controversial use made of the fact by Milton it is happily possible to +pass over in silence. + +Finally, it is worth mentioning as illustrating the vogue of Sidney's +romance, that it not only had the very singular honour of being translated +into French in the first half of the seventeenth century, but that two +translations actually appeared, the rivalry between which gave rise to a +literary controversy of some asperity[150]. + +Thus we take leave of the pastoral novel or romance, a kind which never +attained to the weighty tradition of the eclogue, or the grace of the +lyric, nor was subjected to the rigorous artistic form of the drama[151]. +It remained throughout nerveless and diffuse, and, in spite of much +incidental beauty, was habitually wanting in interest, except in so far as +it renounced its pastoral nature. As Professor Raleigh has put it: 'To +devise a set of artificial conditions that shall leave the author to work +out the sentimental inter-relations of his characters undisturbed by the +intrusion of probability or accident is the problem; love _in vacuo_ is +the beginning and end of the pastoral romance proper.' A similar attempt +is noticeable in the drama, but the conditions soon came to be recognized +as impossible for artistic use. The operation of human affection under +utterly imaginary and impossible conditions is not a matter of human +interest; the resuit was a purely fictitious amatory code, as absurd as it +was unhealthy, and, when sustained by no extrinsic interest of allegory or +the like, the kind soon disappeared. As it is, in the pastoral novel, it +is only when the enchanted circle is broken by the rough and tumble of +vulgar earthly existence that on the featureless surface of the waters +something of the light and shade of true romance replaces the steady +pitiless glare ot a philosophical or sentimental ideal. + + + + +Chapter III. + +Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +We have now passed in review the main classes of non-dramatic pastoral +both abroad and in this country. Such preliminary survey was necessary in +order to obtain an idea of the history and nature of pastoral composition +in general. It was further rendered imperative by more particular +considerations which will appear in the course of the present chapter, for +we shall find that the pastoral drama comes into being, not through the +infusion of the Arcadian ideal into pre-existing dramatic forms, but +through the actual evolution of a new dramatic form from the pre-existing +non-dramatic pastoral. + +It is time to retrace our steps and to pick up the thread which we dropped +in a former chapter, the development, namely, of the vernacular eclogue in +Italy. If in so doing we are forced to enter at greater length upon the +discussion of individual works, we shall find ample excuse, not only in +their intrinsic merit, but likewise in their more direct bearing upon what +is after all the main subject of this volume. The pastoral drama of Italy +is the immediate progenitor of that of England. Further, it might be +pleaded that special interest attaches to the Arcadian pastoral as the +only dramatic form of conspicuous vitality for which Italy is the crediter +of European letters. + +The history of the rise of the pastoral drama in Italy is a complicated +subject, and one not altogether free from obscurity. Many forces were at +work determining the development of the form, and these it is difficult so +to present as at once to leave a clear impression and yet not to allow any +one element to usurp an importance it does not in reality possess. Any +account which gives a specious appearance of simplicity to the case +should be mistrusted. That I have been altogether successful in my +treatment I can hardly hope, but at least the method followed has not been +hastily adopted. I propose to consider, first of all and apart from the +rest, the early mythological drama, which while exercising a marked +influence over the spirit of the later pastoral can in no way be regarded +as its origin. Next, I shall trace the evolution of the pastoral drama +proper from its germ in the non-dramatic eclogue, by way of the _ecloghe +rappresentative_, and treat incidentally the allied rustic shows, which +form a class apart from the main line of development. Lastly, I shall have +to say a few words concerning the early pastoral plays by Beccari and +others before turning to the masterpieces of Tasso and Guarini, the +consideration of which will occupy the chief part of this chapter[152]. + +The class of productions known as mythological plays, which powerfully +influenced the character of the pastoral drama, sprang from the union of +classical tradition with the machinery of native religious +representations, in Poliziano's _Favola d' Orfeo_. This was the first +non-religious play in the vernacular, and its dependence on the earlier +religious drama is striking. Indeed, the blending of medieval and +classical forms and conventions may be traced throughout the early secular +drama of Italy. Boiardo's _Timone_, a play written at some unknown date +previous to 1494, preserves, in spite of its classical models, much of the +allegorical character of the morality, and was undoubtedly acted on a +stage comprising two levels, the upper representing heaven in which Jove +sat enthroned on the seat of Adonai. The same scenic arrangement may well +have been used in the _Orfeo_, the lower stage representing Hades[153]; +while Niccolo da Correggio's _Cefalo_ was evidently acted on a polyscenic +stage, the actors passing in view of the audience from one part to +another[154]. At a yet earlier period Italian writers in the learned +tongue had taken as the subjects of their plays stories from classical +legend and myth, and among these we find not only recognized tragedy +themes such as the rape of Polyxena dramatized by Lionardo Bruni, but +tales such as that of Progne put on the stage by Gregorio Corrado, both of +which preceded by many years the work of Politian and Correggio. + +The earliest secular play in Italian is, then, nothing but a _sacra +rappresentazione_ on a pagan theme, a fact which was probably clearly +recognized when, in the early editions from 1494 onwards, the piece was +described as the 'festa di Orpheo[155].' It was written in 1471, when +Poliziano was about seventeen, and we learn from the author's epistle +prefixed to the printed edition that it was composed in the short space of +two days for representation before Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua. +From the same epistle we learn that the author desired, or at least +assumed the attitude of desiring, that his composition should share the +fate of the ill-fashioned Lacedaemonian children; 'Cognoscendo questa mia +figliuola essere di qualita da fare piu tosto al suo padre vergogna che +onore; e piu tosto atta a dargli malinconia che allegrezza.' The _favola_ +as originally put forth continued to be reprinted without alteration, till +1776, when Ireneo Affo published the _Orphei Tragoedia_ from a collation +of two manuscripts. This differs in various respects from the printed +version, among others in being divided, short as it is, into five acts, +headed respectively 'Pastorale,' 'Ninfale,' 'Eroico,' 'Negromantico,' and +'Baccanale.' It is now known to represent a revision of the piece made, +probably by Antonio Tebaldeo, for representation at Ferrara, and in it +much of the popular and topical element has been eliminated. The action +of the piece is based in a general manner upon the story given by Ovid in +the tenth book of the _Metamorphoses_. + +The performance begins with a prologue by Mercury which is nothing but a +short argument of the whole plot. 'Mercurio annunzia la festa' is the +superscription in the original, evidently suggested by the appearance of +'un messo di Dio' with which the religious _rappresentazioni_ usually +open. At the end of this prologue a shepherd appears and finishes the +second octave with the couplet: + + State attenti, brigata; buono augurio; + Poi che di cielo in terra vien Mercurio. + +In the Ferrarese revision these stanzas appear as 'Argomento' without +mention of Mercury, while for the above lines are substituted the +astonishing doggerel: + + Or stia ciascuno a tutti gli atti intento, + Che cinque sono; e questo e l' argomento. + +Thereupon (beginning Act I of the revision) enters Mopso, an old shepherd, +meeting Aristeo, a youthful one, with his herdsman Tirsi. Mopso asks +whether his white calf has been seen, and Aristeo, who fancies he has +heard a lowing from beyond the hill, sends his boy to see. In the +meanwhile he detains Mopso with an account of his love for a nymph he met +the day before, and sings a _canzona_: + + Ch' i' so che la mia ninfa il canto agogna[156]. + +It runs on the familiar themes of love: 'Di doman non c' e certezza.' + + Digli, zampogna mia, come via fugge + Con gli anni insieme la bellezza snella; + E digli come il tempo ne distrugge, + Ne l' eta persa mai si rinovella; + Digli che sappi usar sua forma bella, + Che sempre mai non son rose e viole... + Udite, selve, mie dolci parole, + Poi che la ninfa mia udir non vole. + +The boy Tirsi now returns, having with much trouble driven the strayed +calf back to the herd, and narrates how he saw an unknown nymph of +wondrous beauty gathering flowers about the hill. Aristeo recognizes from +this description the object of his love, and, leaving Mopso and Tirsi to +shake their heads over his midsummer madness, goes off to find her. + +So far we might be reading one of the _ecloghe rappresentative_ which we +shall have to consider shortly, but of which the earliest known examples +cannot well be less than ten or twelve years later than Poliziano's play. +With the exception, indeed, of one or two in Boccaccio's _Ameto_, it is +doubtful whether any vernacular eclogues had appeared at the time. The +character of Tirsi belongs to rustic tradition, and must be an experiment +contemporary with, if not prior to, Lorenzo's _Nencia_. The portion before +the _canzone_ is in _terza rima_; that after it, like the prologue, in +octaves. + +The original proceeds without break to the song of Aristeo as he pursues +the flying Euridice (Act II in the revision): + + Poi che 'l pregar non vale, + E tu via ti dilegui, + El convien ch' io ti segui. + Porgimi, Amor, porgimi or le tue ale. + +While Aristeo is following Euridice, Orfeo enters upon the scene with a +Latin ode in Sapphic metre in honour of Cardinal Gonzaga. A note informs +us that this was originally sung by 'Messer Braccio Ugolino, attore di +detta persona d' Orfeo.' In place of this ode the revised text contains a +long 'Coro delle Driadi,' with two speeches in _terza rima_ by the +choragus, announcing and lamenting the death of Euridice, who as she fled +from Aristeo has been stung in the foot by a serpent. After this the news +of her death is reported to Orfeo--by a shepherd in the original, by a +dryad in the revised version. That the substitution of the chorus for the +Sapphic ode is an improvement from the poetic point of view will hardly be +denied, yet this improvement has been attained at the cost of some +dramatic sacrifice. In the original Orfeo is introduced naturally enough +in his character of supreme poet and musician to do honour to the +occasion, and it is only after he has been on the stage some time that the +news of Euridice's death is brought. In the revision he is merely +introduced for the purpose of being informed of his wife's death--he has +hardly been so much as mentioned before. He thus loses the slight +opportunity previously afforded him of presenting a dramatic individuality +apart from the very essence of his tragedy. + +The announcement to Orfeo of Euridice's death begins the third act of the +revised text, which is amplified at this point by the introduction of a +satyr Mnesillo, who acts as chorus to Orfeo's lament. The character of a +friendly satyr is interesting in view of the role commonly assigned to his +species in pastoral. + +After this we have in the original the direction 'Orfeo cantando giugne +all' Inferno,' while in the revision there is again a new act, the fourth. +Symonds pointed out that the merits of the piece are less dramatic than +lyrical, and that fortunately the central scene was one in which the +situation was capable of lyrical expression. The pleading of Orfeo before +the gates of Hades and at the throne of Pluto forms the lyrical kernel of +the play, and gives it its poetic value. The bard appears before the +iron-bound portals of the nether world, and the pains of hell surcease. +'Who is he?' asks Pluto-- + + Chi e costui che con si dolce nota + Muove l' abisso, e con l' ornata cetra? + Io veggo ferma d' Ission la rota,... + Ne piu P acqua di Tantalo s' arretra; + E veggo Cerber con tre bocche intente, + E le furie acquietar il suo lamento. + +At length he stands before Pluto's throne, the seat of the God of the +_sacre rappresentazioni_, the rugged rock-seat surrounded by the monstrous +demons of Signorelli's _tondo_[157]. Here in presence of the grim ravisher +and of his pale consort, in whom the passionate pleading of the Thracian +bard stirs long-forgotten memories of spring and of the plains of Enna, +Orfeo's song receives adequate expression. It is closely imitated from the +corresponding passage in Ovid, but the lyrical perfection and passionate +crescendo of the stanzas are Poliziano's own. Addressing Pluto, Orfeo +discovers the object of his quest: + + Non per Cerber legar fo questa via, + Ma solamente per la donna mia. + +May not love penetrate even the forbidden bounds of hell?-- + + se memoria alcuna in voi si serba + Del vostro celebrato antico amore, + Se la vecchia rapina a mente avete, + Euridice mia bella mi rendete. + +Why should death grudge the few years at most which complete the span of +human life?-- + + Ogni cosa nel fine a voi ritorna; + Ogni vita mortal quaggiu ricade: + Quanto cerchia la luna con sue corna + Convien che arrivi alle vostre contrade-- + +or why reap amid the unmellowed corn?-- + + Cosi la ninfa mia per voi si serba, + Quando sua morte gli dara natura. + Or la tenera vite e l' uva acerba + Tagliata avete con la falce dura. + + Chi e che mieta la sementa in erba + E non aspetti ch' ella sia matura? + Dunque rendete a me la mia speranza: + Io non vel chieggio in don, questa e prestanza. + +Next he invokes the pity of the stern god by the name of Chaos whence the +world had birth, and by the dread rivers of the nether world, by Styx and +Acheron: 'E pel sonante ardor di Flegetonte'; and lastly, turning to 'the +faery-queen Proserpina,' + + Pel pome che a te gia, Regina, piacque, + Quando lasciasti pria nostro orizzonte. + E se pur me la niega iniqua sorte, + Io no vo' su tornar, ma chieggio morte![158] + +Hell itself relents, and, as Boccaccio had written, + + forse lieta gli rendeo + La cercata Euridice a condizione-- + +the condition being that he shall not turn to behold her before attaining +once again to the land of the living. The condition, of course, is not +fulfilled. Orfeo seeks to clasp 'his half regain'd Eurydice,' with the +triumphant cry of Ovid holding the conquered Corinna in his arms: + + Ite triumphales circum mea tempora lauri. + Vicimus: Eurydice reddita vita mihi est. + Haec est praecipuo Victoria digna triumpho. + Hue ades, o cura parte triumphe mea[159]. + +He turns, and his unsubstantial love sinks back into the realm of shadows +with the cry: + + Oime che 'I troppo amore + Ci ha disfatti ambe dua. + Ecco ch' io ti son tolta a gran furore, + Ne sono ormai piu tua. + + Ben tendo a te le braccia; ma non vale, + Che indietro son tirata. Orfeo mio, _vale_. + +As he would follow her once more a fury bars the road. + +Desperate of his love, the bard now forswears for ever the company of +women (Act V of the revised text). + + Da qui innanzi vo corre i fior novelli ... + Ouesto e piu dolce e piu soave amore; + Non sia chi mai di donna mi favelli, + Poi che morta e colei ch' ebbe il mio core. + +Now that she is dead, what faith abides in woman?-- + + Quanto e misero l' uom che cangia voglia + Per donna, o mai per lei s' allegra, o duole!... + Che sempre e piu leggier ch' al vento foglia, + E mille volte il di vuole e disvuole. + Segue chi fugge; a chi la vuol, s' asconde, + E vanne e vien come alla riva l' onde. + +The cry wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of +later pastorals. Upon this the scene is invaded by 'The riot of the tipsy +Bacchanals,' eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[160]. They +drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his 'gory +visage,' break out into the celebrated chorus 'full of the swift fierce +spirit of the god.' This gained considerably by revision, and in the later +text runs as follows: + + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, oe oe. + Di corimbi e di verd' edere + Cinto il capo abbiam cosi + Per servirti a tuo richiedere + Festeggiando notte e di. + Ognun beva: Bacco e qui; + E lasciate here a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io ho vuoto gia il mio corno: + Porgi quel cantaro in qua. + Questo monte gira intorno, + O 'l cervello a cerchio va: + Ognun corra in qua o in la, + Come vede fare a me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Io mi moro gia di sonno: + Sono io ebra o si o no? + Piu star dritti i pie non ponno. + Voi siet' ebri, ch' io lo so; + Ognun faccia com' io fo; + Ognun succe come me. + Ciascun segua, ec. + + Ognun gridi Bacco, Bacco, + E poi cacci del vin giu; + Poi col sonno farem fiacco, + Bevi tu e tu e tu. + Io non posso ballar piu; + Ognun gridi Evoe.[161] + Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te; + Bacco, Bacco, oe oe. + +Lyrical beauty rather than dramatic power was, it has already been +remarked, Poliziano's aim and achievement. The want of characterization in +the hero, the insignificance of the part allotted to Euridice, the total +inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author's power as a +dramatist. It is the lyrical passages--Aristeo's song, Orfeo's impassioned +pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus--that supply the firm supports of +art upon which rests the slight fabric of the play. + +The same simplicity of construction, a simplicity in nature rather +narrative than dramatic, characterizes Niccolo da Correggio's _Cefalo_. +The play was represented in state in the great courtyard of the ducal +palace at Ferrara, on the occasion of the marriage of Lucrezia d' Este +with Annibale Bentivogli, on January 21, 1487[162]. Like the _Orfeo_, the +piece exhibits traces of its origin in the religious shows, though, unlike +the original draft of Poliziano's play, it is divided into five acts each +of some length, and is provided with regular choruses on the classical +model. In spite of its inferiority to the _Orfeo_ in lyric power and its +possibly even greater deficiency from a dramatic point of view, it will be +worth while giving some account of the piece in order to get as clear an +idea as possible of the nature and limitations of the mythological drama, +and also because it has never, I believe, been reprinted in modern times, +and is in consequence practically unknown to English readers. + +The author, a descendant of the princely house of Correggio, was born +about 1450, and married the daughter of the famous _condottiere_ +Bartolommeo Colleoni. He lived for some years at Milan at the court of +Lodovico Sforza; later he migrated to that of the Estensi. In 1493 he sent +an allegorical eclogue to Isabella Gonzaga at Mantua, which may possibly +have been represented, though we have no note of the fact, and the poem +itself has perished[163]. He died in 1508. + +After a prologue which resembles that of the _Orfeo_ in giving an argument +of the whole piece, the first act opens with a scene in which Aurora seeks +the love of Cefalo. Offended at finding her advances repulsed, the goddess +hints that the wife to whom Cefalo is so careful of his faith is, for her +part, more free of her favours; and upon Cefalo indignantly refusing +credence to the slander, suggests that he should himself in disguise make +trial of her fidelity. This the unfortunate youth resolves to do. He +approaches Procri in the habit of a merchant, with goods for sale, and +takes the opportunity thus afforded of declaring his love. She turns to +fly, but the pretended passion of his suit stays her, and she is brought +to lend an ear to his cunning. He retails the commonplaces of the +despairing lover: + + Deh, non fuggire, e non si altiera in vista; + Odime alquanto, e scolta i preghi mei. + Che fama mai per crudelta se acquista? + Bellissima sei pur, cruda non dei. + Non sai che Amor non vol che se resista + A colpi soi? cosi vinto mi dei + Subito ch' io ti viddi; eh, non fuggire, + Forza non ti faro; deh, stammi audire. + +Not Jove or Phoebus he to assume strange shapes for her love; he is but +her slave, and can but offer his pedlar's pack; but he knows of hidden +treasure in the earth, and hers, too, shall be vesture of the fairest. +After gold and soft raiment comes the trump card of the seducer--secrecy: + + Cosa secreta mai non se riprende; + El tempo che si perde mai non torna; + Qui non serai veduta, or che se attende + Quel se ha a dolere, che al suo ben sogiorna. + Secreto e il loco, el sol pur non vi splende; + Bella sei tu, sol manca che sii adorna + Di veste come io intendo ultra il tesoro. + Deh, non mi tener piu; vedi ch' io moro. + +She is almost won; one last assault, and her defences fall. Why, indeed, +should she hesitate-- + + Poi ch' Amor dice, ogni secreta e casta? + +This stroke of cynicism is put forward as it were but half intentionally, +and with no appreciation of its intense irony in the mouth of the husband. +Throughout the scene indeed he appears merely as a common seducer, and the +author seems wholly to have failed to grasp the real dramatic value of the +situation. On the other hand, the lesser art of the stage has been +mastered with some success, and there is an adaptation of language to +action which at least argues that the author had a vivid picture of the +staging of his play in his mind when he wrote. + +The moment Procri has consented to barter her honour, Cefalo discovers +himself, and the unhappy girl flies in terror. Seeing now, too late, the +resuit of his foolish mistrust, Cefalo follows with prayers and +self-reproaches-- + + Son ben certo + Che tu mi cognoscesti ancor coperto-- + +but in vain. The act ends with a song in which Aurora glories in the +success of her revenge-- + + Festegiam con tutto il core; + Biastemate hor meco Amore! + +In the second act Procri, having recovered from her fright, is bent on +avenging herself for the deceit practised by Cefalo, upon whose supposed +love for Aurora she throws the blame in the matter. She seeks the grove of +Diana, where she is enrolled among the followers of the goddess. Cefalo, +who has followed her flight, rejoins her in the wood, and there renews his +prayers. She refuses to recognize him, denies being his wife, and is about +to renew her flight, when an old shepherd, attracted by Cefalo's +lamentation, stays her and forces her to hear her husband's pleading. +Other shepherds appear on the scene, and the act ends with an eclogue. In +the next we find her reconciled to Cefalo, to whom she gives the +wind-swift dog and the unerring spear which she had received as a nymph of +Diana. Cefalo at once sets the hound upon the traces of a boar, and goes +off in pursuit, while his wife returns home. He shortly reappears, having +lost boar and hound alike, and, tired with the chase, falls asleep. +Meanwhile a faun, finding Procri alone, tells her that he had seen Cefalo +meeting with his love Aurora in the wood--a piece of news in return for +which he seeks her love. She, however, resolves to go and surprise the +supposed lovers, and setting fire to the wood, herself to perish with them +in the flames. On Cefalo's return he is met with bitter reproaches, and +the act ends with a chorus of fauns and satyrs. The fourth contains the +catastrophe. Procri hides in the wood in hope of surprising her husband +with his paramour. Cefalo enters ready for the chase, and, seeing what he +takes to be a wild beast among bushes, throws the fatal spear, which +pierces Procri's breast. A reconciliation precedes her death, and the +close of the act is rendered effective by the successive summoning of the +Muses and nymphs in some graceful stanzas. With a little polishing, such +as Poliziano's bacchanalian chorus received in revision, the scene would +not be unworthy of the time and place of its production. + + Oime sorelle, o Galatea, presto! + Donate al cervo ormai un poco pace; + Soccorrete al pianger quel caso mesto. + Oime sorelle, Procri morta giace, + L' alma spirata, e il ciel guardando tace. + +At Cefalo's desire Calliope summons her sister Muses, Phillis the nymphs, +after which all join in a choral ode calling upon the divinities of +mountain, wood, and stream to join in a universal lament: + + Weep, spirits of the woods and of the hills, + Weep, each pure nymph beside her fountain-head, + And weep, ye mountains, in a thousand rills, + For the fair child who here below lies dead: + Mourn, all ye gods, the last of human ills, + Your sacred foreheads all ungarlanded. + +Here the traditional story of Cephalus and Procris, as founded on the +rather inferior version in the seventh book of the _Metamorphoses_, ends. +There remains, however, a fifth act, in which Diana appears, raises +Procri, and restores her to her husband. + +The play, composed for the most part in octaves with choruses in _terza +rima_, is, from the dramatic point of view, open to obvious and fatal +objections. The preposterous _dea ex machina_ of the last act; the +inconsequence of motive and inconsistency of character, partly, it is +true, inherent in the original story, but by no means made less obvious by +the dramatist; the insufficiency of the action to fill the necessary +space, and the inability of the author to make the most of his materials, +are all alike patent. On the other hand, we have already noticed a certain +theatrical ability displayed in the writing of the first act, and we may +further attribute the alteration by which Procri is represented as jealous +of Cefalo's original lover, Aurora, instead of the wholly imaginary Aura, +as in Ovid, to a desire for dramatic unity of motive. + +The extent to which either the _Orfeo_ or _Cefalo_ can be regarded as +pastoral will now be clear, and it must be confessed that they do not +carry us very far. The two fifteenth-century plays constitute a distinct +species which has attained to a high degree of differentiation if not of +dramatic evolution, and critics who would see in them the origin of the +later pastoral drama have to explain the strange phenomenon of the species +lying dormant for nearly three-quarters of a century, and then suddenly +developing into an equally individualized but very dissimilar form[164]. +It should, moreover, be borne in mind that contemporary critics never +regarded the Arcadian pastoral as in any way connected with the +mythological drama, and that the writers of pastoral themselves claimed no +kinship with Poliziano or Correggio, but always ranked themselves as the +followers of Beccari alone in the line of dramatic development. On the +other hand, there can be no reasonable doubt that such performances went +to accustom spectators to that mixture of mythology and idealism which +forms the atmosphere, so to speak, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +This must be my excuse for lingering over these early works. + + + +II + + +When dealing with the Italian eclogue we saw how, at a certain point, it +began to assume a distinctly dramatic character, and in so doing took the +first step towards the possible evolution of a real pastoral drama. It +will be my task in the ensuing pages to follow up this clue, and to show +how the pastoral drama arose through a process of natural development from +the recited eclogue. + +The dramatic tendency was indeed inherent in the eclogue from the very +first. Throughout there is a steady growth in the use of dialogue: of the +Idyls of Theocritus only about a third contain more than one character; of +Vergil's Bucolics at least half; of Calpurnius' all but one; of the +eclogues of Petrarch and Boccaccio all without exception. This tendency +did not escape Guarini, who, when not led into puerilities by his love of +self-laudation, often shows considerable insight. 'The eclogue,' he says, +'is nothing but a short discussion between shepherds, differing in no +other manner from that sort of scene which the Latins call dialogue, +except in so far as being whole and independent, possessing within itself +both beginning and end[165].' + +Having thus gradually altered the literary form of the eclogue, this +tendency towards dramatic expression next showed itself in the manner in +which the poem was presented to the world. For circulation in print or +manuscript, or for informal reading, came to be substituted recitation in +character. The dialogue was divided between two persons who spoke +alternately, and it is evident from the somewhat meagre texts that survive +that, in the earliest examples, these _ecloghe rappresentative_, or +dramatic eclogues as I shall call them, differed in no way from the purely +literary productions which we considered in an earlier section. Evidence +of actual representation is often wanting, and the exact date in most +cases is uncertain; but, since there is no doubt that such performances +actually did take place, we are not only justified in assuming that +several poems of the period belong to this class, but we can also, on +internai evidence, arrange them more or less in a natural sequence of +dramatic development. One such eclogue has come down to us from the pen of +Baldassare Taccone, a Genoese who also wrote mythological plays on the +subjects of Danae and Actaeon. Another, interesting as dealing with the +corruption of the Curia at a moment when its scandalous traffic was +carried on in the light of day with more than usually cynical +indifference, was actually presented at Rome under the patronage of +Cardinal Giovanni Colonna at the carnival of 1490, during the pontificate +of Innocent VIII. Gradually a more complex form was evolved, the number of +speakers was increased, and some of these made their entrance during the +progress of the recitation. So too in the matter of metrical form, the +strict _terza rima_ of the earlier examples came to be diversified with +_rime sdrucciole_, and by being intermingled with verses with internal +rime, with _ottava rima, settenari_ couplets, and lyrical measures. +Castiglione's representation at Urbino has been noticed previously. Among +similar productions may be mentioned two poems by a certain Caperano of +Faenza, printed in 1508, while others are found at Siena in 1517 and 1523. +Besides the texts that are extant we also have record of a good many which +have perished. In 1493 the representation of eclogues formed part of the +revels prepared by Alexander VI for the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with +Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro, and this was again the case when, having +been divorced from Giovanni, and her second husband having perished by the +assassin's dagger, she finally in 1502 became the wife of Alfonso d'Este, +heir to the duchy of Ferrara. Eclogues were again represented at Ferrara +in 1508, and received specific mention among the dramatic performances +dealt with by the laws of Venice. + +We thus see that the eclogue had every opportunity of developing into a +regular dramatic form. At this point a variety of external influences made +themselves felt, which facilitated or modified its growth. Perhaps +foremost among these should be reckoned that of the 'regular' drama--that +is of the drama based upon an imitation of the classics, chiefly of the +Latin authors. The conception of dramatic art which was in men's minds at +the time naturally and inevitably influenced the development of a form of +poem which was daily becoming more sensibly dramatic. Next there was the +influence of the mythological drama embodying the romantic and ideal +elements of classical myth, but in form representing the tradition of the +old religious plays. This led to the occasional introduction of +supernatural characters, counteracted the rationalizing influence of the +Roman dramatists, and supplied the pastoral with its peculiar imaginative +atmosphere. Lastly, there was the 'rustic' influence, which was at no time +very strong, and left no mark upon the form as finally evolved, but which +has nevertheless to be taken into account in tracing the process of +development. The influence exercised by burlesque and realistic scenes +from real life cannot have been brought to bear on the eclogue until it +had already attained to a dramatic character of some complexity. The +earliest text of the kind we possess dates from 1508, and it is doubtful +whether or not it was acted. In 1513 we have record of a rustic +performance at the Capitol, and a satyrical and allegorical piece of like +nature, and belonging to the same year, is actually preserved, as is also +one in Bellunese dialect. These shows became the special characteristic of +the Rozzi society at Siena, in whose hands they soon developed into short +realistic farces of low life, composed in dialectal verse and acted by +members of the society at many of the courts of Italy. The fashion, +though never widely spread, survived for many years, the most famous +author of such pieces being Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger at the +beginning of the next century. + +These _drammi rusticali_, as they were called, may not improbably have +owed their origin to the fashion of rustic composition set by Lorenzo de' +Medici in his _Nencia_, and may thus in their origin have been related to +the courtly eclogue; but the subsequent development of the kind is at most +parallel to that of the pastoral drama, and should not be regarded either +as the origin or as a subdivision of this latter. Nor did the rustic +compositions exercise any permanent influence on the pastoral drama; the +most that can be said is that an occasional text shows signs of being +affected by the low vulgarity of the kind. + +Returning to the polite eclogues, we soon find an increase in the dramatic +complexity of the form. Tansillo's _Due pellegrini_, which cannot be later +than 1528, contains the rudiments of a plot, two lovers bent on suicide +being persuaded by a miraculous voice to become reconciled with the world +and life. Poetic justice befalls the two nymphs in an eclogue by Luca di +Lorenzo, printed in 1530, the disdainful Diversa being condemned to love +the boor Fantasia, while Euridice's loving disposition is rewarded by the +devotion of Orindio. + +We now come to what may almost be regarded as the first conscious attempt +to write a pastoral play--an attempt, however, which met with but partial +success. This is the _Amaranta_, a 'Comedia nuova pastorale' by +Giambattista Casalio of Faenza, which most probably belongs to a date +somewhat before 1538. In it the mutual love of Partenio and Amaranta is +thwarted by the girl's mother Celia, who destines her for a goatherd. +Partenio is led to believe that his love has played him false, while in +her turn Amaranta supposes herself forsaken. The two meet, however, at the +hut of a wise nymph Lucina, through whose intervention they are reconciled +and their union effected. The piece, which attains to some proportions, is +divided into five acts, and, while owing a certain debt to the _Orfeo_, is +itself pastoral in character with occasional coarse touches borrowed from +the rustic shows. It is in the _Amaranta_ that we first meet with an +attempt to introduce a real plot of some human interest into a purely +pastoral composition; we are no longer dealing with a merely occasional +piece written in celebration of some special person or festivity, no +longer with a mythological masque or pageant, nor with an amorous +allegory, but with a piece the interest of which, slight as it is, lies in +the fate of the characters involved. + +The fifteen years or so which separate the work of Casalio from that of +Beccari saw the production of a succession of more or less pastoral works +which serve, to some extent at least, to bridge over the gap which +separates even the most elaborate of the above compositions from the +recognized appearance of the fully-developed pastoral drama in the +_Sacrifizio_. The chief characteristic which marks the work of these years +is a tendency to deliberate experiment. The writers appear to have been +conscious that their work was striving towards a form which had not yet +been achieved, though they were themselves vague as to what that form +might be. Epicuro's _Mirzia_ tends towards the mythological drama; the +_Silvia_ written by one Fileno, which, like the _Amaranta_, turns on the +temporary estrangement of two lovers, introduces considerable elements +from the rustic performances; in Cazza's _Erbusto_ the amorous skein is +cut by the discovery of consanguinity and an [Greek: a)nagno/risis] after +the manner of the Latin comedy. Similar in plot to this last is a +fragmentary pastoral of Giraldi Cintio's published from manuscript by +Signor Carducci. Another curious but isolated experiment is Cintio's +_Egle_, in intent a revival of the 'satyric' drama of the Greeks, in +substance a dramatization of the motive of Sannazzaro's _Salices_. In one +sense these experiments ended in failure; it was not through the +elaboration of mythological or superhuman elements, nor through the humour +of burlesque or realistic rusticity, nor yet through the violence of +unexpected discoveries, that the destined form of the pastoral drama was +to be attained. On the other hand, they undoubtedly served to introduce an +elaboration of plot and complexity of dramatic structure which is +altogether lacking in the earlier eclogues and masques, but without which +the work of Tasso and Guarini could never have occupied the commanding +position that it does in the history of literature. They carry us forward +to the point at which the pastoral drama took its shape and being. + +Of the elements compounded of pastoral idealism and the graceful purity of +classical myth, and combining the scenic attractions of the masque with +the reasoned action and human interest of the regular drama, the Arcadian +pastoral first achieved definite form in the work of Agostino Beccari. His +_Sacrifizio_, styled 'favola pastorale' on the title-page of the first +impression, was acted at the palace of Francesco d' Este at Ferrara in the +presence of Ercole II and his son Luigi, and of the Duchess Renata and her +daughters Lucrezia and Leonora, on two occasions in February and March +1554. The piece was revived more than thirty years later, namely in 1587, +when the courtly world was already familiar with Tasso's masterpiece, and +was ringing with the prospective fame of the _Pastor fido_, and +represented both at Sassuolo and Ferrara. + +The action involves three pairs of lovers. Turico loves Stellinia in spite +of the fact that she has transferred her affections to Erasto. Erasto in +his turn pays his homage to Callinome, the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, a nymph vowed to the service of Diana. There remains +Carpalio, whose love for Melidia is secretly returned; its consummation +being prevented by the girl's brother Pimonio, who refuses to countenance +the match, and keeps dragon guard over his sister. In the meanwhile +shepherds and shepherdesses assemble to honour the festival and sacrifice +of Pan, which proves the occasion for the unravelling of the amorous +tangle. Stellinia, wishing to rid herself of her rival in Erasto's love, +induces Callinome so far to break her vestal vow as to be present at the +forbidden feast. Here she is promptly detected by the offended goddess and +sentenced to do battle against one of the fiercest of the Erymanthian +boars. Erasto comes to her aid with a magic ointment, which has the power +of rendering the user invisible, and with the help of which she achieves +her task unharmed. Out of gratitude she rewards her preserver with her +love. Not only is Stellinia thus condemned to witness the failure of her +plot, but she is herself carried off by a satyr, who endeavours to deceive +each of the nymphs in turn. Being rescued from his power by the faithful +Turico, she too capitulates to love. Lastly, in the absence of Pimonio, +who has gone to be present at the games held at the festival, Carpalio and +Melidia pluck the fruit of love, and are saved from the anger of the +brother through his conveniently falling into an enchanted lake whence he +emerges in the shape of a boar. + +In the prologue the author boldly announces the novelty of his work-- + + Una favola nova pastorale + ............nova in tanto + Ch' altra non fu giammai forse piu udita + Di questa sorte recitarsi in scena. + +Guarini, who is said to have supplied a prologue for the revival of the +piece, bore out Beccari's claim when he wrote in his essay on +tragi-comedy: 'First among the moderns to possess the happy boldness to +make in this kind, namely the pastoral dramatic tale, of which there is no +trace among the ancients, was Agostin de' Beccari, a worthy citizen of +Ferrara, to whom alone does the world owe the fair creation of this sort +of poem[166].' + +Several pieces of no great interest or importance serve to fill the decade +or so following on the production of Beccari's play. Groto, known as the +Cieco d' Adria, combined the mythological motive with much of the vulgar +obscenity of the Latin comedy. Lollio also produced a hybrid of an earlier +type in his _Aretusa_. In 1567 a return was made to the pastoral tradition +of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_. Among the +spectators who witnessed the first performance of this piece before Duke +Alfonso and his court at Ferrara was a youth of twenty-two, lately +attached to the household of the Cardinal Luigi d' Este. In all +probability this was Tasso's first introduction to a style of composition +which not many years later he was to make famous throughout Europe. The +play he witnessed on that occasion, however, was no work of surpassing +genius. It cannot, indeed, be said to mark any decided advance on +Beccari's work except in so far, perhaps, as it at times foreshadows the +somewhat sickly sentiment of later pastorals, including Tasso's own. The +shepherd Sfortunato loves Dafne, Dafne loves Iacinto, who in his turn +pursues Flaminia, while she loves only Silvio, who loves himself. Nothing +particular happens till the fourth scene of Act III. Then Silvio, tired of +being the last link in the chain of love, devises a plan for placing +Flaminia and Dafne in the power of their respective lovers. Flaminia, +assailed by Iacinto, makes up her mind to bow to fate, and accepts with a +good grace the love it is no longer in her power to fly. Sfortunato, on +the other hand, rather than offend his mistress, allows her to depart +unharmed, and since he thereby forgoes his only chance of enjoying the +object of his passion, determines to die. His vow is overheard by Dafne, +who, seeing that her love for Iacinto may no more avail, at last relents. +A third nymph, introduced to make the numbers even, takes the veil among +the followers of Diana, and so lives the object of Silvio's chaste regard. +It will be readily seen how in the character of Sfortunato we have the +forerunner of Tasso's Aminta; but it will also appear what poor use has +been made of the situation. The truth is that we have up to now been +dealing merely with origins, with productions which are of interest only +in the reflected light of later work; whatever there is of real beauty and +of permanent value in the pastoral drama of Italy is due to the breath of +life inspired into the phantasms of earlier writers by the genius of Tasso +and Guarini. + + + +III + + +We have now followed the dramatic pastoral from its obscure origin in the +eclogue to the eve of its assuming a recognized and abiding position in +the literature of Europe[167]. But if it is in a measure easy thus to +trace back the Arcadian drama to its historical sources, and to show how +the _Aminta_ came to be possible, it is not so easy to show how it came to +be actual. All creative work is the outcome of three fashioning forces, +the historical position, the personal circumstances of the artist, and his +individual genius. The pastoral drama had reached what I may perhaps be +allowed to call the 'psychological point' in its development. At the same +moment it happened that Tasso, having returned from a fruitless and +uncongenial mission to the Valois court, enjoyed a brief period of calm +and prosperity in the congenial society of Leonora d' Este, before the +critical bickerings to which he exposed himself in connexion with the +_Gerusalemme_ wrought havoc with an already over-sensitive and +overstrained temperament. Furthermore it happened that he brought to the +spontaneous composition of his courtly toy just that touch of languorous +beauty, that soft vein of sentiment, which formed perhaps his most +characteristic contribution to the artistic tone of his age, veiling a +novel mood in his favourite phrase, _un non so che_[168]. Had all this not +been, had not the fortune of a suitable genius and the chance of personal +surroundings jumped with the historical possibility, we might indeed have +had any number of lifeless 'Sacrifices' and 'Unhappy Ones,' but Italy +would have added no new kind to the forms of dramatic art. Had it not been +for the _Aminta_, the pastoral drama must almost necessarily have been +stillborn, for Guarini was too much of a pedant to do more than to imitate +and enlarge, while other writers belong to the decline. + +The _Aminta_, while possessing a delicate dramatic structure of its own, +yet retains not a little of the simplicity of the _ecloga +rappresentativa_. Indeed, it is worth noting, alike on account of this +quality in the poem itself as also of its literary ancestry, that, in a +letter written within a year of its original production, Tiburio Almerici +speaks of it by the old name of eclogue[169]. Referring to its +representation at Urbino, he writes: 'Il terzo spettacolo, che si e +goduto questo carnovale, e stato un' egloga del Tasso, che fu recitata +questo giovedi passato da alcuni gioveni d' Urbino nella sala, che fu +fatta per la venuta delia Principessa.' The princess in question was none +other than Lucrezia d' Este, who had lately become the wife of Tasso's +former companion Francesco Maria della Rovere, now Duke of Urbino, and who +with her sister Leonora, the heroine of the Tasso legend, had, it will be +remembered, stood sponsor to Beccari's play nearly twenty years before. +The representation at Urbino to which Almerici alludes was not of course +the first. Written in the winter of 1572-3 during the absence of Duke +Alfonso, the piece was acted after his return from Rome in the summer of +the latter year. Ferrara, as we have seen, had become and was long +destined to remain the special home of the pastoral drama in Italy. Here +on July 31, in the palace of Belvedere, built on an island in the Po, the +court of the Estensi assembled to witness the production of Tasso's +play[170]. The staging, both on this and on subsequent occasions, was no +doubt answerable to the nature of the piece, and added the splendour of +the masque to the classic grace of the fable. Almerici remarks on the +special attractions for spectators and auditors alike of what he calls 'la +novita del coro fra ciascuno atto,' by which he clearly meant the +spectacular interludes known as _intermedi_, the verses for which are +commonly printed at the end of the play[171]. But the representation which +struck the imagination of contemporaries was that before the Grand Duke +Ferdinand at Florence. This took place in 1590[172]. Guarini's play had in +its turn won renown far beyond the frontiers of Italy, while the author +of the _Aminta_, a yet attractive but impossible madman, was destined for +the few remaining years of his life to drag his tale of woes and but too +often his rags from one Italian court to another, ere he sank at last +exhausted where S. Onofrio overlooks St. Peter's dome. + +The structure of the play is not free from a good deal of stiffness and +artificiality, which it bequeathed to its successors. It borrowed from the +classical drama a chorus, on the whole less Greek than Latin, the use of +confidants, and the introduction of messengers and descriptive passages. +These last, it may be noted, are deliberately and wantonly classical, not +merely necessitated by the exigencies of the action, difficult of +representation as in the attempted suicide of Aminta, impossible as in the +rescue of Silvia from the satyr, but resorted to in order to veil the +dramatic weakness of the author's imagination, as is plain from the +description of the final meeting of the lovers. Yet it may be freely +admitted that to this device, the substitution namely of narrative for +action, we owe most of the finest poetic passages of the play: the +description of the youthful loves of Aminta and Silvia and the former's +ruse to win a kiss, the picture of Silvia bound to the tree by the pool, +Tirsi's account of the court, the description of Silvia at the spring--one +of the most elaborate in the piece--the account of her escape from the +wolves, last but not least that description of Silvia finding the +unconscious Aminta, so full of subtle and effeminate seduction, prophetic +of a later age of morals and of taste: + + Ma come Silvia il riconobbe, e vide + Le belle guance tenere d' Aminta + Iscolorite in si leggiadri modi, + Che viola non e che impallidisca + Si dolcemente, e lui languir si fatto, + Che parea gia negli ultimi sospiri + Esalar l'alma; in guisa di Baccante + Gridando, e percotendosi il bel petto, + Lascio cadersi in sul giacente corpo, + E giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. (V. i.) + +So too the chorus, though awkward enough from a dramatic point of view +and in so far as it fulfils any dramatic purpose, offers a sufficient +justification for its existence in the magnificent ode on 'honour,' that +rapturous song of the golden age of love, the poetic supremacy of which +has never been questioned, whatever may have been thought of its ethical +significance. To that aspect we shall return later. At present it will be +well to give some more or less detailed account of the action of the piece +itself. + +The shepherd Aminta loves Silvia, formerly as a child his playmate and +companion, now a huntress devoted to the service of Diana, proud in her +virginity and unfettered state. The play opens in a sufficiently +conventional manner, but wrought with sparkling verse, with two companion +scenes. In the first of these Silvia brushes aside the importunities of +her confidant Dafne who seeks to allure her to the blandishments of love +with sententious natural examples and modern instances. + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei, + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +such is the burden of her song, or yet again, recalling the golden days of +love she too of yore had wasted: + + Il mondo invecchia + E invecchiando intristisce. + +Words of profound melancholy these, uttered in the days of the burnt-out +fires of the renaissance. But all this moves not Silvia, nymph of the +woods and of the chase, and, if she is indeed as fancy-free as she would +have us believe, her lover may even console himself with the reflection +that + + If of herself she will not love, + Nothing will make her-- + The devil take her! + +She has, after all, every right to the position. The next scene introduces +Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history +of his love. Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great +interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches +that lie scattered throughout the play. + + All' ombra d' un bel faggio Silvia e Filli + Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme; + Quando un' ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo + Sen giva il mel per que' prati fioriti, + Alle guance di Fillide volando, + Alle guance vermiglie come rosa, + Le morse e le rimorse avidamente; + Ch' alla similitudine ingannata + Forse un fior le credette. + +Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole +description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Tasso's +which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality. Aminta feigns +to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt. + + La semplicetta Silvia, + Pietosa del mio male, + S' offri di dar aita + Alla finta ferita, ahi lasso! e fece + Piu cupa e piu mortale + La mia piaga verace, + Quando le labbra sue + Giunse alle labbra mie. + +It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though +they kissed from now to doomsday. But only the reader who cannot feel its +beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Tasso's style. + +The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, +type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly +shepherds. He inherits no savoury character from his literary +predecessors, and he is content to play to the role. His monologue may be +passed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical +indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts. It is a +quality wholly different from the mere coarseness exhibited in the English +drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one +who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes +of the _Mandragola_. The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants +Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an +understanding between Aminta and Silvia. The scene is characterized by +those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant +iciness of the 'careless' nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral +drama. + + Or, non sai tu com' e fatta la donna? + Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch' altri la giunga; + Niega, e negando vuol ch' altri si toglia; + Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch' altri la vinca. + +Listening to the deliberations of these two, it cannot but strike us that +in spite of their polished speech the straightforward London stage would +have hesitated but little to bestow on them the names they deserve, and +which it were yet scarce honest to have here set down. We pass on, and, +whatever may be said regarding the moral atmosphere of the rest of the +play, we shall not again have to make complaint of the corruption of +manners assumed in the situation. In the following scene Tirsi undertakes +the difficult task of inducing Aminta to intrude upon Silvia, where she is +said to be alone at the spring preparing for the chase. It is only by +hinting that Silvia has secretly instructed Dafne to arrange the tryst +that he in the end succeeds in persuading the bashful lover to risk the +displeasure of his mistress. + +At the opening of Act III Tirsi enters lamenting in bitter terms the +cruelty of Silvia. Interrogated by the chorus, he relates how, as he and +Aminta approached the spring where Silvia was bathing, they heard a cry +and, hastening to the spot, found the nymph bound hand and foot to a tree, +and confronting her the satyr. At their approach the monster fled, and +Aminta released the nymph, who _ignuda come nacque_ at once took flight, +leaving her lover in despair. In the meanwhile Aminta has sought to kill +himself with his own spear, but has been prevented by Dafne, and the two +now enter. At this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the +piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in +the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having +prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the +recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock +pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her +escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses +her fear that the false report of Silvia's death may indeed prove the +death of Aminta. The nymph at first shows herself incredulous, but on +learning that he had already once sought death on her account she wavers +and owns to pity if not to love-- + + Oh potess' io + Con l' amor mio comprar la vita sua, + Anzi pur con la mia la vita sua, + S' egli e pur morto! + +Hereupon Ergasto enters with the news that Aminta has thrown himself from +a cliff, and Silvia, now completely overcome, goes off with the intention +of dying on the body of her dead lover. + +The shortness, as well as the dramatic weakness, of the fifth act is +conspicuous even in proportion to the modest limits of the whole. It runs +to less than one hundred and fifty lines, and merely relates how Aminta's +fall was broken, how Silvia's love awoke, and all ended happily. The most +significant passage, that namely which describes Aminta being called back +to life in Silvia's arms, has been already quoted. He revives unharmed, +and the lovers, + + Alike in age, in generous birth alike + And mutual desires, + +gather in love the fruits which they have sown in weeping. + +It is worth while quoting the final chorus in witness of the spirit of +half bantering humour in which the whole was conceived even by the serious +Tasso, a spirit we unfortunately too often seek in vain among his +followers. + + Non so se il molto amaro + Che provato ha costui servendo, amando, + Piangendo e disperando, + Raddolcito esser puote pienamente + D' alcun dolce presente: + Ma, se piu caro viene + E piu si gusta dopo 'l male il bene, + Io non ti chieggio, Amore, + Questa beatitudine maggiore: + Bea pur gli altri in tal guisa; + Me la mia ninfa accoglia + Dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: + E siano i condimenti + Delle nostre dolcezze + Non si gravi tormenti, + Ma soavi disdegni, + E soavi ripulse, + Risse e guerre a cui segua, + Reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua. + +It is with these words that the author leaves his graceful fantasy; and +such, we have perhaps the right to assume, was the spirit in which the +whole was composed. Were any one to object to our seeking to analyse the +quality of the piece, arguing that to do so were to break a butterfly upon +the wheel, much might reasonably be said in support of his view. +Nevertheless, when a work of art, however delicate and slender, has +received the homage of generations, and influenced cultivated taste for +centuries, and in widely different countries, we have a right to inquire +whereon its supremacy is based, and what the nature of its influence has +been. + +With the sources from which Tasso drew the various elements of his plot we +need have little to do. The child-love of Silvia and Aminta is of the +stuff of _Daphnis and Chloe_; the ruse by which the kiss is obtained is +borrowed from Achilles Tatius; the compliment to the court of the Estensi +is after the manner of Vergil, or of Castiglione, or of Ariosto, or of any +other of the allegorical eclogists of whom Vergil was the first; the germ +of the golden-age chorus is to be found in the elegies of Tibullus (II. +iii); the character of the satyr belongs to tradition; the rent veil of +Silvia reminds us of that of Ovid's Thisbe (_Met._ IV. 55). The language +too is reminiscent. The finest lines in the play-- + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--(_Coro_ I.) + +belong to Catullus: + + Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus;... + soles occidere et redire possunt; + nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux, + nox est perpetua una dormienda. (_Carm._ V.) + + +The words in which Amore describes himself in the prologue-- + + non mica un dio + Selvaggio, o della plebe degli dei, + Ma tra' grandi celesti il piu possente-- + +recall Ovid's lines: + + nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna + sceptra manu teneo. (_Met._ I. 595.) + +Again, the line: + + Dove la costa face di se grembo; + +which occurs alike in the play (V. i.) and in the _Purgatorio_ (VII. 68), +supplies evidence, as do similar borrowings in the _Gerusalemme_, of +Tasso's study of Dante. + +The prologue introduces Amore in pastoral disguise, escaped from the care +of his mother, who would confine his activity to the Courts, and intent on +loosing his shafts among the nymphs and shepherds of Arcadia. In the form +of this prologue, which became the model for subsequent pastoral writers +in Italy[173], and in the heavenly descent of the principal characters, we +may see the influence of the mythological play; while the substance both +of the prologue and of the epilogue, or _Amore fuggitivo_, in which Venus +comes to seek her runaway among the ladies and gallants of the court, is +of course borrowed from the famous first idyl of Moschus. Again the +topical element is not absent, though it is less prominent than some of +the earlier work might lead us to expect. In the poet Tirsi-- + + allor ch' ardendo + Forsennato egli erro per le foreste + Si, ch' insieme movea pietate e riso + Nelle vezzose ninfe e ne' pastori; + Ne gia cose scrivea digne di riso, + Sebben cose facea digne di riso--(I. i.) + +we may, of course, see the poet himself. In Batto too, mentioned together +with Tirsi, it is not unreasonable to recognize Battisto Guarini, whom at +that time Tasso might still regard as his friend. Again, it is usual to +identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the +Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was +yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little +fulsome: + + Or non rammenti + Cio che l' altrieri Elpino raccontava, + Il saggio Elpino a la bella Licori, + Licori che in Elpin puote cogli occhi + Quel ch' ei potere in lei dovria col canto, + Se 'l dovere in amor si ritrovasse; + E 'l raccontava udendo Batto e Tirsi, + Gran maestri d' amore; e 'l raccontava + Nell' antro dell' Aurora, ove sull' uscio + E scritto: _Lungi, ah lungi ite, profani_? + Diceva egli, e diceva che gliel disse + Quel grande che canto l' armi e gli amori, + Ch' a lui lascio la fistola morendo; + Che laggiu nello 'nferno e un nero speco, + La dove esala un fumo pien di puzza + Dalle tristi fornaci d' Acheronte; + E che quivi punite eternamente + In tormenti di tenebre e di pianto + Son le femmine ingrate e sconoscenti. (I. i.) + +He who sang of arms and love is of course Ariosto-- + + Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori, + Le cortesie, l' audaci imprese io canto-- + +from whom Tasso borrows the above description of the reward awaiting +ungrateful women, as also the fiction of the tell-tale walls and chairs in +Mopso's account of the court (I. ii). And this Elpino, whose pipe +elsewhere + + correr fa di puro latte i fiumi + E stillar melle dalle dure scorze, (III. i.) + +later becomes the Alete of the _Gerusalemme_, + + Gran fabbro di calunnie adorne in modi + Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi. (II. 58.) + +His flattery had not shielded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of +the minister[174]. + +Again, the picture drawn by Tirsi of the ideal court (I. ii.) is a glowing +compliment to that of the Estensi and to Duke Alfonso himself. It is +contrasted with the usual pastoral denunciation of court and city put into +the mouth of the pretended augur Mopso. In this character it has been +customary to see Sperone Speroni, who later accused Tasso of plagiarizing +him in the _Gerusalemme_, and was the first to apply the ominous word +'madman' to the unfortunate poet. To Speroni's play _Canace_ Tasso may +have been indebted for the free measures with which he diversified his +blank verse, as likewise for the line: + + Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede;[175] + +though it must not be supposed that there is any resemblance in style +between the _Aminta_ and Speroni's revolting and frigid declamation of +butchery and lust. Nor did the debt pass unnoticed. In 1585 Guarini, who +had long since parted with the sinking ship of the younger poet's +friendship, was ready to flatter Speroni with the declaration 'che tanto +di leggiadria e sempre paruto a me, che abbia nell' Aminta suo conseguito +Torquato Tasso, quant' egli fu imitatore della Canace[176].' + +Lastly, in the hopeless suit of Aminta to Silvia, criticism has not failed +to see a reference to the supposed relation between Tasso and Leonora d' +Este. That Tasso, who in his overwrought imagination no doubt harboured a +sentimental regard for the princess, was conscious of the parallel is in +some degree probable; that he should have identified his creation with +himself is, in view of the solution of the dramatic situation, utterly +impossible. Indeed, it would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose that +his care to identify himself with Aminta's confidant may have been an +unusual but not untimely piece of caution on his part, to prevent poisoned +gossip connecting him too closely with his hero. + +The question of the influence of the _Aminta_ on later works and on +European thought generally opens up large and difficult issues. It is one +of those works which we are not justified in treating from the purely +literary point of view. If we wish to see it in its relation to +contemporary society, and to estimate its influence upon subsequent +literature, we cannot afford to neglect its ethical bearings. This inquiry +must necessarily lead us beyond the sphere of literary criticism proper, +but it is a task which one who has undertaken to give an account of +pastoral literature has no right to shirk. + +The central motive of the piece is the struggle between the feverish +passion of Aminta and the virginal coldness of Silvia. Of this motive and +of the manner in which it is treated it is not altogether easy to speak, +and this less from any inherent element in the subject or from the +difficulty of accurately apprehending the peculiarities of sentiment +proper to former ages, than from the readiness of all ages alike to accept +in such matters the counterfeit coin of conventional protestation for the +sterling reticence of natural delicacy. No doubt this tendency has been +aided by the fact that the secrets of a girl's heart, whatever may be +their true dramatic value, form an unsuitable and ineffective subject for +declamation. The difficulties must not, however, be allowed to weigh +against the importance of coming to a clear understanding as to the true +nature of this _non so che_ of false sentiment, of which it would hardly +be too much to affirm that it made the fortune of the pastoral in +aristocratic Italy on the one hand, and proved its ruin in middle-class +London on the other. + +To Tasso is due that assumption of extravagant and conventional _pudor_ +which forms one of the most abiding features of the pastoral drama. To +censure an exaggeration of the charm of modesty on the threshold of the +_seicento_, or to object a strained sense of chastity against the author +of the golden-age chorus, may indeed seem strange; but, as with Fletcher +at a later date, the very extravagance of the paradox may supply us with +the key to its solution. + +The falsity of Tasso's position is evinced partly in the main action of +the drama, partly in the commentary supplied by the minor personages. The +character of Aminta himself is unimportant in this respect; when we have +described him as effeminate, sickly, and over-refined, we have said all +that is necessary in view of the position he occupies with regard to +Silvia. She, we are given to understand, is the type of the 'careless' +shepherdess, the unspotted nymph of Diana[177], rejoicing in the chase +alone, and importuned by the love of Aminta, which she neither +reciprocates nor understands, and of the genuineness of which she shows +herself, indeed, not a little sceptical. If, however, she is as careless +as she appears, her conversion is certainly most sudden. The picture, +moreover, drawn by Dafne of Silvia coquetting with her shadow in the pool, +though possibly coloured by malice, supplies a sufficient hint of the +true state of the girl's fancy. She is in truth such a Chloe of innocence +as might spring up in the rank soil of a petty Italian court infected with +post-Tridentine morality. Were she indeed careless of Aminta's devotion we +could easily sympathize with her when she brushes aside Dafne's +importunity with the words: + + Faccia Aminta di se e de' suoi amori + Quel ch' a lui piace; a me nulla ne cale. (I. i.) + +It is altogether different with her attitude of arrogant pudicity when she +announces: + + Odio il suo amore + Ch' odia la mia onestate; (Ib.) + +and again: + + In questa guisa gradirei ciascuno + Insidiator di mia virginitate, + Che tu dimandi amante, ed io nemico. (Ib.) + +Silvia here conjoins the unwholesome medieval ideal of virginity with the +corrupt spectre of renaissance 'honour'-- + + quel vano + Nome senza soggetto, + Quell' idolo d' errori, idol d' inganno[178], (_Coro_ I.) + +as Tasso himself styled it--that conventional mask so bitterly contrasted +with the natural goodness of the age of gold[179]. + +The general conception of love and its attendant emotions that permeates +the work and vitiates so many of its descendants appears yet more +glaringly characterized in some of the minor personages. On these it is +not my intention to dwell. Of Dafne and Tirsi, that is, be it remembered, +Tasso's self, I have spoken, however briefly, yet at sufficient length +already. Suffice it to add here that Dafne's suggestion, that modesty is +commonly but a veil for lust, is nothing more than the cynical expression +of the attitude adopted throughout the play. Love is no ideal and +idealizing emotion, but a mere gratification of the senses--a _luxuria_ +scarcely distinguishable from _gula_. Ignorance can alone explain an +attitude of indifference towards its pleasures. The girl who does not care +to embrace opportunity is no better than a child--'Fanciulla tanto +sciocca, quanto bella,' as Dafne says. So, again, there is nothing +ennobling in the devotion of the hero, nothing elevating in his fidelity. +All the mysticism, all the ideality, of the early days of the renaissance +have long since disappeared, and chivalrous feeling, that last lingering +glory of the middle age, is dead. + +We are, indeed, justified in regarding what I may term the degeneration of +sexual feeling in the _Aminta_ as to a great extent the negation of +chivalrous love, for, even apart from the allegorizing mysticism of Dante, +that love contained its ennobling elements. And yet, strangely enough, not +a little of the convention at least of chivalrous love survives in the +debased Arcadian love of the sentimental pastoral. Both alike are +primarily of an animal nature, and this in a sense other than that in +which physical love may be said to form an element in all natural relation +between man and woman. Again, in both we find the rational machinery by +which love shall be rewarded. The lover serves his apprenticeship, either +with deeds of arms or with sighs and sonnets, and the credit of the +mistress is light who refuses to reward him for his service. The System +assumes neither choice, nor passion, nor pleasure on her part. Her act is +regarded in the cold light of a calculated payment, undisguised by any joy +of passionate surrender. But whereas in the outgrowth of feudalism, in the +chivalry of the middle ages, this system formed the great incentive to +martial daring, whereas when idealized in Beatrice it became almost +undistinguishable from the ferveurs of religion, we find it with Tasso +sinking into a weak and mawkish sensuality. More than any other +sentimentalist Tasso justified his title by 'fiddling harmonics on the +strings of sensualism,' and it may be added that the ear is constantly +catching the fundamental note. + +The foregoing remarks appeared necessary in order to understand the +subsequent history of the dramatic pastoral as well as the conditions +under which it took form and being, but they have led us far beyond the +limits of literary criticism proper. The next characteristic of the play +to be considered is one which, while possessing an important ethical +bearing, is also closely connected with the aesthetic composition. I refer +to the peculiar, not sensual but sensuous, nature of the beauty. The +effect produced by the descriptions, by the suggestions, by the general +tone, by the subtle modulations of the verse in adaptation to its theme, +is less one of literary and intellectual than of direct emotional +perception, producing the immediate physical impression of an actual +presence. The beauty has a subtle enervating charm, languid and +voluptuous, at the same time as clear and limpid in tone. The effect +produced is one and whole, that of a perfect work of art, and the same +impression remains with us afterwards. Smooth limbs, soft and white, that +shine through the waters of the spring and amid the jewelled spray, or +half revealed among the thickets of lustrous green, a slant ray of +sunlight athwart the loosened gold of the hair--the vision floats before +us as if conjured up by the strains of music rather than by actual words. +This kinship with another art did not escape so acute a critic as Symonds +as a characteristic of Tasso's style. But the kinship on another side with +the art of painting is equally close; a thousand pictures rise before us +as we follow the perfect melody of the irregular lyric measures. The white +veil fluttering and the swift feet flashing amid the brambles and the +trailing creepers of the wood, bright crimson staining the spotless purity +of the flying skirts as the huntress bursts through the clinging tangles +that seek to hold her as if jealous of a human love, the lusty strength of +the bronzed and hairy satyr in contrast with the tender limbs of the +captive nymph, the dark cliff, and the still mirror of the lake reflecting +the rosebuds pressed artfully against the girl's soft neck as she crouches +by its brink, + + Backed by the forest, circled by the flowers, + Bathed in the sunshine of the golden hours, + +the armed huntress, the grey-coated wolves, and the white-robed +chorus--here are a series of pictures of seductive beauty for the brush of +a painter to realize upon the walls of some palace of pleasure. + +The _Aminta_ attained a wide popularity even before the appearance of the +first edition from the Aldine house at Venice early in 1581--the epistle +is dated 1580. The printer of the Ferrarese edition of the same year +remarks: 'Tosto che la Fama ... mi rapporto, che in Venetia si stampava l' +Aminta, ... cosi subito pensai, che quella sola Impressione dovesse essere +ben poca per sodisfattione di tanti virtuosi, che sono desiderosi di +vederla alla luce.' A critical edition was prepared at Paris in the middle +of the following century by Egidio Menagio of the Accademia della Crusca, +and dedicated to Maria della Vergna, better known, under her married name +of Madame de la Fayette, as the author of the _Princesse de Cleves_[180]. +In 1693 the play was attacked by Bartolomeo Ceva Grimaldi, Duke of Telese, +in an address read before the Accademia degli Uniti at Naples[181]. He was +answered before the same society by Francesco Baldassare Paglia, and in +1700 appeared Giusto Fontanini's elaborate defence[182]. To each chapter +of this work is prefixed a passage from Grimaldi's address, which is then +laboriously refuted. The Duke's attack is puerile cavil, and in spite of +the reputed ability of its author the defence must be admitted to be much +on the same level. + + + +IV + + +The attention which we have bestowed upon the _Aminta_ will allow us to +pass more rapidly than would otherwise have been possible over its +successor and rival, the _Pastor fido_. This is due to the fact that the +moral and artistic environment of the two pieces is much the same, and +further, that it is this environment which to a great extent determined, +not only the individual character of the poems, but likewise the nature of +their subsequent influence. + +Recent research has had the effect of dispelling not a few of the +traditional ideas respecting Guarini's play. Among them is the fable that +it took twenty years to write, which would carry back its inception to +days before the composition of the _Aminta_. It is now recognized that +nine years is the utmost that can be assigned, letters being extant which +fix the genesis of the play in 1581, or at the earliest in 1580 a year or +so previous to Guarini's departure from Ferrara[183]. Again, it has been +usual to assume that the play was performed as early as 1585, whereas +there is in truth no evidence of any representation previous to the +appearance of the first edition dated 1590[184]. The early fortunes of the +play are indeed typical of the ill-success that dogged the author +throughout life. Though untouched by the tragic misfortunes which lend +interest to Tasso's career, his lot was at times a hard one and we may +excuse him if, at the last, he was no less embittered than his younger +rival. He was not cursed, it is true, with Tasso's incurable idealism; +but, if in consequence he exposed himself less to the buffets of +disillusionment, he likewise lacked its sustaining and ennobling power. +Tasso used the pastoral machinery to idealize the court; Guarini accepted +the pastoral convention of the superiority of the 'natural' life of the +country, and used it as a means of pouring out his bitterness of soul. The +_Aminta_, it should be remembered, was written during a few weeks, months +at most, at a time when Tasso was comparatively fortunate and happy; the +_Pastor fido_ was the ten years' labour of a retired and disappointed +courtier, whose later days were further embittered by domestic +misfortunes. In the same way as it was characteristic of Tasso's rosy view +that no law should be allowed to curb the purity of natural love in his +dream of the ideal age, so it was characteristic of the spirit of his +imitator to seek the ideal in the prudent love that strives towards no +distant star beyond the bounds of law. And the fact that Guarini saw fit +seriously to oppose a scholastic's moral figment to the poet's age of gold +may serve as a sufficient measure of the soul of the pedant. + +When Battista Guarini[185] entered the service of the Duke of Ferrara in +1567 he was already married and had attained the age of thirty, being +seven years older than Tasso. His duties at court were political, and he +was employed on several missions of a diplomatic character. There was no +reason whatever, beyond his own perverse ambition, why he should have come +into rivalry with Tasso, yet he did so both as a writer of verses and as a +hanger-on of court beauties. It is impossible to acquit him of bad taste +in the manner in which he and some at least of his fellow courtiers +treated the unfortunate poet, and there was certainly bad blood between +the two soon after the production of the _Aminta_, owing, probably, to the +ungenerous remarks passed by Guarini upon the author's indebtedness to +previous writers. After Tasso's confinement to S. Anna in 1579, Guarini +became court poet, and the luckless prisoner was condemned to see his own +poems entrusted to the editorial care of his rival. + +Guarini, however, was not satisfied with the court of Ferrara. His estate +was reduced by the expenses entailed by his missions as ambassador, for +which, like Machiavelli, he appears never to have received adequate +supplies, and by the continuous litigation in which he involved himself. +His political imagination, too, had been fired during a stay at Turin with +the possibilities inherent for Italy in the house of Savoy--an enthusiasm +which possibly did not tend to smooth his relations with his own master. +In 1582 he left Ferrara and the service of Alfonso and retired to his +ancestral estates of S. Bellino. Here he devoted himself to the +composition of the play he had lately taken in hand, which, in spite of +spasmodic returns to political life not only at the court of the Estensi +but also at Turin and Florence, forms thenceforward with its many +vicissitudes the central interest of his biography. He survived till 1612, +dying at the age of seventy-four. + +To do justice to the _Pastor fido_ it would be best to give the story in +the form of a continuous narrative rather than an analysis of the actual +scenes, since the author's constructive power lay almost wholly in the +invention of an intricate plot and his weakness in the scenic rendering of +it. His dramatic methods, however, so far elaborated from the simplicity +of Tasso's, had a vast influence over subsequent work, and it is highly +important to obtain a clear idea of their nature. We shall, therefore, be +condemned to follow Guarini, part-way at least, through the stiff +artificiality of his interminable scenes. + +A complicated story which is narrated at length in the course of the play +explains the peculiar laws of Arcadia on which the plot hinges[186]. These +comprise an edict of Diana to the effect that any nymph found guilty of a +breach of faith shall suffer death at the altar unless some one offers to +die in her place; likewise a custom whereby a nymph between fifteen and +twenty years of age is annually sacrificed to the goddess. When besought +to release the land from this tribute Diana through her oracle replies: + + Non avra prima fin quel che v' offende, + Che duo semi del ciel congiunga amore; + E di donna infedel l' antico errore + L' alta pieta d' un pastor fido ammende. + +The only two in Arcadia who fulfil the conditions of the oracle are +Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano, and Amarilli, daughter of +Titiro, who have in their veins the blood of Hercules and Pan. These two +have consequently been betrothed and, being now arrived at marriageable +age, their final union is imminent. + +At this point the play opens. Silvio cares for nothing but the chase, +regardless alike of his destined bride and of the love borne him by the +nymph Dorinda; Amarilli is seemingly heart-whole, but secretly loves her +suitor Mirtillo, a stranger in Arcadia, whom, however, she persists in +treating with coldness in view of the penalty involved by a breach of +faith. Mirtillo in his turn is loved by Corisca, a wanton nymph who has +learned the arts of the city, and who is pursued both by Coridone, to whom +she is formally engaged, but whom she neglects, and by a satyr. Almost +every character is provided with a confidant: Silvio has Linco; Mirtillo, +Ergasto; Dorinda, Lupino; Carino[187], the supposed father of Mirtillo, +has Uranio; Montano and Titiro act as confidants to one another. The only +case arguing any dramatic feeling is that in which Amarilli makes a +confidant of her rival Corisca; while Corisca and the satyr alone among +the more important characters are left to address the audience directly. +Even the confidants sometimes need confidants in their turn, these being +supplied by a conveniently ubiquitous chorus. + +In the first scene of Act I, after the prologue, in which Alfeo rises to +pay compliments to Carlo Emanuele and his bride, we are introduced to +Silvio and Linco, who are about to start in pursuit of a savage boar which +has been devastating the country. Linco taxes his companion with his +neglect of the softer joys of love, to which Silvio replies with +long-drawn praise of the free life of the woods. The scene is parallel to +the first of the _Aminta_, and the author has sought here and elsewhere to +point the contrast. Thus where Tasso wrote: + + Cangia, cangia consiglio, + Pazzerella che sei; + Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova; + +Guarini has: + + Lascia, lascia le selve, + Folle garzon, lascia le fere, ed ama. + +In the next scene, again modelled on the corresponding one in Tasso's +play, we find Ergasto comforting Mirtillo in his despair at Amarilli's +'cruelty.' Mirtillo has but recently arrived in Arcadia, and is ignorant +of its history and customs, which Ergasto explains at length. The third +scene is devoted to a long monologue by Corisca; the fourth to a +conversation between Montano and Titiro, who discuss the oracles +concerning the approaching marriage and recount portentous dreams. A +monologue by the satyr relating his ill-usage at the hands of Corisca, +followed by a chorus, ends the first act. The next scene contains the +history of Mirtillo's passion as narrated to his confidant. Ergasto has +enlisted the services of Corisca, and the whole paraphernalia of love lead +in the next act to an interview between Mirtillo and Amarilli. The +author's dramatic method whereby he presents us with alternate scenes from +the various threads of the plot will by now be evident to the reader, and +the remainder may for clearness' sake be thrown into narrative form. + +Corisca, well knowing that it is impossible for Amarilli to show favour to +Mirtillo, and hoping to ingratiate herself with him, prevails upon the +nymph to grant her lover a hearing, provided the interview be secret and +short. During a game of blind man's buff the players suddenly retire, +leaving Mirtillo and Amarilli alone. The interview of course comes to +nothing, but as soon as Mirtillo has left her Amarilli relieves her +feelings in a monologue confessing her love, which is overheard by +Corisca[188]. Charged with her weakness, she confesses her dislike of the +marriage with Silvio. Hereupon Corisca conceives a plan for ridding +herself at once of her rival in Mirtillo's affections and of her own +affianced lover. She leads Amarilli to suppose that Silvio is faithless +to his betrothal vow. If Amarilli can prove Silvio guilty she will +herself be free, and she agrees to hide in a recess in a cave where +Corisca alleges that Silvio has an assignation. Next Corisca makes an +appointment to meet her lover Coridone in the same cave, intending that he +and Amarilli shall be surprised together. Finally, in order to obtain a +witness, she accuses Amarilli to Mirtillo of being faithless, and bids him +watch the mouth of the cave in which she alleges the nymph has an +assignation with Coridone. This ingenious plan would have succeeded to +perfection but for Mirtillo's precipitancy, for, seeing Amarilli enter the +cave, he at once concludes her guilt and follows her forthwith to wreak +revenge. At that moment the satyr appears and, misunderstanding some words +of Mirtillo's, proceeds to bar the entrance to the cave with a huge rock, +thinking he is imprisoning Mirtillo and Corisca. He then goes off to +inform the priests of the pollution committed so near their temple. These +enter the cave and apprehend the lovers. Amarilli is at once condemned to +death, but Mirtillo thereupon offers himself in her place and, being +accepted by the priests, is kept as a sacrifice, Amarilli being at the +same time closely guarded lest she should lay violent hands upon herself. + +In the meantime Silvio has been successful in his hunting of the boar, +whose head he brings home in triumph. There follows an echo-scene, one of +those toys which, as old as the Greek Anthology, and cultivated in Latin +by Tebaldeo, and in Italian by Poliziano, owed, not indeed their +introduction, but certainly their great popularity in pastoral, to +Guarini. His example is fairly successful. The echo predicts that the end +of Silvio's 'carelessness' is at hand, when he shall himself break his bow +and follow her who now follows him. The prophecy is quick of fulfilment. +With a jest he turns to go, when his eye falls on a grey object crouching +among the bushes. He supposes it to be a wolf, and looses an arrow at it. +It proves, however, to be Dorinda, who has throughout followed his chase +disguised in the rough wolf-skin coat of a herdsman, and who is now led +fainting on to the scene by Lupino. Silvio is overcome with remorse, and, +careless alike of his troth to Amarilli and of the fate of Arcadia, +declares that thenceforth he will love none but Dorinda, and will die +with her should his arrow prove fatal. They leave the stage for good--to +get healed and married. + +To return to the main plot. At sundown Mirtillo is led out to die, and the +sacrifice is about to be performed when his supposed father, an Arcadian +by birth, though he has long lived at Elis, and has just arrived in search +of his foster child, interposes. Explanations ensue, and it gradually +appears that Mirtillo is the eldest son of Montano, washed away in his +cradle by the floods of the Alpheus twenty years before. Thus in the love +between him and Amarilli, and in his voluntary sacrifice of himself in her +place, the oracle is fulfilled, and Arcadia freed from its maiden tribute. +This seems obvious enough, though it takes the inspiration of a blind +prophet to drive it into the heads of the assembled Arcadians. A final +difficulty remains--the broken troth. But it so happens that Mirtillo was +originally named Silvio, so that to 'Silvio' no faith is broken. A +casuistical reason indeed; but good enough for the purpose. No attempt is +made to clear Amarilli of the compromising evidence on which she had been +condemned, but the pair have the favour of the gods, and the chorus makes +no difficulty of chanting the virtue of the bride. + +Such is Guarini's play; a plot constructed with consummate ingenuity, but +presented with an almost entire lack of dramatic feeling. Almost the whole +of the action takes place off the stage. Silvio and Dorinda leave the +scene apparently for a tragic catastrophe; their subsequent union is only +reported; so is the surprisal of Mirtillo and Amarilli, the scene in which +the former offers himself as a sacrifice in her place, and their meeting +after the cloud of death has passed. The solitary scene revealing any real +dramatic power is that between Amarilli and the priest Nicandro, in which +the girl maintains her innocence. Her terror when confronted with death is +drawn with some delicacy and pathos, though we sadly miss those poignant +touches that the English playwrights seem always to have had at command on +similar occasions. Her fear of death, however, stands in powerful dramatic +contrast with the sudden courage she displays when her lover seeks to die +in her place. Guarini was perfectly aware of the value of this contrast, +for he placed the following lines in the mouth of the _messo_ who reports +the scene: + + Or odi maraviglia. + Quella che fu pur dianzi + Si dalla tema del morire oppressa, + Fatta allor di repente + A le parole di Mirtillo invitta, + Con intrepido cor cosi rispose: + 'Pensi dunque, Mirtillo, + Di dar col tuo morire + Vita a chi di te vive? + O miracolo ingiusto! Su, ministri; + Su, che si tarda? omai + Menatemi agli altari.' (V. ii.) + +And yet this dramatic contrast has been wantonly thrown away by the +substitution of narrative for representation, less for the sake of a blind +adherence to classical convention, as on account of the author's inability +honestly to face a powerful situation. The same dramatic incapacity shows +itself in his use of borrowings. It will be sufficient to mention the +sententious words from Ovid (_Amores_, I. viii. 43) placed in the mouth of +the chorus: + + Dunque non si dira donna pudica + Se non quella che mai + Non fu sollecitata; (IV. in.) + +in order to compare them with the use made of the same by Webster when he +made Vittoria at her trial exclaim: + + Casta est quam nemo rogavit!-- + +a comparison which at once reveals the gulf fixed between the clairvoyant +dramatist and the mere pedantic scholar. + +And yet the subsequent history of pastoral reminds us that it is quite +possible to underestimate Guarini's merits as a playwright. In the +construction of a complicated plot, apart from the dramatic presentation +thereof, he achieved a success not to be paralleled by any previous work +in Italy, for the difference in the titles of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, the one styled _favola_ and the other _tragi-commedia_, indicates a +real distinction; and Guarini's proud claim to have invented a new +dramatic kind was not wholly unfounded[189]. It was this that caused +Symonds to speak of his play as 'sculptured in pure forms of classic +grace,' while describing the _Aminta_ as 'perfumed and delicate like +flowers of spring.' And lastly, it was this more elaborately dramatic +quality that was responsible for the far greater influence exercised by +Guarini than by Tasso, both on the subsequent drama of Italy and still +more on the fortunes of the pastoral in England. + +Moreover, in Amarilli, Guarini created one really dramatic character and +devoted to it one really dramatic scene. His heroine is probably the best +character to be found in the whole of the pastoral drama, and this simply +because there is a reason for her coldness towards the lover, upon her +love to whom the plot depends. Unless love is to be mutual the motive +force of the drama fails, and consequently, when nymphs insist on parading +their inhuman superiority to the dictates of natural affection, they are +simply refusing to fulfil their dramatic _raison d'etre_. With Amarilli it +is otherwise. She has the right to say: + + Ama l' onesta mia, s' amante sei; (III. iii.) + +and there is a pathos in the words which the author may not have himself +fully understood; whereas the similar expression of Tasso's Silvia quoted +on a previous page is insufferable in its smug self-conceit. + +Of this quality of extravagant virginity noticed as a characteristic of +Tasso's play there is on the whole less in the _Pastor fido_. It is also +freer from the tone of cynical corruption and from improper suggestion. +These merits are, however, more than counterbalanced in the ethical scale +by the elaboration of the spirit of sentimental sensualism, which becomes +as it were an enveloping atmosphere, and lends an enervating seduction to +the piece. This spirit, already present in the _Aminta_, reappeared in an +emphasized form in the _Pastor fido_, and attained its height in the +following century in Marino's epic of _Adone_. We find it infusing the +scene of Mirtillo's first meeting with Amarilli, which may be said to set +the tone of the rest of the poem. Happening to see the nymph at the +Olympian games, Mirtillo at once fell in love and contrived to introduce +himself in female attire into the company of maidens to which she +belonged. Here, the proposal being made to hold a kissing match among +themselves, Amarilli was unanimously chosen judge, and, the contest over, +she awarded the prize to the disguised youth. The incident owes its +origin, as Guarini's notes point out, to the twelfth Idyl of Theocritus, +and the suggestion of the kissing match is aptly put into the mouth of a +girl from Megara, where an annual contest of kisses among the Greek youths +was actually held. Guarini, however, most probably borrowed the episode +from the fifth canto of Tasso's _Rinaldo_. + +The sentimental seductiveness of this and other scenes did not escape +sharp comment in some quarters within a few years of the publication of +the play. In 1605 Cardinal Bellarmino, meeting Guarini at Rome, told him +plainly that he had done as much harm to morals by his _Pastor fido_ as by +their heresies Luther and Calvin had done to religion. Later Janus Nicius +Erythraeus, that is Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, in his _Pinacoteca_, compared +the play to a rock-infested sea full of seductive sirens, in which no +small number of girls and wives were said to have made shipwreck. It is at +first sight ratifier a severe indictment to bring against Guarini's play, +especially when we remember that a work of art is more often an index than +a cause of social corruption. After what has been said, however, of the +nature of the sentiment both in the _Pastor fido_ and the _Aminta_, the +charge can hardly be dismissed as altogether unfounded. It is only fair to +add that very different views have been held with regard to the moral +aspect of the play, the theory of its essential healthiness finding an +eloquent advocate in Ugo Angelo Canello[190]. + +Little as it became him, Guarini chose to adopt the attitude of a +guardian of morals, and Bellarmino's words clearly possessed a special +sting. This pose was in truth but a part of the general attitude he +assumed towards the author of the _Aminta_. His superficial propriety +authorized him, in his own eyes, to utter a formal censure upon the +amorous dream of the ideal poet. He paid the price of his unwarranted +conceit. Those passages in which he was at most pains to contrast his +ethical philosophy with Tasso's imaginative Utopia are those in which he +most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in +his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid +declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay +beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the _Pastor +fido_ with Tasso's great ode; his sententious 'Piaccia se lice' with +Tasso's 'S' ei piace, ei lice'; his utterly banal + + Speriam: che 'l sol cadente anco rinasce; + E 'l ciel, quando men luce, + L' aspettato seren spesso n' adduce, + +with Tasso's superb, even though borrowed, paganism: + + Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; + A noi sua breve luce + S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce-- + +when we make this comparison we have the spiritual measure of the man. A +similar comparison will give us his measure as a poet. Take the graceful +but over-elaborated picture: + + Quell' augellin che canta + Si dolcemente, e lascivetto vola + Or dall' abete al faggio, + Ed or dal faggio al mirto, + S' avesse umano spirto + Direbbe: 'Ardo d' amore, ardo d' amore!' + +Compare with this the spontaneous sketch of Tasso: + + Odi quell' usignuolo + Che va di ramo in ramo + Cantando: 'Io amo, io amo!'[191] + +Or again, with the irresistible slyness of the final chorus of the +_Aminta_ already quoted compare the sententious lines with which Guarini +closed his play: + + O fortunata coppia, + Che pianto ha seminato, e riso accoglie! + Con quante amare doglie + Hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi! + Quinci imparate voi, + O ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, + I sinceri diletti, e i veri mali. + Non e sana ogni gioia, + Ne mal cio che v' annoia. + Quello e vero gioire, + Che nasce da virtu dopo il soffrire. + +It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that we are listening in +the one case to a genuine poet of no common order, in the other to a +poetaster of considerable learning and great ingenuity, who elected to don +the outward habit of a somewhat hypocritical morality. The effect of the +contrast is further heightened when we remember that Guarini never for a +moment doubted that he had far surpassed the work of his predecessor. + +Guarini's comment on the _Aminta_ in his letter to Speroni has been +already quoted: it does little credit to the writer. Manso, the companion +and biographer of Tasso, records that, the poet being asked by some +friends what he thought of the _Pastor fido_, a copy of which had lately +found its way to him at Naples: + + Et egli, 'Mi piace sopramodo, ma confesso di non saper la cagione perche + mi piaccia.' Onde io rispondendogli, 'Vi piacera per avventura,' + soggiunsi, 'quel che vi riconoscete del vostro.' Et egli replico, 'Ne + puo piacere il vedere il suo in man d' altri.'[192] + +Guarini would hardly have acknowledged his indebtedness to Tasso in the +way of art, but he drew on all sources for the incidents of his plot, and, +since he appears to have valued a reputation for scholarship above one for +originality, he recorded a fair proportion of his borrowings in his notes. + + * * * * * + +The _Pastor fido_ was the talk of the Italian Courts even before it was +completed. Early in 1584 the heir to the duchy of Mantua, Vincenzo +Gonzaga, to whose intercession Tasso later owed his liberty, entreated +Guarini to let him have his already famous pastoral for the occasion of +his marriage with Eleonora de' Medici. The poet, however, found it +impossible to complete the work in time, and sent the _Idropica_ instead. +In the autumn a projected representation of the now completed play came to +naught. The following year Guarini presented his play to the Duke of +Savoy, and received a gold chain as an acknowledgement. The occasion was +the entry into Turin of Carlo Emanuele and his bride, Catharine of +Austria, the marriage having taken place at Saragossa some time +previously. The dedication is recorded on the title-page of the first +edition in words that have not unnaturally been held to imply that the +play was performed on that occasion.[193] It is clear, however, from +contemporary documents that this is an error, and, though preparations +were made in view of a performance at the following carnival, these too +were abandoned. After this we find mention of preparations made at a +variety of places, but they never came to anything, and there is reason to +believe that some at least were abandoned owing to the opposition of +Alfonso d' Este, who never forgave a courtier who transferred his +allegiance to another prince. In 1591 Vincenzo Gonzaga, now duke, summoned +Guarini to Mantua, and matters advanced as far as a _prova generale_ or +dress rehearsal. The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing +to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome. We possess the +scheme for the four _intermezzi_ designed for this occasion, representing +the _Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell' Aria_, and _Celeste_. They were +scenic and musical only, without words. About this time too, that is after +the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of +preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which +is uncertain. The first representation of which there is definite +evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in +Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[194]. After this +performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the +play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua. On +all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were substituted +for that addressed to _gran Caterina_ and _magnanimo Carlo_[195]. + +In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the +publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism +of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a +member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the _Gerusalemme_. +Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and +recommendations of these two men. The work finally appeared, as we learn +from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589. It is a handsome +quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the +following year[196]. In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the title-page +to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti. This +represents Guarini's final revision of the text, and contains, besides a +portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on +tragi-comedy[197]. + +The _Pastor fido_ was the object of a violent attack while as yet it +circulated in manuscript only. As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores +or Denores, a Cypriot noble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the +university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing +between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in +which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced +tragi-comedies and pastorals as 'monstrous and disproportionate +compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil +philosophy.' Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving +to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the +reference was palpable. He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast +which he named _Il Verato_ (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the +time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ in 1567. In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor's +propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism: 'As in compounds the +hot accords with the cold, its mortal enemy, as the dry humour with the +moist, so the elements of tragedy and comedy, though separately +antagonistic, yet when united in a third form,' _et cetera et cetera_. De +Nores replied in an _Apologia_ (1590), disclaiming all personal allusion, +and the poet finally answered back in a _Verato secondo_, first published +in 1593, after his antagonist's death, restating his arguments and +seasoning them with a good deal of unmannerly abuse. These two treatises +of Guarini's were reprinted with alterations as the _Compendio della +poesia tragicommica_, in the 1602 edition of the play, and together with +the notes to the same edition form Guarini's own share of the +controversy[198]. But in 1600, before these had appeared, a Paduan, +Faustino Summo, published a set attack on and dissection of the play; +while a certain Giovan Pietro Malacreta of Vicenza illustrated the +attitude of the age with regard to literature by putting forward a series +of critical _dubbi_, that is, doubts as to the 'authority' of the form +employed. Both works are distinguished by a spirit of puerile cavil, which +would of itself almost suffice to reconcile us to the worst faults of the +poet. Thus Malacreta is not even content to let the author choose his own +title, arguing that Mirtillo was faithful not in his quality of shepherd +but of lover[199]. He goes on to complain of the tangle of laws and +oracles which Guarini invents in order to motive the action of his play; +and here, though taken individually his objections may be hypercritical, +he has laid his finger on a very real weakness of the author's ingenious +plot. It is, moreover, a weakness common to almost the whole tribe of the +Arcadian, or rather Utopian, pastorals. Apologists soon appeared, and had +little difficulty in disposing of most of the adverse criticisms. A +specific _Risposta_ to Malacreta appeared at Padua in 1600 from the pen of +Paolo Beni. Defences by Giovanni Savio and Orlando Pescetti were printed +at Venice and Verona respectively in 1601, while one at least, written by +Gauges de Gozze of Pesaro, under the pseudonym of Fileno di Isauro, +circulated in manuscript. These writings, however, are marked either by +futile endeavours to reconcile the _Pastor fido_ with the supposed +teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as +that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, +it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of +Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles[200]. Finally, Summo returned to the +charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in +1601[201]. But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the +popularity of the _Pastor fido_ and its successors. Moreover, the critical +position of the combatants on both sides was essentially false. It would +be an easy task to fill a volume with strictures on the play touching its +sentimental tone, its affected manners, its stiff development, its +undramatic construction, the weak drawing of character, the lack of motive +force to move the complex machinery, and many other points--strictures +that should be unanswerable. But those who wish to understand the +influence exercised by the play over subsequent literature in Europe will +find their time better spent in analysing those qualities, whether +emotional or artistic, which won for it the enthusiastic worship of the +civilized world. + +Numerous translations bear witness to its popularity far beyond the shores +of Italy. The earliest of these was into French, and appeared in 1595; it +was followed by several others. The Spanish versions have already been +mentioned, and the English will occupy our attention shortly. Besides +these there are versions, often more than one, in German, Greek, Swedish, +Dutch, and Polish. There are likewise versions in the Bergamasc and +Neapolitan dialects, while the manuscript of a Latin translation is +preserved in the University Library at Cambridge. + + + +V + + +There were obvious advantages in treating the two masterpieces of pastoral +drama in Italy in close connexion with one another. It must not, however, +be supposed that they stood alone in the field of pastoral composition. +Both between the years 1573 when the _Aminta_ was composed and 1590 when +the _Pastor fido_ was printed, and also after the latter year, the stream +of plays continued unchecked, though, apart from a general tendency +towards greater regularity of dramatic construction, they do not form any +organic link in the chain of artistic development. Few deserve more than +passing notice. In the earlier ones, at least, we still find a tendency to +introduce extraneous elements. Thus _Gl' Intricati_, printed in 1581, and +acted a few years before at Zara, the work of Count Alvise, or, it would +appear, more correctly Luigi, Pasqualigo, contains a farcical and magical +part combined with some rather coarse jesting between two rogues, one +Spanish and one Bolognese, who speak in their respective dialects. Another +play in which a comic element appears is Bartolommeo Rossi's _Fiammella_ +(1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical +characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another +piece belonging to this period is the _Pentimento amoroso_ by Luigi Groto, +which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and +intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in +_sdrucciolo_ verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, +Gabriele Zinano's _Caride_, surreptitiously printed in 1582, and included +in an authorized publication in 1590, has the peculiarity of placing the +prologue in the mouth of Vergil. Lastly, I may mention Angelo Ingegneri's +_Danza di Venere_, acted at Parma in 1583, and printed the following year. +It contains the incident of a mad shepherd's regaining his wits through +gazing on the beauty of a sleeping nymph, thus borrowing the motive of +Boccaccio's tale of Cymon and Iphigenia. Its chief interest for us, +however, lies in the episode of the hero employing a gang of satyrs to +carry off his beloved during a solemn dance in honour of Venus. This looks +like a reminiscence of Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_, and through it of the old +satyric drama[202]. + +These plays all belong to the period between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_. Tasso's and Guarini's masterpieces mark the point of furthest +development attained by the pastoral drama in Italy, or indeed in Europe. +With them the vitality which rendered evolution possible was spent, though +the power of reproduction remained unimpaired for close on a century. +Signor Rossi, in the monograph of which I have already made such free use, +mentions a number of plays, whose dependence on the _Pastor fido_ is +evident from their titles, though Guarini's influence is, of course, far +more widely spread than such eclectic treatment reveals. The most curious, +perhaps, is a play, _I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed +Amarilli_, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children +of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a +genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance +that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of +supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso +and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding +proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that +influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino +possessed no less than eighty pastoral plays; while by 1700, the year of +Fontanini's work on the _Aminta_, Giannantonio Moraldi is said to hsve +brought together in Rome a collection of over two hundred.[203] Every +device was resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo +Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find +her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's _Finta +Fiammetta_ (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courtship of +Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's +_Fida Armilla_ (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous +serpent--all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and +romance. Two plays only call for closer attention, and this rather on +account of a certain reputation they have gained than of any intrinsic +merit. One of these, Antonio Ongaro's _Alceo_, which was printed in 1582 +and is therefore earlier than the _Pastor fido_, has been happily +nicknamed _Aminta bagnato_. It is a piscatorial adaptation of Tasso's +play, which it follows almost scene for scene. The satyr becomes a triton +with as little change of character as the nymphs and shepherds undergo in +their metamorphosis to fisher girls and boys. Alceo shows less +resourcefulness than his prototype in that he twice tries to commit +suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The last act is spun out to +three scenes in accordance with the demand for greater regularity of +dramatic construction, but gains nothing but tedium thereby. The other +play to be considered connects itself in plot rather with the _Pastor +fido_. It is the _Filli di Sciro_, the work of Guidubaldo Bonarelli della +Rovere. The poet's father enjoyed the protection of the Duke Guidubaldo II +of Urbino, but in after days he removed to the court of the Estensi at +Ferrara. It was here that the play appeared in 1607, though it is +dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, who had by that time succeeded +his father in the duchy of Urbino. The plot of the play is highly +intricate, and shows a tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous +element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the +island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is +replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract +two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely +wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with +both her rescuers at once, and it is only when one of them proves to be +her long-lost brother that she is able to make up her mind between +them[204]. This brother had been carried off as a child by the Thracians +together with his betrothed Filli, and having escaped was lately returned +to his native land. From a dramatic point of view the _denoument_ is even +more preposterous than usual. The principal characters leave the stage at +the end of the fourth act, under sentence of death, and do not reappear, +the whole of the last act being occupied with narratives of their +subsequent fortunes. A point which is possibly worth notice is the +introduction of that affected talk on the technicalities of sheepcraft +which adds so greatly to the already intolerable artificiality of the +later pastoral drama, but which is happily absent from the work of Tasso +and Guarini. + + * * * * * + +We have now reached the end of our survey of the Italian pastoral drama. +In spite of the space it has been necessary to devote to the subject, it +must be borne in mind that we have treated it from one point of view only. +Besides the interest which it possesses in connexion with the development +of pastoral tradition, it also plays a very important part in the history +of dramatic art, not in Italy alone, but over the whole of Europe. On this +aspect of the subject we have hardly so much as touched. Nor is this all. +If it is true, as is commonly assumed, that the opera had its birth in the +_Orfeo_ of Angelo Poliziano, it is not less true that it found its cradle +in the Arcadian drama. A few isolated pieces may still be able to charm us +by their poetic beauty. In dealing with the rest it must never be +forgotten that without the costly scenery and elaborate musical setting +that lent body and soul to them in their day, we have what is little +better than the dry bones of these _ephemeridae_ of courtly art. + + + + +Chapter IV. + +Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama + + + +I + + +Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of +this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the +growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the +seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a +connected web the loose threads of my discourse. + +Taking birth among the upland meadows of Sicily, the pastoral tradition +first assumed its conventional garb in imperial Rome, and this it +preserved among learned writers after its revival in the dawn of the +Italian renaissance. With Arcadia for its local habitation it underwent a +rebirth in the opening years of the sixteenth century in Sannazzaro's +romance, and again towards the close in the drama of Tasso. It became +chivalric in Spain and courtly in France, and finally reached this country +in three main streams, the eclogue borrowed by Spenser from Marot, the +romance suggested to Sidney by Montemayor, and the drama imitated by +Daniel from Tasso and Guarini. Once here, it blended variously with other +influences and with native tradition to produce a body of dramatic work, +which, ill-defined, spasmodic and occasional, nevertheless reveals on +inspection a certain character of its own, and one moreover not precisely +to be paralleled from the literary annals of any other European nation. + +The indications of a native pastoral impulse, manifesting itself in the +burlesque of the religions drama and the romance of the popular ballads, +we have already considered. The connexion which it is possible to trace +between this undefined impulse and the later pastoral tradition is in no +wise literary; in so far as it exists at all and is one of temperament +alone, a bent of national character. In tracing the rise of the form in +Italy upon the one hand, and in England upon the other, we are struck by +certain curious contrasts and also by certain curious parallelisms. The +closest analogy to the ballad themes to be discovered in the literature of +Italy is in certain of the songs of Sacchetti and his contemporaries, but +it would be unwise to insist on the resemblance. The more suggestive +parallel of the _novelle_ has to be ruled out on the score of form, and is +further differentiated by the notable lack in them of romantic spirit. +Again, in the _sacre rappresentazioni_, the burlesque interpolations from +actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through +it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the +rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a +direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, +a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct +imitation,[205] must be taken to indicate a real parallelism in the +evolution of the tradition in the two countries, that in England as in +Italy the way was paved for pastoral by the appearance of mythological +plays, introducing incidentally pastoral scenes and characters, and +anticipating to some extent at any rate the peculiar atmosphere of the +Arcadian drama. + + * * * * * + +The earliest of these English mythological plays, alike in date of +production and of publication, was George Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_, +'A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Majestie, by the children of +her Chappell,' no doubt in 1581, and printed three years later.[206] It +partakes of the nature of the masque in that the whole composition centres +round a compliment to the Queen, Eliza or Zabeta--a name which, as Dr. +Ward notes, Peele probably borrowed along with one or two other hints from +Gascoigne's Kenilworth entertainment of 1575. The title sufficiently +expresses its mythological character, and the precise value of the term +'pastoral' on the title-page is difficult to determine. The characters are +for the most part either mythological or rustic; the only truly pastoral +ones being Paris and Oenone, whose parts, however, in so far as they are +pastoral, are also of the slightest. It is of course impossible to say +exactly to what extent the fame of the Italian pastoral drama may have +penetrated to England--the _Aminta_ was first printed the year of the +production of Peele's play, and waited a decade before the first English +translation and the first English edition appeared[207]--but no influence +of Tasso's masterpiece can be detected in the _Arraignment_; still less is +it possible to trace any acquaintance with Poliziano's work. + +After a prologue, in which Ate foretells in staid and measured but not +unpleasing blank verse the fall of Troy, the silvan deities, Pan, Faunus, +Silvanus, Pomona, Flora, enter to welcome the three goddesses who are on +their way to visit 'Ida hills,' and who after a while enter, led by Rhanis +and accompanied by the Muses, whose processional chant heralds their +approach. They are greeted by Pan, who sings: + + The God of Shepherds, and his mates, + With country cheer salutes your states, + Fair, wise, and worthy as you be, + And thank the gracions ladies three + For honour done to Ida. + +When these have retired from the stage there follows a charming idyllic +scene between the lovers Paris and Oenone, which contains the delightful +old song, one of the lyric pearls of the Elizabethan drama: + + _Oenone._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + The fairest shepherd on our green, + A love for any lady. + + _Paris._ Fair and fair, and twice so fair, + As fair as any may be; + Thy love is fair for thee alone, + And for no other lady. + + _Oenone._ My love is fair, my love is gay, + As fresh as bin the flowers in May, + And of my love my roundelay, + My merry, merry, merry roundelay, + Concludes with Cupid's curse-- + They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + + _Both._ They that do change old love for new, + Pray gods they change for worse! + +The second act presents us the three goddesses who have come to Ida on a +party of pleasure with no very definite object in view, and are now +engaged in exercising their tongues at one another's expense. The scene +consists of a cross-fire of feminine amenities, not of the most delicate, +it is true, and therefore not here to be reproduced, yet of a keenness of +temper and a ringing mastery in the rimed verse little less than brilliant +in themselves, and little less than a portent at the date of their +appearance. Then a storm arises, during which, the goddesses having sought +refuge in Diana's bower, Ate rolls the fatal ball upon the stage. On the +return of the three the inscription _Detur pulcherrimae_ breeds fresh +strife, until they agree to submit the case for judgement to the next man +they meet. Paris arriving upon the scene at this point is at once called +upon to decide the rival claims of the contending goddesses. First Juno +promises wealth and empery, and presents a tree hung as with fruit with +crowns and diadems, all which shall be the meed of the partial judge. +Pallas next seeks to allure the swain with the pomp and circumstance of +war, and conjures up a show in which nine knights, no doubt the nine +worthies, tread a 'warlike almain.' Last Venus speaks: + + Come, shepherd, come, sweet shepherd, look on me, + These bene too hot alarums these for thee: + But if thou wilt give me the golden ball, + Cupid my boy shall ha't to play withal, + That whenso'er this apple he shall see, + The God of Love himself shall think on thee, + And bid thee look and choose, and he will wound + Whereso thy fancy's object shall be found. + +Whereupon 'Helen entereth in her bravery' attended by four Cupids, and +singing an Italian song which has, however, little merit. As at a later +day Faustus, so now Paris bows before the sovereignty of her beauty, and +then wanders off through Ida glades in the company of the victorious queen +of love, leaving her outraged rivals to plot a common revenge. Act III +introduces the slight rustic element. Hobbinol, Diggon, and Thenot enter +to Colin, who is lamenting the cruelty of his love Thestylis. The names +are obviously borrowed from the _Shepherd's Calender_, but while Colin is +still the type of the hopeless lover, there is no necessity to suspect any +personal identification. The _Arraignment_ was probably produced less than +two years after the publication of Spenser's eclogues, and Peele, who was +an Oxford man, may even have been ignorant of their authorship[208]. Still +more unnecessary are certain other identifications between characters in +the play and persons at court which have been propounded. Such +identifications, at any rate, have no importance for our present task, +which is to ascertain in what measure and in what manner Peele's work +paved the way for the advent of the Italian pastoral; and we note, with +regard to the present scene, that the more polished and more homely +elements alike--both Colin on the one hand, and Diggon, Hobbinol, and the +rest on the other--are inspired by Spenser's work, and by his alone. +Meanwhile Oenone enters, lamenting her desertion by Paris. There is +delicate pathos in the reminiscence of her former song which haunts the +outpouring of her grief-- + + False Paris, this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one, + To range and change old loves for new; but now those days be gone. + +She is less happy in a set lament, beginning: + + Melpomene, the Muse of tragic songs, + +in which we may perhaps catch a distant echo of Spenser's: + + Melpomene, the mournfull'st Muse of nine. + +As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris +to appear at Juno's suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of +partiality in judgement. A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, +in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the +unsuspecting nymph--it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the +lover's duet. + + _Mercury._ Is love to blame? + + _Oenone._ The queen of love hath made him false his troth. + + _Mer._ Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love? + + _Oen._ Even wanton Cupid's dame. + + _Mer._ Why, was thy love so lovely, then? + + _Oen._ His beauty height his shame; + The fairest shepherd on our green. + + _Mer._ Is he a shepherd, than? + + _Oen._ And sometime kept a bleating flock. + + _Mer._ Enough, this is the man. + +In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together. First the goddess +directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, 'The love whom +Thestylis hath slain,' as the epitaph of the now dead Colin. When these +have left the stage she turns to Paris: + + Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love? + + _Paris._ Lady, a little once. + +She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which +is a good example of Peele's use of the old rimed versification, and as +such deserves quotation. + + My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry, + That haply erst thou hast not heard: in hell there is a tree, + Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers, + With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers + Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat + Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat. + This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell + T'impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well: + And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee, + Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee; + For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start, + Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart. + + _Paris._ Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity? + + _Venus._ Pity it were that love should not be linked with indifferency.[209] + +Then follow Colin's funeral, the punishment of the hard-hearted Thestylis, +condemned to love a 'foul crooked churl' who 'crabbedly refuseth her,' +and the scene in which Mercury summons Paris before the Olympian tribunal. +Here we find him in the next act. The gods being seated in the bower of +Diana, Juno and Pallas, and Venus and Paris appear 'on sides' before the +throne of Jove, and in answer to his indictment the shepherd of Ida +delivers a spirited speech. Again the verse is of no small merit. +Defending himself from the charge of partiality in the bestowal of the +prize, he argues: + + Had it been destined to majesty-- + Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace-- + Then stately Juno might have borne the ball. + Had it to wisdom been intituled, + My human wit had given it Pallas then. + But sith unto the fairest of the three + That power, that threw it for my farther ill, + Did dedicate this ball--and safest durst + My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought, + To judge of form and beauty rather than + Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness--... + Behold, to Venus Paris gave the fruit, + A daysman[210] chosen there by full consent, + And heavenly powers should not repent their deeds. + +After consultation the gods decide to dismiss the prisoner, though we +gather that he is not wholly acquitted. + + _Jupiter._ Shepherd, thou hast been heard with equity and law, + And for thy stars do thee to other calling draw, + We here dismiss thee hence, by order of our senate; + Go take thy way to Troy, and there abide thy fate. + + _Venus._ Sweet shepherd, with such luck in love, while thou dost live, + As may the Queen of Love to any lover give. + + _Paris._ My luck is loss, howe'er my love do speed: + I fear me Paris shall but rue his deed. + + _Apollo._ From Ida woods now wends the shepherd's boy, + That in his bosom carries fire to Troy. + +This, however, does not settle the case, and the final adjudication of the +apple of beauty is entrusted by the gods to Diana, since it was in her +grove that it was found. Parting company with classical legend in the +incident which gives its title to the play, Peele further adds a fifth +act, in which he contrives to make the world-famous history subserve the +courtly ends of the masque. When the rival claimants have solemnly sworn +to abide by the decision of their compeer, Diana begins: + + It is enough; and, goddesses, attend. + There wons within these pleasaunt shady woods, + Where neither storm nor sun's distemperature + Have power to hurt by cruel heat or cold, ... + Far from disturbance of our country gods, + Amid the cypress springs[211], a gracions nymph, + That honours Dian for her chastity, + And likes the labours well of Phoebe's groves; + The place Elizium hight, and of the place + Her name that governs there Eliza is, + A kingdom that may well compare with mine, + An auncient seat of kings, a second Troy, + Y-compass'd round with a commodious sea. + +The rest may be easily imagined. The contending divinities resign their +claims: + + _Venus._ To this fair nymph, not earthly, but divine, + Contents it me my honour to resign. + + _Pallas._ To this fair queen, so beautiful and wise, + Pallas bequeaths her title in the prize. + + _Juno._ To her whom Juno's looks so well become, + The Queen of Heaven yields at Phoebe's doom. + +The three Fates now enter, and singing a Latin song lay their 'properties' +at the feet of the queen. Then each in turn delivers a speech appropriate +to her character, and finally Diana 'delivereth the ball of gold into the +Queen's own hands,' and the play ends with a couple of doggerel hexameters +chanted by way of epilogue by the assembled actors: + + Vive diu felix votis hominumque deumque, + Corpore, mente, libro, doctissima, candida, casta. + +The jingle of these lines would alone suffice to prove that Peele's ear +was none of the most delicate, and he particularly sins in disregarding +the accent in the rime-word, a peculiarity which may have been noticed +even in the short passages quoted above. Nevertheless, even apart from its +lyrics, one of which is in its way unsurpassed, the play contains passages +of real grace in the versification. The greater part is written either in +fourteeners or in decasyllabic couplets with occasional alexandrines, in +both of which the author displays an ease and mastery which, to say the +least, were uncommon in the dramatic work of the early eighties; while the +passages of blank verse introduced at important dramatic points, notably +in Paris' defence and in Diana's speech, are the best of their kind +between Surrey and Marlowe. The style, though now and again clumsy, is in +general free from affectation except for an occasional weakness in the +shape of a play upon words. Such is the connexion of Eliza with Elizium, +in a passage already quoted, and the time-honoured _non Angli sed +angeli_-- + + Her people are y-cleped Angeli, + Or, if I miss, a letter is the most-- + +occurring a few lines later; also the words of Lachesis: + + Et tibi, non aliis, didicerunt parcere Parcae. + +With regard to the general construction of the piece it is hardly too much +to say that the skill with which the author has enlarged a masque-subject +into a regular drama, altered a classical legend to subserve a particular +aim, and conducted throughout the multiple perhaps rather than complex +threads of his plot, mark him out as pre-eminent among his contemporaries. +We must not, it is true, look for perfect balance of construction, for +adequacy of dramatic climax, or for subtle characterization; but what has +been achieved was, in the stage of development at which the drama had then +arrived, no mean achievement. The dramatic effects are carefully prepared +for and led up to, reminding us almost at times of the recurrence of a +musical motive. Thus the song between Paris and Oenone, just before the +shepherd goes off to cross Dame Venus' path, is a fine piece of dramatic +irony as well as a charming lyric; while the effect of the reminiscences +of the song scattered through the later pastoral scenes has been already +noticed. Another instance is Venus' warning of the pains in store for +faithless lovers, which fittingly anticipates the words with which Paris +leaves the assembly of the gods. Again, we find a conscious preparation +for the contention between the goddesses in their previous bickerings, and +a conscious juxtaposition of the forsaken Oenone and the love-lorn Colin. +Lastly, there are scattered throughout the play not a few graphic touches, +as when Mercury at sight of Oenone exclaims: + + Dare wage my wings the lass doth love, she looks so bleak and thin! + +Such then is Peele's mythological play, presented in all the state of a +court revel before her majesty by the children of the Chapel Royal, a play +which it is more correct to say prepared the ground for than, as is +usually asserted, itself contained the germ of the later pastoral drama. +In spite of the care bestowed upon its composition, the _Arraignment of +Paris_ remains a slight and occasional production; but it nevertheless +claims its place as one of the most graceful pieces of its kind, and the +ascription of the play to Shakespeare, current in the later seventeenth +century, is perhaps more of an honour to the elder than of an insult to +the younger poet. Nor, at a more recent date, was Lamb uncritically +enthusiastic when he said of Peele's play that 'had it been in all parts +equal, the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher had been but a second name in +this sort of Writing.' + +Before leaving Peele, mention must be made of one other play from his pen, +namely the _Hunting of Cupid_, known to us unfortunately from a few +fragments only. This is the more tantalizing on account of the freshness +of the passages preserved in _England's Helicon_ and _England's +Parnassus_, and in a commonplace-book belonging to Drummond of +Hawthornden, and also from the fact that there is good reason to suppose +that the work was actually printed[212]. So far as can be judged from the +extracts we possess, and from Drummond's jottings, it appears to have been +a tissue of mythological conceits, much after the manner of the +_Arraignment_, though possibly somewhat more distinctly pastoral in +tone[213]. + +About contemporary with the _Arraignment of Paris_ are the earliest plays +of John Lyly, the Euphuist. Most of these are of a mythological character, +while three come more particularly under our notice on account of their +pastoral tendency, namely, _Gallathea, Love's Metamorphosis_, and the +_Woman in the Moon_[214]. + +Although Lyly's romance itself lay outside the scope of this inquiry, we +have already had, in the pastoral work of his imitators, ample +opportunities of becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of the style +he rendered fashionable. Its laborious affectation is all the more +irritating when we remember that its author, on turning his attention to +the more or less unseemly brawling of the Martin Mar-prelate pasquilade, +revealed a command of effective vernacular hardly, if at all, inferior to +that of his friend Nashe; and its complex artificiality becomes but more +apparent when applied to dramatic work. Nevertheless in an age when prose +style was in an even more chaotic state than prosody, Euphuism could claim +qualities of no small value and importance, while as an experiment it was +no more absurd, and vastly more popular, than those in classical +versification. Its qualities, when we consider the general state of +contemporary literature, may well account for the popularity of Lyly's +attempt at novel-writing, but the style was radically unsuited for +dramatic composition, and the result is for the most part hardly to be +tolerated, and can only have met with such court-favour as fell to its +lot, owing to the general fashion for which its success in the romance was +responsible. It is indeed noteworthy that Lyly is the only writer who ever +ventured to apply his literary invention _in toto_ to the uses of the +stage, while even in the romance he lived to see Euphuism as a fashionable +style pale before the growing popularity of Arcadianism[215]. The opening +of _Gallathea_ may supply a specimen of the style as it appears in the +dramas; the scene is laid in Lincolnshire, and Tyterus is addressing his +daughter who gives her name to the piece: + + In tymes past, where thou seest a heape of small pyble, stoode a stately + Temple of white Marble, which was dedicated to the God of the Sea, (and + in right being so neere the Sea): hether came all such as eyther + ventured by long travell to see Countries, or by great traffique to use + merchandise, offering Sacrifice by fire, to gette safety by water; + yeelding thanks for perrils past, and making prayers for good successe + to come: but Fortune, constant in nothing but inconstancie, did change + her copie, as the people their custome; for the Land being oppressed by + Danes, who in steed of sacrifice, committed sacrilidge, in steede of + religion, rebellion, and made a pray of that in which they should have + made theyr prayers, tearing downe the Temple even with the earth, being + almost equall with the skyes, enraged so the God who bindes the windes + in the hollowes of the earth, that he caused the Seas to breake their + bounds, sith men had broke their vowes, and to swell as farre above + theyr reach, as men had swarved beyond theyr reason: then might you see + shippes sayle where sheepe fedde, ankers cast where ploughes goe, + fishermen throw theyr nets, where husbandmen sowe their Corne, and + fishes throw their scales where fowles doe breede theyr quils: then + might you gather froth where nowe is dewe, rotten weedes for sweete + roses, and take viewe of monstrous Maremaides, in steed of passing faire + Maydes. + +The unsuitability of the style for dramatic purposes will by this be +somewhat painfully evident, and, as may be imagined, the effect is even +less happy in the case of dialogue. To pursue: the offended deity consents +to withdraw his waters on the condition of a lustral sacrifice of the +fairest virgin of the land, who is to be exposed bound to a tree by the +shore, whence she is carried off by the monster Agar, in whom we may no +doubt see a personification of the 'eagre' or tidal wave of the Humber. At +the opening of the play we find the two fairest virgins of the land +disguised as boys by their respective fathers, in order that they may +escape the penalty of beauty. While they wander the fields and graves, +another maiden is exposed as the sacrifice, but Neptune, offended by the +deceit, rejects the proffered victim, and no monster appears to claim its +prey. In the meanwhile, Cupid has eluded the maternal vigilance, and, +disguised as a nymph, is beginning to display his powers among the +followers of Diana. Here is an example of a euphuistic dialogue. Cupid +accosts one of the nymphs: + + Faire Nimphe, are you strayed from your companie by chaunce, or love + you to wander solitarily on purpose? + + _Nymph._ Faire boy, or god, or what ever you bee, I would you knew + these woods are to me so wel known, that I cannot stray though I would, + and my minde so free, that to be melancholy I have no cause. There is + none of Dianaes trayne that any can traine, either out of their waie, + or out of their wits. + + _Cupid._ What is that Diana? a goddesse? what her Nimphes? + virgins? what her pastimes? hunting? + + _Nym._ A goddesse? who knowes it not? Virgins? who thinkes it not? + Hunting? who loves it not? + + _Cup._ I pray thee, sweete wench, amongst all your sweete troope, is + there not one that followeth the sweetest thing, sweet love? + + _Nym._ Love, good sir, what meane you by it? or what doe you call it? + + _Cup._ A heate full of coldnesse, a sweet full of bitternesse, a paine + ful of pleasantnesse; which maketh thoughts have eyes, and harts eares; + bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jelousie, kild by + dissembling, buried by ingratitude; and this is love! fayre Lady, + wil you any? + + _Nym._ If it be nothing else, it is but a foolish thing. + + _Cup._ Try, and you shall find it a prettie thing. + + _Nym._ I have neither will nor leysure, but I will followe Diana in the + Chace, whose virgins are all chast, delighting in the bowe that wounds + the swift Hart in the Forrest, not fearing the bowe that strikes the + softe hart in the Chamber. + +The nymphs are soon in love with the two girls in disguise, and what is +more, each of these, supposing the other to be what her apparel betokens, +falls in love with her. After a while, however, Diana becomes suspicious +of the stranger nymph, and her followers make a capture of the boy-god, +whom they identify by the burn on his shoulder caused by Psyche's lamp, +and set him to untie love-knots. There follows one of those charming songs +for which Lyly is justly, or unjustly, famous[216]. + + O Yes, O yes, if any Maid, + Whom lering Cupid has betraid + To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne, + And would in madnes now see torne + The Boy in Pieces--Let her come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + O yes, O yes, has any lost + A Heart, which many a sigh hath cost; + Is any cozened of a teare, + Which (as a Pearle) disdaine does weare?-- + Here stands the Thiefe, let her but come + Hither, and lay on him her doome. + + Is any one undone by fire, + And Turn'd to ashes through desire? + Did ever any Lady weepe, + Being cheated of her golden sleepe, + Stolne by sicke thoughts?--The pirats found, + And in her teares hee shalbe drownd. + Reade his Inditement, let him heare + What hees to trust to: Boy, give eare! + +This is the position of affairs when Venus appears in search of her +wanton, and is shortly followed by the irate Neptune. After some +disputing, Neptune, to quiet the strife between the goddesses, proposes +that Diana shall restore the runaway to his mother, in return for which he +will release the land for ever from its virgin tribute. This happily +agreed upon, the only difficulty remaining is the strange passion between +the two girls. Venus, however, proves equal to the occasion, and solves +the situation by transforming one of them into a man. An allusion to the +story of Iphis and Ianthe told in the ninth book of the _Metamorphoses_ +suggests the source of the incident[217]. Otherwise the play appears to be +in the main original. The exposing of a maiden to the rage of a +sea-monster has been, of course, no novelty since the days of Andromeda, +but it is unnecessary to seek a more immediate source[218]; while the +intrusion of Cupid in disguise among the nymphs was doubtless suggested by +the well-known idyl of Moschus, and probably owes to this community of +source such resemblance as it possesses to the prologue of the _Aminta_. +A comic element is supplied by a sort of young rascals, and a mariner, an +alchemist, and an astrologer, who are totally unconnected with the rest of +the play. The supposed allusions to real characters need not be taken +seriously. Lyly's rascals are generally recognized as the direct ancestors +of some of Shakespeare's comic characters, and we not seldom find in them +the germ at least of the later poet's irresistible fun. Take such a speech +as Robin's: 'Why be they deade that be drownd? I had thought they had +beene with the fish, and so by chance beene caught up with them in a Nette +againe. It were a shame a little cold water should kill a man of reason, +when you shall see a poore Mynow lie in it, that hath no understanding.' +As regards the euphuistic style, the passages already quoted will suffice, +but it may be remarked that the marvellous natural history is also put +under requisition. 'Virgins harts, I perceive,' remarks one of Diana's +nymphs, 'are not unlike Cotton trees, whose fruite is so hard in the +budde, that it soundeth like steele, and beeing rype, poureth forth +nothing but wooll, and theyr thoughts, like the leaves of Lunary, which +the further they growe from the Sunne, the sooner they are scorched with +his beames.' At times one is almost tempted to imagine that Lyly is +laughing in his sleeve, but as soon as he feels an eye upon him, his face +would again do credit to a judge. The following is from a scene between +the two disguised maidens: + + _Phillida._ It is pitty that Nature framed you not a woman, having + a face so faire, so lovely a countenaunce, so modest a behaviour. + + _Gallathea._ There is a Tree in Tylos, whose nuttes have shels like + fire, and being cracked, the karnell is but water. + + _Phil._ What a toy is it to tell mee of that tree, beeing nothing + to the purpose: + I say it is pity you are not a woman. + + _Gall._ I would not wish to be a woman, unless it were because thou art + a man. (III. ii.) + +_Gallathea_ may be plausibly enough assigned to the year 1584[219]. The +date of the next play we have to deal with, _Love's Metamorphosis_, is +less certain, though Mr. Fleay's conjecture of 1588-9 seems reasonable. +All that can be said with confidence is that it was later than +_Gallathea_, to which it contains allusions, that it is an inferior work, +and that it has the appearance at least of having been botched up in a +hurry[220]. The story is as follows. Three shepherds, or rather woodmen, +are in love with three of the nymphs of Ceres, but meet with little +success, one of the maidens proving obdurate, another proud, and the third +fickle. The lovers make complaint to Cupid, who consents at their request +to transform the disdainful fair ones into a rock, a rose, and a bird +respectively. Hereupon Ceres in her turn complains to the God of Love, who +promises that the three shall regain their proper shapes if Ceres will +undertake that they shall thereupon consent to the love of the swains. She +does so, and her nymphs are duly restored to their own forms, but at first +flatly refuse to comply with the conditions. After a while they yield: + + _Nisa._ I am content, so as Ramis, when hee finds me cold in love, or + hard in beliefe, hee attribute it to his owne folly; in that I retaine + some nature of the Rocke he chaunged me into.... + + _Celia._ I consent, so as Montanus, when in the midst of his sweete + delight, shall find some bitter overthwarts, impute it to his folly, + in that he suffered me to be a Rose, that hath prickles with her + pleasantnes, as hee is like to have with my love shrewdnes.... + + _Niobe._ I yeelded first in mind though it bee my course last to + speake: but if Silvestris find me not ever at home, let him curse + himselfe that gave me wings to flie abroad, whose feathers if his + jealousie shall breake, my policie shall imp.[221] (V. iv.) + +This plot, at once elementary and violent, is combined with the fantastic +story of Erisichthon, 'a churlish husband-man,' who in the nymphs' despite +cuts down the sacred tree of Ceres, into which the chaste Fidelia had +been transformed. For this offence the goddess dooms him to the plague of +hunger. The ghastly description of this monster, who may be compared with +Browne's Limos, was probably suggested by some similar descriptions in the +_Faery Queen_ (I. iv. and III. xii). Erisichthon is put to all manner of +shifts to satisfy the hunger with which he is ever consumed, and is at +last forced to sell his daughter Protea to a merchant, in order to keep +himself alive. Protea, it appears, was at one time the paramour of +Neptune, who now in answer to her prayer comes to her aid in such a way +that, when about to embark on the vessel of her purchaser, she justifies +her name by changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded +merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart +without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being +tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and +comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore--the scene being +laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her +disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time to warn her lover of his +danger. Finally, at Cupid's intercession her father is relieved of his +affliction by the now appeased goddess. This plot is even more crudely +distinct from the principal action of the play than is usual with +Lyly[222]. + +It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the +nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in +_Gallathea_; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical +conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the +_Woman in the Moon_. It would almost seem as though his experience of the +inconstancy of the royal sunshine had made Lyly a less enthusiastic +devotee of womanhood in general and of virginity in particular, and that +with an unadvised frankness which may well account for his disappointments +at court, he failed to conceal his feelings. The play is likewise +distinguished from the other dramatic works of its author by being +composed almost entirely in blank verse. Certain lines of the prologue-- + + Remember all is but a Poets dreame, + The first he had in Phoebus holy bowre, + But not the last, unlesse the first displease-- + +have not unnaturally been taken to mean that the piece was the first +venture of the author; but on investigation this will be seen to be +impossible, since the constant reminiscence of Marlowe in the construction +of the verse points to 1588 or at earliest to 1587 as the date. Mr. +Fleay's suggestion of 1589-90 may be accepted as the earliest likely +date[223]. To my mind it would need external proof of an unusually cogent +description to render plausible the theory that the year, say, of the +_Shepherd's Calender_ saw the appearance of such lines as: + + What lack I now but an imperiall throne[224], + And Ariadnaes star-lyght Diadem? (II. i.) + +or: + + O Stesias, what a heavenly love hast thou! + A love as chaste as is Apolloes tree, + As modest as a vestall Virgins eye, + And yet as bright as Glow wormes in the night, + With which the morning decks her lovers hayre; (IV. i.) + +or yet again: + + When will the sun go downe? flye Phoebus flye! + O, that thy steeds were wingd with my swift thoughts: + Now shouldst thou fall in Thetis azure armes[225], + And now would I fall in Pandoraes lap. (IV. i.) + +Nor are these isolated passages; from the opening lines of the prologue to +the final speech of Nature the verse has the appearance of being the work +of a graceful if not very strong hand writing in imitation of Marlowe's +early style. We must, therefore, it seems to me, take the words of the +prologue as signifying not that the play was the first work of the author, +but that it was his earliest adventure in verse. + +The plan of the work is as follows. The shepherds of Utopia come to dame +Nature and beg her to make a woman for them. She consents and fashions +Pandora, whom she dowers with the virtues of the several Planets. These, +however, are offended at not being consulted in the matter, and determine +to use their influence to the bane of the newly created woman. Under the +reign of Saturn she turns sullen; when Jupiter is in the ascendant he +falls in love with her, but she has grown proud and scorns him; under Mars +she becomes a vixen; under Sol she in her turn falls in love, and turns +wanton under Venus; she learns deceit of Mercury when he is dominant, and +runs mad under the influence of Luna. At length, since the shepherds will +no longer have anything to do with the lady, Nature determines to place +her in the heavens. Her beauty makes each planet desire her as companion. +Nature gives her the choice: + + Speake, my Pandora; where wilt thou be? + _Pandora._ Not with old Saturne for he lookes like death; + Nor yet with Jupiter, lest Juno storme; + Nor with thee Mars, for Venus is thy love; + Nor with thee Sol, thou hast two Parramours, + The sea borne Thetis and the rudy morne; + Nor with thee Venus, lest I be in love + With blindfold Cupid or young Joculus; + Nor with thee Hermes, thou art full of sleightes, + And when I need thee Jove will send thee foorth. + Say Cynthia, shall Pandora rule thy starre, + And wilt thou play Diana in the woods, + Or Hecate in Plutos regiment? + _Luna._ I, Pandora. + _Pand._ Fayre Nature let thy hand mayd dwell with her, + For know that change is my felicity, + And ficklenesse Pandoraes proper forme. + Thou madst me sullen first, and thou Jove, proud; + Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan: + Thou Venus madst me love all that I saw, + And Hermes to deceive all that I love; + But Cynthia made me idle, mutable, + Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde; + These be the humors that content me best, + And therefore will I stay with Cynthia.... + _Nat._ Now rule, Pandora, in fayre Cynthias steede, + And make the moone inconstant like thy selfe; + Raigne thou at womens nuptials, and their birth; + Let them be mutable in all their loves, + Fantastical, childish, and foolish, in their desires, + Demaunding toyes: + And stark madde when they cannot have their will. + Now follow me ye wandring lightes of heaven, + And grieve not, that she is not plast with you; + Ail you shall glaunce at her in your aspects, + And in conjunction dwell with her a space. (V. i.) + +And so Pandora becomes the 'Woman in the Moon.' The play, in its topical +and satiric purpose, and above all, in its utilization of mythological +material, bears a distinct relationship to the masque. The shepherds are +in their origin philosophical, standing for the race of mankind in +general, rather than pastoral; Utopian, in fact, rather than Arcadian. +These early mythological plays stand alone, in that the pastoral scenes +they contain are apparently uninfluenced by the Italian drama. The kind +attained some popularity as a subject of courtly presentation, but it did +not long preserve its original character. The later examples, with which +we shall be concerned hereafter, always exhibit some characteristics which +may be immediately or ultimately traced to the influence of Tasso and +Guarini. This influence we must now turn to consider in some detail, as +evidenced as well in translations and imitations as in the general tone +and machinery of an appreciable portion of the Elizabethan drama.[226] + + + +II + + +In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature +it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of +translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, +as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position +unjustified by its intrinsic importance. In most cases, probably, the +energy devoted to the task of rendering the foreign models directly into +the language they influenced is rather useful as supplying us with a rough +measure of their popularity than itself significant as a step in the +operation of that influence. We may safely assume that, in the case of the +English pastoral drama, the influence exercised directly by the Italian +masterpieces was beyond comparison greater than that which made itself +indirectly felt through the labours of translators. + +Having thus anticipated a possible misapprehension it will be worth our +while to devote some little attention to the history of the attempts at +translation in this line. The first English writer to venture upon the +task of turning the choice music of Tasso into his native language was the +eccentric satellite of the Sidneyan circle, Abraham Fraunce, fellow of St. +John's College in Cambridge. It so happened that he was at the time +pursuing that elusive phantasm, the application of the laws of classical +versification to English poetry. The resuit was at least unique, in +English, at any rate, namely a drama in hexameter verse. It also occurred +to him that Watson's _Lamentations of Amyntas_, a translation of which he +had himself published in 1587, might be made to serve as an appendix to +Tasso's play. With this object in view he changed the name of the heroine +from Silvia to Phillis. This appears to have been the exact extent to +which he 'altered S. Tassoes Italian' in order to connect it with 'M. +Watsons Latine Amyntas' and 'to make them both one English.'[227] Certain +other changes were, however, introduced upon other considerations. Various +unessential points were omitted, notably in connexion with Tirsi, whose +topical character disappears; the name Nerina is altered to Fulvia; +frequent allusions are introduced to the nymph Pembrokiana, to whom among +other things is ascribed the rescue of the heroine from the bear which +takes the place of the wolf in Tasso. Lastly, we have the addition of a +whole scene immediately before the final chorus. Phillis and Amyntas +reappear and carry on a conversation, not unamiably, in a sort of +hexametrical stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the +amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between +the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[228] Of this literary curiosity +Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted: + + Sweete face, why be the hev'ns soe to the bountifull, + Making that radiant bewty of all the starrs + Bright-burning, to be fayre Phillis her ornament? + And yet seeme to be soe spytefuly partial, + As not for to aford Argus his eyes to mee, + Eyes too feawe to behould Phillis her ornament? + +It is, perhaps, not a little strange that the pedant who made the +preposterous experiment of turning the _Aminta_ into English hexameters +should nevertheless have been capable of clearly perceiving, however +incapable he was of adequately rectifying, the hopelessly undramatic +character of the last act of Tasso's play. As an example of the style of +the translation we may take the following rendering of the delicate _Chi +crederia_, with which the original prologue opens: + + Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake, + Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke? + And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines, + But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus: + Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing + His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire + Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving, + And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant, + His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon. + +This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to +be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic +pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate +artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a 'God that gads +by the mountaines' is a pithy enough paraphrase of _dio selvaggio_, if +hardly an accurate translation. The unsatisfactory nature of the verse, +however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid +dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas' +resolve to die. + + _Phillis._ As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee + Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased. + + _Daphne._ Phillis alas is alive, but an other's gone to be dying[229]. + + _Ph._ And what mean's this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded, + That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred? + + _Da._ Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other. + + _Ph._ Whose death? + + _Da._ Death of Amyntas. + + _Ph._ Alas how dyed Amyntas? + + _Da._ How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe: + But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe. + + _Ph._ What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas? + + _Da._ Thy death. + + _Ph._ And I alive? + + _Da._ Thy death was lately reported, + And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death. + + _Ph._ Feare of Phillis death prov'd vayne, and feare of Amyntas Death + will proove vayne too: life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.) + +Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which +somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are +not wholly wanting. Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek +her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks: + + Oh tardi saggia, e tardi + Pietosa, quando cio nulla rileva; + +a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a +homely proverb, and writes: + + When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable. + +It may, at first sight, appear strange that at a time when the Italian +pastoral was exercising its greatest influence over the English drama this +translation by Fraunce of Tasso's play should have satisfied the demand +for more than thirty years. The explanation, of course, is that the +widespread knowledge of Italian among the reading public in England +rendered translation more or less superfluous[230], while at the same time +it should be remembered that in this country Tasso was far surpassed in +popularity by Guarini. So far as we can tell no further translation of the +_Aminta_ was attempted till 1628, when there appeared an anonymous version +which bibliographers have followed one another in ascribing to one John +Reynolds, but which was more probably the work of a certain Henry +Reynolds[231]. However that may be, the translation is of no +inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from +the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of +appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the +higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian +into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. +Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the +general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating +than is the case with translations which many times reveal far higher +qualities. The following is a characteristic specimen chosen from the +story of Aminta's early love for Silvia. + + Being but a Lad, so young as yet scarce able + To reach the fruit from the low-hanging boughes + Of new-growne trees; Inward I grew to bee + With a young mayde, fullest of love and sweetnesse, + That ere display'd pure gold tresse to the winde;... + Neere our abodes, and neerer were our hearts; + Well did our yeares agree, better our thoughts; + Together wove we netts t' intrapp the fish + In flouds and sedgy fleetes[232]; together sett + Pitfalls for birds; together the pye'd Buck + And flying Doe over the plaines we chac'de; + And in the quarry', as in the pleasure shar'de: + But as I made the beasts my pray, I found + My heart was lost, and made a pray to other. (I. ii.) + +Many a translator, moreover, has failed to instil into his verse the swing +and flow of the following stanzas from the golden age chorus, which, +nevertheless follow the metrical form of the original with reasonable +fidelity[233]: + + O happy Age of Gould; happy' houres; + Not for with milke the rivers ranne, + And hunny dropt from ev'ry tree; + Nor that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres, + Without the toyle or care of Man, + And Serpents were from poyson free;... + But therefore only happy Dayes, + Because that vaine and ydle name, + That couz'ning Idoll of unrest, + Whom the madd vulgar first did raize, + And call'd it Honour, whence it came + To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest, + Was not then suffred to molest + Poore lovers hearts with new debate; + More happy they, by these his hard + And cruell lawes, were not debar'd + Their innate freedome; happy state; + The goulden lawes of Nature, they + Found in their brests; and them they did obey. (Ch. I.) + +Before leaving the _Aminta_ it will be worth while straying beyond the +strict chronological limits of this inquiry to glance for a moment at the +version produced by John Dancer in 1660, for the sake of noting the change +which had come over literary hack-work of the kind in the course of some +thirty years. Comparing it with Reynolds' translation we are at first +struck by the change which long drilling of the language to a variety of +uses has accomplished in the work of uninspired poetasters; secondly, by +the fact that the conventional respectability of production, which has +replaced the halting crudities of an earlier date, is far more inimical +to any real touch of poetic inspiration. Equally evident is that spirit of +tyranny, happily at no time native to our literature, which seeks to +reduce the works of other ages into accordance with the taste of its own +day. Thus, having 'improved' Tasso's apostrophe to the _bella eta dell' +oro_ almost beyond recognition, Dancer complacently closes the chorus with +the following parody: + + We'l hope, since there's no joy, when once one dies + We'l hope, that as we have seen with our eies + The Sun to set, so we may see it rise. (Ch. I.) + +Again, while all the spontaneity and reverential labour of an age of more +avowed adolescence has disappeared, there is yet lacking the justness of +phrase and certainty of grammar and rime, which later supply, however +inadequately, the place of poetic enthusiasm. The defects of the style, +with its commonplace exaggeration of conceits, the thumbed token-currency +of the certified poetaster, are well seen in such a passage as the +following: + + Weak love is held by shame, but love grows bold + As strong, what is it then can it with-hold: + She as though in her ey's she did contain + Fountains of tears, did with such plenty rain + Them on his cheeks, and they such vertue had, + That it reviv'd again the breathlesse lad;... + Aminta thought 'twas more then heav'nly charms, + That thus enclasp'd him in his Silvia's armes; + He that loves servant is, perhaps may guesse + Their blisse; but none there is can it expresse[234]. (V. i.) + +As was to be expected, the attention of translators was early directed to +the _Pastor fido_. The original was printed in England, together with the +_Aminta_, the year after its first appearance in Italy, that is in 1591, +and bore the imprint of John Wolfe, 'a spese di Giacopo Castelvetri'; the +first translation saw the light in 1602. This version was published +anonymously, and in spite of the confident assertions and ingenious +conjectures of certain bibliographers, anonymous it must for the present +remain; all that can with certainty be affirmed is that it claims to be +the work of a kinsman of Sir Edward Dymocke[235]. Most modern writers who +have had occasion to mention it have shown a praiseworthy deference to the +authority of one of the most venerable figures of English criticism by +each in turn repeating that the translation, 'in spite of Daniel's +commendatory sonnet, is a very bad one.' And indeed, when we have stated +the very simple facts concerning the authorship as distinct from the very +elaborate conjectures, there remains little to add to Dyce's words. With +the exception of the omission of the prologue the version keeps pretty +faithfully to its original, but it does no more than emphasize the tedious +artificiality of the Italian, while whatever charm and perhaps +over-elaborated grace of language Guarini infused into his verse has +entirely evaporated in the process of translation. No less a poet and +critic than Daniel, regarding the work doubtless with the undiscriminating +eye of friendship, asserted that it might even to Guarini himself have +vindicated the poetic laurels of England, and yet from the whole long poem +it is hardly possible to extract any passage which would do credit to the +pen of an average schoolboy. We turn in vain to the contest of kisses +among the Megarean maidens, to the game of blind man's buff, to Amarillis' +secret confession of love, and to her trembling appeal when confronted by +a death of shame, for any evidence of poetie feeling. The girl's speech in +the last-mentioned scene, 'Se la miseria mia fosse mia colpa,' is thus +rendered: + + If that my fault did cause my wretchednesse, + Or that my thoughts were wicked, as thou thinkst + My deed, lesse grievous would my death be then: + For it were just my blood should wash the spots + Of my defiled soule, heavens rage appease, + And humane justice justly satisfie, + Then could I quiet my afflicted sprights, + And with a just remorse of well-deserved death, + My senses mortifie, and come to death: + And with a quiet blow pass forth perhaps + Unto a life of more tranquilitie: + But too too much, Nicander, too much griev'd + I am, in so young years, Fortune so hie, + An Innocent, I should be doom'd to die. (IV. v.) + +The next translation we meet with never got into print. It is preserved in +a manuscript at the British Museum[236], and bears the heading: 'Il Pastor +Fido, or The Faithfull Sheapheard. An Excellent Pastorall Written In +Italian by Battista Guarinj And translated into English By Jonathan Sidnam +Esq, Anno 1630.' The prologue is again omitted, and the translation is +distinguished from its contemporaries by an endeavour to reproduce to some +extent the freer metrical structure of the Italian. This was not a +particularly happy experiment, since it ignored the fact that the +character of a metre may differ considerably in different languages. The +Italian _endecasillabi sciolti_ are far less flexible than our own blank +verse, and it is only when freely interspersed with the shorter +_settinari_ that they can attempt to rival the range of effect possible to +the English metre in the hands of a skilful artist. Thus the imitation of +the irregular measures of Guarini was a confession of the translator's +inability adequately to handle the dramatic verse of his own tongue. As a +specimen we may take the rendering of Amarillis' speech already quoted +from the 'Dymocke' version: + + If my mischance had come by mine own fault, + Nicander, or had beene as thou beleevst + The foule effect of base and wicked thoughts, + Or, as it now appeares, a deed of Sinn, + It had beene then lesse greevous to endure + Death as a punishment for such a fault, + And just it had beene with my blood to wash + My impure Soule, to mitigate the wrath + And angar of the Godds, and satisfie + The right of humane justice, + Then could I quiett my afflicted Soule + And with an inward feeling of my just + Deserved death, subdue my outward Sence, + And fawne uppon my end, and happelie + With a more settled countenance passe from hence + Into a better world: + But now, Nicander, ah! tis too much greefe + In soe yong yeares, in such a happie state, + To die so suddenlie, and which is more, + Die innocent. (IV. v.) + +It was not until the civil war was at its height, namely in 1647, that +English literature was enriched with a translation in any way worthy of +Guarini's masterpiece. It is easy to strain the interpretation of such +facts, but there is certainly a strong temptation to see in the occasion +and circumstances of the composition of the piece an illustration of a +critical law already noticed, namely the constant tendency of literature +to negative as well as to reproduce the life of actuality, and furthermore +of the special liability of pastoral to take birth from a desire to escape +from the imminence and pressure of surrounding circumstance. Like +Reynolds' _Aminta_, Richard Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ is better appreciated +as a whole than in quotation, though, thanks partly to its own greater +maturity of poetic attainment, partly to the less ethereal perfection of +the original, it suffers far less than the earlier work by comparison with +the Italian. For the same reasons it is by far the most satisfactory of +any of the early translations of the Italian pastoral drama. One +noticeable feature is the constant reminiscence of Shakespeare, whole +lines from his works being sometimes introduced with no small skill. For +instance, where Guarini, describing how love wins entrance to a maiden's +heart, writes: + + E se vergogna il cela, + O temenza l' affrena, + La misera tacendo + Per soverchio desio tutta si strugge; (I. iv.) + +Fanshawe renders the last two lines by: + + Poor soul! Concealment like a worm i' th' bud, + Lies in her Damask cheek sucking the bloud. + +A few illustrative passages will suffice to give an idea of Fanshawe's +style. He stands alone in having succeeded in recrystallizing in his own +tongue some at least of the charm of the kissing match, and is even fairly +successful in the following dangerous conceit: + + With one voice + Of peerlesse Amarillis they made choice. + She sweetly bending her fair eyes. + Her cheeks in modest blushes dyes, + To shew through her transparent skin + That she is no lesse fair within + Then shee's without; or else her countenance + Envying the honour done her mouth perchance, + Puts on her scarlet robes as who + Should say: 'And am not I fair too?' (II. i.) + +So again he alone among the translators has infused any semblance of +passion into Amarillis' confession of love: + + Mirtillo, O Mirtillo! couldst thou see + That heart which thou condemn'st of cruelty, + Soul of my soul, thou unto it wouldst show + That pity which thou begg'st from it I know. + O ill starr'd Lovers! what avails it me + To have thy love? T' have mine, what boots it thee? + (III. iv.) + +In a lighter vein the following variation on the theme of fading beauty by +Corisca also does justice to its original: + + Let us use it whilst wee may; + Snatch those joyes that haste away. + Earth her winter-coat may cast, + And renew her beauty past; + But, our winter come, in vain + We sollicite spring again: + And when our furrows snow shall cover, + Love may return, but never Lover. (III. v.) + +When it is borne in mind that not only is the rendering graceful in +itself, but that as a rule it represents its original if not literally at +any rate adequately, it will be realized that Fanshawe's qualifications as +a translator are not small. His version, which is considerably the best in +the language, is happily easily accessible owing to its early popularity. +It first appeared in 1647 in the form of a handsomely printed quarto with +portrait and frontispiece engraved after the Ciotti edition of 1602, the +remaining copies being re-issued with additional matter the following +year; it went through two editions between the restoration and the end of +the century, and was again reprinted together with the original, and with +alterations in 1736[237]. In the meantime, however, the translation had +been adapted to the stage by Elkanah Settle. In a dedication to Lady +Elizabeth Delaval, the adapter ingenuously disclaims all knowledge of +Italian, and when he speaks of 'the Translated _Pastor Fido_' every reader +would no doubt be expected to know that he was referring to Fanshawe's +work. He left his readers, however, to discover for themselves that, +while he considerably altered, and of course condensed, the original, for +whatever poetic merit his scenes possess he is entirely indebted to his +predecessor. The adaptation was licensed by L'Estrange in 1676, and +printed the following year, while reprints dated 1689 and 1694 seem to +indicate that it achieved some success at the Duke's Theatre. It was +presumably of this version that Pepys notices a performance on February +25, 1668.[238] + +Besides these English translations there is also extant one in Latin, a +manuscript of which is preserved in the University Library at +Cambridge.[239] The name of the translater does not appear, but the +heading runs: 'Il pastor fido, di signor Guarini ... recitata in Collegio +Regali Cantabrigiae.' The title is so scrawled over that it would be +impossible to say for certain whether the note of performance referred to +the present play, were it not for an allusion casually dropped by the +anonymous recorder of a royal visit to Oxford, which not only +substantiates the inference to be drawn from the manuscript, but also +supplies us with a downward limit of August, 1605.[240] In this +translation a dialogue between the characters 'Prologus' and 'Argumentum' +takes the place of Guarini's long topical prologue, and a short +conventional 'Epilogus' is added at the end. + + * * * * * + +It was not till 1655 that _the Filli di Sciro_ of Bonarelli, which has +usually been thought to hold the third place among Italian pastorals, +appeared in English dress. The translation published in that year is +ascribed on the title-page to 'J. S. Gent.,' an ascription which has given +rise to a good deal of conjecture. And yet a very little investigation +might have settled the matter. Prefixed to the translation are some +commendatory verses signed 'I. H.', in a marginal note to which we read: +'This Comedy was Translated long ago by M. _I. S._ and layd by, as also +was _Pastor Fido_, which was since Translated and set forth by Mr. Rich. +Fanshaw.' Another note,[241] to some verses to the reader, tells us that +both translations were made 'neer twenty years agone,' and, as we should +expect, the _Pastor fido_ first; and further, that the latter remained in +manuscript owing to the appearance of Fanshawe's version, which is spoken +of in terms of warm admiration. Now the only manuscript translation of +Guarini's play extant in English is that of Jonathan Sidnam, whose name +gives us the very initials which appear upon the title-page of the printed +play.[242] Since the preliminary verses may have been written any time +between 1647 and 1655, the vague allusion to the date of composition will +quite well fit 1630, the year given in the manuscript. When, furthermore, +we find J. S.'s work characterized by precisely the same use of short +lines as we noted above in the case of Sidnam's, the identification +becomes a practical certainty. The version, though, as the author was +himself aware, it will not stand comparison with Fanshawe's work, is not +without merit, and is perhaps as good as the rather tedious original +deserves. As a specimen we may take a passage in which the author +deliberately followed Tasso, Celia's narration of her adventure with the +centaur: + + There, to a sturdy Oak, he bound me fast + And re-enforct his base inhumane bonds + With the then danglinst Tresses of my hair; + Ingrateful hair, ill-nurtur'd wicked Locks! + The cruel wretch then took up from the foot + Both my loose tender garments, and at once + Rent them from end to end: Imagine then + Whether my crimson red, through shame was chang'd + Into a pale wan tincture, yea or no. + I that was looking toward Heaven then, + And with my cries imploring ayd from thence, + Upon a suddain to the Earth let fall + My shamefac'd eyes, and shut them close, as if + Under mine eye-lids, I could cover all + My naked Members. (I. iii.) + +Of the various unfounded conjectures as to the author of this version, +among which Shirley's name has of course not failed to appear, certainly +the most ingenious is that which has seen in it the work of Sir Edward +Sherburne. The suggestion appears to have been originally made by Coxeter, +on what grounds I do not know. 'There is no doubt of the authorship of +this play,' writes Professer Gollancz in his notes to Lamb's _Specimens_, +'"J. S." is certainly an error for "E. S." I have found in a MS. in the +British Museum Sir E. Sherburne's preface to this play.' Professer +Gollancz deserves credit for having unearthed the interesting document +referred to,[243] but an examination of it at once destroys his theory. It +is a preface 'To the Reader' intended for a translation of the _Filli_, +and another copy also is extant,[244] both being found among the papers of +Sir Edward Sherburne, though in neither does his name actually occur. In +the course of the preface the writer quotes 'the Censure of my sometime +highly valued, and most Ingenious friend S'r. John Denham, to whom (some +years before the happy Restauration of King Charles the 2^{d} being then +at Paris) I communicated Some Part of this my Translation. Who was not +only pleasd to encourage my undertaking, but gave me likewise this +Character of the Original. "I will not say It is a Better Poem then Pastor +Fido, but to speak my Mind freely, I think it a Better Drama."' From this +it is clear that the preface was penned after 1660, and we may furthermore +infer that the version was as yet unfinished when the writer was in Paris, +apparently at some time during the Commonwealth. It is therefore +impossible that the preface should be intended for a translation which was +printed in 1655, and which was then distinctly stated to have been +composed not later than 1635. Furthermore, I question whether either the +preface or the version mentioned therein were by Sherburne at all. There +is a translation extant in a British Museum manuscript[245] purporting to +be the work of Sir George Talbot, who is said to have been a friend of Sir +Edward's, into whose hands some of his papers may have come. The +translation is headed: 'Fillis of Scirus, a Pastorall Written in Italian, +by Count Guidubaldo de' Bonarelli, and Translated into English by S'r. G: +Talbot,' and there follows 'The Epistle Dedicatory To his sacred Ma'ty. +Charles 2'd. &c. prophetically written at Paris, an: 57.' The opening is +not wanting in grace: + + The dawning light breaks forth; I heare, aloofe, + The whistling ayre, the Saints bell of the Heav'n, + Wherewith each morne it call's the drowsy Birds + To offer up theyre Hymnes to th' new-borne day. + But who ere saw, from night's dark bosome, spring + A morne soe fayre and beautifull? Observe + With what imperceptible hand, it steales + The starres from Heav'n, and deck's the earth with flow'rs: + Haile, lovely fields, your flow'rs in this array + Fournish a kind of star-light to the day. + +Or take again Celia's encounter with the centaur. And in this connexion it +is worth while mentioning that, when revising his translation and +introducing a number of verbal changes, in most cases distinctly for the +better, Sir George appears to have been struck by the absurdity of this +machinery, and throughout replaced the centaur by a 'wild man.' After +telling how she was seized and carried to 'the middle of a desart wood,' +Celia proceeds: + + There, to a sturdy oake, he bound me fast, + Doubling my bonds with knots of mine own hayre; + Ungratefull hayre, thou ill returnst my care. + The Tyrant then my mantle took in hand + And with one rash tore it from head to foote. + Consider whether shame my trembling pale + Did now convert into Vermillion: up + I cast my eyes to Heav'n, and with lowd cryes + Implor'd it's ayd; then lookt downe tow'rd the earth, + And phancy'd my dejected eyebrows hung + Like a chast mantle ore my naked limbs. (I. iii.) + +A comparison of this and the preceding renderings with the original will +show that while Talbot's is by far the more fiowing and imaginative, +Sidnam's is on the whole rather more literal, except where he appears to +have misunderstood the original. No other English translation, I believe, +exists. + +Lastly, as in the case of the _Pastor fido_, record has to be made of a +Latin version acted at Cambridge. It was the work of a Dr. Brooke of +Trinity[246], and purports to have been performed, no doubt at that +College, before Prince Charles and the Count Palatine, on March 30, +1612[247]. The title is 'Scyros, Fabula Pastoralis,' which has hitherto +prevented its being identified as a translation of Bonarelli's play, and +it is preserved in manuscripts at the University Library[248], Trinity and +Emmanuel. At the beginning is a note to the effect that in the place of +the prologue--Marino's _Notte_--was to be presented a triumph over the +death of the centaur. The cast is given, and includes three +undergraduates, five bachelors, and five masters. + + + +III + + +After translation the next process in logical sequence is direct +imitation. Although it is true that the influence of Tasso and Guarini may +be traced either directly or indirectly in the great majority of the +English pastorals composed during the first half of the seventeenth +century, there are nevertheless two plays only in which that influence can +be regarded as completely paramount, and to which the term 'imitation' can +be with full justification applied. These are the two pastorals by Samuel +Daniel, historian and court-laureate, namely the _Queen's Arcadia_, 'A +Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Majestie and her Ladies, by the +Universitie of Oxford in Christs Church, in August last. 1605[249],' and +_Hymen's Triumph_, which formed part of the Queen's 'magnificent +intertainement of the Kings most excellent Majestie' on the occasion of +the marriage in 1614 of Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburgh, and Mistress Jean +Drummond, sister of the Earl of Perth[250]. + +The earlier of these pieces displays alike the greater dependence on +Italian models and the less intrinsic merit, whether from a poetic or +dramatic point of view. It is, indeed, in its apparent carelessness of the +most elementary necessities of dramatic construction, distinctly +retrograde as compared with these models themselves. In the first scene we +are introduced to two old Arcadians who hold long discourse concerning the +degeneracy of the age. The simple manners of earlier times are forsaken, +constant quarrels occur, faith is no longer untarnished nor modesty +secure. In the hope of probing to the root of the evil the two determine +to hide close at hand and so overhear the conversations of the younger +swains and shepherdesses. The fact is that Arcadia has recently been +invaded by a gang of rascally adventurers from Corinth and elsewhere: +Techne, 'a subtle wench,' who under pretence of introducing the latest +fashions of the towns corrupts the nymphs; Colax, whose courtier-airs find +an easy prey in the hearts of the country-wenches; Alcon, a quacksalver, +who introduces tobacco to ruin the constitutions of the shepherds; Lincus, +'a petty-fogger,' who breeds litigation among the simple folk; and lastly +Pistophanax, who seeks to undermine the worship of Pan. Colax has, it +appears, already abused the love of Daphne, and won that of Dorinda from +her swain Mirtillus; Techne has sown jealousy between the lovers Palaemon +and Silvia; while Lincus has set Montanus and Acrysius by the ears over +the possession of a bit of land. Ail the plotting is overheard by the two +concealed shepherds, who when the crisis is reached come forward, call +together the Arcadians, expose the machinations of the evil-doers, and +procure their banishment from the country. Such an automatic solution is +obviously incompatible with the smallest dramatic interest in the plot; it +is not a _denoument_ at all, properly speaking, but a severing of the +skein after Alexander's manner, and it is impossible to feel any emotion +at the tragic complications when all the while the sword lies ready for +the operation. + +The main amorous action centres round Cloris, beloved of Amyntas and +Carinus, the latter of whom is in his turn loved by Amarillis. Carinus' +hopes are founded on the fact that, in imitation of Tasso's Aminta, he has +rescued Cloris from the hands of a satyr, while Amyntas bases his upon +certain signs of favour shown him. Colax, however, also falls in love with +the nymph, and induces Techne to give her tryst in a cave, where he may +then have an opportunity of finding her alone. Techne, hereupon, in the +hope of winning Amyntas' affection for herself if she can make him think +Cloris unworthy, directs him to the spot where she has promised to meet +the unsuspecting maiden. This is obviously borrowed from the _Pastor +fido_; indeed, Techne is none other than Corisca under a new name, and it +was no doubt she who suggested to Daniel the introduction of the other +agents of civilization. Amyntas, on seeing Cloris emerge from the cave in +company with Colax, at once concludes her guilt, and in spite of all +Techne's efforts to restrain him rushes off with the intention of putting +an end to his life. Techne, perceiving the ill-success of her plot, tells +Cloris of Amyntas' resolve. We here return to the imitation of Tasso: +Cloris, like that poet's Silvia, begins by pretending incredulity and +indifference, but being at length convinced agrees to accompany Techne in +search of the desperate swain. Daniel has produced what is little better +than a parody of the scene in his model. Not content with placing in the +girl's mouth the preposterous excuse: + + If it be done my help will come too late, + And I may stay, and save that labour here, (IV. iv.[251]) + +he has spun out the dialogue, already over-long in the original, to an +altogether inordinate and ludicrous extent. When the pair at last come +upon the unhappy lover they find him lying insensible, a horn of poison by +him. The necessary sequel is reported by Mirtillus: + + For we perceiv'd how Love and Modestie + With sev'rall Ensignes, strove within her cheekes + Which should be Lord that day, and charged hard + Upon each other, with their fresh supplies + Of different colours, that still came, and went, + And much disturb'd her, but at length dissolv'd + Into affection, downe she casts her selfe + Upon his senselesse body, where she saw + The mercy she had brought was come too late: + And to him calls: 'O deare Amyntas, speake, + Look on me, sweete Amyntas, it is I + That calles thee, I it is, that holds thee here, + Within those armes thou haste esteem'd so deare.' (V. ii.) + +Amyntas' subsequent recovery is reported in the same strain. The reader +will remember the lines in which Tasso described a similar scene. And yet, +in spite of the identity of the situations and even of the close +similarity of the language, the tone and atmosphere of the two passages +are essentially different; for if Daniel's treatment of the scene, which +is typical of a good deal of his work, has the power to call a tear to the +eye of sensibility, his sentiment, divested as it is of the Italian's +subtle sensuousness, appears perfectly innocuous and at times not a little +ridiculous. + +Cloris and Amyntas are now safe enough, and Carinus has the despised but +faithful Amarillis to console him. The other pairs of lovers need not +detain us further than to note that their adventures are equally borrowed +from Tasso and Guarini. Silvia relates how, wounded by her 'cruelty,' +Palaemon sought to imitate Aminta by throwing himself from a cliff, but +was prevented by her timely relenting. Amarillis fondles Carinus's dog, +and is roughly upbraided by its master in the same manner as her prototype +Dorinda in the _Pastor fido_. + +Amid much that is commonplace in the verse occur not a few graceful +passages, while Daniel is at times rather happy in the introduction of +certain sententious utterances in keeping with the conventionality of the +pastoral form. Thus a caustic swain remarks of a girl's gift: + + Poore withred favours, they might teach thee know, + That shee esteemes thee, and thy love as light + As those dead flowers, shee wore but for a show, + The day before, and cast away at night; + +and to a lover: + + When such as you, poore, credulous, devout, + And humble soules, make all things miracles + Your faith conceives, and vainely doe convert + All shadowes to the figure of your hopes. (I. ii.) + +Colax is a subtle connoisseur in love: + + Some thing there is peculiar and alone + To every beauty that doth give an edge + To our desires, and more we still conceive + In that we have not, then in that we have. + And I have heard abroad where best experience + And wit is learnd, that all the fairest choyce + Of woemen in the world serve but to make + One perfect beauty, whereof each brings part. (I. iii.) + +The historical importance of the _Queen's Arcadia_, as the first play to +exhibit on the English stage the direct and unequivocal influence of the +Italian pastoral drama, is evident to the critic in retrospect, and it is +not impossible that it may have lent some extraneous interest to the +performance even in the eyes of contemporaries; but the zest of the play +for a court audience in the early years of the reign of James I was very +possibly the satirical element. The shadowy fiction of Arcadia and its age +of gold quickly vanished when the actual or fancied evils of the day were +exposed to the lash. The abuse of the practice of taking tobacco flattered +the prejudices of the king; the quack and the dishonest lawyer were stock +butts of contemporary satire; Colax and Techne, the he and she +coney-catchers, have maintained their fascination for all ages. +Pistophanax, the disseminator of false doctrine, who had actually presumed +to reason with the priests concerning the mysteries of Pan, was perhaps +the favourite object of contemporary invective. The term 'atheist' covered +a multitude of sins. This character appears in the final scene only, and +even there he is a mute but for one speech. He is indeed treated in a +somewhat different manner from the other subjects of satire in the play. +Thus the discovery that he is wearing a mask to hide the natural ugliness +of his features passes altogether the bounds of dramatic satire, and +carries us back to the allegorical manner of the middle ages. Apart from +these figures, who bear upon them the form and pressure of the time, and +who are, it must be remembered, the main-spring of the action, there is +little of note to fix the attention in this first fruit of the Arcadian +spirit in the English drama. + +In every way superior to its predecessor is the second venture in the kind +made by Daniel after an interval of nearly a decade. Instead of being a +patchwork of motives and situations borrowed from the Italian, and pieced +together with more or less ingenuity, _Hymen's Triumph_ is as a whole an +original composition. The play is preceded by a prologue in which Daniel +departs from his models in employing the dialogue form, the speakers being +Hymen, Avarice, Envy, and Jealousy[252]. In the opening scene we find +Thirsis lamenting the loss of his love Silvia, who is supposed to have +been devoured by wild beasts while wandering alone upon the shore--we are +once again on the sea-board of Arcadia--her rent veil and a lock of her +hair being all that remains to her disconsolate lover. Their vows had been +in secret owing to the match proposed by Silvia's father between her and +Alexis, the son of a wealthy neighbour[253]. In reality she has been +seized by pirates[254] and carried off to Alexandria, where she has lived +as a slave in boy's attire for some two years. Recently an opportunity for +escape having presented itself, she has returned, still disguised, to her +native country, where she has entered the service of the shepherdess +Cloris, waiting till the approaching marriage of Alexis with another nymph +shall have made impossible the renewal of her father's former schemes. +Complications now arise, for it appears that Cloris has fallen in love +with Thirsis, but fears ill success in her suit, supposing him in his turn +to be pining for the love of Amarillis. She employs the supposed boy to +move her suit to Thirsis, and Silvia goes on her errand to court her lover +for her mistress, fearing to find him already faithless to his love for +her[255]. On her mission she is waylaid by the nymph Phillis, who has +fallen in love with her in her male attire, careless of the love borne her +by the honest but rude forester Montanus. The varying fortune of Silvia's +suit on behalf of Cloris, Thirsis' faith to the memory of Silvia, +Montanus' jealousy, and Phillis' shame when she finds her proffered love +rejected by the boy for whom she has sacrificed her modesty, are presented +in a series of scenes and discourses which do not materially advance the +business in hand. Towards the end of the fourth act, however, we approach +the climax, and matters begin to move. Alexis' marriage being now +imminent, Silvia thinks she can venture at least to give her lover some +spark of hope by narrating her story under fictitious names. This she +does, making use of the transparent anagrams Isulia and Sirthis[256]. As +Silvia ends her tale Montanus rushes in, determined to be revenged for the +favour shown by his mistress to the supposed youth. He stabs Silvia, and +carries off the garland she is wearing, believing it to be one woven by +the hand of Phillis. This naturally leads to the discovery of Silvia's sex +and identity, and supposing her dead, Thirsis falls in a swoon at her +side. The last act is, as usual, little more than an epilogue, in which we +are entertained with a long account of the recovery of the faithful +lovers, thanks to the care of the wise Lamia, an elaborate passage again +modelled on Tasso, but again falling far short of the poetical beauty of +the original. + +Taken as a whole, and partly through being unencumbered with the satyric +machinery of the _Queen's Arcadia, Hymen's Triumph_ is a distinctly +lighter and more pleasing composition. At least so it appears by +comparison, for Daniel everywhere takes himself and his subject with a +distressing seriousness wholly unsuited to the style; we look in vain for +a gleam of humour such as that which in the final chorus of the _Aminta_ +casts a reflex light over the whole play[257]. Again an advance may be +observed, not only in the conduct of the plot, which moves artistically on +an altogether different level, and even succeeds in arousing some dramatic +interest, but likewise in the verse, which has a freer movement, and is on +the whole less marred by the over-emphatic repetition of words and phrases +in consecutive lines, a particularly irritating trick of the author's +pastoral style, or by the monotonous cadence and painful padding of the +blank verse. Daniel was emphatically one of those poets, neither few nor +inconsiderable, the natural nervelessness of whose poetic diction +imperatively demands the bracing restraint of rime. It is noteworthy that +this applies to his verse alone; such a work as the famous _Defence of +Rime_ serves to place him once for all among the greatest masters of 'the +other harmony of prose.' + +_Hymen's Triumph_ contains many more passages of notable merit than its +predecessor. There is, indeed, one passage in the _Queen's Arcadia_ which +will bear comparison with anything Daniel ever wrote, but it stands in +somewhat striking contrast with its surroundings. This is the opening of +the speech in which Melibaeus addresses the assembled Arcadians, and well +deserves quotation. + + You gentle Shepheards and Inhabitors + Of these remote and solitary parts + Of Mountaynous Arcadia, shut up here + Within these Rockes, these unfrequented Clifts, + The walles and bulwarkes of our libertie, + From out the noyse of tumult, and the throng + Of sweating toyle, ratling concurrencie, + And have continued still the same and one + In all successions from antiquitie; + Whil'st all the states on earth besides have made + A thousand revolutions, and have rowl'd + From change to change, and never yet found rest, + Nor ever bettered their estates by change; + You I invoke this day in generall, + To doe a worke that now concernes us all, + Lest that we leave not to posteritie, + Th' Arcadia that we found continued thus + By our fore-fathers care who left it us. (V. iii.) + +Such passages are more frequent in _Hymen's Triumph_. Take the description +of the early love of Thirsis and Silvia, instinct with a delicacy and +freshness that even Tasso might have envied[258]: + + Then would we kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus + In that first garden of our simplenesse + We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began + To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then + Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, + Check my presumption and my forwardnes; + Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew + What she would have me, yet not have me, know. (I. i.) + +Thirsis, who is the typical 'constant lover' of pastoral convention, and +does + + Hold it to be a most heroicke thing + To act one man, and do that part exact, + +thus addresses his friend Palaemon in defence of love: + + Ah, know that when you mention love, you name + A sacred mistery, a Deity, + Not understood of creatures built of mudde, + But of the purest and refined clay + Whereto th' eternall fires their spirits convey. + And for a woman, which you prize so low, + Like men that doe forget whence they are men, + Know her to be th' especiall creature, made + By the Creator as the complement + Of this great Architect[259] the world, to hold + The same together, which would otherwise + Fall all asunder; and is natures chiefe + Vicegerent upon earth, supplies her state. + And doe you hold it weakenesse then to love, + And love so excellent a miracle + As is a worthy woman? (III. iv.) + +The sententious passages, the occurrence of which we previously noted in +the _Queen's Arcadia_, likewise appear. Thus of dreams: + + Alas, Medorus, dreames are vapours, which, + Ingendred with day thoughts, fall in the night, + And vanish with the morning;[260] (III. ii.) + +and of thoughts: + + They are the smallest peeces of the minde + That passe this narrow organ of the voyce; + The great remaine behinde in that vast orbe + Of th' apprehension, and are never borne. (III. iv.) + +At times these utterances even possess a dramatic value, as where, +bending over the seemingly lifeless form of his beloved Silvia, Thirsis +exclaims: + + And sure the gods but onely sent thee thus + To fetch me, and to take me hence with thee. (IV. v.) + +The two plays we have been considering are after all very much what we +should expect from their author. A poet of considerable taste, of great +sweetness and some real feeling, but deficient in passion, in power of +conception and strength of execution, writing for the court in the +recognized role of court-laureate, and unexposed to the bracing influence +of a really critical audience--such is Samuel Daniel as seen in his +experiments in the pastoral drama. We learn from his commendatory sonnet +on the 'Dymocke' _Pastor fido_ that he had known Guarini personally in +Italy, an accident which supplies an interesting link between the dramas +of the two countries, and might suggest a specific incentive to the +composition of his pastorals, were any such needed. So far, however, from +that being the case, the only wonder is that the adventure was not made at +an earlier date, a problem the most promising explanation of which may +perhaps be sought in the rather conservative taste of the officiai court +circle, which tended to lag behind in the general advance during the +closing years of Elizabeth's reign. With the accession of James new life +as well as a new spirit entered the court, and is quickly found reflected +in the literary fashions in vogue. It was in 1605 that Jonson wrote in +_Volpone_: + + Here's Pastor Fido ... + ... All our English writers, + I meane such, as are happy in th' Italian, + Will deigne to steale out of this author, mainely; + Almost as much, as from Montagnie: + He has so moderne, and facile a veine, + Fitting the time, and catching the court-eare. (1616, III. iv.) + +On the whole, perhaps, Daniel's merits as a pastoral writer have been +exaggerated. His dependence on Italian models, particularly in his earlier +play, is close, both as regards incidents and style; while he usually +lacks their felicity. His claims as an original dramatist will not stand +examination in view of the concealed shepherds in the _Queen's Arcadia,_ +of his careful avoidance of scenes of strong dramatic emotion--a point in +which he of course followed his models, while lacking their mastery of +narrative as compensation--and of his failure to do justice to such scenes +when forced upon him.[261] If the atmosphere of certain scenes is purer +than is the case with his models, it is in large measure due to his +failure to master the style; if his conception of virtue is more +wholesome, his picture of it is at times marred by exaggeration, while his +sentiment for innocence is of a watery kind, and occasionally a little +tawdry. His pathos, as is the case with all weak writers, constantly +trembles on the verge of bathos, while his lack of humour betrays him into +penning passages of elaborate fatuity. His style is formal and often +stilted, his verse often monotonous and at times heavy.[262] On the other +hand Daniel possesses qualities of no vulgar kind, though some, it is +true, may be said to be rather the _qualites de ses defauts_. The verse is +at least smooth; it is courtly and scholarly, and sometimes graceful; the +language is pure and refined, and habitually simple. The sentiment, if at +times finicking, is always that of a gentleman and a courtier. Moreover, +in reckoning his qualifications as a dramatist, we must not forget to +credit him with the plot of _Hymen's Triumph_, which is on the whole +original, and is happily conceived, firmly constructed, and executed with +considerable ability. + +With Daniel begins and ends in English literature the dominant influence +of the Italian pastoral drama. No doubt the imitation of Tasso and Guarini +is an important element in the subsequent history of pastoralism in this +country, and to trace and define that influence will be not the least +important task of the ensuing chapters. No doubt it supplied the incentive +that induced a man like Fletcher to bid for a hopeless success in such a +play as the _Faithful Shepherdess_, and placed a heavy debt to the account +of Thomas Randolph when he composed his _Amyntas_. But in these cases, as +in others, wherever the author availed himself of the tradition imported +from the Ferrarese court, he approached it as it were from without, +seeking to rival, to acclimatize, rather than to reproduce. Nowhere else +do we find the tone and atmosphere, the structure, situations, and +characters imitated with that fidelity, or attempt at fidelity, which +makes Daniel's plays almost indistinguishable, except for language, from +much of the work of the later Italians.[263] To minimize with many critics +Daniel's dependence on his models, or to emphasize with some that of +Fletcher, is, it seems to me, wholly to misapprehend the positions they +occupy in the history of literature, and to obscure the actual development +of the pastoral ideal in this country. + + + + +Chapter V. + +The Three Masterpieces + + + +I + + +Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be +said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The +first of these is, of course, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_. In the +case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in +the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it +reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ has +prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic +literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism +be classed Thomas Randolph's _Amyntas_, which, however inferior to the +others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of +intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, +well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English +examples of the kind. + +These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, +and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or +less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three +plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain +direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to +the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the +absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the +mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore +gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall +lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence. + +When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it +proved a complete failure.[264] An edition appeared without date, but +before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, +Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had +at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception +accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may +have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no +reason to believe that the _Sad Shepherd_ was taken in hand for another +quarter of a century almost. The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was revived long +after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by +comparison with Montagu's _Shepherds Paradise_ acted the year before. It +was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it +met with some measure of success. + +The _Faithful Shepherdess_ was the earliest, and long remained the only, +deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a +pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of +Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no +mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but +a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its +author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of +his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he +must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of +stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He +further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a +lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, +howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That +he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he +did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco +of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the +spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a +scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained +by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral +stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of +the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the +attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously +to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to +show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to +suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure. + +In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to +Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been +held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable +doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, +that the _Faithful Shepherdess_ may more properly be regarded as written +in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the +_Aminta_ and _Pastor fido_, the _Faithful Shepherdess_ would never have +come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor +literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian +pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, +on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, +little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, +whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A +certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca +and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the +comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some +traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. +Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, +wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and +deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the +embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference +between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the +respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern +drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, +the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly +superfluous seer in the _denoument_ make up the whole sum so far as the +_Pastor fido_ is concerned, while the _Aminta_ cannot even show as much as +this. In the _Faithful Shepherdess_ we find not only the potent herbs, +holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well +and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly +compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[265]. +Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the +Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning +ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by +imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known +it, that of Contarini's _Fida ninfa_[266]. + +A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry +which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which +Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph +vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; +in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning +a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so +Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser +flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids +modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its +attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is +the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the +traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into +the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of +Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is +at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a +shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, +hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the +priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside +the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae. + +The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as +forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped +a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly +too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, +leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. +Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at +the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and +damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range +themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the +first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. +Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love +unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for +Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when +he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers +from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis +are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' +innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in +the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is +banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no +more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night. + +The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to +neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in +favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, +is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and +needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage +representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the +movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far +towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece. + +It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain +distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of +love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too +colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained +desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to +find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither +as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn +a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory +recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory +illustrative of certain aspects of love[267]. So regarded much of the +absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to +disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that +abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as +ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass +unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start +into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the _Faithful Shepherdess_ was +among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be +contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art +of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the +popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a +craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the +already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in +reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer +solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing +abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of +every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have +known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover +their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the +absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent. + +What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best +explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place +endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three +centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the +composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the +piece will be necessary. + +The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's +pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he +prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed +two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind +approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some +allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, +and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment +itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: +'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, +and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and +most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for +certaine sometimes are[268]. In his preface to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the +_Queen's Arcadia_, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that +piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted passage writes: +'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and +shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may +agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and +vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such +improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and +poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and +fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such +like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic +representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable +propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and +state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at +above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in +the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of +mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make +it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no +comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind +of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as +in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have +supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in +1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a +very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular +gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a +pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray +cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and +sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is +concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is +obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and +bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his +play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's _Pastor fido_, it is perhaps not +fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same +author's _Compendio della poesia tragicomica_. What is important to note +is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory. + +Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to +individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was +familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his +eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional +characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types +of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human +desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and +the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and +the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, +indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely +careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more +tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to +regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the +cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many +changes of garment-- + + Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso. + +Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and +refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no +plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to +have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a +pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but +because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the +characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his +characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for +themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a +certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the +characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic +business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their +origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that +Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological +conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and +abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later +plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other +fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to +illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of +the present play he had to fashion characters _in vacuo_ and then weave +them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other +words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to +make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual +example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea. + +So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as +to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, +having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every +form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it +necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of +cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal +sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition +of the middle age. Again comparing the _Faithful Shepherdess_ with +Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and +women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the +moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly +conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he +comes to create _in vacuo_ he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory +regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be +with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and +undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument +of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for +this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take +exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the +author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to +honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. +Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he +intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His +cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but +constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The +falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality +of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the +characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous +except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure +who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being +carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion +and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the +profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, +with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his +altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most +sacred in woman. + +In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set +before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one +other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as +an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly +surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false +notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we +have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to +pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must +nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with +regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of +the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or, +non sai tu com' e fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca +describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the +close of the _Orfeo_. In English poetry we find Daniel writing: + + Light are their waving vailes, light their attires, + Light are their heads, and lighter their desires; + (_Queen's Arcadia_, II. iii.) + +while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, +contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed + + that such virtue can + Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,) + +or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of +caprice + + And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.) + +Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn: + + Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity + Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.) + +The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret: + + Thou wert not meant, + Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.) + +and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words: + + Women love only opportunity + And not the man. (ib. 127.) + +So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age +exclaimed: + + ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake! + +But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have +been considering to be justly chargeable against the _Faithful +Shepherdess_, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of +the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its +author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and +again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered +the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of +easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of +phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been +surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of +power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious +criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. +The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty +which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and +flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and +glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for +an instant on the gaze of the rider[269]. + +Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar +to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages +as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his +critics. It is in truth no lame one[270]. + +In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity +at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in +worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the +entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer +sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin: + + By that heavenly form of thine, + Brightest fair, thou art divine, + Sprung from great immortal race + Of the gods, for in thy face + Shines more awful majesty + Than dull weak mortality + Dare with misty eyes behold + And live. Therefore on this mould + Lowly do I bend my knee + In worship of thy deity.[271] (I. i. 58.) + +The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the +conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the +assembled people and purging them with holy water[272], after which they +disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging +her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her: + + Oh you are fairer far + Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star + That guides the wandering seaman through the deep, + Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep + Head of an aged mountain, and more white + Than the new milk we strip before day-light + From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks, + Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks + Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.) + +They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their +love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where + + 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. (I. ii. 99.) + +Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol: + + Come, shepherds, come! + Come away + Without delay, + Whilst the gentle time doth stay. + Green woods are dumb, + And will never tell to any + Those dear kisses, and those many + Sweet embraces, that are given; + Dainty pleasures, that would even + Raise in coldest age a fire + And give virgin blood desire + + Then if ever, + Now or never, + Come and have it; + Think not I + Dare deny + If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.) + +Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just +lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her +with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty: + + lend me all thy red, + Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed + Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.) + +The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest: + + Shepherds all and maidens fair, + Fold your flocks up, for the air + 'Gins to thicken, and the sun + Already his great course hath run. + See the dew-drops how they kiss + Every little flower that is, + Hanging on their velvet heads + Like a rope of crystal beads; + See the heavy clouds low falling, + And bright Hesperus down calling + The dead night from under ground, + At whose rising mists unsound, + Damps and vapours fly apace, + Hovering o'er the wanton face + Of these pastures, where they come + Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.) + +In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, +founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can +plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain: + + 'Tis not the white or red + Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed + My mind to adoration, nor your eye, + Though it be full and fair, your forehead high + And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile + Lies watching in those dimples to beguile + The easy soul, your hands and fingers long + With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue, + Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp; + Your hair woven in many a curious warp, + Able in endless error to enfold + The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould + Of all your body, which as pure doth shew + In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow: + All these, were but your constancy away, + Would please me less than the black stormy day + The wretched seaman toiling through the deep. + But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep, + Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were + In the great womb of air were settled here, + In opposition, I would, like the tree, + Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free + Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.) + +The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in +the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of +Chapman's outburst: + + Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea + Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, + Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, + And his rapt ship run on her side so low + That she drinks water and her keel plows air. + (_Byron's Conspiracy_, III. i.) + +Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to +enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, +which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of +the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his +mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, +mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly +reminiscent of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The wild-wood minister thus +describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a +characteristic of the play: + + Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky, + And the stars, whose feeble light + Give a pale shadow to the night, + Are up, great Pan commanded me + To walk this grove about, whilst he, + In a corner of the wood + Where never mortal foot hath stood, + Keeps dancing, music and a feast + To entertain a lovely guest; + Where he gives her many a rose + Sweeter than the breath that blows + The leaves, grapes, berries of the best; + I never saw so great a feast. + But to my charge. Here must I stay + To see what mortals lose their way, + And by a false fire, seeming-bright, + Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.) + +Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the +transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her: + + What art thou dare + Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care + Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.) + +while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had + + lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that + Which we esteem our honour, virgin state; + Dearer than swallows love the early morn, + Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn; + Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast + Another, and far dearer than the last; + Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all + The self-love were within thee that did fall + With that coy swain that now is made a flower, + For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!... + Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head, + And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.) + +Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn: + + See, the day begins to break, + And the light shoots like a streak + Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold + Whilst the morning doth unfold. + Now the birds begin to rouse, + And the squirrel from the boughs + Leaps to get him nuts and fruit; + The early lark, that erst was mute, + Carols to the rising day + Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.) + +The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action +as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking +in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as +she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. +However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in +itself unsurpassed: + + If there be + Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree, + Receive my body, close me up from lust + That follows at my heels! Be ever just, + Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake + That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake + In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit; + Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute, + Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast + Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste! + (V. iii. 79.) + +Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin: + + Thou divinest, fairest, brightest, + Thou most powerful maid and whitest, + Thou most virtuous and most blessed, + Eyes of stars, and golden-tressed + Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest, + What new service now is meetest + For the satyr? Shall I stray + In the middle air, and stay + The sailing rack, or nimbly take + Hold by the moon, and gently make + Suit to the pale queen of night + For a beam to give thee light? + Shall I dive into the sea + And bring thee coral, making way + Through the rising waves that fall + In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall + I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies + Whose woven wings the summer dyes + Of many colours? get thee fruit, + Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute? + All these I'll venture for, and more, + To do her service all these woods adore. + + * * * * * + + So I take my leave and pray + All the comforts of the day, + Such as Phoebus' heat doth send + On the earth, may still befriend + Thee and this arbour! + _Clorin._ And to thee, + All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.) + +Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own +individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it +follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain +traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, +it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of +Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum +total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far +surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate +art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of +the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon +accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was +necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and +range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form +from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or +vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action +and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, +and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been +stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from +the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a +successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for +the scene's sake[273].' + + + +II + + +Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no +doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the +academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he +was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London +about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, +before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that +the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have +occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the +very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this +supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at +that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The +play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's +poems edited by his brother in 1638. + +Like Fletcher's play, the _Amyntas_ is a conscious attempt at so altering +the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation +on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, +before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and +intended by the author for performance on the public boards[274]. Yet the +two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing +the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and +conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless +introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest +commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the _Faithful +Shepherdess_ lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of +plot which we find in the _Pastor fido_. Randolph, on the other hand, +chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained +much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the +complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of +certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced +elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence +of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism +an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable +proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English +melodrama. + +Like the _Pastor fido_[275], Randolph's _Amyntas_ is weighted with a +preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was +betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the +greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. +Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the +faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and +Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her +tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the +goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse: + + Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide + To every bridegroome, and to every bride: + No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire, + Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire. + The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit + Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.) + +Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister +Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to +Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania +and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went +so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the +uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[276]' +replied: + + That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have + Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave: + Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine + To give Urania this, and she is thine. + +Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had +conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love +of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis. + +This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we +find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and +her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the +most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis' +love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her +choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them +abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the +morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose +love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself. +In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard +of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of +his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his +identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise +that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over +the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the +temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and +Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon, +fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award +of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who +shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks +to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear +and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has +fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her +all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and +finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil +conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make +Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his +old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the +letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares +that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is +forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off +in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we +find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and +bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius' +blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the +fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self. +Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of +wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that +of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues +that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might +without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly +stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are +alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the +general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her +vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels +before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the +appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the +solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband. + +This plot is a mingling of comedy in the scenes of Laurinda's +'wavering'[277] and the 'humours' of Amyntas' madness, and of tragi-comedy +in the catastrophe. But besides this there is what may best be described +as an antiplot of pure farce, in which the main character is the roguish +page Dorylas, who in the guise of Oberon robs Jocastus' orchard, tricks +Thestylis into marrying the foolish augur, and gulls everybody all round. +The humour of this portion of the piece may be occasionally a trifle broad +and at the same time childish, but there is nevertheless no denying the +genuineness of the quality, while the verse is as a rule sparkling, and +the dialogue both racy and pointed, occasionally displaying qualities +hardly to be described as other than brilliant. + +This comic subplot obviously owes nothing to Guarini, but is introduced +in accordance with the usage of the English popular drama, and is grafted +somewhat boldly on to the conventional stock. Dorylas is one of the most +inimitable and successful of the descendants of Lyly's pages; while the +characters of Mopsus and Jocastus, although the former no doubt owes his +conception to a hint in the _Aminta_, belong essentially to the English +romantic farce. The scenes in which the page appears as Oberon surrounded +by his court recall the introduction of the 'mortal fairies' of the _Merry +Wives,_ and that in which Amyntas' 'deluded fancy' takes the augur for a +hound of Actaeon's breed may owe something to a passage in _King Lear_. +But even apart from the elements of farce and comedy there are important +aspects in which the _Amyntas_ severs itself from the stricter tradition +of the Italian pastoral. Randolph, while adopting the machinery and much +of the scenic environment of Guarini's play, made certain not unimportant +alterations in the dramatic construction, tending towards greater variety +and complicity. In the _Pastor fido_ the four main characters, though they +ultimately resolve themselves into two pairs, are throughout +interdependent, and their story forms but a single plot. That the play +should have needed a double solution, the events that bring two couples +together having no connexion with one another, was a dramatic blunder but +imperfectly concealed by the fact that Silvio and Dorinda are purely +secondary, the whole interest being concentrated on the fortunes of +Mirtillo and Amarilli. In Randolph's play, on the other hand, there are no +less than six important characters. These are divided into two groups, +each with an independent plot, one of which contains a telling though +somewhat conventional [Greek: peripe/teia], while the other, though +possessing originality and pathos, is lacking in dramatic possibilities. +Thus each supplies the elements wanting in the other, and if woven +together harmoniously, should have been capable of forming the basis of a +well-constructed play. The first of these groups consists of Laurinda, +Alexis, Damon, and Amarillis, the last two being really the dramatically +important ones, though their fortunes are connected throughout. It is +Laurinda's choice of Alexis that leads to the union of Damon and +Amarillis, and it is not till Damon has unconsciously fulfilled the +oracle and been freed by its interpretation, that the loves of Laurinda +and Alexis can hope for a happy event. Thus Randolph has at least not +fallen into the error by which Guarini introduced a double catastrophe +into a single plot, though he has not altogether avoided a somewhat +similar danger. This is due to the other group above mentioned, consisting +of Amyntas and Urania, who, so far as the plot is concerned, are +absolutely independent of the other characters. Their own story is +essentially undramatic, although it possesses qualities which would make +it effective in narrative; and it is, moreover, wholly unaffected by the +solution of the other plot. This is obviously a weak place in the +construction of the play, but the author has shown great resource in +meeting the difficulty. First, by placing the interpretation of the oracle +in the mouth of Amyntas, who must yet himself remain hopeless amid the +general rejoicing, he has produced a figure of considerable dramatic +effect, and so kept the attention of the audience braced, and stayed the +relaxing effect of the anti-climax. Secondly, he has amused the spectators +with some excellent fooling until, while Io and Paean are yet resounding, +it is possible to crown the whole by the solution of the second oracle, +and send the hero and his love to join the others in the festive throng. +The imperfection of plot is there, but the author has been skilful in +concealing it, and it may well be that his success would appear all the +greater were his play to be put to the real test of dramatic composition +by being actually placed on the boards. + +But there is yet another point in which the _Amyntas_ differs not only +from its Italian model but from its English predecessors likewise. This is +a certain genially humorous conception of the whole, quite apart from and +beyond the mere introduction of comedy and farce, which we have never +found so marked before, and which has indeed been painfully absent from +the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the _Aminta_. This +humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in +a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing +the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming +stilted and pretentions--a fault not less commonly and quite as justly +charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of +humour is the great safeguard against an author taking either himself or +his creations too seriously. Randolph's _Amyntas_, it is true, renounces +the high ideality of its predecessors, of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor +fido_, of _Hymen's Triumph_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_; but it makes +up for it by human sanity of feeling and expression, by good humour and by +wit. It is, moreover, genuinely diverting. Here at least we find no +endeavour to attain to the importance and solemnity of a classical tragedy +as with Guarini, nor a striving after an utterly unreal, unsympathetic and +impossible ideal as with Fletcher. It is, moreover, noticeable and +eminently to the credit of the author that the comic scenes, even when +somewhat extravagant alike in tone and proportion, seldom clash +unpleasantly with the more serious passages, nor derogate from the +interest and dignity of the whole. + +The play has generally met with a far from deserved neglect, owing in part +no doubt to the singular failure on the part of most critics to apprehend +correctly the nature and conditions of pastoral poetry.[278] Mr. W. C. +Hazlitt, who edited Randolph's works in 1875, does not so much as mention +the play in the perfunctory introduction, in which he chiefly follows the +extravagant, pedantic, and utterly worthless article in the sixth volume +of the _Retrospective Review_.[279] The merits of the piece have been +somewhat more fully recognized by Dr. Ward and Mr. Homer Smith, but the +treatment accorded the play by the former is necessarily scanty, while +that of the latter is inaccurate. Throughout a tendency is manifest to +find fault with the artificiality of the piece, and to blame the author +for not representing the true 'simplicity' of pastoral life. That the +pastoral tradition was a wholly impossible, not to say an absurd one, +bearing no true relation to nature at all, may be admitted; and it may be +lamented by such as love to shed bitter tears because the sandy shore is +not a well-swept parquet, or because anything you please is not something +else to which it bears not the smallest resemblance. It may or may not be +unfortunate that Randolph should have elected to write _more pastorali_, +but to censure the individual work because it is not of a type to which +its author never had the remotest intention of making it conform, and to +which except for something like a miracle it was impossible that it should +even approach, is the acme of critical fatuity. Judged in accordance with +the intention of the author the _Amyntas_ is no inconsiderable achievement +for a young writer, and compared with other works belonging to the same +tradition it occupies a highly respectable place. With Tasso's _Aminta_ +and Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_ it cannot, in point of poetic merit, +for one moment compare, falling as far below them in this as it surpasses +them in complexity and general suitability of dramatic construction. A +fairer comparison may be made between it and the _Pastor fido_ in Italian +or _Hymen's Triumph_ in English, and here again, though certainly with +regard to the former and probably with regard to the latter it stands +second as poetry, as a play it is decidedly better suited than either for +representation on the stage--at least on a stage with the traditions and +conventions which prevailed in this country in the author's day. + + * * * * * + +It is then in the matter of the poetical quality of the verse that +Randolph's play appears to least advantage. Living in a polished and +cultured literary circle at Cambridge, and enjoying after his remove to +London the congenial fellowship of the tribe of Ben, he naturally attained +the ease and skill necessary to maintain a respectable level of +composition, but he was sparing of the higher flights. He seldom strikes +the attention by those purple patches which make many of his +contemporaries so quotable, yet, while by no means monotonously correct, +it is equally seldom that he sinks much below his general level. The +dialogue is on the whole natural and easy, and at the same time crisp and +pointed. A few of the more distinctively poetic and imaginative passages +may be quoted, in order to give some idea of the style. Laurinda thus +appoints a choice to her brace of lovers: + + I have protested never to disclose + Which 'tis that best I love: But the first Nymph, + As soone as Titan guilds the Easterne hills, + And chirping birds, the Saints-bell of the day, + Ring in our eares a warning to devotion-- + That lucky damsell what so e're she be + [That first shall meet you from the temple gate][280] + Shall be the Goddesse to appoint my love, + To say, 'Laurinda this shall be your choice': + And both shall sweare to stand to her award! (III. i.) + +Another passage of deliberate poetic elaboration is the monologue of +Claius on once again treading his native soil: + + I see the smoake steame from the Cottage tops, + The fearfull huswife rakes the embers up, + All hush to bed. Sure, no man will disturbe mee. + O blessed vally! I the wretched Claius + Salute thy happy soyle, I that have liv'd + Pelted with angry curses in a place + As horrid as my griefes, the Lylibaean mountaines, + These sixteene frozen winters; there have I + Beene with rude out-lawes, living by such sinnes + As runne o' th' score with justice 'gainst my prayers and wishes: + And when I would have tumbled down a rock, + Some secret powre restrain'd me. (III. ii.) + +By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few +passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the +verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. The following is a graceful +example in a somewhat conceited vein; the transition, moreover, from +blank to rimed measure has an appearance of natural ease. The rivals are +awaiting the arbitrement of their love: + + _Alexis._ How early, Damon, + Doe lovers rise!... + + _Damon._ No Larkes so soon, Alexis. + + _Al._ He that of us shall have Laurinda, Damon, + Will not be up so soone: ha! would you Damon? + + _Da._ Alexis, no; but if I misse Laurinda, + My sleepe shall be eternall. + + _Al._ I much wonder the Sunne so soone can rise! + + _Da._ Did he lay his head in faire Laurinda's lap, + We should have but short daies. + + _Al._ No summer, Damon. + + _Da._ Thetis[281] to her is browne. + + _Al._ And he doth rise + From her to gaze on faire Laurinda's eyes.... + + _Da._ I heare no noise of any yet that move. + + _Al._ Devotion's not so early up as love. + + _Da._ See how Aurora blushes! we suppose + Where Tithon lay to night. + + _Al._ That modest rose + He grafted there. + + _Da._ O heaven, 'tis all I seeke, + To make that colour in Laurinda's cheeke. (IV. iv.) + +A more tragic note is struck in the speech in which Claius retorts on +Pilumnus after his discovery: + + I, glut your hate, Pilumnus; let your soule + That has so long thirsted to drinke my blood, + Swill till my veines are empty;... I have stood + Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove + Levels his thunder; all my boughes long since + Blasted and wither'd; now the trunke falls too. + Heaven end thy wrath in mee! (IV. viii.) + +In some of these 'high tragical endeavours,' and notably in Damon's +confession, we do indeed find a certain stiltedness, but even here there +rings a true note of pathos in the farewell: + + Amarillis, + I goe to write my story of repentance + With the same inke, wherewith thou wrotes before + The legend of thy love. (IV. ix.) + +These passages will serve to give a fair and not unfavourable impression +of the style, but I have reserved for separate consideration what I +consider to be the most striking portions of the play. The first of these +is the string of Latin songs in which the would-be elves comment on their +nefarious proceedings in Jocastus' orchard. I quote certain stanzas only: + + Nos beata Fauni Proles, + Quibus non est magna moles, + Quamvis Lunam incolamus, + Hortos saepe frequentamus. + + Furto cuncta magis bella, + Furto dulcior Puella, + Furto omnia decora, + Furto poma dulciora. + + Cum mortales lecto jacent, + Nobis poma noctu placent; + Illa tamen sunt ingrata, + Nisi furto sint parata. + + * * * * * + + Oberon, descende citus, + Ne cogaris hinc invitus; + Canes audio latrantes, + Et mortales vigilantes. + + * * * * * + + I domum, Oberon, ad illas + Quae nos manent nunc ancillas, + Quarum osculemur sinum, + Inter poma, lac et vinum. (III. iv.) + +To discuss verses such as these seriously is impossible. The dog-Latin of +the fellow of Trinity is inimitable, while there is a peculiarly roguish +delicacy about his humour. In the admirable ease with which the words are +adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of +the _carmina vagorum_. Lastly, as undoubtedly the finest passage of the +play, and as one that must give us pause when we would deny to 'prince +Randolph' the gifts requisite for the higher imaginative drama, I must +quote the scene in which the distracted Amyntas fancies that in his +endless search for the 'impossible dowry' he has arrived on the shores of +Styx and boarded Charon's bark. + + _Amyntas._ Row me to hell!--no faster? I will have thee + Chain'd unto Pluto's gallies! + + _Urania._ Why to hell, + My deere Amyntas? + + _Amyntas._ Why? to borrow mony! + + _Amarillis._ Borrow there? + + _Amy._ I, there! they say there be more Usurers there + Then all the world besides.--See how the windes + Rise! Puffe, puffe Boreas.--What a cloud comes yonder! + Take heed of that wave, Charon! ha? give mee + The oares!--So, so: the boat is overthrown; + Now Charons drown'd, but I will swim to shore.... + My armes are weary;--now I sinke, I sinke! + Farewell Urania ... Styx, I thank thee! That curld wave + Hath tos'd mee on the shore.--Come Sysiphus, + I'll rowle thy stone a while: mee thinkes this labour + Doth looke like Love! does it not so, Tysiphone? + + _Ama._ Mine is that restlesse toile. + + _Amy._ Is't so, Erynnis? + You are an idle huswife, goe and spin + At poore Ixions wheele! + + _Ura._ Amyntas! + + _Amy._ Ha? + Am I known here? + + _Ura._ Amyntas, deere Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Who calls Amyntas? beauteous Proserpine? + 'Tis shee.--Fair Empresse of th' Elysian shades, + Ceres bright daughter intercede for mee, + To thy incensed mother: prithee bid her + Leave talking riddles, wilt thou?... Queene of darknesse, + Thou supreme Lady of eternall night, + Grant my petitions! wilt thou beg of Ceres + That I may have Urania? + + _Ura._ Tis my praier, + And shall be ever, I will promise thee + Shee shall have none but him. + + _Amy._ Thankes Proserpine! + + _Ura._ Come sweet Amyntas, rest thy troubled head + Here in my lap.--Now here I hold at once + My sorrow and my comfort.--Nay, ly still. + + _Amy._ I will, but Proserpine-- + + _Ura._ Nay, good Amyntas-- + + _Amy._ Should Pluto chance to spy me, would not hee + Be jealous of me? + + _Ura._ No. + + _Amy._ Tysiphone, + Tell not Urania of it, least she feare + I am in love with Proserpine: doe not Fury! + + _Ama._ I will not. + + _Ura._ Pray ly still! + + _Amy._ You Proserpine, + There is in Sicilie the fairest Virgin + That ever blest the land, that ever breath'd + Sweeter than Zephyrus! didst thou never heare + Of one Urania? + + _Ura._ Yes. + + _Amy._ This poore Urania + Loves an unfortunate sheapheard, one that's mad, Tysiphone, + Canst thou believe it? Elegant Urania-- + I cannot speak it without tears--still loves + Amyntas, the distracted mad Amyntas. + Is't not a constant Nymph?--But I will goe + And carry all Elysium on my back, + And that shall be her joynture. + + _Ura._ Good Amyntas, + Rest here a while! + + _Amy._ Why weepe you Proserpine? + + _Ura._ Because Urania weepes to see Amyntas + So restlesse and unquiet. + + _Amy._ Does shee so? + Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, + When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; + I will not move a haire, not let a nerve + Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! Hush,-- + Shee sleepes! + + _Ura._ And so doe you. + + _Amy._ You talk too loud, + You'l waken my Urania. + + _Ura._ If Amyntas, + Her deere Amyntas would but take his rest, + Urania could not want it. + + _Amy._ Not so loud! (II. iv.) + +It was no ordinary imagination that conceived this example of the +grotesque in the service of the pathetic. + +I have endeavoured in the above account to do a somewhat tardy justice to +the considerable and rather remarkably sustained qualities of Randolph's +play. I do not claim that as poetry it can be compared with the work of +Tasso, Fletcher, or Jonson, or that it even rivals that of Guarini or +Daniel, though had Randolph lived he might easily have surpassed the +latter. But I do claim that the _Amyntas_ is one of the most interesting +and important of the experiments which English writers made in the +pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its +kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the +genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived +author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not +overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her +laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it +is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun +in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth +of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other +hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to +assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of +the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when +Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works--the _Jealous Lovers_, a +Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the +_Muses' Looking Glass_, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and +the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than +occasionally improper--will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact +that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of +pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due +to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the +loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play +failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature.[282] + + + +III + + +In Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ we find ourselves once again considering a work +which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, +but which at the same time raises important questions of literary +criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to +consider--Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, +Randolph's _Amyntas_--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian +pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the +very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, +aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. +Except for such comparatively unimportant works as _Gallathea_ and the +_Converted Robber_,[283] the spectators found themselves, for the first +time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of +Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,' +the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those +of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, +Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's +rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of +Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which +had been variously present since Tasso styled his play _favola +boschereccia_, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction +of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of +the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of +the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd +Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated +and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to +fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something +fresh and original and new. + +Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is +at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some +years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of +1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what +date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered +upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for +supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor +that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is +conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier +pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost _May Lord_ has +little to recommend it.[284] Seeing that the play is far from being as +generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give +a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place.[285] + +After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with +characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, +lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is +supposed to have been drowned in the Trent. + + Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here! + Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow: + The world may find the Spring by following her; + For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.) + +He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to +fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to +entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the +stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of +melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin +Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country +maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls +forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of +shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical +pretensions of the puritan reformers--a passage which yields, in biting +satire, neither to his own presentation in the _Alchemist_ nor to Quarles' +scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they +become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks +to himself like a madman. + + It will be rare, rare, rare! + An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words! + Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: + If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing! + Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, + On every greene sworth, and in every path, + Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; + There will I knock the story in the ground, + In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, + Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; + And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, + Quite alter the complexion of the Spring. + Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither, + Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water, + Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout, + As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs, + Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine; + Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice; + And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice. + Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest, + And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles, + And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle; + To fling a fellow with a Fever in, + To set it all on fire, till it burne, + Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, + When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.) + +Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that +he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his +distracted fancy breaks out afresh: + + A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes? + Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks? + Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe? + These may grow still; but what can spring betide? + Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died? + As if there since did fall one drop of dew, + But what was wept for her! or any stalke + Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome, + After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith, + You doe not faire, to put these things upon me, + Which can in no sort be: Earine, + Who had her very being, and her name, + With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring, + Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet, + Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd, + And Venus led the Graces out to dance, + And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap, + Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration, + To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know, + How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since, + No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre + Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke, + As it were hung so for her Exequies! + And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell, + But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle, + And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule + Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings! + Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.) + +To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad +north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a +new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer. + + Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this, + This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse; + [_Forces Amie to kiss Karolin._ + Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty, + For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem + From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her: + Now I am poore as you. (ib.) + +There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the +quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's +interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.' + + _Robin._ I! what was that, sweet Marian? [_Kisses her._ + + _Marian._ You'll not heare? + + _Rob._ I love these interruptions in a Story; [_Kisses her + again._ + They make it sweeter. + + _Mar._ You doe know, as soone + As the Assay is taken-- [_Kisses her again._ + + _Rob._ On, my Marian. + I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.) + +To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there + + sate a Raven + On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse! + +crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen +swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by +Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, +broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now +proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie +complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly +explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the +stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the +strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults +Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to +Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act +Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of +Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought +discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it +now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow +tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now +enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases +from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, +which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, +and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, +reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in +which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This +latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned +to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one +might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would +appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of +natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been +awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to +dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of +his nymphs and swains.[286] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce +the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and +by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next +scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill +at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain +possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the +_naivete_ of _Daphnis and Chloe_. + + How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth, + Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth, + Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by + A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie, + Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree, + Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee? + Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost, + The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost, + My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence, + Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence. + But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove, + Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove; + It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe + All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.) + +To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late +conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of +the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains +unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to +thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and +begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin +declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At +this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to +the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting +poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her +disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its +delicate comedy and pathos. + + _Amie_ [_asleep_]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ... + O', o. + + _Marian._ How is't Amie? + + _Melifleur._ Wherefore start you? + + _Amie._ O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet. + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men? + The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet! + + _Amie._ I', so! + Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe: + Karol is only faire to mee! + + _Mar._ And why? + + _Amie._ Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die. + Karol he singeth sweetly too! + + _Maud._ What then? + Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men? + + _Amie._ I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing, + But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring, + The Nightingale. + + _Maud._ Then why? then why, alone, + Should his notes please you? ... + + _Amie._ This verie morning, but--I did bestow-- + It was a little 'gainst my will, I know-- + A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine, + And now I wish that verie kisse againe. + His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose, + His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes; + The relish of it was a pleasing thing. + + _Maud._ Yet like the Bees it had a little sting. + + _Amie._ And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe + And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.) + +After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer +doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of +Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise +shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of +venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a +gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes +and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an +Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an +old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As +fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers +kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales +forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and +boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad +Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade! +The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of +lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! +Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie +Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their +habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks +of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a +poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits +play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the +Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, +o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent +charmes. (II. viii.) + +In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as +the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk +it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the +dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The +latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a +'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein +no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas. + + But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine, + Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers, + Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste + To get up to the Moone, and Mercury; + And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring + Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars, + Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe + Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all + The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World + Againe, his first and tunefull planetting! + O' what an age will here be of new concords! + Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages, + Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation, + And throw a silence upon all the creatures!... + The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes + Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse; + Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme + Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht, + To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.) + +After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for +the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again +appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and +their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, +and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle +and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with +it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the +shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and +sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again +addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting +his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch: + + Gang thy gait, and try + Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel'; + +the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we +know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of +Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden +mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her +girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped +by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers. + +Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's +pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford, +who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical +judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of +propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought, +and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the +petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who +stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the _Faithful Shepherdess_ +as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its +heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, +however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the _Sad +Shepherd_ to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of +it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will +serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They +display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of +judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben +Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour +and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel, +Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian, +and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious +part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque, +was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit; +the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the +success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt +of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary +groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous +contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On +the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate +the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of +composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with +such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the +projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more +amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or +more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise, +but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that +now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt +influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but +he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is +impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone +final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was +of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his +work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and +deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he +denounces the heresy + + That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall, + +as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he +introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by +Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In +_The Sad Shepherd_ [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit +of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than +either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is +due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance +that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It +must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in +part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit +that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be +repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's +invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it +will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as +favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike +are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may +feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There +are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely +refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a +writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but +with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel +bound to record my dissent. + +Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and +genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr. +Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry' +in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive +that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to +repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[287] That Jonson did not +fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only, +however, I believe, because he faiied to carry it to completion. Had he +lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant +with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question +as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult +and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, +especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the +unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic +construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers +with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted. + +Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, +it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first +place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads, +pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and +seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken +to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and +forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral +tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in +name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and +boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's +_Hymen's Triumph_, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, +are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly +indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the +woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their +essence and history indistinguishable.[288] Probably, however, what the +writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of +popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he +regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by +Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return. + +Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the +comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer +Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as +an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this +view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, +the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin +Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject +of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which +the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of +stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of +a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is +known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we +have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, +_Hymen's Triumph_ and Rutter's _Shepherds' Holiday_; while in the +detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an +exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements +of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by +Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the +materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited +by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the +exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse, +have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part +of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an +unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the +_imbroglio_ can do more than restore the harmony which had been before, +and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the +dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the _Faithful +Shepherdess_. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end +of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose +than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her +confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her +Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the +materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact +that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than +half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the +felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot +as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness +almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the +burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid +Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin +Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which +arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various +threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and +incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic +characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished +shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy +one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr. +Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain +the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are +essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic +composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets +of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the +sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without +qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is +welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's +pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention +of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found +its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious +idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined +creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from +common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many +shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may +frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind, +Phoebe, and Audrey in _As You Like It_? But that is a question to which we +shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the _Sad +Shepherd_ we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined +atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet +constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude +unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels +at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This +brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we +shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of +the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage. + +The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's +pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All +that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the +stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and +with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope +to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be +in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic +characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in +reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts +them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock +and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as +exhibited in the _Sad Shepherd_, would not be worth defending. But it is +not so. + +It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions. +It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain +passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world +in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and +irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so +far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial +Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the +rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine; +of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find +her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of +the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the +singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the +mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean +and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come +dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an +occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense +at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good +angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a +familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of +borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain +incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual +passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as +they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to +lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between +these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be +remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather +beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not +fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had +the play undergone revision. + +Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and +general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. +The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and +may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country +lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular +romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way +antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft +and fairy lore[289]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far +as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no +Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his +lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of +burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic +lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical +tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not +contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, +since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether +necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is +going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,' +they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be +wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, +it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the +pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly +poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce +references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less +naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, +introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable +characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the +same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also +noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one +passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise +incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of +Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically +something of an anachronism. + +Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized +than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular +tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as +Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than +with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood +tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it +exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the +popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock +and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely +less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That +Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found +is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like +Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect. + +Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for +an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic +characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a +mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this +light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for +death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude +audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while +there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private +opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to +cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he +laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister +reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an +imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, +removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of +romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less +idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but +regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more +in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the +shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and +other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition. + +There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the +ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the +groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher +than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the +whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it +is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it +not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere +literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not +only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have +been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum +true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his +day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters +not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we +should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised +fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author +decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his _English Grammar_ shows, +was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and +it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral +himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of +language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have +escaped his critical eye. + +Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor +importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in +previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in +popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a +veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it +remained unfinished at the death of its author. + + * * * * * + +In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment. +This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and +falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure +of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat +qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of +the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and +convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by +which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. +The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but +only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course, +introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all +ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the +hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth +quoting[290]: + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + With breath of bugles sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide, + Nor branchy head will long abide; + Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath, + Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death. + + The hart is slain! his faithful deer, + In spite of hounds or huntsman near, + Despising Death, and all his train, + Laments her hart untimely slain! + + The chase is o'er, the hart is slain! + The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain; + Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell, + Then lay him low in Death's drear dell! + + (Act IV.) + + + + +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 these 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 +_Astree_ 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 _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.) + +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. + + + +II + + +The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the +English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At +no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. +Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner +compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic +drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what +had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. +Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this +romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to +attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the +three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as +we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to +bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient +importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it +may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of +classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England +is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless +experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two +cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards +some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true +that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of +time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves +to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object +was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral +drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in +that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with +artistic evolution. + +A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals +will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it +is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us +to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain +doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of +our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of +most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development +would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than +in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is +unhappily wanting. + +In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of +the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as +familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less +consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the +mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the +mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and +more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest +play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous _Maid's +Metamorphosis_, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in +1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it +presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. +Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to +be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, +discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly +into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch +their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live +among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner +left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in +love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of +livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by +Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be +able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication +has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has +fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his +pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the +infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much +regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens +is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the +suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or +Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo +to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this +performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he +the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the +duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it +seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be +welcome. + +Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, +weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of +the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but +little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd +and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic +clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have +drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's _Gallathea_, in which, it will be +remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a +man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the +sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to +note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, +a fact that carries them back towards Peele's _Arraignment_ and the days +previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the +characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish +pages of Lyly.[317] + +The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often +irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it +contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in +description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not +unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, +are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the +master:[318] + + Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found + A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground: + So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe, + As for his life the sunne durst never peepe + Into the entrance: which doth so afright + The very day, that halfe the world is night. + Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound: + There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground, + No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call, + Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all. + No sound is heard in compasse of the hill, + But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still. + Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie, + A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie + Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God, + Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.) + +And again: + + Then in these verdant fields al richly dide, + With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride: + There is a goodly spring whose christal streames + Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames: + There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory, + The Graces sit, listening the melodye: + The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes + Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles, + Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates + Is as a base unto their hollow throates. + Garlands beside they weare upon their browes, + Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes: + From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise, + As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.) + +The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the + + grassie bed + With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.) + +Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of +haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied: + + I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare + With woodmen thus audaciously compare? + Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King, + And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing. + Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene, + Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene. + And so alas, the good Athenian knight, + And swift Acteon herein tooke delight: + And Atalanta the Arcadian dame, + Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game, + That with her traine of Nymphs attending on, + She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.) + +We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, +in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the +songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which +bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by +Eurymine-- + + Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above, + Forge of desires working love, + Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye + Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.) + +there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of +acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song: + + Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a: + Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a. + Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a: + All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.) + +The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is +undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon +Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect: + + _Gemulo._ As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides, + When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne-- + + _Silvio._ As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides, + Where Nightingales record upon the thorne-- + + _Ge._ So rise my thoughts-- + + _Sil._ So all my sences cheere-- + + _Ge._ When she surveyes my flocks-- + + _Sil._ And she my Deare. + + _Ge._ Eurymine! + + _Sil._ Eurymine! + + _Ge._ Come foorth! + + _Sil._ Come foorth! + + _Ge._ Come foorth and cheere these plaines! + + _Both._ Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines-- + + _Sil._ The Wood-mans Love-- + + _Ge._ And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.) + +Not long after the appearance of the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ there was +written a play entitled _The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves_, +which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, +and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe +Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of +Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose +life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or +nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present +at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses +neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in +prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the +author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and +ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted +restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to +be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the +author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only +characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy +hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess +of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the +woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and +reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a +hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her +turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. +While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on +their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent +to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread +of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and +his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from +passages in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The piece has a prologue for +representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that +honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition. + +Passing over the _Faithful Shepherdess_ in 1609, we come to a play of a +very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's +_Sicelides_, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at +Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before +the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, +surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account +for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the +hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the +neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more +particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been +overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have +already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included +under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic +merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues +of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, +which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer +who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the +fountain-head of his inspiration. + +Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his +affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns +indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with +mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is +courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she +turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but +soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has +relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon +offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks +the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is +condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on +the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is +bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, +when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile +Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of +Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, +determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his +mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a +love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, +mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls +into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting +a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but +Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast +from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. +These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of +Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic +under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love +for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends +happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and +uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who +had been carried off long before by pirates. + +This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian +pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the +construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it +is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in +couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at +times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the +author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such +phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. +Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at +Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone: + + Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it + That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.) + +The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to +be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[324]. The orc +probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the +influence of the _Metamorphoses_ is likewise, as so often, present. The +following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many +short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted: + + The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes, + The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes, + And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames, + Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ... + Only love waking rests and sleepe despises, + Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises. + With him the day as night, the night as day, + All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day. + How different from love is lovers guise! + He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.) + +Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral +that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild +production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled +_The Careless Shepherdess._ It was printed many years after its original +production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. +of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this +ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, +where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the +living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is +probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but +the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are +informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at +Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the +playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' +the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last +months of the author's life[325]. The question of the date is interesting +principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking +resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's _Sad +Shepherd_: + + This was her wonted place, on these green banks + She sate her down, when first I heard her play + Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be + Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose + I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke + Then court my eye; She must be here, or else + That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd + Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that + Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head + To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.) + +The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, +while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely +interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the +play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four +characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and +Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not +object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son +of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes +his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of +disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so +continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile +informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the +return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in +despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is +throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the +exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian +predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, +feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far +successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves +him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her +turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus +challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances +to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in +the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two +shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers +desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by +Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two +maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. +While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of +satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a +despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement +that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his +marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the +swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding +their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover +themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No +satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for +while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be +their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. +Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. +Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for +we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and +carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of +the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. +Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and +are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are +actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. +They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr +reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to +induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of +banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now +ends happily. + +In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled +and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent _enlevements_ by the +satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story +distantly recalls Ingegneri's _Danza di Venere_. One feature of importance +is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended +satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe +his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a +measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner +of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written +in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the _Maid's +Metamorphosis_ we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such +slighter compositions as the _Converted Robber_ and Tatham's _Love Crowns +the End_, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was +no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular +with the audience.[327] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of +Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt +responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves +the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as +is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. +Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely +Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, +introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the +office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a +sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This +mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the +courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the +lyrical verse of the play: + + Come Shepherds come, impale your brows + With Garlands of the choicest flowers + The time allows. + Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair, + And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers + With hast repair: + Where you shall see chast Turtles play, + And Nightingales make lasting May, + As if old Time his youthfull minde, + To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.) + +There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by +Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while +adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. +Of the author of _Rhodon and Iris_, as the play was called, little is +known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare +facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or +chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the +restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have +been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the +same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of +certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters +are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of +the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many +cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose +connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly +subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to +interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the +oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, +moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one +thread is cut short by a _dea ex machina_ of the most mechanical sort, +while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following +is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached +on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she +appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of +Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's +behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has +abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. +The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who +with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of +Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a +love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as +his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused +to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send +Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace +(All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in +time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that +Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a +double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the +attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the +prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan +she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his +followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus +she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to +her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus +Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is +only referred to in the epilogue. + +The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The +large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly +and Spanish type than to that of works like _Menaphon_, or even _Daphnis +and Chloe_. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow +servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine +and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The +allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the +_Queen's Arcadia_.[328] + +This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely +unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the +_Fairy Pastoral_ in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so +at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to +see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse +and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both +in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous +poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for +example, the lines from Eglantine's lament: + + Since that the gods will not my woe redresse, + Since men are altogether pittilesse, + Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare; + Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare, + And listen to my plaints that doe excell + The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel. + Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while, + Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle, + Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone, + Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne, + And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare + The growing liver of the ravisher; + Let these behold my sorrows and confesse + Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.) + +Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine: + + Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains, + That in the woods and mountains art ador'd, + The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires, + Who art for chastity renouned most, + Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure + The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes, + Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply + Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.) + +Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast: + + When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed, + When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,... + When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober, + When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,... + When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down, + When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown, + To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow; + Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.) + +Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a +second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to +write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort: + + Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort + Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames + Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages, + Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed; + But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy + Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd + With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.) + +Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste +and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of +measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The +occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines, +sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play: + + Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire + My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite; + My hopes are vanish'd into ayre, + My day is turn'd to gloomy night; + For since my Rhodon deare is gone, + Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none. + A Cell where griefe the Landlord is + Shall be my palace of delight, + Where I will wooe with votes and sighes + Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite; + Since I have lost my Rhodon deare, + Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.) + +To treat of Walter Montagu's _Shepherds' Paradise_ at a length at all +commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there +are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give +it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of +Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. +The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, +who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. +The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' +Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, +and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence +the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and +likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, +Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a +man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same +pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly +company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in +love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised +Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of +Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds +to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, +it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the +prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to +Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen +perpetual queen[329]. + +The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the +Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited, +in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover, +as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more +intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous +tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of +verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater +merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence +of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from +the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external +circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation. + +One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's _Session +of the Poets_, from which it is evident that the style of the play +attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's +contemporaries: + + Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial, + And did not so much as suspect a denial; + But witty Apollo asked him first of all, + If he understood his own pastoral! + +The _Shepherds' Paradise_ is, however, best remembered on account of +circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a +letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her +ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously +appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in +which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who +appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the +public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific +instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any +personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the +supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears. + +It is presumably at this point that Randolph's _Amyntas_ should appear in +a chronological survey of English pastoralism. + +Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before +the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and +it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[330]. The +songs in the introduction and the _intermedi_ were undoubtedly in French, +and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French +forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles +francaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which +belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only +influenced in the _denoument_ by mythological tradition, appears to be +original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to +exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[331] The relation of the +characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account +of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess +Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her +servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to +the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and +passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by +Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the +nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds. +Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e. +Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this +garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love. +Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the +faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now +fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances +of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered +her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene +at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and +begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene +accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to +show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from +Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when +Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene +now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are +interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene. +This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that +they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to +abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her +love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to +Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and +Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the +latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize +shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their +love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them. +Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns +to complete the _tableau_. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many +deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these +marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the +spectators. + +The _Shepherds' Holiday_ is the most typical, as it is on the whole the +most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the +Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page +informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is +satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the +translater of Corneille's _Cid_, who appears to have been in some way +attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of +Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The +following analysis will sufficiently express its nature. + +At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of +Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral +inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished, +carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament, +the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich +shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain +Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene +between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss +of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone, +however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her +love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis, +finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him +with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the +giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she +faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her +father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court. +Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus, +recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son +of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd +Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country +folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had +discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now +again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity +of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile +Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own +daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king +to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore +commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born, +but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and +carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to +commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers +fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the +play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a +restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who +adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her +lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her +still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries, +however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis, +overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a +friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in +accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and +Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to +die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however, +leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends +happily.[332] + +In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be +desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the +unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is +properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot +on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but +clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to +predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The +verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if +its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in +flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser +poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the +_Shepherds' Holiday_ from _Hymen's Triumph_. Rutter's verse also displays +a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it +preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which +Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which +opens with a reminiscence of Spenser: + + All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks, + So pine and languish they, as in despair + He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks + Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair, + Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them. + And now what beauty can there be to live, + When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.) + +Again the opening situation recalls that of _Hymen's Triumph_, a +resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual +names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of +Dorinda are taken from the _Pastor fido_. From the _Aminta_, of course, +comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of +the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the _Pastor fido_ her +confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines +of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation: + + Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul, + Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina + But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so; + To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[333] (II. iii.) + +But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the +construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his +own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his +love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and +also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. +Verbal reminiscences of the _Aminta_ also are scattered through the play, +for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who +seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations +particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. +Her father not unreasonably retorts: + + Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is, + Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth + To follow you with lies and flatteries. + Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades, + Which will not always last, and you go crooked, + As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground, + Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.) + +With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of +those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists +make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, +Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly +have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our +attention. + +Cowley's _Love's Riddle_, published in 1638, but written two or three +years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply +to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it +is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of +genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics +professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not +finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's +conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley +had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the +world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was +perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely +on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less +clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were +interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and +courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic +or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin. + +Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the +shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at +the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her +suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and +Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, +finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost +his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with +the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, +daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral +characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, +who fills at once the roles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On +Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and +Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister +Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of +some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after +vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under +the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with +Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that +he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad +Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him +home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by +transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, +working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and +Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. +Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in +Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to +recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by +Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their +lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's +identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is +found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, +stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby +removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and +Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent +to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted +by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs +is secured. + +There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley +shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of +individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there +is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole +construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various +threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, +fall apart of themselves, without any _denoument_, strictly speaking, at +all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, +absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction. + +The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of +mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below +the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which +possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found +in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora: + + How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples + Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.) + +or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her +brother's sword: + + As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet + Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble: + I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune, + And am almost worne out with often playing; + And therefore I would entertaine my death + As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.) + +Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct +following without imitation of _The Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph.' +Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it +was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its +application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not +taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of +astrologers.[334] That Cowley had read _The Jealous Lovers_, published in +1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the +yet unpublished _Amyntas_. This he may perhaps have seen when it was +performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own +Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of +Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual +verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little +doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque, +half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed +to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of +Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in _Amyntas_, +while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene +of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of +Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation, +rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and +his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have +been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the _Jealous Lovers_, she is +probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in +_Amyntas_. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the +liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will +not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of +incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the +loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere +schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could +be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft +are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some +praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The +position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls +that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia, +particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe. +The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel +finds of course an obvious parallel in _Twelfth Night_. The discovery of +Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in +Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's +_Filli di Sciro_, which might also be traced in the attribution to +centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral +tradition. + +It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral +tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English +stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a +schoolboy. _Love in its Extasy_, described on the title-page as 'a kind of +Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of +Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William +Peaps.[335] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to +have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps +regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile +effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[336] treating of tyrants and +revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might +have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the +publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a +period after 1642. + +_Love in its Extasy_ itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be +called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it +with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the +title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of +the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in +their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is +no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere +of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in +the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or +pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is +for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and, +considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author. +An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two +princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other +appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths, +and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple +elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot +intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be +admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a +wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and +the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it +has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will +be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly +incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one +prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally +important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic +tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics +are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure +respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form. + +The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is +true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the +practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly +unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can +hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines, +as where a lover bids his penitent mistress + + Go, + Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine + Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.) + +There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to +dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness +displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun +writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and +pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have +been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who +know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the +composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities +Cowley's flashy precocity. + +This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated +play entitled _Love's Victory_, extracts from a manuscript of which were +printed in 1853.[337] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the +date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat +archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with +free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is +of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts, +but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a +pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the _finale_, while the +situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the +quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The +only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate +their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the +involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the +whole the poetic merit is small.[338] + +We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within +our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or +at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces +in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for +our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each +other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice +differences of form as may be found to exist among them. + + + + +Chapter VII. + +Masques and General Influence + + + +I + + +The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what +may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the +early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic +kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays, +and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of +its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may +often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and +exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines +of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact +usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous +and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate +themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that _Comus_ is a +masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question +of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt +may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must +not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics +such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest +possible signification as including not only the regular and highly +developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on +the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all +dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or +inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the +question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a +particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and +quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of +forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever +classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a +clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat +in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully +developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something +no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from +the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times +especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence, +and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral +tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong. + +The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may +well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the +isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the +pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to +supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while +the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing +matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of +structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had +long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and +occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter +forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the +pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more +noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama. + +The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of +interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which +Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according +to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn. +The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it +is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being +no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation. + +The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the +middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for +classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight +entertainment, to which the name of _The Lady of May_ has been given by +modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth +during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to +have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict +sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains +the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind. +The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the +May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending +for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party +being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who +decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show. +A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old +shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the +character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little +more extravagant than that of Sidney's own _Arcadia_. As in the romance, +at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional +songs are of small merit. + +The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work +breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the _Descensus +Astraeae_, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the +Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. +1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment +of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of +pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car +with the words: + + Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green, + Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks; + Such pastures are not common to be seen: + Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks, + For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall; + And heaven's great architect be praised for all[339]. + +In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate +speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together +with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march. + +The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her +Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at +Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right +Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very +characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing +rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the +compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more +detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards +Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild +man who began his speech thus: + + I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why, + nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to + our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan, + whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty + thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee + Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet + counted the god of the Woods. + +He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle +of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their +Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all +join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read +further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest +Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.' +Ceres sings: + + Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking; + Pomona pineth, + Fruitlesse her tree; + Fair Phoebus shineth + Onely on mee. + Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,... + All other Gods of power bereven, + Ceres only Queene of heaven. + + With Robes and flowers let me be dressed; + Cynthia that shineth + Is not so cleare, + Cynthia declineth + When I appeere, + Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ... + And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers, + Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres. + +She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely +Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech; +whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show +accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the +metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree, +having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.' + + Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth, + This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth: + The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene, + And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene. + If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste, + And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.' + +'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne +after, with these words:' + + Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire, + Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste, + And yet because so chaste, must I despaire? + And to despaire, I yeelded have at last. + +'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:' + + I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene + of chastety, &c. + +a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader. +The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus. +Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the +shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the +feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake. +After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in +a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked +Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes +the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of +Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's +delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but +however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other +similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not +necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[340] + +To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces +printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of +_Dialogues and Dramas_.[341] The only one of these that can really be +styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled _Amphrissa, or the +Forsaken Shepherdess_. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and +fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the +unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins +in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise +counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the +scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, +virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously +raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song. + +In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most +appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest +concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in +blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards +Euphuism. Thus we read of men how + + like as the Chamelions change themselves + Into all perfect colours saving white; + So they can to all humors frame their speech, + Save only to prove honest; + +or else how + + light minds are catcht with little things, + And Phancie smels to Fennell. + +Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness +the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in +the _Gallathea_ already quoted (p. 227): + + You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits, + A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse, + And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste: + It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart: + 'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst, + And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie. + +Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us +rather of Daniel and the sonneteers: + + To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst, + And all contingents brooke with patience, + Is a most soveraigne medicine. + +All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who +regards the piece as forming part of the _Five Plays in One_, acted at the +Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed +in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with +the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is +that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, +and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from +the work of Peele and Lyly. In _Jupiter and Io_, which perhaps made part +of the same performance as _Amphrissa_, Mercury disguises himself as a +shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good +purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the +inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the +character of which can be easily imagined from its title, _Apollo and +Daphne_, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of +the mythological pastoral: + + Howsoe're the Minutes go, + Run the heures or swift or slow: + Seem the Months or short or long, + Passe the seasons right or wrong: + All we sing that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + + Early fall the Spring or not, + Prove the Summer cold or hot: + Autumne be it faire or foule, + Let the Winter smile or skowle: + Still we sing, that Phoebus follow, + _Semel in anno ridet Apollo_. + +Passing on to the seventeenth century, the first piece that demands +attention is the St. John's Twelfth Night entertainment, _Narcissus_, +performed at Oxford in 1602. If its pastoral quality is somewhat +evanescent, there is another point of view from which the piece has a good +deal of interest. It is, namely, a burlesque production of the nature of +the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and +flavoured with something of the comic rusticity of Greene's Carmela +eclogue in _Menaphon_. It is needless here to summarize the plot of the +'merriment' which the ingenious author, no doubt a student of St. John's, +evolved from Ovid's account in the third book of the _Metamorphoses_, and +which runs to the respectable length of some eight hundred lines.[342] I +may be allowed, however, to note that echo verses, suggested by Ovid, are +introduced and handled with more than usual ingenuity; and further to +quote two characteristic passages. In one of these the nymphs Florida and +Clois court the affections of the loveless hero. + + _Florida._ Shine thou on mee, sweet plannet, bee soe good + As with thy fiery beames to warme my bloud ... + + _Narcissus._ To speak the truth, faire maid, if you will have us, + O Oedipus I am not, I am Davus. + + _Clois._ Good Master Davis, bee not so discourteous + As not to heare a maidens plaint for vertuous. + + _Nar._ Speake on a Gods name, so love bee not the theame. + + _Flo._ O, whiter then a dish of clowted creame, + Speake not of love? How can I overskippe + To speake of love to such a cherrye lippe? + + _Nar._ It would beseeme a maidens slender vastitye + Never to speake of any thinge but chastitye. + + _Flo._ As true as Helen was to Menela + So true to thee will be thy Florida. + + _Clo._ As was to trusty Pyramus truest Thisbee + So true to you will ever thy sweete Clois bee. + + _Flo._ O doe not stay a moment nor a minute, + Love is a puddle, I am ore shooes in it. + + _Clo._ Doe not delay us halfe a minutes mountenance + That ar in love, in love with thy sweet countenance. + + _Nar._ Then take my dole although I deale my alms ill, + Narcissus cannot love with any damzell; + Although, for most part, men to love encline all, + I will not, I, this is your answere finall. + +We are here, it is true, as far as ever from the delicate rusticity of +Lorenzo de' Medici, and not particularly near to the humour of the +Athenian rustics, but for burlesque it is passably amusing. The _Midsummer +Night's Dream_ had appeared possibly a decade earlier, and the audience in +the college hall at Oxford can hardly but have been reminded of Wall and +Moonshine as they listened to the speech by one who enters carrying 'a +buckett and boughes and grasse.' + + A well there was withouten mudd, + Of silver hue, with waters cleare, + Whome neither sheep that chawe the cudd, + Shepheards nor goates came ever neare; + Whome, truth to say, nor beast nor bird, + Nor windfalls yet from trees had stirrde. + [_He strawes the grasse about the buckett._ + And round about it there was grasse, + As learned lines of poets showe, + Which next by water nourisht was; [_Sprinkle water._ + Neere to it too a wood did growe, _[Sets down the bowes._ + To keep the place, as well I wott, + With too much sunne from being hott. + And thus least you should have mistooke it, + The truth of all I to you tell: + Suppose you the well had a buckett, + And so the buckett stands for the well; + And 'tis, least you should counte mee for a sot O, + A very pretty figure cald _pars pro toto_. + +The first strict masque of a pastoral character that we meet with is that +of Juno and Iris, with the dance of nymphs and the 'sunburnt sicklemen, of +August weary,' introduced by Shakespeare into the _Tempest_; but this must +not be taken as altogether typical of the independent productions of the +time. The masques introduced into plays were necessarily, for the most +part, of a slighter and less elaborate character than those performed at +court, or for the entertainment of persons of rank. This is more +particularly the case with the serions portions of the masques, since the +actors, who were engaged for the performance of the antimasques in court +revels, frequently transferred their parts bodily on to the public boards. +Thus, in the entertainment in the _Winters Tale_, in which shepherds also +appear, the main feature was a dance of satyrs, which was no doubt +borrowed from Jonson's _Masque of Oberon_.[343] The _Tempest_ masque, +however, is of the simpler type, without antimasque. At Juno's command +Iris summons Ceres, and the goddesses together bestow their blessing on +the young lovers. Then at Iris' call come the naiads and the reapers for +the dance. The date of the play may be taken as late in 1610, or early the +next year, a time at which the popularity of the masque was reaching its +height. + +Although the mythological element is everywhere prominent, the pastoral is +comparatively of rare occurrence in the regular masque literature of the +seventeenth century. This, considering the adaptability and natural +suitability of the form, is rather surprising. Probably the masque as it +evolved itself at the court of James needed a subject possessing a +traditional story, or at least fixed and known conditions of a kind which +the pastoral was unable to supply. Be this as it may, on one occasion +only did Jonson make extended use of the kind, namely, in the masque which +in the folio of 1640 appears with the heading 'Pans Anniversarie; or, The +Shepherds Holy-day. The Scene Arcadia. As it was presented at Court before +King James. 1625. The Inventors, Inigo Jones, Ben. Johnson[344].' Even +here, however, we learn little concerning the condition of pastoralism in +general, from the highly specialized form employed to a specific purpose. +As in all the regular masques of the Jonsonian type the characters and +situations exist solely for the opportunities they afford for dance and +song. Shepherds and nymphs constitute the personae of the masque proper, +while those of the antimasque are supplied by a band of Bocotian clowns, +who come to challenge the Arcadians to the dance. Some of the songs are +very graceful, suggesting at times reminiscences of Spenser, at others +parallels to Ben's own _Sad Shepherd_, but the piece does not possess +either sufficient importance or interest to justify our lingering over it. +Outside this piece the nearest approach to pastoral characters to be found +in Jonson's masques are, perhaps, the satyr and Queen Mab in the fairy +entertainment at Althorp in 1603, Silenus and the satyrs in _Oberon_ in +1611, and Zephyrus, Spring, and the Fountains and Rivers in _Chloridia_ in +1631. + +During James I's reign pastoral shows of a sort no doubt became frequent. +While in some cases which remain to be noticed they reached the +elaboration of small plays, in others they probably remained simple +affairs enough. We get an interesting glimpse of the conditions of +production in a note of John Aubrey's.[345] 'In tempore Jacobi,' he +writes, 'one Mr. George Ferraby was parson of Bishops Cannings in Wilts: +an excellent musitian, and no ill poet. When queen Anne came to Bathe, her +way lay to traverse the famous Wensdyke, which runnes through his parish. +He made severall of his neighbours, good musitians, to play with him in +consort, and to sing. Against her majestie's comeing, he made a pleasant +pastorall, and gave her an entertaynment with his fellow songsters in +shepherds' weeds and bagpipes, he himself like an old bard. After that +wind musique was over, they sang their pastorall eglogues.' This was in +1613; Ferraby or Ferebe later became chaplain to the king. + +The more elaborate pieces were usually written for performance at schools +or colleges. Such a piece is Tatham's _Love Crowns the End_, composed for +the scholars of Bingham in Nottinghamshire in 1633, and printed in his +_Fancy's Theatre_ in 1640. Small literary interest attaches to the play, +which is equally slight and ill constructed, but is perhaps not +unrepresentative of its class. In spite of its very modest dimensions it +possesses a full romantic-pastoral plot, with the resuit that it is at +times almost unintelligible, owing to the want of space in which to +develop in an adequate and dramatic manner the motives and situations. The +bewildering rapidity with which character succeeds character upon the +stage must have made the representation almost impossible to follow, while +the reading of the piece is not a little complicated by the confusion in +which the stage directions remain in the only modern edition.[346] Some +notion of the complexity of the plot may be gathered from the following +account. Cliton, having in a fit of jealousy sought to kill his love +Florida, is found wandering in the woods by Alexis, who receives his +confession and shows him the way to repentance. Florida, moreover, has +been found and healed by the wise shepherdess Claudia, and is living in +retirement. Meanwhile Cloe (a name which it appears from the rimes that +the author pronounced Cloi) is saved by Lysander from the pursuit of a +Lustful Shepherd, in consequence of which she transfers to him the +affection she previously bore to her lover Daphnes. Next Leon and his +daughter Gloriana appear, together with the swain Francisco, to whom +against her will the maiden is apparently betrothed. They all go off to +view the games in which Lysander, whose heart is also fixed on Gloriana, +proves victor. His refusal to entertain the affection of Cloe drives her +to a state of distraction, in which the nymphs of the woods take pity on +her and bring her to Claudia to be cured. Gloriana in the meantime returns +the affections of Lysander, but the meeting of the lovers is interrupted +by the jealous Francisco and a gang who wound Lysander and carry off +Gloriana. She escapes from her captors, but only after she has lost her +reason, and wanders about until she meets with Cliton, who has turned +hermit and who now undertakes her cure. Throughout the play we find comic +interludes by Scrub, a page or attendant in search of his master, who also +has some farcical business with the Lustful Shepherd, who after being +disappointed of Cloe disguises himself as a satyr, apparently deeming that +role suited to his taste. In the end all the characters are brought +together. Francisco, found contrite, is forgiven by Lysander and Gloriana; +Cliton and Florida love once more; so do Daphnes and Cloe, appropriately +enough. Scrub announces the death of the usurping duke, 'who banished good +old Leon;' Francisco and Lysander reveal themselves as princes who left +the court to win his daughter's love, when he was driven from his land, +and so--love crowns the end. + +Through this medley it is not hard to see the various debts the author has +incurred towards his predecessors. The verse, in rimed couplets, whether +deca- or octo-syllabic, ultimately depends on Fletcher; of the comic prose +scenes I have already spoken in dealing with Goffe's _Careless +Shepherdess_, a play the influence of which may perhaps be specifically +traced in the satyr-disguise, the gang who carry off Gloriana, her +unexplained escape, and the songs of the 'Destinies' and a 'Heavenly +Messenger,' who in their inconsequence recall the 'Bonus Genius' of +Goffe's play. Scrub may owe his origin to the same source, though he is +rather more like the page in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The usurping duke +recalls _As You Like It_; the princes seeking their love-fortunes among +the shepherd folk suggest the _Arcadia_; while the influence of the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ is not only traceable in the character of the +Lustful Shepherd, but also in certain specific parallels, as where the +wounded Lysander, seeing his love carried off, exclaims: + + Stay, stay! let me but breathe my last + Upon her lips, and I'll forgive what's past; (p. 24) + +a reminiscence of the lines spoken by Alexis in a similar situation: + + Oh, yet forbear + To take her from me! give me leave to die + By her! (_Faithful Shepherdess_, III. i. 165[347].) + +The general level of the verse is not high, but we now and again light on +some pleasing lines such as the following: + + My dearest love, fair as the eastern morn + As it breaks o'er the plains when summer's born, + Hanging bright liquid pearls on every tree, + New life and hope imparting, as to me + Thy presence brings delight, so fresh and rare + As May's first breath, dispensing such sweet air + The Phoenix does expire in; sit, while I play + The cunning thief, and steal thy heart away, + And thou shalt stand as judge to censure me. (p. 18.) + +So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant +echo of Peele's gem: + + _Gloriana._ Sit, while I do gather flowers + And depopulate the bowers. + Here's a kiss will come to thee! + + _Lysander._ Give me one, I'll give thee three! + + _Both._ Thus in harmless sport we may + Pass the idle hours away. + + _Gloriana._ Hark! hark, how fine + The birds do chime! + And pretty Philomel + Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.) + +Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum +manuscript, where it bears the title of _The Converted Robber_.[348] No +author's name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced. The +scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the +occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with +Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words: + + Lett us that do noe envy beare um + Wish all felicity to Sarum. + +Now in 1636,[349] according to Anthony a Wood, there was acted at St. +John's College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled _Stonehenge_, the +occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as +Dean of Salisbury. We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two +pieces. The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated +1637. This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may +possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting +the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal +reckoning. + +The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a +stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link +between the drama and the masque. In this it somewhat resembles _Comus_, +employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai +dances of the masque.[350] + +The story is simple enough. A band of robbers and a company of shepherds +and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of +Stonehenge--'stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of +Sarum'--which forms the background of the scene. It chanced that the +shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved +from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her +love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve +him. Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd +folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among +them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by. During +a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda's sister, and +finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force. At this she attempts to +stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and +is converted to the pastoral life. His companions, left in the lurch, fall +upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason +by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in +his conversion. Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while +Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful +swains, Palaemon and Dorus. + +In this piece there is a rather conspicuous absence of motive and dramatic +construction, the author claiming apparently the freedom of the masque. +The verse is mainly octosyllabic, sometimes blank, but the rough accentual +'rime' is also used. Decasyllabics are rare. There is also some prose in +the comic part sustained by Autolicus and Conto and the aged clown Jarbus, +as well as a certain amount of Spenserian archaism, and a good deal of +dialect. Whether comic or romantic, the characters are singularly out of +keeping with their surroundings, while the conceit of paganizing the +Christian worship appears to be carried to ludicrous lengths, until one +recollects that it depends almost entirely upon the substitution of the +name of Pan for that of the Deity--a process no doubt facilitated by false +etymology. Thus Christ, who is spoken of by name, is called 'Pannes blest +babe.' After describing the foundation of Salisbury Cathedral, the old +shepherd proceeds: + + But sturdy shepherds brought all the other stones, + And reard up that great Munster all at once, + Wher shepherds each one, both woman and man, + Do come to worship theyr great God Pann. + +A rustic show formed the first part of an entertainment witnessed by +Charles and Henrietta Maria at Richmond, after their return from a visit +to Oxford in 1636. A clown named Tom comes in bearing a present for the +queen, and is on the point of being unceremoniously removed by the usher, +when he espies Mr. Edward Sackville, to whom he appeals, and a dialogue +ensues between the two. After he has offered his present, Madge, Doll, and +Richard come in, and the four perform a country dance. They are all plain +Wiltshire rustics who talk a broad vernacular, but at the end a shepherd +and shepherdess enter and sing a duet in a more courtly strain. The author +of this slight production is not known, but it is regarded by the latest +authority on masques as an imitation, in the looseness of its +construction, of Davenant's _Prince d'Amour_.[351] + +Little poetic ability was displayed by Heywood on the only occasion on +which he introduced pastoral tradition into a Lord Mayor's pageant. The +'first show by land' of the _Porta Pietatis_, presented by the drapers in +1638 on the occasion of Sir Maurice Abbot's mayoralty, consisted of a +speech by a shepherd, which is preceded in the printed copy by a short +account of the properties, natural history, and general usefulness of +sheep, as well as of their peculiar importance in relation to the craft +honoured in the person of the newly appointed Lieutenant of the city of +London. Heywood was famous for his wide, miscellaneous, and often +startling information. + +We have already seen how, in the first blush and budding of the +Elizabethan spring, George Peele treated the tale of the judgement of +Paris; on the same legend Heywood based one of his semi-dramatic +dialogues; it remains to be seen how, in the late autumn of the great age +of our dramatic literature, Shirley returned to the same theme in his +_Triumph of Beauty_, privately produced about 1640. It is a regular +masque, for which the familiar story serves as a thread; the goddesses and +their symbolical attendants, or else the Graces and the Hours with Hymen +and Delight, performing the dances, while a company of rustic swains of +Ida, who come to relieve the melancholy of the princely shepherd, form a +comic antimasque. It has, however, grown to the proportions of a small +play. The comic characters also study a piece on the subject of the golden +fleece, reminiscent, like _Narcissus_, of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. +This, as Mr. Fleay supposes, may well be satirical of some of the city +pageants, though it is best to be cautious in discovering definite +allusions. But the success of such a piece as the present, in so far as it +was dependent on the _libretto_, demanded a power of light and graceful +lyric versification which was not conspicuous among the many gifts of the +author. The comic business is frankly amusing, but the long speeches of +the goddesses can hardly have appeared less tedious to a contemporary +audience than they do to the reader to-day. + +I may also notice here a regular short pastoral in three acts, inserted by +Robert Baron in his romance [Greek: E)rotopai/gnion], _or the Cyprian +Academy_, printed in 1647. It is entitled _Gripus and Hegio, or the +Passionate Lovers_, and relates the loves of these characters for Mira and +Daris; while we also find the familiar roguish boy, less amusing and of +stricter propriety than usual; a chorus of fairies who discourse classical +myth; Venus, Cupid, Hymen, and Echo; and the habitual concomitants of +pastoral commonplace. The romance also contains a masque entitled _Deorum +Dona_, in which figure allegorical abstractions such as Fame, Fortune, and +the like. It is in no wise pastoral. + +Another pastoral show of some elaboration, and of a higher order of poetry +than most of those we have been considering, is Sir William Denny's +_Shepherds' Holiday_, printed from manuscript in the _Inedited Poetical +Miscellany_ of 1870. The piece appears to date from 1653, and is only +slightly dramatic so far as plot is concerned. It is of an allegorical +cast, the various characters typifying certain virtues, or rather +temperaments--virginity, love and so forth--as is elaborately expounded in +the preface. + +A few slight pieces by the quondam actor Robert Cox, partaking more or +less of the character of masques, possess a certain pastoral colouring. +This is the case, for instance, in the _Acteon and Diana_, published in +1656.[352] The piece opens with the humours of the would-be lover Bumpkin, +a huntsman, and the dance of the country lasses round the May-pole. Then +enters Acteon with his huntsmen, who is followed by Diana and her nymphs. +Upon the dance of these last Acteon, returning, breaks in unawares, and is +rebuked by the goddess, who then retires with her nymphs to a glade in the +forest. They are in the act of despoiling themselves for the bath when +they are again surprised by Acteon. Incensed, the goddess turns upon him, +and he flees before her anger, only to return once more upon the dance of +the bathers in the shape of a hart, and fall at their feet a prey to his +own hounds. The verse, whether lyric or dramatic, is of a mediocre +description, and the piece, if it was ever actually performed, no doubt +depended for success upon the music, dancing, and scenery. It is a curious +fact, to which Davenant's work among others is witness, that the nominally +private representation of this kind of musical ballet was permitted, while +the regular drama was under strict inhibition. At any time, however, it +must have been difficult to represent such a piece as the present without +sacrificing either propriety or tradition. + +Another similar composition, headed 'The Rural Sports on the Birthday of +the Nymph Oenone,' is printed together with the above. In it the strains +of the polished pastoral are varied by the humours of the clown Hobbinall, +the whole ending with a speech by Pan and a dance of satyrs. + +One obvions omission from the above catalogue will have been noticed. The +reason thereof is sufficiently obvious; and the following section will +endeavour to repair it. + + + +II + + +In Milton's contribution to the fashionable masque literature of his day +we approach work the poetic supremacy of which has never been called in +question, and whose other qualities, lying properly beyond the strict +application of that term, critics have habitually vied with one another to +extol. No one, indeed, for whom poetry has any meaning whatever, can turn +from the work of Peele, Heywood, and Shirley, of Ben Jonson even, to the +early works of Milton, to such comparatively immature works as _Arcades_ +and _Comus_, without being conscious that they belong to an altogether +different level of poetical production. It was no mere conventional +commendation, such as we may find prefixed to the works of any poetaster +of the time, that Sir Henry Wotton addressed to the author of the Ludlow +masque: 'I should much commend the Tragical [i.e. dramatic] part, if the +Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your Songs +and Odes, wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing +parallel in our Language[353].' + +The two poems we have now to consider were, in all probability, written +within a short while of one another, and the second anticipated by more +than three years the composition of _Lycidas_. But the connexion between +the two is not one of date only, nor even of the spectacular demand it was +the end of either to meet. It may, namely, in the absence of any definite +evidence, be with much plausibility presumed that the impulse to the +entertainment, of which as we are told _Arcades_ formed a part, originated +with that very Lady Alice Egerton and her two young brothers who, the +following year probably, bore the chief parts in _Comus_. The +entertainment was presented at Harefield in honour of their grandmother, +the Countess Dowager of Derby. This lady, probably somewhat over seventy +at the time, was the honoured head of a large family. The daughter of Sir +John Spencer of Althorpe, born about 1560, she married first Ferdinando +Stanley, Lord Strange, afterwards Earl of Derby, patron of the company of +actors with whom Shakespeare's name is associated; and secondly, after +his early death in 1594, the Lord Keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton, who rose by +rapid steps to be Viscount Brackley shortly before his death in 1617. The +span of a human life appears strange when measured by the rapidly moving +events of the English renaissance. The wife of Shakespeare's patron, who +may have witnessed the early ventures of the Stratford lad at the time of +his first appearance on the London stage--the 'Amarillis' of _Colin +Clout_, with whom, and with her sisters 'Phillis' and 'Charillis,' Spenser +claimed kinship, and to whom he dedicated his _Tears of the Muses_ in +1591--lived to see her grandchildren perform for her amusement in the +reign of the first Charles an entertainment for which their music-master +Lawes had requisitioned the pen of the future author of _Paradise Lost_. + +_Arcades_, or 'the Arcadians,' can hardly be dignified by the name of a +masque; it is the mere embryo of the elaborate compositions which were at +the time fashionable under that name, and of which Milton was to rival the +constructional elaboration in his pastoral entertainment of the following +year. It rather resembles such amoebean productions as we find introduced +into the stage plays of the time; and was, no doubt, as the superscription +explicitly informs us, but 'Part of an entertainment presented to the +Countess Dowager of Darby.' Nevertheless it is complete and +self-contained, and to speak of it, as Professer Masson does, as 'part, +and part only, of a masque,' is to give a wholly false impression; for, +whatever the rest of the entertainment may have been, there is not the +least reason to suppose that it had any connexion or relation with the +portion that has survived. This runs to a little over one hundred lines. A +group of nymphs and shepherds, coming from among the trees of the garden, +approach the 'seat of State' where sits the venerable Countess, whom they +address in a song. As this ends their progress is barred by the Genius of +the Wood, who delivers a long speech.[354] This is followed by a song +introducing the dance, after which a third song brings the performance to +a close. It cannot be honestly said that the bulk of this slender poem is +of any very transcendent merit; but the final song stands apart from the +rest, and deserves notice both on its own account and for the sake of that +to which it served as herald: + + Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more + By sandy Ladons Lillied banks; + On old Lycaeus or Cyllene hoar + Trip no more in twilight ranks; + Though Erymanth your loss deplore + A better soyl shall give ye thanks. + From the stony Maenalus + Bring your Flocks, and live with us; + Here ye shall have greater grace + To serve the Lady of this place, + Though Syrinx your Pans Mistres were, + Yet Syrinx well might wait on her. + Such a rural Queen + All Arcadia hath not seen. + +Here we have, if nothing else, promise at least of the melodies to be, as +also of that harmonious interweaving of classical names which long years +after was to lend weight and dignity to the 'full and heightened style' of +the epic. One other point in connexion with the poem is noteworthy, the +quality, namely, in virtue of which it claims our attention here. It is, +indeed, not a little curious that on the only two occasions on which +Milton was called upon to produce something of the order of the masque, he +cast his work into a more or less pastoral form; and this in spite of the +fact that, as we have seen, the form was by no means a prevalent one among +the more popular and experienced writers. It would appear as though his +mind turned, through some natural bent or early association, to the +employment of this form; an idea which suggests itself all the more +forcibly when we find him, a few years later, setting about the +composition of a conventional lament in this mode on a young college +acquaintance, and producing, through his power of alchemical +transmutation, one of the greatest works of art in the English language. + +It was, no doubt, in the earlier months of 1634, while his friend Lawes +was engaged on the gorgeous and complicated staging and orchestration of +the _Triumph of Peace_ and the _Coelum Britannicum_, that Milton composed +the poem which perhaps more than any other has made readers of to-day +familiar with the term 'masque.' In the second of the elaborate +productions just named--a poem, be it incidentally remarked, which does no +particular credit to the pen of its sometimes unsurpassed author, Tom +Carew, but in the presentation of which the king and many of his chief +nobles deigned to bear a part--minor roles had been assigned to the two +sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, namely, the Viscount Brackley and Master +Thomas Egerton. When the earl shortly afterwards went to assume the +Presidency of the Welsh Marches, it was these two who, together with their +sister the Lady Alice, bore the central parts in the masque performed +before the assembled worthies of the West in the great hall of Ludlow +Castle. The ages of the three performers ranged from eleven to thirteen, +the girl, who was the eighth daughter of the marriage, being the eldest. + +It must have been a gay and imposing sight that greeted the spectators in +the grim old border fortress, the gaunt ruins of which may yet be seen, +but which had at that date already rubbed off some of its medieval +ruggedness as a place of defence. Though necessarily less elaborate and +costly than the performances in London, no pains were spared to make the +spectacle worthy of the occasion, and it must have appeared all the more +splendid in contrast to its surroundings, presented as it was in the great +hall in which met the Council of the Western Marches in the distant town +upon the Welsh border. Nor did the occasion lack the heightening glamour +and dramatic contrast of historical association, for in this very hall +just a century and a half before, if tradition is to be credited, the +unfortunate Prince Edward, son of Edward IV, was crowned before setting +out with his young brother on the fatal journey which was to terminate +under a forgotten flagstone in the Tower of London. + +I do not propose to enter into any detailed account of the manner in which +we may suppose the masque to have been performed, nor into the literary +history of the poem itself; to do so would be a work of supererogation in +view of the able discussion of the whole subject from the pen of Professor +Masson. The debts Milton owed to the _Somnium_ of Puteanus, to Peele's +_Old Wives' Tale_ and to Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, are now all +more or less recognized. From the first he probably borrowed the name and +character of Comus himself, as well as a few incidental expressions. The +second contains a remarkable parallel to the search of the two brothers +for their lost sister, which it is difficult to suppose fortuitous; while +many passages might be cited to prove Milton's close acquaintance with +Fletcher's poem[355]. + +The masque as performed at Ludlow Castle probably differed in one +important particular from the form in which we know it, and which is that +in which it left Milton's hand. This form is attested by the original +quarto edition, by the texts of the Poems of 1645 and 1673, and by +Milton's manuscript draft in the volume preserved at Trinity College, +Cambridge. The variant form is found in the manuscript at Bridgewater +House, reputed to be in Lawes' handwriting, which seemingly represents the +acting version. In Milton's text the scene discovered is a wild wood; the +attendant Spirit descends, or enters, and at once launches out into a long +speech in blank verse. Lawes seems to have thought that it would be more +appropriate for the Spirit--that is, for himself, for it appears that he +took the part--to open the performance with a song, and consequently +transferred to this place the first thirty-six lines of the final lyrical +speech of the Spirit, substituting the words 'From the heavens' for +Milton's 'To the ocean.' The change was doubtless effective, and was +skilfully made; yet one cannot help feeling that some of the magic of the +poem has evaporated in the process. However, Lawes was loyal to his +friend, and whatever alterations his wider knowledge of the requirements +of stage production may have led him to introduce into the masque as +performed at Ludlow, he never sought to foist any changes of his own into +the published poem, when, having tired himself with making copies for his +friends, he at length decided, with Milton's consent, to send it forth +into the world in its slender quarto garb. + +A brief analysis will serve to reveal the lines upon which the piece is +constructed, and to show how far it follows the traditions respectively of +the drama and the masque. The introductory speech puts the audience in +possession of the situation, and informs them how the wood is haunted by +Comus and his crew, himself the son of Bacchus and Circe, and how they +seek to trick unwary passengers into drinking of the fateful cup which +shall transform them to the likeness of beasts and, driving all +remembrance of home and friends from their imaginations, leave them +content 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' Wherefore the Spirit is +sent to guide the steps of those 'favoured of high Jove,' and save them +from the wiles of the fleshly god. Announcing that he goes to assume 'the +weeds and likeness of a swain,' so as to perform his charge unknown, the +Spirit leaves the stage, which is at once invaded by Comus and his rout. A +brilliant speech by the god, preceding the first measure, illustrates the +strange but yet not infrequent irony of fate by which it has happened that +the most puritanical of poets have thrown the full weight of their best +work into the opposing scale, and clothed vice in magic colours to outdo +the richest fancies of the libertine. No doubt this reckless adorning +of sin was intentional on Milton's part; he painted the pleasures of +[Greek: ko~mos] in their most seductive colours, that the triumph of virtue +might appear by so much the greater, fancying that it was enough to assert +that final victory, and failing, like most preachers, to perceive that +unless it was made psychologically and artistically convincing the total +effect would be the very reverse of that which he intended. If we compare +the speech of Comus with that of the Lady on her first appearance, we shall +hardly escape the conclusion that then, as indeed always, Milton had a +mere schoolboy's idea of 'plot,' as of some combination of events to be +infused with the breath of life at his own will, and from without, not +such as should spring from the fundamental elements of the characters +themselves. In the midst of dance and revel Comus interrupts his +followers: + + Break off, break off, I feel the different pace + Of some chast footing neer about this ground; + +and the crew vanishes among the trees as the Lady enters alone and +narrates how she lost her brothers at nightfall in the wood, and attracted +by the sounds of mirth has bent hither her steps in the hope of finding +some one to direct her. She then sings a song by way of attracting her +brothers' attention, should they chance to be near. As she ends Comus +re-enters in guise of a shepherd, and offers to escort her to his hut +where she may rest until her companions are found. She has no sooner left +the stage than these enter in search of her, and while away the time with +a long discussion on the dangers of the wood and the protective power of +virtue. To them at length enters the attendant Spirit, who has certainly +been so far very remiss in his duties, in the habit of their father's +shepherd Thirsis; and on hearing how they have parted company with their +sister, tells of Comus and his enchantments, and arming his hearers with +hemony, powerful against all spells, guides them to the hall of the +sorcerer. The scene now changes to the interior of the palace of Comus, +'set out with all manner of deliciousness,' where the god and his rabble +are feasting. On one side we may imagine an open arcade giving on to the +banks of the Severn, silvery in the moonlight, the cool purity of its +waters contrasting with the rich jewelled light and perfumed air within. +We see the Lady seated in an enchanted chair, while before her stands the +magician, wand in hand, offering her wine in a crystal goblet. Then +follows the dialogue in which the Lady defends her virtue against the +blandishments of Comus, till at last her brothers, followed by the +spirit-shepherd, rush in and disperse the revellers. The Lady is now found +to be fixed like marble in the chair of enchantment, but the attendant +Spirit shows his resource by calling to their help the virgin goddess of +the stream: + + Sabrina fair + Listen where thou art sitting + Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave, + In twisted braids of Lillies knitting + The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair, + Listen for dear honour's sake, + Goddess of the silver lake, + Listen and save. + +Thus conjured in some of the most perfectly musical lines in the language +the daughter of Locrine rises from her waves, and enters the hall with a +song, attended by her obedient nymphs. Having broken the spell and freed +the captive Lady, she at once departs with her train, and after another +speech by the Spirit, the scene changes to the town and castle of Ludlow, +a bevy of shepherds dancing in the foreground. After these have concluded +their measure, the wanderers enter, still guided by the spirit-shepherd, +who presents them safe and sound to their parents. Then follows another +dance, and the Spirit, throwing off, we may presume, his pastoral +disguise, launches into his final speech: + + To the Ocean now I fly, + And those happy climes that ly + Where day never shuts his eye; + +concluding: + + Mortals that would follow me, + Love vertue, she alone is free, + She can teach ye how to clime + Higher than the Spheary chime; + Or if Vertue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +Such is the bare outline, the skeleton of the piece; what, we cannot help +wondering, was it like when it first appeared clothed in the beauty of the +flesh and inspired with the spirit of song? Its fashion and its form we +have indeed yet before us, though nothing can again quicken it into the +life it enjoyed for one brief hour nearly three hundred years ago. We must +be thankful that we count the poem itself among our treasures, and be +content to confine our inquiry to it. It is, after all, to the accidents +of its production as the body to the robes that adorn it. + +It must be confessed that outwardly at least _Comus_ has but little +connexion with pastoral. The habit of the Spirit, the disguise of the +magician, the dance in the third scene, these are the only points serving +to connect the poem with pastoral tradition in any formal manner. It is +not, however, on account of these that _Comus_ has been commonly assigned +to the same category as the _Faithful Shepherdess_ and _Lycidas_, but +rather because its whole tone, its mode, one might almost say, is +essentially pastoral, and because it is directly dependent upon previous +pastoral work. + +It has been the fashion to praise _Comus_ above all other masques +whatever, and from the point of view of the poetry it contains it would be +idle to dispute its supremacy. But there are other considerations. As a +masque proper, and from the point of view of what had come to be expected +of such compositions, how does it stand? I am not here concerned to +inquire how far the term can with strict propriety be applied to the +piece, a question which may be left to the somewhat arid region of the +formal classification of literature. The points in which it resembles the +regular spectacular masques, as well as those in which it differs from +them, will be alike evident from the analysis given above. It may, +however, be well to put in a caution against the manner in which some +writers on the masque seek to make their distinctions appear more clearly +defined than they in reality are by declaring _Comus_ to be not a masque +at all but a play. It is no more a regular play than it is a strict +masque, but a dramatic composition containing elements of both in almost +equal proportions. + +That the songs are for the most part exquisite, that they were worthily +set to music and adequately rendered; that the measures, the dance of the +revellers in their half-brutish disguises, the antimasque of country folk, +and the final or main dance of the wanderers, were effective; that the +whole was graceful, complete and polished, is either self-evident to-day, +or may with reason be inferred. The scenery, too, must have been striking; +the dreary forest, its darkness just relieved by the half-seen +'glistering' forms; the heavy drug-like splendour of the enchanted palace +and the cold moonlight outside; the bright, fresh sunshine, lastly, +dew-washed, of the early morning; there were here a series of pictures the +contrasts of which must have added to their individual effect. The scene, +the song and the measure, these form, indeed, the very stuff that masques +are made of. But Milton's poem offered more than this; and it may well be +questioned how far this more was of a nature to recommend it to the tastes +of his audience, or indeed to heighten rather than to diminish its merits +as a work of literature and art. There was, in the first place, a +philosophical and moral intention, which, however veiled in fanciful +imagery and clothed in limpid verse, is yet not content to be an inspiring +principle and artistic occasion of the poem, but obtrudes itself directly +in the length of some of the speeches; refuses, that is, to subserve the +aesthetic purpose, and endeavours to divert the poetic beauty to its own +non-aesthetic ends. In the second place, and probably of greater +importance as regards the actual success of the piece on the stage, it +contained somewhat of dramatic emotion, of incident which depended for its +value upon its effect on the characters involved, which was ill served by +the spectacular machinery and necessary limitations of the composition, +while at the same time it must have interfered with the opportunity for +mere sensuous effect which it was the main business of the masque to +afford. The weight which different persons will attach to these objections +will no doubt vary with their individual temperaments, their +susceptibility to the magical charm of the verse, their sense of artistic +propriety, and the degree to which they are able to recall in imagination +the conditions of a bygone form of artistic presentation. I speak for +myself when I say that, in fitness for the particular end it had to serve, +Milton's poem appears to me to be surpassed, for instance, by the best of +Jonson's masques, no less than it surpasses them, and all others of their +kind, in the poetical beauty of the verse, whether of the 'tragical' or +lyrical portions. + +Since I have ventured to formulate certain objections against an +acknowledged masterpiece, it will be well that I should define as clearly +as possible the ground upon which those objections are based. I have, I +hope, sufficiently emphasized my dissent from that school of criticism +which condemns a work of art for not conforming to one or another of a +series of fixed types. That _Comus_ lies, so to speak, midway between the +drama and the masque, and partakes of the nature of either, is not, by any +inherent law of literary aesthetics, a blemish; what in my view is a +blemish, and that a serions one, is that the means employed are not +calculated to the demands of the situation. The struggle of the Lady +against the subtle enchanter, the search of the brothers for their lost +sister, the safe event of their wanderings, are all points which, however +simple in themselves, yet excite our interest; however certain we may feel +that virtue in the person of the Lady will never fall to the allurements +of Comus, they neither of them become a mere abstraction. That is to say +that, little as there may be of plot, the interest is that of the drama, +an interest really felt in the fate of the characters; while the medium +adopted is that of the masque, with its spectacular machinery, even if not +in its regular and orthodox form. It follows that the dramatic interest is +a clog on the scenic elaboration of the form, while the form is +necessarily inadequate to the rendering of the content. + +It is significant that in all the early editions the piece is merely +styled 'A Maske Presented At Ludlow Castle'; the title of _Comus_ was +first affixed by Warton. It was an obvious title for a critic to adopt; it +is probably the last that the author would himself have thought of +choosing. Had it been named contemporaneously, and after the fashion of +the masques at court, the title of the _Triumph of Virtue_ could not but +have suggested itself. This is indeed the very theme of the piece. Virtue +in the person of the Lady, guarded by her brothers, watched over by the +attendant Spirit, aided at need by the nymph Sabrina, triumphant over the +blandishments and temptations of fancy and of sense in the persons of +Comus and his followers; that is the subject of the masque. It is a +subject finely and suitably conceived for spectacular illustration, and +possesses a moral after Milton's own heart. The closing lines of the poem, +already quoted, give admirable expression to the motive. Were the subject, +on the other hand, to be treated dramatically, then the character of the +Lady, virtue at grip with evil, was worthy to exercise--had; indeed, in +varying forms long exercised--the highest dramatic genius. But in this +direction lay, consciously or unconsciously, one of Milton's most evident +limitations, and had he attempted to give full dramatic expression to the +idea it is not improbable that the experiment would have resulted in +undeniable failure. From such an attempt he was, however, debarred by the +terms of his commission, which demanded not a drama, but a spectacular +performance. Yet in spite of this Milton's conception of the piece is, as +we have seen, essentially dramatic, and consequently in so far as the +means prevented the due fulfilment of that conception in so far must the +Lady necessarily fall short of the adequate realization of her high role. +The action is too much abstracted, the characters too allegorical, to +satisfy in us the dramatic expectations which they nevertheless call +forth; while, on the other hand, they remain too concrete and individual +to be adequately rendered by purely spectacular means. + +These considerations have an important bearing upon the other objection +which I ventured to bring forward, that of moralizing; for it cannot be +argued, I imagine, that the direct expression of philosophical or ethical +ideas is in any way illegitimate in the masque proper, any more than it is +in the choric ode. But, as I have said, Milton--no doubt intentionally, +though the point is irrelevant--has raised dramatic issues and dramatic +emotions, and consequently by the laws of the drama, that is, by his +success in satisfying those emotions, he must be judged. All speeches +therefore introduced with a directly moral and philosophical rather than a +dramatic end must be pronounced artistic solecisms. Whether Milton has +been guilty of such undramatic interpolations, such lapses from the one +end of art, may be left to the individual judgement of each reader to +determine; for my own part I cannot conceive that any doubt should exist. + +But even if we pass over what some readers will be inclined to dismiss as +a mere theoretical objection, there are other charges which these same +passages will have to meet. Those who have borne with me in my remarks on +the _Aminta_ and the _Faithful Shepherdess_, will probably also agree with +me here, when I say that to me at least there is something not altogether +pleasing in Milton's presentment of virtue. I should add at once, that to +place Milton's poem on an ethical level with either of the above-mentioned +pieces would, of course, be preposterous. It is impossible to doubt the +severe chastity of Milton's own ideal, and to compare it for one moment to +the conventional _onesta_ which replaced virtue in Tasso's world, or with +the nauseous unreality of the puppet Fletcher sought to enthrone in its +place, would be to commit an uncritical outrage. Nevertheless, the +expression Milton chose to give to his ideal cannot, therefore, lay claim +to privilege. That expression had become intimately associated with +pastoral convention, and he accepted it along with much else from his +predecessors. I am not aware of any reason why spectators should have been +prejudiced otherwise than in favour of the Lady Alice Egerton; but she is, +nevertheless, careful to take the first opportunity of informing them, +with much earnest protestation, of her quite remarkable purity and virtue, +implying as it were a naive surprise at having arrived unsullied at the +perilous age of thirteen. The stilted affectation of this self-conscious +innocence is perhaps less evident in the scene in which we should most +readily look for it--that, namely, in which the Lady defends herself from +the persuasions of the Sorcerer, where a certain fervour of feeling raises +her utterances above a merely colourless level--than in the long soliloquy +in which she indulges on first appearing on the stage. Something of the +same disagreeable quality is present in the rather mawkish discussion +between her two young brothers. Milton, who is entirely untouched, either +with the levity of Tasso or the cynicism of Fletcher, was undoubtedly +himself wholly unconscious that any such charge could be brought against +his work. It is the direct outcome of a certain obtuseness, a curious want +of delicacy, which in his later work results at times in passages of +offensively bad taste[356]. As yet it is hardly responsible for anything +worse than a confused conception in the poet's imagination. [Greek: Pa/nta +kathara\ toi~s katharoi~s], and the allegory is an old one whereby virtue +appears as the tamer of the beasts of the wild. It is, however, to those +alone who are innocent of evil that belongs the faery talisman. The +virtue, knowing of itself and of the world, may be held a surer defence, +but it is by comparison a gross and earthly buckler, with less of the +glamour of romance reflected from its aegis-mirror. Somehow one feels +instinctively that Una did not, on meeting with the lion, launch forth +into a protestation of her chastity. Nothing, of course, would be easier +than by means of a little judicious misrepresentation to cast ridicule +upon the whole of Milton's conception of virtue in woman, and nowhere is +it more needful than in such a case as the present to remember the +fundamental maxim that bids one take the position one is attacking at its +strongest. Nevertheless, putting aside for the moment all questions of art +and all considerations of taste, there remains a question worthy of being +fully and carefully stated, and of being honestly entertained. Milton has +deliberately penned passages of smug self-conceit upon a subject whose +delicacy he was apparently incapable of appreciating, and these passages +he has placed, to be spoken in her own person, in the mouth of a child +just passing into the first dawn of adolescence, thereby outraging at once +the innocence of childhood and the reticence of youth. Is it possible to +pretend that this is an action upon which moral censure has no word to +say[357]? + +It would hardly have been necessary to emphasize this point of view, or +to dwell upon objections which, when one surrenders to the magic of the +verse, can hardly appear other than carping, were it not for the somewhat +injudicious and undiscriminating praise which it has been the fashion of a +certain school of critics to lavish upon the piece. The exquisite quality +of the verse may be readily conceded, as may also the nobleness of +Milton's conception and the brilliance, within certain limits, of the +execution; but when we are further challenged to admire the 'moral +grandeur' of the figure in which virtue is honoured, there are some at +least who will feel tempted to reply in the significant words: 'Methinks +the lady doth protest too much!' + +A word may be said finally as to the quality of the verse. I need not +repeat that it is exquisite, that the music of it is like a full stream +overflowing the rich pastures; what I am concerned to maintain is, that it +is not for the most part of Milton's best. In the first place, what, for +want of a better name, I have called Milton's moralizing is a blemish upon +the poetic as it is upon the dramatic merits of the piece. The muse of +poetry, like all her sisters, is not slow in avenging herself of a divided +allegiance. By the cynical irony of fortune already noticed, where Milton +would most impress us with his moral he becomes least poetical. There is, +it is true, hardly a speech or a song which does not contain lines worthy +to rank with any in the language, from the opening words: + + Before the starry threshold of Joves Court, + +to the final couplet: + + Or if Virtue feeble were, + Heav'n it self would stoop to her. + +But there are passages in which these memorable lines appear as so much +rich embroidery superimposed upon the baser fabric of the verse, not woven +of the woof. They are in their nature more easily detached, and often form +the best known and most often quoted passages of the work. Take the first +speech of the Lady, concerning which something has already been said. Here +we find the lines: + + They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n + Like a sad Votarist in Palmer's weed + Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain; + +or again: + + A thousand fantasies + Begin to throng into my memory + Of calling shapes, and beckning shadows dire, + And airy tongues, that syllable mens names + On Sands, and Shoars, and desert Wildernesses; + +or yet again: + + Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud + Turn forth her silver lining on the night? + +We have the song: + + Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen + Within thy airy shell + By slow Meander's margent green, + And in the violet imbroider'd vale + Where the love-lorn Nightingale + Nightly to thee her sad Song mourneth well. + +Such lines would justly render famous any passage in any poem in which +they occurred. Nevertheless, remove them, which can be done without +material injury to the sequence of the thought, and see whether in its +warp and web the speech can for a moment stand comparison with that of +Comus, to which it stands in direct and dramatic contraposition. + +But this drawback is only incidental; through nine-tenths of the piece, +perhaps, there is little or no moral preoccupation to disturb us. And +here, though no doubt the poetic beauty reaches a climax in the song to +Sabrina--a song for pure music certainly unsurpassed and probably +unequalled by anything else that Milton ever wrote--there are others, such +as 'By the rushy-fringed bank,' as well as less distinctively lyrical +passages, which come within measurable distance even of its perfection. +And yet, with certain noticeable exceptions, there are few passages in +which comparison with Milton's later works will not reveal technical +immaturity. This is no less true of the decasyllabic verse, when compared +with the full sonority of _Lycidas_, than of the shorter measures. Take, +for example, the invocation of Sabrina which follows the song previously +quoted--the speech beginning: + + Listen and appear to us + In name of great Oceanus. + +In spite of its very great beauty there is observable at the same time a +certain monotony of cadence, and an occasional want of success in the +attempts to relieve it, which place the passage distinctly below Milton's +best. And yet it seems almost ungenerous to place Milton even below +himself, particularly when in the very speech we are criticizing we are +brought face to face with two such flawless lines as those on 'fair +Ligea's golden comb', + + Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks + Sleeking her soft alluring locks-- + +lines which anticipate and rival the perfection of rhythmic modulation in +_L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_[358]. + + + +III + + +There remains to inquire what influence of pastoral tradition is traceable +in the wider field of the romantic drama, whether in individual scenes and +characters, or more vaguely in general tone and sentiment; and, finally, +to consider for a moment the critical expression given by writers of +various dates to the sentimental philosophy of life which went under the +name of pastoralism in fashionable circles. + +The number of plays in which definite pastoral elements can be traced is +surprisingly small, even when every allowance has been made for the fact +that we have already included in our examination several pieces which come +but doubtfully within the fold. The spirit of the romantic drama, instinct +with sturdy life, had little in common with the artificial and unreal +sentiment of a tradition which had almost ceased to pretend to a basis in +the emotions of natural humanity. The result was, as might be expected, +that when the drama introduced characters of a nominally pastoral type, +they were either direct transcripts from actual life, deliberately +ignoring conventional tradition, or else specifie borrowings from that +tradition, introduced with full consciousness of its fashionable +unreality, and using that unreality for a definite dramatic purpose. Thus, +although the basis of pastoralism is found in non-traditional garb, and +though pastoralism itself is found as the subject of dramatic treatment, +yet, so far as the introduction of individual scenes and characters is +concerned, it is seldom possible to say that pastoral has influenced the +romantic drama in any sensible degree. + +A certain number of plays, presumably of a more or less pastoral nature, +have perished. Thus no trace remains of the _Lusus Pastorales_ licensed to +Richard Jones in 1565, the nature of which can be only vaguely +conjectured. The early date of the entry renders it important, and it is +much to be regretted that the work should have perished, since it might +have thrown very interesting light upon the condition of pastoralism in +England previous to the appearance of the _Shepherd's Calender_. Most +probably, however, the piece, whatever it may have been, was composed in +Latin. We also have to lament the non-survival of a _Phillida and Corin_, +which, we learn from the Revels' accounts, was acted by the Queen's men +before the court, at Greenwich, on St. Stephen's day, 1584. This again +would be an interesting piece to possess, since the title suggests a +purely pastoral composition contemporary with Peele's mythological play. +On February 28, 1592, Lord Strange's men performed a piece at the Rose, +the title of which is given by Henslowe as 'clorys & orgasto,' presumably +_Chloris and Ergasto_. It was an old play, probably dating from some years +earlier. Whether 'a pastorall plesant Commedie of Robin Hood and little +John,' entered to Edward White in the Stationers' Register, on May 14, +1594, could have justified its title may be questioned, but it is curious +as suggesting an anticipation of Jonson's experiment. Again, on July 17, +1599, George Chapman received of Philip Henslowe forty shillings, in +earnest of a 'Pastorall ending in a Tragydye,' which, however, was +apparently never finished. Possibly our loss is not great, for Chapman's +talents hardly lay in this line; but a tragical ending to a play of the +pure pastoral type would have been something of a novelty, and the early +date would also have lent it some interest. Yet another play known to us +solely from Henslowe's accounts is the _Arcadian Virgin_, on which Chettle +and Haughton were at work for the Admiral's men in December, 1599, and for +which they received sums amounting in all to fifteen shillings. The title +suggests that the play may have been founded on the story of Atalanta, but +it was probably not completed. Ben Jonson's _May Lord_, which we know only +through the notes left by Drummond of his conversations, was almost +certainly not dramatic, though critics have always accepted it as such; +but the same authority records that Jonson at the time of his visit to +Hawthornden was contemplating a fisher-play, the scene to be laid on the +shores of Loch Lomond. There is no evidence that the scheme ever reached a +more mature stage. Finally, I may mention a play entitled _Alba_, a Latin +pastoral, which incurred the royal displeasure when performed before James +and his consort in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1605. The +historian of the visit, quoted by Nichols, says that 'It was a pastoral, +much like one which I have seen in King's College, Cambridge, but acted +far worse.' The allusion is presumably to the Latin translation of the +_Pastor fido_. The cause of offence was the appearance of 'five or six men +almost naked,' who no doubt represented satyrs. + +To what extent these plays were of a pastoral character must, of course, +be matter of conjecture. They may have been pastoral plays of a more or +less regular type, they may have been mythological dramas, or they may +have been distinguished from the ordinary run of romantic compositions by +a few incidental traits of pastoralism only. Not a few pieces of the +latter description have been preserved, pieces in which definite traces +of pastoral are to be found, but which cannot as a whole be included in +the kind. + +We have already had occasion to note the very slight pastoral influence +which exists in the short masques or dialogues of Thomas Heywood, in spite +of the opportunity afforded by their mythological character. The same may +be noticed in the plays in which he drew his subject from classical +legend. _Love's Mistress_ is the appropriate and attractive title of a +dramatization of the last-born fancy of the mythopoeic spirit of Greece, +Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche. The early editions add to the title +the further designation of 'The Queen's Masque.' The work is indeed a +composite piece, a masque grown into a play through the accretion of +foreign matter, and was probably in its original state a far simpler +composition than it now appears. The writing is in a dainty vein, and had +the piece been completed in a manner consonant with the simple and idyllic +grace of the earlier scenes, it would have been no such unequal companion +to Peele's _Arraignment of Paris_. What the play contains of pastoral +belongs to one of the accretions. It is a rustic element in the +interludes, satiric and farcical, supplied by a country clown, some +shepherds, and 'a shee Swaine,' Amarillis. In his _Ages_ the pastoral +element shrinks to an occasional dance and song. Thus in the _Golden Age_ +the satyrs and nymphs sing a song in honour of Diana, which introduces the +disguised Jupiter in his courtship of Calisto. In the _Silver Age_, again, +the rape of Proserpine by Pluto is preluded by a song of 'a company of +Swaines, and country Wenches' in honour of Ceres. + +An unkind and quite worthless tradition, based on a manuscript note in an +old copy, has connected Peele's name with the lengthy and tedious drama of +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_. It was admitted into the canon of Peele's +works by Dyce, and though Mr. Bullen differed from his predecessor as to +the justness of the ascription, he retained it in his edition. We find in +it a coarse, dialect-speaking rustic, named Corin, who at one point +succours Clyomon, and with whom Neronis, daughter of the King and Queen of +the Strange Marshes, seeks service in the disguise of a boy. Apart from +his name and the profession of shepherd he is a mere countryman, with +nothing to connect him with pastoral tradition, though the princess' +action finds, of course, abundant parallels therein. The _Old Wives' +Tale_, printed as 'by G. P.,' and of which there is no reason to question +Peele's authorship, connects itself with pastoral chiefly through the +already mentioned parallel which it affords to _Comus_. It also +anticipates, in a song of harvesters, the introduction of the 'sunburnt +sicklemen' of the _Tempest_ masque. + +At a later date we find Shirley in his _Love Tricks_ introducing two +sisters who leave their home and, taking the disguise of shepherd and +shepherdess, dwell among the country folk in the fields and pastures, +whither they are followed by their lovers. There are passages which reveal +a genuine pastoral tone, such as Shirley could readily adopt when it +suited his purpose, and it is not only in the measure that the tradition +reveals itself in such lines as: + + A shepherd is a king whose throne + Is a mossy mountain, on + Whose top we sit, our crook in hand, + Like a sceptre of command, + Our subjects, sheep grazing below, + Wanton, frisking to and fro. (IV. ii.) + +Again, in the _Grateful Servant_ we have a show of 'Satyres pursuing +Nymphes; they dance together. Exeunt Satyres; three Nymphes seem to +intreat [Lodowick] to goe with them,' accompanied by a song of Silvanus. + +Yet slighter traces of pastoral are to be occasionally found in other +plays of the period. Thus in Brome's _Love-Sick Court_ the swains and +nymphs are led in the dance by characters who have sought and found a cure +for love among the country folk. In John Jones' _Adrasta_, the scene of +which is laid at Florence, several of the characters disguise themselves +in pastoral attire, and there is one definitely pastoral scene in which +they appear in the midst of real shepherds and shepherdesses. The play was +printed in 1635, and it is noticeable as containing, in the pastoral +scene, satire on the Puritans resembling that introduced by Jonson in the +_Sad Shepherd_. So again, similar disguisings, though of a less +pronouncedly pastoral character, occur in the anonymous _Knave in Grain_, +in which the scene is Venice. Satyrs and nymphs, clowns and maids, join in +a song in Nashe's curious allegorical show entitled _Summer's Last Will +and Testament_; nymphs and satyrs appear in the interludes of Dekker's +_Old Fortunatus_; Silvanus, with nymphs and satyrs, perform a sort of +interlude with song in the anonymous _Wily Beguiled_; and, lastly, we have +the morris danced by the countrymen and wenches who accompany the jailor's +daughter in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_. + + * * * * * + +The wider influence of tone and spirit is, in the nature of the case, far +more difficult to determine. It is possible that some court-plays may show +the influence of the artificial arrangement of characters and the +conventional play of motives characteristic of the pastoral drama. But it +is a matter of the greatest difficulty to analyse with certainty such +structural peculiarities as these, still more so to assign them with +confidence to their proper origin. Many characteristics which one might at +first sight put down to the influence of the pastoral drama are, in +reality, far more likely to be due to that of the comic stage of Italy in +general. But while it would be rash to assert that the pastoral plays in +this country exercised any wide influence over the regular drama, there +can be no question such an influence was exercised to a very appreciable +degree by pastoral poetry in general. I am not thinking of the romances at +this moment, for as we have already seen it was the non-pastoral elements +in the pastoral novel that exerted such influence as can be traced over +the drama, but rather of the pastoral ideal and the pastoral mode in +general, as expressed either in the lyric, the eclogue, or the drama. In +this the drama shared an influence which was also exercised on other +departments of literature. Numerous songs might be quoted from the scenes +of the Elizabethan dramatists in support of this contention; while, on the +other hand, we also find dramatic and descriptive passages the idyllic +quality of which may not unreasonably be referred to a pastoral source. + +This tendency of the drama to absorb pastoral elements rather from the +lyric and the idyll than from regular plays in that kind is significant. +It is the acknowledgement of an important fact, which pastoralism failed +to recognize; namely, that as the expression of the pastoral idea gained +in complexity of artistic structure it lost in vitality. The pastoral +drama, born late in time, was the outcome of very especial circumstances, +emphatically the child of its age, and little calculated to serve the +artistic requirements of any other. Once the creative impulse that gave it +life was withdrawn the falsity of the kind as a form of art became +manifest; and though it lingered on for many years its life was but that +of a fashionable toy, with little or no hold over the vital literature of +its day. The popularity of the pastoral eclogue or idyll was of far longer +duration. Though the form was more or less definitely conditioned, it had +less of the structural rigidity of the drama, it brought its subject less +into contact with the hard limitations of reality, and, which may also +have been important, brought it less into comparison with other +subject-matter employing the same or a closely analogous form. Thus it was +better able to adapt itself to the tastes and requirements of various +ages, and found favour in such vastly different societies as those for +which Theocritus, Mantuan, Spenser, and Pope produced their works in this +kind. Even here, however, the simple sensuous ideal was too much hampered +by the ungenuine paraphernalia which the conventions of these various +societies had gathered round it to take rank among the permanent and +inevitable forms of literary art. This was granted to the lyric alone. It +was through the lyric that the pastoral ideal and pastoral colouring most +deeply penetrated and influenced existing forms; for the lyric, the freest +and most unconditioned of all poetical kinds, the least tied to the +circumstances and limitations of the actual world, was particularly fitted +to extract the fragrance from the pastoral ideal without raising any +unseasonable questions as to its rational or actual possibility. + + It was a lover and his lass + That o'er the green cornfield did pass-- + +this is the essential; and we ask no more if we are wise. The very +essence, be it remembered, of the pastoral ideal is no more than 'love +_in vacuo_.' And this the lyric alone can give us. + + * * * * * + +But there is one play which more than any other illustrates the nature of +the influence exerted by pastoral tradition over the romantic drama and +the relation subsisting between the two. This is _As You Like It_; for if +in one sense Shakespeare was but following Lodge in the traditional +blending of pastoral elements with those of court and chivalry, in another +sense he has in this play revealed his opinion of, and passed judgement +upon, the whole pastoral ideal. This must necessarily happen whenever a +great creative artist adopts, for reasons of his own, and takes into his +work any merely outward and formal convention. It was rarely that in his +plays Shakespeare showed any inclination to connect himself even remotely +with pastoral tradition. The _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ traces its origin, +indeed, to the _Diana_ of Montemayor; but all vestige of pastoral +colouring has vanished, and Shakespeare may even have been himself +ignorant of the parentage of the story he treated. A more apparent element +of pastoral found its way many years later into the _Winters Tale_; but it +is characteristic of the shepherd scenes of that play, written in the full +maturity of Shakespeare's genius, that, in spite of their origin in +Greene's romance of _Pandosto_, they owe nothing of their treatment to +pastoral tradition, nothing to convention, nothing to aught save life as +it mirrored itself in the magic glass of the poet's imagination. They +represent solely the idealization of Shakespeare's own observation, and in +spite of the marvellous and subtle glamour of golden sunlight that +overspreads the whole, we may yet recognize in them the consummation +towards which many sketches of natural man and woman, as he found them in +the English fields and lanes, seem in a less certain and conscious manner +to be striving in plays of an earlier date. It was characteristic of +Shakespeare, as it has been of other great artists, to introduce into his +early writings incidental sketches which serve as studies for further work +of a later period. In much the same manner the varied, but at times +uncertain, melody of the early love comedies seems to aspire towards the +full sonority and magic of lyric feeling and utterance in _Romeo and +Juliet_. + +Thus it is neither to the mellow autumn of his art, when he had cast aside +as unworthy all the trivialities of convention, nor yet to the storm and +stress of adolescence, the immaturity of pettiness and exaggeration, that +we must look if we would discover Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral +tradition. _As You Like It_ belongs to his middle period. It will be +remembered, from what has been said on an earlier page, that in this play +Shakespeare substantially followed the story of Rosalind as narrated by +Lodge, to whom we owe the introduction of a pastoral element into the old +tale of Gamelyn. The pastoral characters of the play may be roughly +analysed as follows. Celia and Rosalind, the latter disguised as a youth, +are courtly characters; Phebe and Silvius represent the polished Arcadians +of pastoral tradition; while Audrey and William combine the character of +farcical rustics with the inimitable humanity which distinguishes +Shakespeare's creations. It is noteworthy that this last pair is the +dramatist's own addition to the cast. Thus we have all the various +types--all the degrees or variations of idealization--brought side by side +and co-existent in the fairyland of the poet's fancy. The details of the +play are too well known for there to be any call to outrage the delicate +interweaving of character and incident by translating the perfect scenes +into clumsy prose. Nor would such analysis throw any light upon +Shakespeare's attitude towards pastoral. That must be sought elsewhere. We +may seek it in the fanciful mingling of ideals and idealizations--of +courtly masking, of the conventional naturalism of polished dreamers, and +of a rusticity more genuine at once and more sympathetic than that of +Lorenzo, all of which act by their very natures as touchstones to one +another. We may seek it in the uncertainty and hovering between belief and +scepticism, earnest and play, reality and imagination--such as can only +exist in art, or in life when life approaches to the condition of an +art--which we find in the scenes where Orlando courts his mistress in the +person of the youth who is but his mistress in disguise. We may seek it +lastly in the manner in which the firm structure of the piece is +fashioned of the non-pastoral elements; in the happiness of the art by +which the pastoral incidents and business appear but as so much fair and +graceful ornament upon this structure, bringing with them a smack of the +free, rude, countryside, or a faint perfume of the polished Utopia of +courtly makers. It is here that we may trace Shakespeare's appreciation of +pastoral, as a delicate colouring, an old-world fragrance, a flower from +wild hedgerows or cultured garden, a thing of grace and beauty, to be +gathered, enjoyed, and forgotten, unsuited in its evanescent charm to be +the serious business of art or life. + +On this note, the realization at once of the delicate loveliness and of +the unsubstantiality of the pastoral ideal, we may close our survey of its +growth and blossoming in our dramatic literature, and before finally +turning from the tradition which fascinated so many generations of +European artists, pause for one moment to inquire of the critical +expression it has received at the hands of more philosophical writers. + +We have already seen how in the early days of modern pastoral composition +Boccaccio, summing up the previous history of the kind, found in allegory +and topical allusion its _raison d'etre_. We have seen how in our own +tongue Drayton expressed a similar view, and how Fletcher adopted in +theory at least a more naturalistic position. This antagonism which runs +through the whole of pastoral theory is really dependent upon two +questions which have not always been clearly distinguished. There is, +namely, the question of the allegorical or topical interpretation of the +poems, and there is the question of the rusticity or at least simplicity +of the form and language. It is possible to advocate the introduction of +Boccaccio's 'nonnulli sensus' and yet demand that, whatever the esoteric +interpretation of which the poem may be capable, the outward expression +shall be appropriate to the apparent condition of the speakers; while on +the other hand it is possible to confine the meaning to the evident and +unsophisticated sense of the poem, while allowing such a degree of +idealization in the language and sentiments of the characters as to +differentiate them widely from the actual rustics of real life. The former +of these positions is that assumed by Spenser in the _Shepherd's +Calender_, however much he may have failed in logical consistency; the +second is that which, in spite of much incidental matter of a topical +nature, underlies Tasso's masterpiece in the kind. It is with the second +of the above questions that critics have in the main been concerned. They +have, namely, as a rule, tacitly though not explicitly recognized the fact +that a poem whose value depends exclusively upon an esoteric +interpretation has no meaning whatever as a work of art, while if artistic +value can be assigned to the primary meaning of the work, it is a matter +of indifference aesthetically whether there be an esoteric interpretation +or not. + +Every writer, I think, who comes within the limits of pastoral as usually +understood, has found a certain idealization and a certain refinement +necessary in bringing rustic swains into the domain of art. That any such +process is inherently necessary to produce an artistic result there is no +reason whatever to suppose; it may even be rationally questioned whether +it is necessary to ensure the result falling within the recognizable field +of pastoral; but neither of these considerations affects the historical +fact. It is commonly admitted that among pastoral writers Theocritus +adhered most closely to nature; yet no one has been found to describe him +as a realist, whether in method or intention. But though this process of +idealization is practically universal, few poets have confessed to it. +Only occasionally an author, writing according to the demands of his age +or of his individual taste, has been alive to what appeared to be a +contradiction between his creations and what he mistook for the +fundamental conditions of the kind in which he created. This was the case +with Tasso, and he sought to reconcile the two by making Amore in the +prologue declare: + + Spirero nobil sensi a' rozzi petti, + Raddolciro nelle lor lingue il suono, + Perche, ovunque i' mi sia, io sono Amore, + Ne' pastori non men, che negli eroi; + E la disagguaglianza de' soggetti, + Come a me piace, agguaglio. + +This served, of course, no other purpose than to salve the author's +artistic conscience, since it is perfectly evident that the polished +civility of his characters belongs to them by nature, and is not in any +way an external importation. The remark, however, is interesting in +respect of the philosophy of love as a civilizing power, which we have +seen constantly recurring from the days of Boccaccio onward. Ben Jonson +expressed himself sharply on this subject, with respect to Guarini and +Sidney, in his conversations with Drummond. 'That Guarini, in his Pastor +Fido, keept not decorum, in making Shepherds speek as well as himself +could.... That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making everyone speak as +well as himself.'[359] The critical foundation of these censures in an _a +priori_ definition of pastoral is obvious, and they are more interesting +for their authorship than for their intrinsic merit. It would be curious +to know how Jonson defended such a character as his Sad Shepherd--but his +views had time to alter. + +It is to the critics of the late years of the seventeenth century and +early ones of the eighteenth that we owe the attempt to formulate a theory +of pastoral composition. The attempt has not for us any great importance. +All the work we have been considering had appeared, and the vast majority +of it had passed into oblivion, before the French critics first engaged +upon the task. Nor has the attempt much intrinsic interest. The theories +of individual writers such as those already mentioned are of value, as +showing the critical mood in which they themselves created; but these, and +still more the theories of pure critics, are of no importance, either in +the field of abstract critical theory or of historical inquiry. +Fontenelle, offended at the odour of Theocritus' hines, Rapin, with his +Jesuitical prudicity and ethico-literary theories of propriety, are not +the kind of thinkers to advance critical and historical science. Yet it +was to their school that the far greater English critics of the early +eighteenth century belonged. Their work consists for the most part of +various combinations of _a priori_ definition and arbitrary rules, based +on the notion of propriety. Thus Pope in the _Discourse on Pastoral_, +prefixed to his eclogues in 1717, writes: 'A pastoral is an imitation of +the action of a shepherd, or one considered under that character.... If we +would copy nature, it may be useful to take this idea along with us, that +pastoral is an image of what they call the golden age. So that we are not +to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they +may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the +employment.' Shallow formalism this; but what else was to be expected from +Alexander Pope at the age of sixteen? His contemporaries, however, and +successors down to Johnson, took his solemn vacuity in all seriousness. +Steele, writing in the _Guardian_ in 1713 (Nos. 22, &c.), follows much the +same lines. He speaks of 'Innocence, Simplicity, and whatever else has +been laid down as distinguishing Marks of Pastoral.' Again, the reader is +informed that 'Whoever can bear these'--namely, certain _concetti_ from +Tasso and Guarini--'may be assured he hath no Taste for Pastoral.' We find +the same pedantic and ignorant objections to Sannazzaro's piscatorials as +were later advanced by Johnson: 'who can pardon him,' loftily queries the +censor, 'for his Arbitrary Change of the sweet Manners and pleasing +objects of the Country, for what in their own Nature are uncomfortable and +dreadful?' An afternoon's idling along the cliffs of Sorento or the shore +of Posilipo will supply a sufficient answer to such ignorant conceit as +this. Lastly, in the same familiar strain, but with all the pompous weight +of undisputed dictatorship, we find Dr. Johnson a generation later laying +down in the _Rambler_ that a pastoral is 'a Poem in which any action or +Passion is represented by its Effects upon a Country Life.... In Pastoral, +as in other Writings, Chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be +observed, and Purity of Manners to be represented; not because the Poet is +confined to the Images of the golden Age'--this is a rap at Pope--'but +because, having the subject in his own Choice, he ought always to consult +the Interest of Virtue.' The one fixed idea which runs throughout these +criticisms is that pastoral in its nature somehow is, or should be, other +than what it is in fact[360]. + +This is a view which very rightly meets with small mercy at the hands of +the modern historical school of criticism. A last fragment of the hoary +fallacy may be traced in Dr. Sommer's remark: 'Die Theorie des +Hirtengedichtes ist kurz in folgenden Worten ausgedrueckt: schlichte und +ungekuenstelte Darstellung des Hirtenlebens und wahre Naturschilderung.' It +cannot be too emphatically laid down that there is and can be no such +thing as a 'theory' of pastoral, or, indeed, of any other artistic form +dependent, like it, upon what are merely accidental conditions.[361] As I +started by pointing out at the beginning of this work, pastoral is not +capable of definition by reference to any essential quality; whence it +follows that any theory of pastoral is not a theory of pastoral as it +exists, but as the critic imagines that it ought to exist. 'Everything is +what it is, and not another thing,' and pastoral is what the writers of +pastoral have made it. + +It may be convenient before closing this chapter to summarize briefly the +results of our inquiry into the history of pastoral tradition on the +pre-restoration stage in England, without the elaboration of detail and +the many necessary though minor distinctions unavoidable in the foregoing +account. We saw, in the first place, that the idea of a literature dealing +with the humours and romance of farm and sheepcot was not wholly alien to +national English literature; but, on the contrary, that the shepherd plays +of the religions cycles, the popular ballads, and a few of the Scots poets +of the time of Henryson, all alike furnish verse which may be regarded as +the index of the readiness of the popular mind to receive the +introduction of a formal pastoral tradition. Next, preceding, as in Italy, +the introduction or evolution of a regular pastoral drama, we find a +series of mythological plays embodying incidentally elements of pastoral, +written for the amusement of court circles, and founded on the +_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. In these the nature of the pastoral scenes appear +to be conditioned, in so far as they are independent of their classical +source, partly by the already existing eclogue, and partly perhaps by the +native impulse mentioned above[362]. All this anticipates the rise of the +pastoral drama proper. The foreign pastoral tradition reached England +through three main channels. The earliest of these, the eclogue, was +imitated by Spenser from Marot, who, while depending somewhat more +closely, perhaps, than was usual upon the ancients, and adding to his work +a certain original flavour, yet belonged essentially to the tradition of +the allegorical pastoral which took its fashion from the works of Petrarch +and Mantuan. The second, and for the English drama vastly the more +important channel, was the pastoral-chivalric romance borrowed by Sidney +from Montemayor, the great exponent of the Spanish school, which was, +however, based upon the Italian work of Sannazzaro. The third was the +Arcadian drama of the Ferrarese court, which was imitated, chiefly from +Guarini, by Samuel Daniel. Thus, of the three forms, verse, prose, and +drama, adopted by England from Italy, the first came by way of France, the +second by way of Spain, while the third alone was taken direct[363]. These +three blended with the pre-existing mythological play, and with the +traditions of the romantic drama generally, to produce the pastoral drama +of the English stage. The influence ot the eclogue was on the whole +slight, but to it we may reasonably ascribe a share of the topical and +allusive elements, when these do not appear assignable either to the +Arcadian drama or to masque literature generally.[364] The influence of +the mythological drama, again, is not of the first importance, and is also +very restricted in its occurrence; the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ is the most +striking example. The three main influences at work in fashioning the +pastoral drama upon the English stage were, therefore, the Arcadian drama +of Italy, the Sidneian romance borrowed from Spain, and the native +tradition of the romantic drama.[365] But we have seen that the most +important examples of dramatic pastoral in this country, though to some +extent conditioned like the rest by the above-mentioned influences, were +the outcome of direct and conscious experiment. In part, at least, the +earliest, and by far the most simple, was the work of Samuel Daniel +himself, which aimed at nothing beyond the mere transference of the +Italian tradition unaltered on to the English stage. A different aim +underlay the attempts alike of Fletcher and Randolph; the combination, +namely, of the traditions of the Arcadian and romantic dramas. This common +end they sought, however, by very diverse means. Fletcher, while adopting +the machinery and methods of the popular drama, left the ideal and +imaginary content practically untouched, and even chose a plot which in +its structure resembled those familiar in the romantic drama even less +than did Guarini's own. Randolph, on the other hand, while preserving much +of the classical mechanism as he found it in Guarini, altered the whole +tone and character of the piece to correspond to the greater complexity of +interest, more genial humour, and more genuine romanticism of the English +stage. Lastly, we found Jonson cutting himself almost entirely adrift from +the tradition of Italian Arcadianism, and seeking to create an essentially +national pastoral by the combination of shepherd lads and girls, +transmuted from actuality by a natural process of refinement akin to that +of Theocritus, with the magic and fairy lore of popular fancy, and with +the characters of Robin and Marian and all the essentially English +tradition of Sherwood. These three chief experiments in the production of +an English pastoral drama which should rival that of Italy stand, together +with Daniel's two plays, apart from the general run of pieces of the kind. +It is also worth notice that they are all alike unaffected by the Sidneian +romance. The remaining plays which form the great bulk of the contribution +made by English drama to pastoral, and among which we must look for such +dramatic pastoral tradition as existed, are almost all characterized by a +more or less prevalent court atmosphere, disguisings and adventures in +shepherd's garb forming the mainstay of the plot, while the genuine +pastoral elements supply little beyond the background of the action. + +Into the post-restoration pastorals it is no part of my present scheme to +enter. They flourished for a while under the wing of the fashionable +romance of France, but were almost more than their predecessors the things +of artificial convention, having their form and being in a world whose +only pre-occupations were the pangs and transports of sensibility. They +occupy by right a small corner in the _Carte du Tendre_. Nor do I propose +to do more than allude in passing to Allan Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd_. In +spite of the almost unvarying praise which has been lavished upon this +'Scots pastoral,' and even though the characters may have some points of +humanity in common with actual Lothian rustics, the whole composition of +the piece can scarcely be pronounced less artificial than that of the +Arcadian drama itself, and the play has undoubtedly shared in the +exaggerated esteem which has fallen to the lot of dialectal literature +generally. The tradition lingered on throughout the eighteenth and into +the nineteenth century. Goethe in his youth, while under the French +influence, composed the _Laune des Verliebten_, and in his later days at +Weimar the _Fischerin_, a piscatorial adapted for representation on an +open-air stage, in which the interest was purely spectacular. As a general +rule, however, pastoral inanity seldom strayed beyond the limits of the +opera. + +That the pastoral should flourish by the side of the romantic drama was +not to be expected. It was impossible in England, as it was impossible in +Spain. In either case it might now and again achieve a mild success at +court, or under some exceptional conditions of representation; it never +held the popular stage. No literature based on the accidents of a special +form of civilization, or upon a set of artificially imagined conditions, +can ever hope to outlive the civilization or the fashion that gave it +birth. 'Love _in vacuo_' failed to arouse the interest of general mankind. +Every literature of course wears the livery of its age, but where the body +beneath is instinct with human life it can change its dress and pass +unchanged itself from one order of things to another; where the livery is +all, the form cannot a second time be galvanized into life. Pastoral, +relying for its distinctive features upon the accidents rather than the +essentials of life, failed to justify its pretentions as a serious and +independent form of art. The trivial toy of a courtly coterie, it +attempted to arrogate to itself the position of a philosophy, and in so +doing exposed itself to the ridicule of succeeding ages. Men with a stern +purpose in life turned wearily from the sickly amours of romantic poets +who dreamed that human happiness found its place in the economy of the +world. They left it to a rout of melodious idlers to imagine unto +themselves a state in which serious importance should attach to the +gracious things of sentiment and the loves of youth and maiden. + + + + +Addenda + + + +Page 19.--Even apart from the evidence of the _Bucolica Quirinalium_, it +is, of course, clear that Vergil's eclogues were familiar to the writers +of the early middle ages. How far their interest in them was literary, and +how far, like that of the mystery-writers, it was theological, may, +however, be questioned. It is worth noticing in this connexion that a +German translation was projected by no less a person than Notker, and +since they are coupled by him with the _Andria_, we may reasonably infer +that in this case at least the writer's concern, if not distinctively +literary, was at any rate educational. (See W. P. Ker, _The Dark Ages_, p. +317.) + +Page 112, note 2.--There is an error here. _The Passionate Pilgrim_ +version of 'As it fell upon a day' does not contain the couplet found in +_England's Helicon_. I was misled by its being supplied from the latter by +the Cambridge editors. Another poem of the same description appears in +Francis Sabie's _Pan's Pipe_. (See Sidney Lee's introduction to the Oxford +Press facsimile of the _Passionate Pilgrim_, p. 31.) + +Page 204.--It is perhaps hardly surprising to find Tasso's 'S' ei piace, +ei lice' quoted by English writers as summing up the cynical philosophy of +those whom they not unaptly styled 'politicians.' In Marston's tragedy on +the story of Sophonisba, for instance, the villain Syphax concludes a +'Machiavellian' speech with the words: + + For we hold firm, that 's lawful which doth please. + (_Wonder of Women_, IV. i. 191.) + + + + +Appendix I + +On the Origin and Development of the Italian Pastoral Drama + + + +The chapter in the history of Italian literature which shall deal with the +evolution of the Arcadian drama still remains to be written. The treatment +of it in Symonds' _Renaissance_ is decidedly inadequate, and even as far +as it goes not altogether satisfactory. The explanation of this is, that +the most important works fall outside his period; the _Aminta_ and the +_Pastor fido_ are admirably treated in the volumes dealing with the +counter-reformation, but these are of the nature of an appendix, and +formed no part of his original plan. Tiraboschi's account is also meagre. +A long discussion of the subject will be found in the fifth volume of J. +L. Klein's _Geschichte des Dramas_ (Leipzig, 1867), but the bewildering +irrelevancy of much of the matter introduced by that eccentric writer +seriously impairs the critical value of his work. An excellent sketch of +the early history as far as Beccari, with full references, is given in +Vittorio Rossi's valuable monograph, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_ +(Torino, 1886), pt. ii. ch. i. This has the immense advantage of +conciseness, and of a clear and scholarly style. An important review of +Rossi's book, concerning itself particularly with the chapter in question, +appeared in the _Literaturblatt fuer germanische und romanische Philologie_ +for 1891 (col. 376), from the pen of A. L. Stiefel, who incidentally +announced that he was himself engaged on a comprehensive history of the +pastoral drama. Of this work I have been unable to obtain any further +information. Next an elaborate essay by the veteran Giosue Carducci, +largely combatting Rossi's conclusions as to the literary evolution of the +form, and bringing forward a good deal of fresh evidence, appeared in the +_Nuova Antologia_ for September, 1894, and was reprinted with additions +and corrections as the second of three papers in the author's pamphlet _Su +l'Aminta di T. Tasso_ (Firenze, 1896). To this Rossi rejoined, effectively +as it seems to me, in the _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +(1898, xxxi. p. 108). The treatment in W. Creizenach's _Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_ (Halle, 1901, ii. p. 359) is unfortunately not yet +complete. + +The theory of development which I have adopted is substantially that +elaborated by Rossi. To him belongs the honour of having been the first +clearly to indicate the historical steps by which the eclogue passes into +the drama. The idea, however, was not original; it underlies the accounts +given by Egidio Menagio in the notes to his edition of the _Aminta_ +(Paris, 1655), by G. Fontanini (_Aminta difeso_, Roma, 1700, and Venezia, +1730), by P. L. Ginguene (_Histoire litteraire d'Italie,_ vol. vi, Paris, +1813), and by Klein. It was also virtually accepted by Stiefel in his +review of Rossi, since he confined his criticism to pointing out and +attempting to fill occasional gaps in the sequence of development, and to +insisting on the influence of the regular drama, and more particularly of +the Intronati comedy. The incomplete state of Creizenach's work, and the +caution with which he expresses himself on the subject, preclude our +reckoning him among the declared supporters of the theory; but there can +be little doubt, I think, as to the tendency of his remarks. This may then +be regarded as the orthodox view. It has not, however, received the +exclusive adherence of scholars, and it may therefore be thought right +that I should both give in detail the arguments by which it is supported +and my reasons for accepting it, and likewise state the grounds on which I +reject the rival theories that have been propounded. + +Two of these latter may be quickly dismissed. These are the views put +forward respectively by Gustav Weinberg, _Das franzoesische Schaeferspiel in +der ersten Haelfte des XVIIten Jahrhunderts_ (Frankfurt, 1884), and by J. +G. Schoenherr in his _Jorge de Montemayor_ (Halle, 1886). Weinberg finds +the origin of the Italian pastoral drama in the 'Eclogas' of Juan del +Encina. With regard to this theory it may be sufficient to observe that, +at the time Encina wrote, the _ecloga rappresentativa_, or dramatic +eclogue, was already familiar in the Italian courts, and that, so far from +his writings being the source of any pastoral tradition even in his own +country, what subsequent dramatic work of the kind is to be found in Spain +merely represents a further borrowing from Italy. Schoenherr, on the other +hand, regards the _Jus Robins et Marion_ as the source of the Arcadian +drama. Not only, however, did Adan de le Hale's play fail to originale any +dramatic tradition in its own country, but it is itself nothing but an +amplified _pastourelle_, a form which, in spite of marked Provencal +influence, never obtained to any extent in Italy. It need hardly be said +that there is not a vestige of historical evidence to support either of +these theories[366]. + +It is different with the theory advanced by Carducci in the essay already +mentioned. The reputation of the great Italian critic would alone entitle +any view he advanced to the most respectful consideration. In the present +case, however, there is more than this, for his essay is a monument of +deep and loving scholarship, and whether we agree or not with its +conclusions, it adds greatly to our knowledge of the subject. Briefly and +baldly stated, his contention is as follows. The Arcadian drama was a +creation of the literary and courtly circles of Ferrara, and so far as +Italy is concerned the precursors of the _Aminta_ are to be sought in +Beccari's _Sacrifizio_ and Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_ alone, with a +connecting link as it were supplied by the pastoral fragment of the latter +author, first printed as an appendix to the essay in question. Beyond +these compositions no influence can be traced, except that of a study of +the classics in general, and of Theocritus in particular. It is certainly +remarkable that the important texts mentioned above, as well as Argenti's +_Sfortunato_ and the _Aminta_ itself, should all alike have been written +for and produced at the court of the Estensi at Ferrara. The selection, +however, I regard as somewhat arbitrary. The _Egle_ appears to lie +entirely off the road of pastoral development, and I cannot help thinking +that Carducci falls into the not unnatural error of exaggerating the +importance of the interesting document he was the first to publish. The +primitive dramatic eclogue was not altogether unknown at Ferrara, nor do +the pastoral shows elsewhere appear to have been always as remote from the +courtly grace of the Arcadian tradition as the critic is at pains to +demonstrate. In view therefore of the practically unbroken line of formal +development, and the consistency of artistic aim observable from +Sannazzaro in the last quarter of the fifteenth to Guarini in the last +quarter of the sixteenth century, I find it impossible to accept +Carducci's conclusions. + +The advocates of the orthodox theory, however, must be prepared to meet +and combat the objections which Carducci has raised, and which, in his +opinion, necessitate the adoption of a different explanation. The +evolution of the pastoral drama from the eclogue he declares to be +impossible, in the first place, on historical grounds. This objection +relates to the evidence as to a continuous development traceable in the +accessible texts, and to it the account given in the following pages +will--or will not--be found a sufficient answer. In the second place, he +declares it to be impossible on aesthetic grounds. These are three in +number, and may be briefly considered here. (_a_) 'Idealization cannot +develop out of caricature.' Here, I presume, he is using 'caricature' in +its technical sense of what Aristotle calls 'imitation worse than +nature,' not merely for the resuit of an inadequate command over the +medium of artistic [Greek: mi/mesis]. The remark, therefore, can only apply +to the 'rustic' productions. But, as Aristotle's phrase suggests, +burlesque, or caricature, is only idealization in a different direction, +so that there appears to be less antagonism between the two tendencies +than might at first be supposed. Moreover, no one has suggested that the +rustic shows were the origin of the Arcadian drama, so that it is to be +presumed that Carducci had in mind the more or less frequent but still +sporadic elements borrowed by the eclogues from the popular drama. These, +however, are found in conjunction with idealized elements of courtly +tradition, both in the dramatic eclogues themselves and more especially in +the _ecloghe maggiaiuole_ or May-day shows of the Congrega dei Rozzi. +Thus, although it is true that we should not expect idealization to be +evolved out of caricature, there is no reason to deny its evolution from a +form in which burlesque and romance subsisted side by side. (_b_) 'Those +eclogues that are not burlesque are occasional compositions equally +incapable of developing into the Arcadian drama.' Though, no doubt, +usually written for presentation upon some particular occasion, several of +the dramatic eclogues present no topical features. Nor does it appear why +a form of composition, the type of which was fairly constant although the +individual examples might be ephemeral enough, should not develop into +something of a more permanent nature. Moreover, the topical allusions +scattered throughout the _Aminta_, as well as the highly occasional +character of the prologue to the _Pastor fido_, serve to connect these +plays directly with the 'occasional' eclogue. (_c_) The metrical form of +the recognized dramatic pastorals differs from that of the eclogues.' +While beginning, however, with simple _terza_ or _ottava rima_, the +dramatic eclogue gradually became highly polymetric in structure, though +it is true that it seldom affected the free measures peculiar to the +Arcadian drama. These, however, were no more suited to short compositions +than the stiff terzines and octaves to more complicated dramatic works. +The prevalent metre, as indeed many other points, might well be borrowed +by the dramatic pastoral from the practice of the regular stage without it +thereby ceasing to be the formal descendant of the eclogue. + +Another point in debate is the view taken of the question by contemporary +critics--that is, by Guarini and his adversaries. Rossi pointed out a +passage in Guarini's _Veraio_ of 1588[367] which he held to support his +theory of development. Translated, the passage runs: 'And why should it +not be thought lawful for the eclogue to grow out of its infancy and +arrive at mature years, if this has been possible in the case of tragedy? +... Even as the Muses grafted tragedy upon the dithyrambic stock, and +comedy upon the phallic, so in their ever-fertile garden they set the +eclogue as a tiny cutting, whence sprang in later years the stately growth +of the pastoral,' that is, of the _favola di pastori_, or dramatic +pastoral, as he elsewhere explains. 'But in these words,' objects +Carducci, 'the writer is in no way referring to the Italian eclogues of +the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The eclogue had passed out of its +infancy in the work of Theocritus.' Here, however, Carducci appears to me +to misinterpret Guarini's meaning in an almost perverse manner. The +metaphoric 'infancy' of which Guarini speaks is the pre-dramatic period of +pastoral growth. No one will deny that the Theocritean idyl had attained +full and perfect development in its own kind; but from the dramatic point +of view, and granted that it contained the germ of the later pastoral +drama, it belonged to a period of infancy, or, to adopt a more strictly +accurate metaphor, of gestation. Were further evidence needed to show that +the allusion is to the Italian rather than to the classical eclogue, it +might be found in the fact that the passage in question was Guarini's +answer to the following criticism of De Nores, as to the meaning of which +there can be no two opinions. Attacking the pastoral tragi-comedy, the +critic remarks: 'Until the other day similar compositions were represented +under the name of eclogues at festivals and banquets, ... but now of a +sudden they have been fashioned of the extension of comedies and tragedies +in five acts[368].' It will be noticed that in his reply Guarini makes no +attempt to question the underlying identity of the pastoral tragi-comedy +with the dramatic eclogue, but contents himself with very justly asserting +the right of the latter to develop into a mature literary form. Two other +passages from Guarini have been quoted as germane to the discussion. They +occur in the _Verato secondo_, written as a counterblast to De Nores' +_Apologia_,[369]. One may be rendered thus: 'Although the dramatic +pastoral, in respect of the characters introduced, recognizes its ultimate +origin in the eclogue and in the satire [i. e. the satyric drama] of the +ancients, nevertheless, in respect of its form and ordinance it may be +said to be a modern kind of poetry, seeing that no example of such +dramatic composition, whether Greek or Latin, is to be found in ancient +times.' The other runs: 'having regard to the fact that Theocritus stepped +beyond the number of persons usual in similar poems, and composed one [the +_Feast of Adonis_] which not only contains many interlocutors, but is of a +more dramatic character than usual, and remarkable also for its greater +length; it seemed to him [Beccari] that he might with great honour supply +that kind neglected by the Greek and Latin authors[370].' In the former of +these passages Guarini, while recognizing the community of subject-matter +between the classical eclogue and the renaissance pastoral drama, claims +that as an artistic form the latter is independent of the former. Nor is +this inconsistent with what he says in the subsequent passage, for it is +perfectly true that it was with Beccari that the pastoral first attained +its full complexity of dramatic structure, and his allusion to Theocritus +means, not that he regarded him as the father of the form, but that, after +the manner of a _cinquecento_ critic, he is seeking for authority at least +among the ancients where direct precedent is not to be found. His +reference to the evolution of classical tragedy and comedy in the passage +cited from his first essay shows clearly that he had in mind a process of +gradual and natural development, not one of definite borrowing or +artificial creation. + +It appears to me, therefore, that Carducci has erred in not taking a +sufficiently broad view of the lines on which literary development +proceeds; and also, more specifically, in failing to recognize the +importance of the distinction between the ordinary and the dramatic +eclogue. This distinction, though on the scanty evidence extant it is +extremely hard to draw it with any degree of certainty, appears to me a +vital point in the history of the species. The value of Carducci's work +lies in his insistence on the influence of the regular drama, to which, +perhaps on account of its very obviousness, Rossi had failed to attach +sufficient importance; in his directing attention to the local Ferrarese +tradition; in the admirable energy and patience with which he has +collected all available evidence; and in his reprinting the interesting +pastoral fragment of Giraldi Cintio. For these he deserves the warmest +thanks of all students of Italian literature; for my own part I need only +refer the reader to the footnotes to the following pages as indicating in +some measure the extent of my indebtedness[371]. + +The theatrical tendency first exhibited itself in the mere recitation of +a dialogue in character, and the earliest examples of these _ecloghe +rappresentative_ are identical in form with those written merely for +literary circulation. For the dates of these external evidence +unfortunately fails us almost entirely, but a fairly well-marked sequence +may be established on the grounds of internal development. Roughly, they +must fall within a few years of the close of the fifteenth century, say +between 1480 and 1510. They are commonly of an allegorical nature, +containing allusions to real persons, and are for the most part composed +in _terza rima_, diversified in the more complex examples by the +introduction of octaves and lyrical measures[372]. Of this primitive form +is a poem by the Genoese Baldassare Taccone, bearing the superscription +'Ecloga pastorale rapresentata nel Convivio dell' III. Sig'r. Io. Adorno, +nella quale si celebra l' amor del Co. di Cayace [Francesco Sanseverino] e +di M. Chiara di Marino nuncupata la Castagnini[373].' This piece, in which +the characters represent real persons, is a mere dialogue without any +semblance of action. Aminta questions his fellow-shepherd Fileno as to the +cause of his melancholy, and learns that it arises from his hopeless +passion for a certain cruel nymph. His offer to undertake his friend's +cure is met with the declaration, that of the two death were preferable. +Similar in simplicity of construction is another poem, the work of +Serafino Aquilano, which deals with the corruption of the Church, and was +performed at Rome during the carnival of 1490[374]. An advance in +dramatization is made by an eclogue of Galeotto Del Carretto's, written in +1492, in honour of the newly elected Alexander VI, in that one character +enters upon the scene after the other has been discoursing for some time; +while another, the work of Gualtiero Sanvitale, contains three speakers, +of whom one enters towards the close, and is called upon to decide between +the other two. This arbiter is none other than Lodovico Sforza +himself[375]. So far the eclogues have all been in Sannazzaro's _terza +rima_. A wider range of metrical effect, including not only terzines both +_sdrucciole_ and _piane_, but also hendecasyllables with internal rime and +a _canzone_, and at the same time a more dramatic treatment, is found in +another eclogue of Aquilano's[376]. In this Palemone sends his herdsman +Silvano to inspect his flocks after a stormy night. The herdsman meets +Ircano in a melancholy mood, who when questioned endeavours to hide the +nature of his grief by feigning that he has lost his flock in the storm. +At that moment, however, the real cause of his sorrow enters in the shape +of a nymph, and Ircano leaves Silvano in order to follow her with prayers +and supplications. Silvano endeavours to dissuade him from his love, but +meets with the usual want of success. In the case of this piece, as also +of the two preceding ones, we have no direct evidence of any +representation, but all three, and especially the last, have the +appearance of being composed for recitation. Another piece, exhibiting an +advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo +pasturale,' a disputation on love by Bernardo Bellincioni[377], apparently +in some way connected with Genoa, in the course of which five characters, +probably representing actual personages, though we lack external evidence, +forgather upon the stage. The versification again exhibits novel features, +the piece being for the most part in _ottava rima_ with the introduction +of _settenari_ couplets. In the former we may perhaps see the influence of +the _Orfeo_, or possibly of the old _sacre rappresentationi_ themselves. +In 1506 the court of Urbino witnessed the eclogue composed and recited by +Baldassare Castiglione and Cesare Gonzaga[378]. It also belongs to the +octave group, and is diversified with a canzonet. Dramatically the piece +is somewhat of a retrogression, but it is interesting from the characters +introduced in pastoral guise. Thus in Iola and Dameta we may see +Castiglione and his fellow author; Tirsi, who gives his name to the poem, +is a stranger shepherd attracted by reports of the court; while among the +characters mentioned are discernible Bembo and the Duchess Elizabeth. At +this point may be mentioned a somewhat similar eclogue found in a Spanish +romance of about 1512, entitled _Cuestion de amor_, descriptive of the +Hispano-Neapolitan society of the time. The eclogue, which is clearly +modelled on the Italian examples, contains five characters, and is +supposed to represent the love affairs of real personages[379]. Two +so-called 'commedie pastorali,' from which Stiefel hoped for useful +evidence, prove on inspection to be medleys of pastoral amours exhibiting +little advance in dramatization, though interesting as showing traces of +the influence of the not yet fully developed 'rustic' eclogue. They are +composed throughout in _terza rima_ without any division into acts or +scenes, and are the work of one Alessandro Caperano of Faenza, thus +hailing, like the later _Amaranta_, from the Romagna[380]. In 1517 we find +a fantastic pastoral entitled _Pulicane,_ written in octaves by Piero +Antonio Legacci dello Stricca, a Sienese, who was also the author of +several rustic pieces, in which is introduced a monster half dog and half +man. Another work by the same, again in octaves, and entitled _Cicro_, +appeared in 1538. Another piece mentioned by Stiefel as likely to throw +light on the development of the dramatic pastoral is the 'Ecloga di +amicizia' of Bastiano di Francesco, or Bastiano 'the +flax-dresser'(_linaiuolo_), also of Siena, which was first printed in +1523. It turns out, however, to be a decidedly primitive composition in +_terza rima_, with a certain slightly satirical colouring[381]. + +If the texts that have survived are somewhat scanty, there is good reason +to believe that they form but a small portion of the eclogues actually +represented at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth +centuries. Thus we find a show, of the nature of which it is not +altogether easy to judge, recorded in a letter by a certain Floriano +Dulfo, written from Bologna in July, 1496[382]. It appears to have been a +composition of some length, pastoral only in part, supernatural in others, +but belonging on the whole rather to the cycle of chivalresque romance +than of classical mythology. In Act I an astrologer announces the birth of +a giant, who in Act II is represented as persecuting the shepherds. Acts +III and IV are occupied by various complaints on his account In Act V, +called by Dulfo 'la ultima comedia, overo egloga,' the giant carries off a +nymph while she is gathering flowers; the shepherds, however, come to her +rescue and restore her to her lover. This incident, reminiscent possibly +of the rape of Proserpine, tends to connect the piece with the +mythological tradition. So far as can be gathered, the verse appears to +have been _ottava rima_ with the introduction of lyrical passages. Again, +we know that the representation of eclogues formed part of the festivities +at the marriage of Lucrezia Borgia with Giovanni Sforza in 1493, and again +in 1502, when she espoused Alfonzo d' Este. In 1508 the carnival shows at +Ferrara included three eclogues, the work respectively of Ercolo Pio, +Antonio dall' Ongano. and Antonio Tebaldeo[383]. At Venice we have note of +similar performances, and even find _ecloghe_ mentioned among the forms of +dramatic spectacle recognized by the laws of the state. I may also call +attention in this connexion, and as illustrating the habituai introduction +of acted eclogues in all forms of festival, to the occurrence of such a +performance in a chivalrous romance by Cassio da Narni, entitled _La morte +del Danese_[384]. The piece is, however, of the most primitive form, and +must not be taken as typical of its date, just as the masques introduced +into the plays of the Elizabethan drama are commonly of a far simpler +order than actually represented at court. It may also not improbably have +been influenced by the more popular form of rustic shows, as its +description as a 'festa in atti rusticali' would seem to indicate. + +Meanwhile the rustic eclogue was developing upon lines of its own, though +rather in arrear of the courtly variety. In 1508 we find a piece in _terza +rima_, exhibiting traces of Paduan dialect, composed or transcribed by one +Cesare Nappi of Bologna, in which no less than fourteen 'villani' appear +with their sweethearts to honour the feast of San Pancrazio[385]. Eating +and dancing form the mainstay of the composition, and since the female +characters are described but do not speak, it may be questioned whether +the piece was intended for representation. Not till five years later have +we any evidence of a rustic eclogue forming part of an actual show. In +1513, Giuliano de' Medici was at Rome, and in the entertainment provided +at the Capitol on the occasion of his receiving the freedom of the city +was included an eclogue by a certain 'Blosio,' otherwise Biagio Pallai +delia Sabina, of the Roman Academy. The argument alone has come down to +us. A rustic, who has first suffered at the hands of the foreign soldiers +then overrunning Italy, and has afterwards been plundered by the sharper +citizens of Rome, meets a friend with whom it has fared similarly, and the +two determine to seek justice of the Conservators, as a last chance before +retiring to live among the Turks, since a man may not abide in peace in a +Christian land. They find the Capitol _en fete_, and the piece ends with a +song in praise of Giuliano and Leo X[386]. Of the same year is the 'Egloga +pastorale di Justitia,' the earliest extant specimen of the rustic +dramatic eclogue proper. It is a satirical piece concerning a countryman, +who fails to obtain justice because he is poor. He at last appeals to the +king himself, but is again repulsed because he is accompanied by Truth in +place of Adulation[387]. This form of composition, recalling as it does +the allegories of Langland and other satirists of the middle ages, differs +widely from that usually found in the courtly eclogues, nor is it typical +of rustic representations. Again, to the same year, 1513, belongs an +eclogue in rustic speech and Bellunese dialect, by Bartolommeo Cavassico, +which like the Roman show turns upon the horrors of the war which had been +devastating the country since 1508. Recollections of the 'tagliata di +Cadore[388]' blend incongruously with fauns, nymphs, bears, pelicans, and +wild men of the woods, to form a whole which appears to be of a decidedly +burlesque character. The distribution, however, of these rustic eclogues +never appears to have been very wide, and in later times they were chiefly +confined to the representations of the famous Congrega dei Rozzi at Siena, +though the activity of this society extended, it is true, far beyond the +limits of its Tuscan home. Most of these representations, at any rate in +the earlier years with which we are concerned, were short realistic farces +of low life composed in dialectal verse. Some of the cleverest are by +Francesco Berni, better known for his obscene _capitoli_ and his +_rifacimento_ of Boiardo's _Orlando_, and appeared between 1537 and 1567; +while in later days the kind attained its highest perfection in the work +of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, whose _Tancia_ originally appeared +in 1612[389]. + +It may be questioned to what extent these rustic shows influenced the +development of the pastoral eclogue. Their recognition as a dramatic form +was subsequent to that of the _ecloga rappresentativa_, and no element +traceable to their influence can be shown to exist in the dramatic +pastoral as finally evolved. On the other hand, we do undoubtedly meet +with incidents and characters in the courtly shows which appear to belong +to the style of the popular burlesque. A point of contact between the two +traditions may be found in the _commedie maggiaiuole_, a sort of May-day +shows also represented by the Rozzi, but of a more idealized character +than the rustic drama proper. They may, indeed, be regarded as to some +extent at least a parody of the two kinds--the courtly and the popular +pastoral--since by combining the two each was made the foil and criticism +of the other. Nymphs and shepherds appear as in the pastoral eclogues, but +their loves are interrupted by the incursion of boisterous rustics, who +substitute the unchastened instincts and brute force of half-savage boors +for the delicate wooing and sentimentality of their rivals. + + * * * * * + +We return to the development of the dramatic eclogue in a work of some +importance as marking an advance both in dramatic construction and +versification. _I due pellegrini[390]_, written not later than 1528, when +the author, Luigi Tansillo, was a youth of sixteen or seventeen, was +doubtless produced on some occasion before the court of the Orsini, at +Nola, near Naples. It was revived with great pomp ten years later at +Messina, when Don Garcia de Toledo, commander of the Neapolitan fleet, +entertained Antonia Cardona, daughter of the Count of Colisano, for whose +hand he was a suitor[391]. Two shepherds, pilgrims of love, bereft of the +objects of their affection, the one through death, the other through +inconstancy, meet in a forest and reason of the comparative hardness of +their lots. Unable to decide the question, they each resolve to bear the +strongest possible witness to the depth of their affliction by putting an +end to their lives. At this moment, however, the voice of the dead +mistress is heard from a neighbouring tree, persuading them to relinquish +their intentions, reconciling them once more with the world and life, and +directing them to join the festivities in the city of Nola. Here for the +first time we meet with a pastoral composition of some length pretending +to a dramatic solution, and contrasting with the stationary character of +most of the eclogues we have been examining in that the change of purpose +among the actors constitutes a sort of [Greek: peripe/teia], or +_rivolgimento_. The piece is likewise important from a metrical point of +view, since it not only contains a free intermixture of _ottava_ and +_terza rima_, and hendecasyllables with _rimalmezzo_, a favourite verse +form in certain kinds of composition[392], but likewise foreshadows, in +its mingling of freely riming hendecasyllables with _settenari_, the +peculiar measures of the pastoral drama proper. _I due pellegrini_ was +not, however, an altogether original composition. In 1525 had appeared a +work by the Neapolitan Marco Antonio Epicuro de' Marsi, styled in the +original edition 'dialogo di tre ciechi,' and in later reprints +'tragi-commedia intitulata _Cecaria_[393].' In this three blind men, one +blind with love, another with jealousy, the third with gazing too intently +on the sun-like beauty of his mistress, meet and determine to die +together. They fall in, however, with a priest of Amor, who sends them +back to their respective loves to be cured. It was this theme that +Tansillo arranged in pastoral form, borrowing even the metres of the +original, but it was just the element which justifies our including it +here that he added, and it is useless to seek in Epicuro's work the origin +of the form with which it was thus only accidentally associated. + +A composition of some importance, dating from a period about two years +later than Tansillo's piece, is an 'ecloga pastorale' by the 'mestissimo +giovane' Luca di Lorenzo of Siena.[394] Two nymphs, by name Euridice and +Diversa, respectively seek and shun the delights of love. They meet a +_citto_--that is a _bambino_ in Sienese dialect--who proves to be none +other than Cupid himself, and rewards them according to their deserts, +Euridice obtaining the love of the courtly shepherd Orindio, while Diversa +is condemned to follow the rude and loveless Fantasia. The piece is +written in a mixture of _ottava_ and _terza rima_, with a variety of +lyrics introduced. The contrast between the loving and the careless +nymphs, and the episode of the latter being bound to a tree, appear to +anticipate the later pastoral; while the introduction of Cupid as a +dramatis persona carries one back to the mythological drama, and the +rustic characters connect the piece with the plays of the Rozzi. Another +composition of Tuscan origin is the _Lilia_, first printed in 1538, and +composed throughout in polished octaves.[395] It merely relates how the +shepherd Fileno courted the fair Lilia, a certain rustic element being +introduced in the persons of the herdsmen Crotolo and Tirso. + +With the _Amaranta_ of Casalio we have been sufficiently concerned in the +text (p. 172). It was printed at Venice in 1538,[396] having probably been +written some years earlier. It is composed in _ottava_ and _terza rima_, +with the introduction of a canzonet, and marks an important advance on +previous work, not only in the nature of the plot, but in being divided +into acts and scenes. Sixteen years elapsed between the publication of +_Amaranta_ and the appearance of the regular pastoral drama in Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. Some time ago Stiefel pointed out a considerable hiatus at +this point in Rossi's account, and mentioned certain works which might be +expected to fill it. These and others have since been examined by +Carducci, with the result that it is possible, at least partially, to +bridge the gap. The period proves to be one less of gradual evolution than +of conscious experiment. At least this is how I read the available +evidence. + +Besides the _Cecaria_, mentioned above, Epicuro de' Marsi also left a +manuscript play entitled _Mirzia_, which he describes as a 'favola +boschereccia,' being thus the first to make use of the term later adopted +by Tasso.[397] The piece, which was written some ten years before the +author's death in 1555, leads us off into one of the numerous by-paths +into which the pastorals of this period were for ever wandering. Two +despised lovers, together with their friend Ottimo, witness unseen the +dances of Diana and the nymphs, on which occasion Ottimo falls in love +with the goddess herself. After passing through various plights, into +which they are led by their love of the careless nymphs, they all have +recourse to an oracle, whose predictions are fulfilled through a series of +violent metamorphoses. This mixture of mythology and magic is wholly +foreign to the spirit of the Arcadian drama, and the _Mirzia_ cannot any +more than the _Cecaria_ be regarded as the progenitor of that form. I may +mention incidentally that among the characters is a good-natured satyr, +who consoles Ottimo in his hopeless passion for Diana. + +Another attempt at mingling the pastoral with the mythological drama, and +one which likewise exhibits a tendency to borrow from the rustic +compositions, is the Florentine 'commedia pastorale' first printed in 1545 +under the title of _Silvia_.[398] The author calls himself Fileno +Addiacciato, from which it would appear that he was a member of the +pastoral academy of the Addiaccio, founded at Prato in 1539 by Agnolo +Firenzuola. The prologue relates how the first _archimandrita_ of the +academy, the title assumed by the president, here called Silvano, was +driven out by his followers because of certain innovations he made, +'Alzando i Rozzi e deprimendo i buoni.' This would seem to imply that the +head of the Addiacciati was expelled for evincing too particular an +interest in the Sienese society, a piece of literary gossip fairly borne +out by the little we know of the events which led up to Firenzuola's +departure from Prato. The prologue, indeed, speaks of Silvano as already +dead, which would appear to necessitate the placing of Firenzuola's death +earlier by three years than the accepted date. The inference, however, is +not necessary, since the expelled president might in his pastoral +character be represented as dead though still alive in the flesh. The play +itself, which is in five acts, and contains characters alike Olympian, +Arcadian, and rustic, besides a hermit and a slave, is composed in a +variety of metres--_terza rima_, octaves both _sdrucciole_ and _piane_, +and in the style alike of Poliziano and Lorenzo, hendecasyllables both +blank and with _rimalmezzo_, and lyrical stanzas. The plot itself is of +the simplest, and resembles that of the _Amaranta_. Through the sovereign +will of Venus and Cupid, Silvia and Panfilo love. A temporary +estrangement, brought about by the mischievous rustic Murrone and his +burlesque courting of Silvia, is set right by an opportune appearance of +Cupid just as the girl has determined on suicide, and the lovers are +united according to the Christian rite by the hermit, in the presence of +Cupid and Venus. What could be more complete? + +The following year, 1546, saw the appearance in type of two eclogues, +_Erbusto_ and _Filena_, by a certain Giovanni Agostino Cazza or Caccia, +the founder of a pastoral academy at Novara, for whose diversion the +pieces were presumably composed.[399] The first of these, _Erbusto_, is in +three acts, and _terza rima_. The elderly Erbusto is the rival of Ameto in +the love of a shepherdess named Flora. The girl's affections are set on +the younger suitor, and after some complications she is discovered to be +Erbusto's own daughter, stolen as a baby during the war in Piedmont. +Similar recognitions, imitated from the Roman comedy, are of frequent +occurrence in the regular Italian drama, and are not uncommonly connected, +as here, with some actual event in contemporary history. The second piece, +_Filena_, runs to four acts, and has lyrical songs introduced into the +_terza rima_. It appears to be a sufficiently shameless and somewhat +formless farce, which, being quite alien from the spirit of the regular +pastoral, need not be examined in detail. + +To the next few years belong a series of 'giocose moderne e facetissime +ecloghe pastorali,' by the Venetian Andrea Calmo, composed in +_endecasillabi sdruccioli sciolti_, and published in 1553.[400] They +introduce a number of dialects, suited to various personages; Arcadian +shepherds like Lucido, Silvano, and the rest; rustics with names such as +Gritolo di Burano, mythological figures, and a _satiro villan_ who speaks +Dalmatian. An advance in dramatization may perhaps be seen in the +introduction of a second pair of lovers, while the writer goes even +further than Beccari in the introduction of oracles (a point in which, +however, he had been anticipated by the author of _Mirzia_), and an echo +scene, a device of which Calmo's example is certainly of an elementary +character. + +The most important, however, of the writers between Casalio and Beccari is +the well-known Ferrarese novelist Giovanbattista Giraldi, surnamed Cintio, +the author of the _Ecatommiti_, and of a number of tragedies on the +classical model. The first piece of his which claims our attention is a +_satira_ entitled _Egle_, which was privately performed at the author's +house in February, 1545, and again the following month in the presence of +Duke Ercole and his brother, the Cardinal Ippolito d' Este.[401] The play +is an avowed and solitary attempt to revive the 'satyric' drama of the +Greeks, a kind of which the _Cyclops_ of Euripides is the only extant +example. The action is simple. The rural demigods, fauns, satyrs, and the +like, having long sought the love of the nymphs of Diana in vain, enter, +at the suggestion of Egle the mistress of Silenus, upon a plan whereby +they may have the careless maidens in their power. They make a show of +leaving Arcadia in high dudgeon, abandoning their families of little fauns +and satyrs. On these the unwary maids take pity, and begin forthwith to +dance and play with them in the woods. The deceitful divinities, however, +have only hidden for a while, and when opportunity serves are placed by +Egle where they may surprise the nymphs at sport. They suddenly break +cover, follow and seize the flying girls, and are on the point of enjoying +the success of their plot when Diana intervenes, transforming her outraged +followers into trees, streams, and so forth. The metamorphosis is related +by Pan himself, who returns bearing in his hand a reed, all that is left +of his beloved Syrinx. Thus the piece may be regarded as a dramatization +of Sannazzaro's _Salices_, expanded by the free introduction of +mythological characters, and bears no connexion with the real nature of +pastoral, the life-blood of which, whether in the idyls of Theocritus, the +_Arcadia_ of Sannazzaro, or the _Aminta_ of Tasso, is primarily and +essentially human. + +The other work of Cintio with which we are here concerned, a fragment +which remained in MS. till published by Carducci in 1896 as an appendix to +his essays on the _Aminta_, may be at once pronounced the most important +attempt at writing a really pastoral drama previous to Beccari's +_Sacrifizio_. It is found with the heading 'Favola pastorale' in an +autograph MS., along with several other works of the author, including +_Egle_, but with no indication of the date of composition. The author +survived till 1573, but we may reasonably suppose that the piece was +written before his departure from Ferrara in 1558. It consists of what are +apparently intended for two acts, headed respectively _Parte prima_ and +_Parte quinta_, each consisting of several scenes, though these are not +distinguished. The first two form a sort of introduction, in which Cupid +and Diana mutually defy one another on account of the nymph Irinda, whom +the boy-god has wounded with love for Filicio. The shepherd returns her +love, but finds a rival in Viaste, whose blind passion, though unreturned, +will admit no discourse of reason. It is, however, ultimately discovered +that Irinda and Viaste are cousins, a fact which is regarded as a +sufficient reason for the infatuated swain to free himself wholly and +immediately from his passion, and accept the love of the faithful +Frodignisa, who has followed him throughout.[402] The story, which +resembles that of Cazza's _Erlusto_, is thus of a simple order, and it is +chiefly in the composition that the likeness of the play to the regular +pastoral is seen. What the author intended for the middle three acts it is +hard to say, since the action at the opening of the fifth is precisely at +the point at which the first left it. Probably they were never written, +and the author may even have abandoned his work owing to the difficulty of +filling the hiatus. In both Cintio's pieces the metre is blank verse +(hendecasyllabic), diversified in the case of the _Egle_ with a rimed +chorus.[403] + +One point becomes, I think, apparent from the foregoing examination; +namely, that while the fully developed pastoral owes its origin to the +evolution of the eclogue as a dramatic kind, its final form was arrived +at, not merely by a natural and inevitable process of growth, but as the +result of direct experimenting on certain lines. The evolution, that is, +was at the last conscious, not spontaneous. While up to a certain point +the dramatic germs latent in the eclogue develop upon a natural line of +growth, each advance being the reasonable resuit of the action of +surrounding conditions upon a previous stage of evolution, there comes a +time when authors seem to have felt that the form was in a state of +unstable equilibrium, that it was advancing towards a final expression, +which it had so far failed to find, but which each individual writer +sought to realize in his work. The supposition of a theoretic +preoccupation on the part of these writers is reasonable enough, +considering the critical atmosphere in which the pastoral developed, and +the heated controversy which soon centred round the accomplished form; and +it serves at the same time to explain the liabilities of writers before +Tasso to run metaphorically into blind alleys. The conscious endeavour +after a stable and adequate form appears to me a determining factor in the +work of Casalio, Cintio, and finally Beccari. + +Of the _Sacrifizio_ of Agostino Beccari[404] have already spoken at some +length in the text (p. 174). From the account there given it will be seen +that the plot, though from its threefold character it attains a certain +degree of complexity, is in reality little more than the scenic +combination of three distinct stories, each of which might well have +formed the subject of an eclogue, and the whole play is thus closely +connected with the dramatic simplicity of its origin.[405] The verse, +which is blank, interspersed with lyrical passages, shows, like Cintio's, +the influence of the regular drama. For the satyr we need seek no +individual source; he was already as much a recognized character of the +Italian pastoral as the Vice was of the English interlude. The magical +element is doubtless ultimately traceable to a romantic source; it is one +which almost entirely drops out of the later pastoral drama, in which the +more distinctively classical oracle gradually won for itself a place. +Finally, I may remark that Beccari's claim to be considered the originator +of the pastoral drama was made in spite of his being perfectly well +acquainted with Cintio's _Egle_, as a passage in the first scene of Act +III testifies. There is, indeed, no reason to suppose that any writer +before Carducci ever considered Cintio's play as belonging to the realm of +pastoral. + +Beccari's immediate successors were of no great interest in themselves, +and contributed little to the development of the form. In 1556 appeared a +'comedia pastorale,' by the Piedmontese Bartolommeo Braida, a hybrid +composition in octave rime, written possibly for representation at the +court of Claudio of Savoy, governor of Provence and Marseilles, to whose +wife it is dedicated.[406] This piece resembles Poliziano's play, not only +in metrical structure, but in having a prologue spoken by Mercury, while +by its general character it connects itself with such old-fashioned +productions as Cavassico's Bellunese eclogue of 1513, and the +representation reported from Bologna by Dulfo in 1496. On the other hand, +the introduction of three pairs of lovers, and the incident of the nymph +being bound to a tree, suggest that Braida may at least have heard of the +Ferrarese _Sacrifizio_. The whole is a strange medley of various and +incongruous elements--mythological in Mercury and Somnus; pastoral in the +shepherds, Tindaro, Ruffo, Alpardo, and their loves; rustic in the clown +Basso, who speaks Piedmontese in shorter measure; satirical in the wanton +hermit; allegorical in the figure of Disdain; romantic in the wild man of +the woods and the magic herb. Thus on the whole Braida's work represents a +decided retrogression in the development of pastoral; or perhaps it may be +more accurate to say that it renects the tradition of an outlying district +in which that development had been retarded. + +To this period likewise, if we are to believe the author, belongs a 'nova +favola pastorale' entitled _Calisto_, by Luigi Groto, the blind +litterateur of Adria, whose preposterous pastoral, _Il pentimento +amoroso_, was produced between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. +According to a note in the original edition, the piece was first +represented at Adria in 1561, revived and rewritten in 1582, and first +printed the following year.[407] It is founded on the well-known tale of +the love of Zeus for Calisto, a nymph of Artemis, who by him became the +mother of the Arcadians, as related by Ovid in the second book of the +_Metamorphoses_ (ll. 401, &c.). It may, therefore, so far as the subject +is concerned, be classed among the mythological plays, but the author has +mingled with his main theme much of the vulgar indecency of the Latin +comedy as adopted in the _cinquecento_ on to the Italian stage. The piece +is composed in _sdrucciolo_ blank verse. + +With our next author, the orator Alberto Lollio, we return once more to +Ferrara. In 1563 a play entitled _Aretusa_[408] was presented before +Alfonso II and his brother the cardinal, by the students of law at +Ferrara, at the command, it is said, of Laura Eustoccia d' Este. The verse +is blank, diversified by a single sonnet, but the piece is again a hybrid +of an earlier type--a love-knot solved by the discovery of +consanguinity--with certain elements of Plautine comedy added. There is +also extant in MS. the plot, or prose sketch, of another comedy by Lollio, +entitled _Galatea_, on the same model as the _Aretusa_, but with somewhat +greater complexity of construction.[409] + +It is evident that, though in the _Sacrifizio_ the final form of the +pastoral drama had been attained, the fact was not immediately recognized. +Indeed, until the seal had been set upon that form by the genius of Tasso, +it must have been difficult for any one to realize what had been achieved. +The form had been discovered, but it remained to prove that it was the +right form, and to show its capabilities. In 1567 a return was made to the +tradition of Beccari in Agostino Argenti's play _Lo Sfortunato_.[410] With +this piece also, composed in blank verse with a couple of lyric songs, we +have already been sufficiently concerned (p. 175). I only wish to draw +attention to one point here, namely, that if Guarini's Silvio is a +companion portrait to Tasso's Silvia, she in her turn is but the feminine +counterpart of Argenti's Silvio. The _Sfortunato_ stands on the threshold +of the _Aminta_, and its performance may have suggested to Tasso the +composition of his pastoral masterpiece, but it contributed little either +to the evolution of the form, or to the poetic supremacy of its successor. + +We have arrived at the end of the catalogue, and it is for the reader to +decide whether or not I have succeeded in establishing a formal continuity +between the eclogue and the pastoral drama, and so answering the most +serious of Carducci's objections. + + + + +Appendix II + +Bibliography + + + +Any attempt at an adequate bibliography of pastoral literature would +require space far greater than that at present at my disposal. In the case +of all the more important works considered in the foregoing inquiry, I +have been careful to mention the edition from which my quotations are +taken whenever this was not the original. Nor do I propose to mention in +this place every book or article which I have consulted in the course of +my study. Where some particular authority has been followed on some +particular point the reference has been given in the form of a footnote. +There are, however, two classes of books which require special mention. +The first of these consists of those works to which I have had cause +constantly to refer, and which I have therefore quoted by abbreviated +titles; and second, of certain works which I have constantly consulted and +followed, but to which I have had no occasion to make specific reference +in the notes. A list of the works coming under one or other of these heads +will give a very fair survey of the critical literature of the subject, +and may therefore not only be convenient to readers of my work, but may +prove useful as a guide to any who may wish to make an independent study. +I have, of course, derived much help from the critical apparatus +accompanying many of the texts cited, but these I have not, as a rule, +thought it necessary to recapitulate here. Where, however, I have used +critical matter in editions other than those quoted for the text, they +have been duly recorded. Ordinary works of reference need no specific +notice. + + + +A. General. + + +([Greek: a]) Works on General Literature. These chiefly refer to Italian +and English literature. + +(i) _Italian._ J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. IV and V. +Italian Literature._ To the whole of this work, but especially to the +section dealing with literature and to that on the Catholic reaction +mentioned below (B. vi), my indebtedness is far more than any specific +acknowledgement can express. My references are to the new edition (7 +vols., London, 1897-8), which has the advantages of being obtainable, and +of having a full though not very accurate index to the whole work, but +which is unfortunately very carelessly printed. + +B. Weise and E. Percopo. _Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur von den +aeltesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart._ Leipzig und Wien, 1899. I have often +found this of considerable use as summarizing the latest work on the +subject. It is, however, not invariably accurate, and the literary +appreciations, whether original or borrowed, are seldom enlightening. Had +the space occupied by these been devoted to giving references to special +works, the value of the book would have been enormously increased. + +A. D'Ancona and O. Bacci. _Manuale della letteratura italiana._ 5 vols. +Firenze, 1897-1900. I have fonnd the biographical and bibliographical +notes to this collection of the greatest use. + +(ii) _English._ W. J. Courthope. _A History of English Poetry._ 5 vols, +published. London, 1895-1905. Vols, ii and iii contain accounts of English +poets of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. + +A. W. Ward. _A History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of +Queen Anne._ New and revised edition. 3 vols. London, 1899. + +F. G. Fleay. _A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama._ 2 vols. +London, 1891. + + +([Greek: b]) General Works on Pastoral. Of these some refer chiefly to +pastoral poetry, some mainly to the English drama. + +(i) _Poetry._ E. W. Gosse. _An Essay on English Pastoral Poetry._ A. B. +Grosart, _Rider on Mr. Gosse's Essay._ In Grosart's edition of Spenser, +vol. iii, 1882, pp. ix-lxxi. + +H. O. Sommer. _Erster Versuch ueber die englische Hirtendichtung._ Marburg, +1888. A useful sketch of the eclogue in English literature from 1510 to +1805, though superficial and not always accurate. + +Katharina Windscheid. _Die englische Hirtendichtung von._1579-1625. Halle, +1895. This contains a good deal of original investigation, and I have +found it of considerable use. In questions of literary judgement, however, +the author is not always happy. + +C. H. Herford. _Spenser. Shepheards Calender, edited with introduction and +notes._ London, 1897. The Introduction contains an admirable sketch of +pastoral poetry in general. + +E. K. Chambers. _English Pastorals, with an introduction._ London, 1895. A +collection of lyrics, eclogues, and scenes, with a useful introduction. + +(ii) _English Drama._ Homer Smith. _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama._ Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. +xii (1897), pp. 355-460. This has been constantly cited in my notes. As +the first serious attempt to investigate the English pastoral drama it +deserves credit; but in detail it is often inaccurate, while I generally +disagree with the author on all matters on which divergence of opinion is +possible. + +Josephine Laidler. _A History of Pastoral Drama in England until 1700._ +Englische Studien, July, 1905, xxxv (2). pp. 193-259. This appeared while +my work vas passing through the press, and though I have read it +carefully, I think that the reference to Mahaffy's not very accurate +account of Arcadia (see p. 51, note) is the total extent of my +indebtedness. The article adds little to Homer Smith's work for the period +with which we are concerned, while it is at the same time both incomplete +and inaccurate. + +A. H. Thorndike. _The Pastoral Element in the English Drama before 1605._ +Modern Language Notes, vol. xiv. cols. 228-246 (1899). A careful and +interesting article, which I also only read while my book was in the +press. Though it did not contain much that was new, I was particularly +glad to find myself in agreement with the author as regards the importance +of the pre-Italian tradition in English pastoral. + +([Greek: g]) I ought also to mention: J. C. Dunlop. _History of Prose +Fiction. A new edition by H. Wilson.._2 vols. London, 1888. The fact that +this work consists chiefly of summaries of plots and stories makes it of +great value for tracing sources. + + + +B. Special. + + +(i) Classical (Chap. I, sect. ii). J. A. Symonds. _Studies of the Greek +Poets. Third edition._ 2 vols. London, 1893. Chap. XXI deals with 'The +Idyllists.' + +Andrew Lang. _Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus rendered info English Prose, +with an introductory essay._ London, 1889. The introduction contains a +very interesting account of the conditions of Alexandrian poetry. + +Joseph Jacobs. _Daphnis and Chloe: the Elizabethan version from Amyot's +Translation by Angel Day._ London, 1890. The introduction contains an +account of Longus and his translators. + + +(ii) Medieval and Humanistic (Chap. I, sect. iv). F. Macri-Leone. _La +Bucolica latina nella letteratura italiana del secolo XIV, con una +introduzione sulla bucolica latina nel medioevo._ Parte I (all published). +Torino, 1889. + +P. H. Wicksteed and E. G. Gardner. _Dante and Giovanni del Virgilio, +including a critical edition of the text of Dante's 'Eclogae Latinae' and +of the poelic remains of Giovanni del Virgilio._ Westminster, 1902. + +Attilio Hortis, _Scritti inediti di Francesco Petrarca pubblicati ed +illustrati.._Trieste, 1874. + +Luigi Ruberto. _Le Egloghe del Petrarca._ Il Propugnatore, xi (2). p. +244, xii (1). p. 83, (2). p. 153. Bologna, 1878-9. + +Attilio Hortis. _Studl sulle opere latine del Boccaccio con particolare +riguardo alla storia delia erudizione nel medio evo e alle letterature +straniere._ Trieste, 1879. + +Marcus Landau. _Giovanni Boccaccio, sua vita e sue opere. Traduzione di +Camillo Antona-Traversi approvata e ampliata dall' autore._ Napoli, 1881. +Greatly enlarged from the original German edition. Stuttgart, 1877. + +[Bucolic Collections.] (a) _Eclogae Vergilii. Calphurnii. Nemesiani. +Frcisci. Pe. Ioannis Boc. Ioanbap Ma. Pomponii Gaurici.._Florentiae. +Philippus de Giunta. 1504. Decimo quinto. Calendas Octobris. Contains the +_editio princeps._of Boccaccio's eclogues. + +([Greek: b]) _En habes Lector Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII. quot quot +uidelicet a Vergilij aetate ad nostra usque tempora, eo poematis genere +usos, sedulo inquirentes nancisci in praesentia licuit: farrago quidem +Eclogarum CLVI. mira cum elegantia tum uarietate referta, nuncque primum +in studiosorum iuuenum gratiam atque usum collecta._ Basel. Ioannes +Oporinus. 1546. Mense Martio. + +[Sannazzaro.] I may note here, what I was unaware of when writing my +account of Sannazzaro's Latin poems, that the _Salices._was translated +into English under the title of _The Osiers._ by Beaupre Bell, about 1724. +The MS. is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; see M. R. James' +Catalogue of the Western MSS., ii. p. 102. + + +(iii) Spanish (Chap. I, sect. vii). George Ticknor. _History of Spanish +Literature. Sixth American edition._ 3 vols. Cambridge (Mass.), 1888. + +J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, _A History of Spanish Literature._ London, 1898. + +H. A. Rennert. _The Spanish Pastoral Romances._ Publications of the Modern +Language Association of America, vol. vii (3). pp. 1-119, (1892). An +elaborate study, which, however, I only discovered when my work was in the +press. + +Francesco Torraca. _Gl' imitatori stranieri di Jacopo Sannazaro. Seconda +edizione accresciuta._ Roma, 1882. A study which I have found very useful +both in relation to Spanish and French pastoralism. + + +(iv) French (Chap. I, sect. viii). L. Petit de Julleville. _Histoire de la +Langue et de la Litterature francaise._ 8 vols. Paris, 1896-1899. + + +(v) English Poetry (Chap. II). J. G. Underhill. _Spanish Literature in the +England of the Tudors._ New York (Columbia University Studies in +Literature), 1899. A valuable study, particularly in connexion with +Montemayor, with useful bibliography. + +A. W. Pollard. _The Castell of Labour, translated from the French of +Pierre Gringore by Alexander Barclay._ Edinburgh (Roxburghe Club), 1905. +Whatever can be said for Barclay as a poet is admirably said in the +Introduction to this work. + +F. W. Moorman. _William, Browne. His Britannia's Pastorals and the +pastoral poetry of the Elizabethan age._ Strassburg (Quellen und +Forschungen), 1897. + +Walter Raleigh. _The English Novel. Second edition._ London, 1895. To this +brilliant study, and in particular to the treatment of Euphuism and +Arcadianism, I am deeply indebted. + +J. J. Jusserand. _The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, translated +from the French by Elisabeth Lee. Revised and enlarged by the author._ +London, 1890. + +K. Brunhuber. _Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaeufer._ Nuernberg, +1903. Though not always accurate, the first part, dealing chiefly with the +sources, possesses original value; the same cannot be said of the second, +dealing with the dramatizations, which is superficial. + + +(vi) Italian Drama (Chap. III). J. L. Klein. _Geschichte des Dramas. Vol. +V. Das italienische Drama. Zweiter Band._ Leipzig, 1867. + +Wilhelm Creizenach. _Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Zweiter Band. +Renaissance und Reformation. Erster Theil._ Halle, 1901. + +Alessandro D'Ancona. _Origini del teatro italiano._ 2 vols. Torino, 1891. +Very much enlarged from the original edition, 2 vols., Firenze, 1877. + +Curzio Mazzi. _La Congrega dei Rozzi di Siena nel secolo XVI._ 2 vols. +Firenze, 1882. + +Vittorio Rossi. _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido. Studio +biografico-critico con documenti inediti._ Torino, 1886. + +Giosue Carducci. _Su l'Aminta di T. Tassa, saggi tre. Con una pastorale +inedita di G. B. Giraldi Cinthio._ Firenze, 1899. + +J. A. Symonds. _Renaissance in Italy. Vols. VI and VII. The Catholic +Reaction._ (See above, A. a. i.) Chapters VII and XI contain admirable +criticisms of the pastoral work of Tasso and Guarini. + + +(vii) English Masques (Chap. VII). Rudolf Brotanek. _Die englischen +Maskenspiele._ Wien und Leipzig (Wiener Beitraege), 1902. + +David Masson. _The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited with memoir, +introduction, notes, and an essay on Milton's English and versification._ +3 vols. London, 1890. + +M. W. Sampson. _The Lyric and Dramatic Poems of John Milton, edited, with +an introduction and notes._ New York, 1901. + + + + +Index + + + +[In cases where a name occurs several times, the main reference or +references, if any, are distinguished by bold-face type.] + + +Abbot, Sir Maurice, _Lord Mayor_ +Abbruzzese, A. +_Abuses Stript and Whipt_ +_Accademia tusculana_ +Achelly, Thomas +Achilles Tatius +_Actaeon and Diana_ +adan de le Hale, _or_ le Bochu +Addiaccio, academy at Prato +Admiral, Lord (Charles, Lord Howard) +_Adone_ +_Adrasta_ +Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +_Aeneid_ +_Aethiopica_ +_Affectionate Shepherd_ +Affo, Ireneo +_Ages_ +_Agincourt_ +_Alba_ +Alberti, Leo Battista +_Albion's England_ +_Albumazar_ +_Alceo_ +_Alchemist_ +_Alcon_ +Alcuin +Aldus Manutius, the elder +Aldus Manutius, the younger +Alexander VI, _Pope_ +Alexander, Sir William (Earl of Stirling) +_Alexis_ +Allacci, Leone +_Allegro_ +Almerici, Tiburio +Alva, Duke of +_Amadis of Gaul_ +_Amaranta_ +_Amarilli_ +_Ambra_ (Lorenzo de' Medici) +_Ambra_ (Poliziano) +Ambrogini, Angelo, _see_ Poliziano. +_Ameto_ +_Aminta_ +_Aminta_ (Tasso), English translations: + Fraunce + Reynolds + Dancer + Oldmixon, du Bois, Ayre, Stoekdale, Leigh Hunt, anon. +_Aminta bagnato_ +_Aminta difeso_ +_Amintae Gaudia_ +_Amphrissa_ +_Amore cortese_ +_Amore fuggitivo_ +_Amores_ (Ovid) +_Amorosi sospiri_ +_Amorous War_ +_Amyntas_ (Randolph) +_Amyntas_ (Watson) +Amyot, Jacques +Anacreon +Ancona, Alessandro D' +_Andria_ +_Andromana_ +Angeli, Nicolo degli +_Anglia_ +Anne of Denmark +Annunzio, Gabriele d' +_Anthology_ (Greek) +Antona-Traversi, Camillo +Antonius +_Apollo and Daphne_ +_Apologia contre l'autor del Verato_ +_Apology for Poetry_ +Apuleius +Aquilano, Serafino +Arber, Edward +_Arcades_ +Arcadia, Academy of the +_Arcadia_ (Sannazzaro) +_Arcadia_ (Shirley) +_Arcadia_ (Sidney) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, drama) +_Arcadia_ (Vega, romance) +_Arcadia in Brenta_ +_Arcadia Reformed_ +_Arcadian Lovers_ +_Arcadian Princess_ +_Arcadian Virgin_ +Archer, Edward +_Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_ +_Aretusa_ +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Glapthorne) +_Argalus and Parthenia_ (Quarles) +Argenti, Agostino +_Arimene_ +Ariosto, Lodovico +_Arisbas_ +Aristotle +Arnold, Matthew +_Arraignment of Paris_ +Arsocchi, Francesco +_Art of English Poesy_ +_As You Like It_ +_Asolani_ +_Assetta_ +_Astree_ +_Astrological Discourse_ +_Astrophel_ +_Astrophel and Stella_ +_Atalanta_ +Atchelow, Thomas +_Athenae Oxonienses_ +_Athlette_ +Aubrey, John +_Aucassin et Nicolette_ +Ausonius +_Auto pastoril castelhano_ +Averara, Niccolo +Ayre, William + +B., I. D. +_Babylonica_ +_Bacchus and Ariadne_ +Bacci, Orazio +Baglione family +Balbuenas, Bernardo de +Baldi, Bernardino +Baldini, Vittorio +Baldinucci, Filippo +Baldovini, Francesco +Ballad Society +Bandello, Matteo +Bang, W. +Barclay, Alexander +Barclay, John +Bariola, Felice +Barksted, William +Barnes, Barnabe +Barnfield, Richard +Baron, Robert +Bartoli, Adolfo +Bartoli, Clementi +Basse, William +Bastiano di Francesco (linaiuolo) +Bathurst, Theodore +Baylie, Richard +Beaumont, Francis +_Beautiful Shepherdess of Arcadia_ +_Beca di Dicomano_ +Beccari, Agostino +Bede +Beeching, H. C. +Belcari, Feo +Beling, Richard +Bell, Beaupre +Bellarmino, Roberto, _Cardinal_ +Bellay, Joachim du +Belleau, Remi +_Bellessa, the Shepherd's Queen_ +Bellincione, Bernardo +Bembo, Pietro +Bendidio, Lucrezia +Beni, Paolo +Benivieni, Girolamo +Bentivogli, Annibale +Benvoglienti, Uberto +_Bergerie_ (Belleau) +_Bergerie de Juliette_ +Berni, Francesco +Bertini, Romolo +_Biographia Dramatica_ +Bion +Blake, William +Blosio, _see_ Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio. +Boccaccio, Giovanni +Bodoni, Giambattista +Boethius +Boiardo, Matteo Maria +Bois, P. B. Du +Boleyn, Anne +Bonarelli della Rovere, Guidubaldo +Bond, R. W. +Bonfadino, Giovanbattista +Boni, Giovanni de +Bonifacia, Carmosina +Boninsegni, Fiorino +Bonnivard, Francois de +_Bonny Hynd_ +_Bonny May_ +Bono de Monteferrato, Manfrido +Borgia, Lucrezia +Boscan Almogaver, Juan +Botticelli, Alessandro +Brabine, Thomas +Brackley, Viscount, _see_ Egerton +Braga, Teofilo +Braida, Bartolommeo +Brandt, Sebastian. +Brathwaite, Richard +Breton, Nicholas +Bridgewater, Earl of, _see_ Egerton. +_Brief Discourse about Baptism_ +_Britannia's Pastorals_ +Brome, Richard +Brooke, Dr. +Brooke, Christopher +Brooke, Samuel +Brookes, Mr. +_Broom of Cowdenknows_ +Brotanek, Rudolf +Browne, William +Brunhuber, K. +Bruni, Lionardo +Bryskett, Lodovic +Buc, Sir George +Buchanan +Buck, George, _Gent._ +_Bucolica Quirinalium_ +_Bucolicorum Autores XXXVIII_ +_Bucolics_ (Vergil) +Bulifon, Antonio +Bullen, A. H. +Buonarroti, Michelangelo, the younger +_Burd Helen_ +Byse, Fanny + +C., H. +Caccia, G. A., _see_ Cazza, G. A. +_Caccia col falcone_ +_Caccia d' amore_ +Calderon de la Barca, Pedro +_Calendar of Shepherds_ +_Calisto_ +Callimachus +Calmo, Andrea +Calpurnius +Calvin, Jean +Campori, G. +_Canace_ +Canello, Ugo Angelo +_Canterbury Tales_ +_Canzoniere_ (Petrarca) +Camoens, Luis de +Caperano, Alessandro +_Capitolo pastorale_ (Machiavelli) +Cardona, Antonia +Carducci, Giosue +_Careless Shepherdess_ +Carew, Thomas +_Caride_ +Carlton, Sir Dudley +Carlo emanuele, _Duke of Savoy_ +_Carmen bucolicum_ (Endelechius) +Caro, Annibale +Carretto, Galeotto Del +_Carte du Tendre_ +Casalio, Giambattista +Cassio da Narni +Castalio +Castelletti, Cristoforo +Castelvetri, Giacopo +Castiglione, Baldassarre +_Castle of Labour_ +Catharine of Austria +Catherine of Siena, _Saint_ +Catullus +Cavassico, Bartolommeo +Cavendish, George +Cazza, Giovanni Agostino +_Cecaria_ +Cecco di Mileto +_Cefalo_ +_Cefalo y Pocris_ +_Celos aun del aire matan_ +_Cent Nouvelles nouvelles_ +Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de +Cesana, Gasparo +Chaloner, Thomas +Chamberlain, John +Chambers, E. K. +Chandos, Lord +Chapman, George +Chariton +Charles I +Charles II +Chateillon, Sebastien +Chaucer, Geoffrey +_Chester mysteries_ +Chettle, Henry +Chetwood, W. R. +Child, F. J. +_Child Waters_ +_Chloridia_ +_Chloris_ +_Chloris and Ergasto_ +_Cicro_ +_Cid_ +_Cintia_ +Ciotti, Giovanbattista +Claudio of Savoy +_Clio_ +_Clorys and Orgasto_ +Ciacco dell'Anguillaja +_Citizen and Uplondishman_ +Clement VI, _Pope_ +Coello, Antonio +_Coelum Britannicum_ +Coleridge, S. T. +_Colin Clout's come home again_ +Colisano, Count of +Colleoni, Bartolommeo +Collier, J. P. +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Avignon) +Colonna, Giovanni, _Cardinal_ (at Rome) +_Columbia University Studies in Literature_ +Compani, A. +_Compendio della poesia tragicomica_ +_Complete Angler_ +_Comus_ +_Conflictus veris et hiemis_ +Conington, John +Constable, Henry +Contarini, Francisco +_Converted Robber_ +_Copa_ +_Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_ +Corazzini, Francesco +Corneille, Pierre +_Cornhill Magazine_ +Corrado, Gregorio +Correggio, Niccolo da +_Cortegiano_ +Count Palatine (Frederick V, Elector Palatine) +Courthope, W. J. +_Coventry mysteries_ +_Cowdenknows,_ see _Broom of Cowdenknows._ +Cowley, Abraham +Cox, Robert +Coxeter, Thomas +Creizenach, Wilhelm +Cresci, Pietro +Crescimbeni, G. M. +Croce, B. +Crusca, Accademia della +Cuchetti, Giovanni Donato +_Cuestion de amor_ +Cunningham, Peter +_Cupid and Psyche_ +_Cupid's Revenge_ +_Cyclops_ +_Cynthia_ (Barnfield) +_Cynthia_ (Dyer) + +D., D. +D., E. +Dancer, John +Daniel, Samuel +Dante Alighieri +_Danza di Venere_ +_Daphnaida_ +_Daphne_ +_Daphnis and Chloe_ +[Greek: Da/phnis Polyste/phanos] +Davenant, Sir William +Davies, Sir John +Davison, Francis +Day, Angel +Day, John +_Decameron_ +_Defense de la langue francaise_ +_Defence of Poesy_ +_Defence of Rime_ +Deighton, Kenneth +Dekker, Thomas +Delaval, Lady Elizabeth +_Delia_ +Denny, Sir William +Denham, Sir John +Denores, Giasone, _see_ Nores, Giasone de. +_Deorum Dona_ +_De Remedio Amoris_ +Derby, Countess Dowager of +Dering, Sir E. +_Descensus Astraeae_ +Devonshire, Duke of +_De Vulgari Eloquio_ +_Dialogo di tre ciechi_ +_Dialogue at Wilton_ +_Dialogue in Praise of Astrea_ +_Dialogues and Dramas_ +_Diana_ +_Diane_ +Diane de Poitiers +Dickenson, John +_Dictionary of National Biography_ +_Dido_ +Digby, Sir Kenelm +Digby, Lady Venetia +Dionisio, Alessandro +Dionisio, Scipione +_Discorso intorno alla commedia_ +_Discourse of English Poetry_ +_Discourse on Pastoral_ +_Discoveries_ +_Dispraise of a Courtly Life_ +_Divina Commedia_ +_Dodsley's Old Plays_ +Dodus +Dolce, Lodovico +_Donald of the Isles_ +Donati, Alesso +Donne, John +_Don Quixote_ +_Dorastus and Fawnia_ +Dorset, Earl of +Dossi, Dosso +Dove, John +Drake, Sir Francis +Drayton, Michael +_Driadeo d'amore_ +Drummond, Jean +Drummond, William +Dryden, John +Du Bartas, Seigneur (Guillaume de Salluste) +_Due pellegrini_ +Dunlop, J. C. +Dulfo, Floriano +Dyce, Alexander +Dyer, Sir Edward +Dymocke, Mr. +Dymocke, Charles +Dymocke, Sir Edward +Dymocke, John + +_Earl Lithgow_ +_Earl Richard_ +Early English Text Society +Ebsworth, J. W. +_Ecatommiti_ +_Ecloga di amicizia_ +_Ecloga di justizia_ +_Ecloga duarum sanctimonialium_ +_Ecloga Theoduli_ +_Eclogas_ (Encina) +_Eclogue au Roi_ (Marot) +_Eclogue Gratulatory_ (Peele) +_Eclogue, ou Chant pastoral_(I. D. B.) +_Eclogues sacrees_ (Belleau) +Edward IV, _King of England_ +Edward V, _King of England_ +Edward VI, _King of England_ +Egerton, Lady Alice +Egerton, John (first Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, John (third Viscount Brackley and second Earl of Bridgewater) +Egerton, Sir Thomas (Baron Ellesmere and first Viscount Brackley) +Egerton, Thomas (son of John, first Earl of Bridgewater) +_Egle_ +Elizabeth, _Queen of England_ +Elizabeth, _Duchess of Urbino, see_ Gonzaga, Elizabeta. +_Elpine_ +Encina, Juan del +Encinas, Pedro de +Endelechius, Severus Sanctus +_England's Helicon_ +_England's Mourning Garment_ +_England's Parnassus_ +_Englische Studien_ +_English Grammar_ (Jonson) +_English Miscellany_ +Enrique IV, _King of Spain_ +_Entertainment at Althorp_ +_Entertainment at Elvetham_ +_Entertainment at Kenilworth_ +_Entertainment at Richmond_ +Epicuro de' Marsi +_Epithalamium_ (Spenser) +Erasmus, Desiderius +_Erbusto_ +[Greek: E)rotopai/gnion] +Erythraeus, Janus Nicius +Essex, Earl of +Este, House of (Estensi) +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Alfonso d' (Alfonso II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d' (Ercole I), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Ercole d'(Ercole II), _Duke of Ferrara_ +Este, Francesco d' +Este, Ippolito d', _Cardinal_ +Este, Laura Eustoccia d' +Este, Leonora d' +Este, Lucrezia d' (wife of Annibale Bentivogli) +Este, Lucrezia d' (daughter of Ercole II) +Este, Luigi d', _Cardinal_ (son of Ercole II) +Este, Renata d' (wife of Ercole II, and daughter of Louis XII of France) +_Euphormus_ +Euripides + +_Faery Queen_ +Fairfax, Edward +_Fairy Pastoral_ +_Faithful Shepherdess_ +Falkland, Viscount +_Fancy's Theatre_ +Fanfani, P. +Fanshawe, Sir Richard +_Faunus_ +_Faustus, Dr_. +_Feast of Adonis_ +Ferdinand I, _King of Naples_ +Ferrario, Giulio +Ferraby, George +FF. Anglo-Britannus (_pseud._) +_Fiammella_ +_Fickle Shepherdess_ +_Fida Armilla_ +_Fida ninfa_ +_Fida pastora_ +_Fidus Pastor_ +Field, Nathan +_Fig for Momus_ +_Figlia di Iorio_ +_Figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli_ +Figueroa, Cristobal Suarez de +Figueroa, Francisco de +_Filena_ +Fileno Addiacciato +_Filide_ +Filleul, Nicolas +_Filli di Sciro_ +_Filli di Sciro_ (Bonarelli), English translations: + Sidnam + Talbot + [Latin] _(Scyros)_ +_Finta Fiammetta_ +Firenzuola, Agnolo +_Fischerin_ +_Fisherman's Tale_ +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, James +_Five Plays in One_ +Flamini, F. +Fleay, F. G. +Fleming, Abraham +Fletcher, Giles, the elder +Fletcher, John +Fletcher, Phineas +_Florimene_ +_Flower of Fidelity_ +Folengo, Teofilo +Fontanini, Giusto +Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de +_Forbonius and Prisceria_ +Forde, Thomas +Fortini, Pietro +Francois I, _King of France_. +Frati, L. +Fratti, Giovanni +Fraunce, Abraham +Frederick of Aragon, _King of Naples_ +Frezzi, Frederigo +_Frutti d'amore_ +Furness, H. H. + +G., T. +_Galatea_ (Cervantes) +_Galatea_ (Lollio) +_Galizia_ +_Gallathea_ +_Gammer Gurton's Needle_ +Garcia de Toledo +Garcilaso de la Vega +Gardner, E. G. +Gascoigne, George +_Gaudeamus!_ +Gauricus, Pomponius +_Gentle Shepherd_ +_Georgics_ +_Gerusalemme liberata_ +_Gesta Romanorum_ +Gifford, William +Ginguene, P. L. +_Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ +_Giostra_ +Giovanni del Virgilio +Giraldi _Cintio_, Giovanni Battista +Giunta, Filippo di +Glapthorne, Henry +_Glasgow Peggie_ +_God's Revenge against Murder_ +Goethe, Johann Wolfgang +Goffe, Thomas +_Golden Age_ (Graham) +_Golden Age_ (Heywood) +_Golden Fleece_ +Golding, Arthur +Gollancz, Israel +Gomersall, Robert +Gonzaga, Cesare +Gonzaga, Elisabetta (wife of Guidubaldo II of Urbino) +Gonzaga, Francesco +Gonzaga, Gianvincenzo, _Cardinal_ +Gonzaga, Isabella +Gonzaga, Scipione +Gonzaga, Vincenzo +Goodere, Anne +Goodwin, Gordon +Googe, Barnabe +Gosse, E. W. +Gosson, Stephen +Gower, Lady +Gower, John +Gozze, Gauges de +Graham, Kenneth +_Grateful Servant_ +Gravina, Gian Vincenzo +_Great Plantagenet_ +Greene, Robert +Gregory XI, _Pope_ +Greville, Dorothy +Greville, Fulke (Lord Brooke) +Grimaldi, Bartolommeo Ceva, _Duke of Telese_ +Grimani, Marin, _Doge_ +Gringore, Pierre +_Gripus and Hegio_ +Grosart, A. B. +Groto, Luigi +_Guardian_ +Guarini, Alessandro +Guarini, Battista +Guerrini, O. +Guidubaldo I, _see_ Montefeltro, G. +Guidubaldo II, _see_ Rovere, G. della. +Gustavus Adolphus, _King of Sweden_ + +H., I. +Hall, Edward +Hall, Joseph +Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. +Hardy, Thomas +_Harmony of the Church_ +_Harpelus' Complaint_ +Harvey, Gabriel +Harvey, Richard +Harvey, Thomas +_Havelok the Dane_ +Hawes, Stephen +Hazlewood, Joseph +Hazlitt, W. C +Heber, Richard +_Hecatompathia_ +Heliodorus +Henneman, J. B. +Henrietta Maria +_Henry VI_ +Henry VIII, _King of England_ +Henryson, Robert +Henslowe, Philip +_Heptameron_ +Herbert, Sir Henry +Herd, David +Herford, C. H. +_Hermophus_ +Herrick, Robert +Hewlett, Maurice +Heywood, John +Heywood, Thomas +Hiero of Syracuse +_Histoire des satyres et nymphes de Diane_ +Homer +_Honour's Academy_ +Horace +Hortis, Attilio +_Hospital of Lovers_ +_House of Fame_ +Howard, Douglas +Howard, Sir Edward +Hunt, Leigh +_Hunting of Cupid_ +_Hymen's Triumph_ +_Hymn to Pan_ +_Hymns in honour of Love and Beauty_ + +_Idea_ +_Idropica_ +_Idyllia_ (Ausonius) +_Idyls_ (Theocritus) +Immerito (_pseud._) +Index, Congregation of the +_Index Expurgatorius_ +_Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ +_Inedited Poetical Miscellany_ +Ingegneri, Angelo +_Inner Temple Masque_ +Innocent VIII, _Pope_ +_Intricati_ +_Intrichi d' amore_ +Intronati, academy at Siena +_Iphis and Ianthe_ +Isauro, Fileno di (_pseud._) +_Isle of Dogs_ +_Isle of Gulls_ +_Ivychurch_ + +Jackson, Henry +Jacobs, James +James I, _King of England_ +James, M. R. +James, William +Jauregui, Juan de +_Jealous Lovers_ +Jeanne de Laval +Jennaro, Pietro Jacopo de +_John, King_ +John of Bologna, _see_ Giovanni del Virgilio. +_Johnie Faa_ +Johnson, Samuel +Jones, Inigo +Jones, John +Jones, Richard +Jones, Stephen +Jonson, Benjamin +_Jonsonus Verbius_ +Julius Caesar +_Jupiter and Io_ +Jusserand, J. J. +Juvenal, 6. + +K., E. +Ker, Robert (Earl of Roxburgh) +Ker, W. P. +King, Edward +Kipling, Rudyard +Kirke, Edward +Kirkman, Francis +Klein, J. L. +Kluge, Friedrich +_Knave in Grain_ +Knevet, Ralph +_Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ +_Knight of the Burning Pestle_ +Koeppel, Emil +Kynder, Philip + +_Lady of May_ +_Lady Pecunia_ +La Fayette, Comtesse de +_Lagrime di San Pietro_ +Laidler, Josephine +Lamb, Charles +_Lamentations of Amyntas_ +_Lamenta di Cecco da Varlungo_ +Landau, Marcus +Lang, Andrew +Langland, William +Languet, Hubert +Laud, William +_Laune des Verliebten_ +Laura +Lauro, Cristoforo +Lawes, Henry +_Lawyer's Logic_ +_Lear, King_ +Lee, Elizabeth +Lee, Honoria +Lee, Margaret L. +Lee, S. L. +Lee, William +Lee Priory Press +Legacci dello Stricca, Piero Antonio +Legge, Cantrell +Leicester, Earl of +_Leir, King_ +_Lenore_ +Leo X, _Pope_ +L'Estrange, Sir Roger +_Lettere memorabili_ +_Licia_ +_Ligurino_ +_Lilia_ +_Literaturblatt fuer germanische und romanische Philologie_ +_Lizie Baillie_ +_Lizie Lindsay_ +Lodge, Thomas +_Lodovick Sforza_ +Logan, W. H. +Lollio, Alberto +Longus +_Love Crowns the End_ +_Love in its Ecstasy_ +_Love-Sick Court_ +_Love Tricks_ +_Love's Changelings' Change_ +_Love's Labour's Lost_ +_Love's Labyrinth_ +_Love's Metamorphosis_ +_Love's Mistress_, 407. +_Love's Riddle_ +_Loves Victory_ +Loyse de Savoye +Luca di Lorenzo +Lucian +Lucretius +Lungo, Isidore del +_Lusus Pastorales_ +Luther, Martin +Lydgate, John +_Lycidas_ +Lyly, John + +Macaulay, Lord +Machiavelli, Niccolo +Machiavelli, Paolo +Machin, Lewis +Macri-Leone, F. +Madan, Falconer +Mahaffy, J. P. +Maidment, James +_Maid's Metamorphosis_ +_Maid's Revenge_ +Malacreta, Giovan Pietro +_Man in the Moon_ +Mancina, Faustina +_Mandragola_ +_Mangora_ +Manso, Giovanni Battista +Mantegna, Andrea +Mantuanus +Manuscripts quoted:-- + Bodleian:-- + Ashmole + Douce + Rawl. Poet. + British Museum:-- + Addit. 10,444 + " 11,743 + " 14,047 + " 18,638 + " 29,493 + Egerton, 1994 + Harl. 6924 + " 7044 + Lansd. 1171 + Sloane, 836 + " 857 + Caius College, Cambridge + Cambridge University Library + Emmanuel College, Cambridge + Trinity College, Cambridge +Manwood, Sir Peter +Manwood, Thomas +Marchesa, Cassandra +Margaret of Navarre +Marini, Giovanbattista +Marlowe, Christopher +Marot, Clement +Marsi, E., _see_ Epicuro de' Marsi. +Marston, John +Martin Mar-prelate (_pseud._) +Martino da Signa +Mason, I. M. +Masson, David +_Materialien zur Kunde des alteren Englischen Dramas_ +_Mauriziano_ +_May Lord_ +Mazzi, Curzio +Mazzoni, G. +McKerrow, R. B. +Medici, Eleonora de' +Medici, Ferdinando de' (Ferdinando I), _Grand Duke of Florence_ +Medici, Giuliano de' (brother of Lorenzo) +Medici, Giuliano de' (son of Lorenzo) +Medici, Lorenzo de', _Il Magnifico_ +_Melanthe_ +_Meliboeus_ +Menagio, Egidio +_Menaphon_ +Mendoza, Inigo de +_Menina e moca_ +Menzini, Benedetto +Meres, Francis +_Merry Wives of Windsor_ +_Metamorphoses_ +_Metellus_ +Meung, Jean de +Meyers, Ernest +_Midsummer Night's Dream_ +Milton, John +Mirari, Alessandro +_Mirrha_ +_Mirror for Magistrates_ +_Mirzia_ +_Modern Language Association of America, Publications of the_ +_Modern Language Notes_ +_Modern Language Quarterly_ +_Modern Language Review_ +Molza, Francesco Maria +Montagu, Walter +Montefeltro, Guidubaldo (Guidubaldo I), _Duke of Urbino_ +Montemayor, Jorge de +Moore, Thomas +Moore, Sir Thomas +Moorman, F. W. +Moraldi, Giannantonio +_Moretum_ +_Morte del Danese_ +_Morte della Nencia_ +Moschus +_Mother Bombie_ +_Mother Hubberd's Tale_ +_Mourning Garment_ +_Mucedorus_ +Munday, Anthony +_Muses' Elizium_ +_Muses' Looking Glass_ +Mussato, Albertino +_Mutability_ +_Mydas_ + +Nappi, Cesare +_Narcissus_ +_Narcissus' Change_ +Nashe, Thomas +Nemesianus +_Nencia da Barberino_ +Nettleship, Henry +_Never too Late_ +_New English Dictionary_ +Nichols, John +Nicolas de Montreux +_Nigella_ +_Ninfa tiberina_ +_Ninfale fiesolano_ +Noci, Carlo +Nores, Giasone de +Norris of Rycote, Baron +Northampton, Earl of +Northumberland, Earl of +Notker the German +_Novelle de Novizi_ +Numerianus +_Nuova Antologia_ +_Nut-brown Maid_ + +_Oberon_ +Occleve, Thomas +Octavianus +_Old-fashioned Love_ +_Old Fortunatus_ +_Old Law_ +Oldmixon, John +_Old Wives' Tale_ +Ollenix du Mont-Sacre +_Ombres_ +_Omphale_ +Ongaro, Antonio +Oporinus, Joannes +_Orfeo_ +_Orlando furioso_ +_Orlando innamorato_ +_Orphei Tragoedia_ +Orsini family +_Osiers_ +_Otranto, Castle of_ +Ovid + +P., G. +Paglia, Francesco Baldassare +_Palladis Tamia_ +Pallai delia Sabina, Biagio +_Palmers Ode_ +Palmerini, I. +_Pan his Syrinx_ +_Pandosto_ +_Pan's Anniversary_ +_Pan's Pipe_ +_Paradise Lost_ +_Paradiso_ +Parsons, Philip +_Parthenia_ +_Parthenophil and Parthenope_ +Pasqualigo, Luigi (Alvisi) +_Passionate Pilgrim_ +_Passionate Shepherd_ +_Passionate Shepherd to his Love_ +Paston, Edward +Paston, Sir William +_Pastor fido_ +_Pastor fido_ (Guarini), English translations: + 'Dymock,' + Sidnam + Fanshawe + Settle + [Latin] + Grove, Clapperton +_Pastor lobo_ +_Pastor vedovo_ +_Pastoral ending in a Tragedy_ +_Pastores de Balue_ +_Pastoureau crestien_ +Patrizi, Francesco +_Paul et Virginie_ +Pausanias +_Pazzia_ +Peaps, William +_Pearl_ +Pearson, John +Peele, George +Pelliciari, Ercole +Pembroke, Countess of +_Pembroke's Arcadia, Countess of_, see _Arcadia_ (Sidney). +_Pembroke's Ivychurch, Countess of_, see _Ivychurch_. +_Penseroso_ +_Pentimento amoroso_ +Pepys, Samuel +Percopo, Erasmo +Percy Society +Percy, Thomas +Percy, William +Perez, Alonzo +_Perimedes the Blacksmith_ +Perth, Earl of +Perugino (Pietro Vespucci) +_Pescatoria amorosa_ +Pescetti, Orlando +Petit de Julleville, L. +Petowe, Henry +Petrarca, Francesco +Petrarca, Gherardo +Phanocles +_Philaster_ +Philetas +_Phillida and Corin_ +_Phillida and Corydon_ +_Phillida flouts me_ +Phillips, Edward +_Phillis_ +_Phillis of Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_. +Piccolomini, Aeneas Silvius, _see_ Pius II. +Pico delia Mirandola, Giovanni +_Piers Plowman_ +Pigna, Giovanbattista +_Pilgrim_ +_Pinacoteca_ +Pinturicchio, Bernardo +Pio, Ercole +Pius II, _Pope_ +Plato +_Podere_ +_Poems Lyric and Pastoral_ +_Poetical Diversions_ +_Poetical Rhapsody_ +_Poetics_ (Aristotle) +_Poet's Willow_ +_Poimenologia_ +Poliziano (Angelo Ambrogini) +Pollard, A. W. +_Pollio_ +Polo, Gaspar Gil +Polybius +_Polyolbion_ +Ponce, Bartolome +Ponsonby, William +Pontana, Accademia +Pontano +Pope, Alexander +Porcacchi, Tommaso +_Porta Pietatis_ +_Primavera_ +_Primelion_ +_Prince d'Amour_ +_Princesse de Cleves_ +_Propugnatore_ +_Prova amorosa_ +Prynne, William +Ptolemy Philadelphus +Pulci, Bernardo +Pulci, Luca +Pulci, Luigi +_Pulicane_ +_Purgatorio_ +_Purple Island_ +Puteanus (Hendrik van der Putten) +Puttenham, (George?) +Pynson, Richard +Pyper, John + +_Quadriregio_ +Quaritch, Bernard +Quarles, Francis +_Queen's Arcadia_ +_Quetten und Forschungen_ + +R., J. +Raleigh, Walter +Raleigh, Sir Walter +_Rambler_ +Ramsay, Allan +Randolph, Thomas +Rapin, Rene +_Rapture_ +Reid, J. S. +Reinolds, _see_ Reynolds. +Reissert, Oswald +_Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ +Rene of Anjou +Renier, R. +Rennert, H. A. +_Retrospective Review_ +Reynolds, Henry +Reynolds, John: + Fellow of New College + of Exeter + author of _God's Revenge_ + translator +Reynolds, Sir John, Colonel +_Rhodon and Iris_ +Ribeiro, Bernardim +_Rinaldo_ +_Risposta al Malacreta_ +_Robene and Makyne_ +Robert of Sicily +_Robin Hood and Little John_ +_Robins et Marion_ +Rodrigues de Lobo, Francisco +Rollinson, Anthony +_Roman de la Rose_ +_Romeo and Juliet_ +Rondinelli, Dionisio +Ronsard, Pierre de +_Rosalynde_ +Rossi, Bartolommeo +Rossi, Giovanni Vittorio +Rossi, Vittorio +Rota, Bernardino +Rovere, Francesco Maria delia +Rovere, Guidubaldo delia (Guidubaldo II), _Duke of Urbino_ +Rowley, William +Roxburghe Club +Royden, Matthew +_Royster Doyster_ +Rozzi, Congrega dei +Ruberto, Luigi +_Rural Sports of the Nymph Oenone_ +Russell, Lady +Rutter, Joseph + +S., E. +S., H. +J. (translater of the _Filli di Sciro_) +S., J. (author of _Andromana_) +Sa de Miranda, Francisco de +Sabie, Francis +Sacchetti, Franco +Sackville, Edward +_Sacrifizio_ (Beccari) +_Sacrifizio_ (Intronati masque) +_Sacrifizio pastorale_ +_Sad Shepherd_ +Sagredo, Giovanni +Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri Bernardin de +Saintsbury, George +_Salices_ +Salviati, Lionardo +Samson, M. W. +Sand, George +Sandys, J. E. +Sannazzaro, Jacopo +Sansovino, F. +San vitale, Gualtiero +Sappho +_Saturday Review_ +Savio, Giovanni +Schlegel, A. W. von +Schoenherr, J. G. +Schucking, L. L. +_Scilla's Metamorphosis_ +Scott, Mary A. +Scott, Sir Walter +_Scyros_, see _Filli di Sciro_ +Seneca +_Selva d' amore_ +_Selva sin amor_ +Serassi, Pierantonio +Serono, Orazio +_Session of the Poets_ +Settle, Elkanah +Seward, Thomas +Seyffert, Oskar +_Sfortunato_ +Sforza, Giovanni +Sforza, Lodovico +_Shadow of Sannazar_ +Shakespeare, William +Shakespeare Society +Shepherd Tony _(pseud.)_ +_Shepherd's Calendar_ +_Shepherd's Complaint_ +_Shepherd's Content_ +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Angel Day) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Denny) +_Shepherds' Holiday_ (Rutter) +_Shepherd's Hunting_ +_Shepherds' Masque_ +_Shepherd's Ode_ +_Shepherd's Oracle_ +_Shepherd's Oracles_ +_Shepherds' Paradise_ +_Shepherd's Pipe_ +_Shepherds' Sirena_ +_Shepherd's Taies_ +_Shepherd's Wife's Song_ +Sherburne, Sir Edward +Sherley, James +_Ship of Fools_ +Shuckburgh, E. S. +_Sicelides_ +Sidnam, Jonathan +Sidney, Lady +Sidney, Sir Philip +_Siglo de Oro_ +Signorelli, Luca +Silesio, Mariano +_Silvanus_ +_Silver Age_ +_Silvia_ (Fileno) +_Silvia_ (Kynder) +Sincerus, Actius, _see_ Sannazzaro, Jacopo. +_Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes_ +_Sirena_, see _Shepherds' Sirena._ +Skeat, W. W. +Skelton, John +Smith, G. C. M. +Smith, Homer +Smith, William, 124. +Solerti, Angelo +Solisy Rivadeneira, Antonio de +Sommer, H. O. +_Somnium Puteani (Cornus, sive Phagesiposia Cimeria)_ +_Song of Solomon_ +Sophocles +_Sophy_ +Southampton, Earl of +_Speeches at Bisham, &c._ +Speed, John +Spencer, Sir John +Spenser, Edmund +Speroni, Sperone +Spinelli, A. G. +Stanley, Ferdinando (Lord Strange) +_Steel Glass_ +Steele, Sir Richard +Stesichorus +Stevenson, R. L. +Stiefel, A. L. +Stockdale, Percival +_Stonehenge_ +Strange, Lord, _see_ Stanley, F. +_Stultifera Navis_ +Suckling, Sir Thomas +Suidas +_Summer's Last Will and Testament_ +Summo, Faustino +Surrey, Earl of (Henry Howard) +_Sweet Sobs and Amorous Complaints_ +Swinburne, A. C. +Symonds, J. A. + +T., I. +Taccone, Baldassare +Talbot, Sir George +_Tale of Troy_ +_Tancia_ +Tansillo, Luigi +_Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_ +Tasso, Torquato +Tatham, John +Taylor, John +_Taylor's Pastoral_ +_Tears of the Muses_ +Tebaldeo, Antonio +_Tempest_ +Texeda, Jeronimo de +_Theatrum Poetarum_ +Theocritus +Thomason, George +Thorndike, A. H. +_Thracian Wonder_ +Thynne, William +Tibullus +Ticknor, George +_Timone_ +Tiraboschi, Girolamo +_Tirena_ +_Tirsi_ +_Titirus and Galathea_ +Tofte, Robert +_Tottel's Miscellany_ +_Townley mysteries_ +_Triumph of Beauty_ +_Triumph of Peace_ +_Triumph of Virtue_ +Torraca, Francesco +Turberville, George +Turnbull, W. B. +_Twelfth Night_ +_Tivo Gentlemen of Verona_ +_Two Noble Kinsmen_ + +Ugolino, Braccio +Ulloa, Alonzo de +_Under der linden_ +Underhill, J. G. +Uniti, Accademia degli +Urceo +Urfe, Honore d' + +_Valle tenebrosa_ (_Vallis Opaca_) +Valle, Cesare della +Valois, House of +Vega, Lope de +_Vendemmiatore_ +_Venus and Adonis_ +_Verato_ +_Verato secondo_ +Vergil +Vergna, Maria della, _see_ La Fayette, Comtesse de +Vicente, Gil +Vida, Marco Girolamo +Villon, Francois +_Volpone_ +_Vuelta de Egypto_ + +W., A. +Waldron, F. G. +Walsingham, Sir Francis +Walther von der Vogelweide +Walton, Isaac +_War without Blows and Love without Suit (? Strife)_ +Ward, A. W. +Warner, William +Warton, Thomas +Waterson, Simon +Watson, Thomas, III +Web, William, _Lord Mayor_ +Webbe, William +Weber, H. W. +Webster, John +Webster, William +Weinberg, Gustav +Weise, Berthold +White, Edward +Wicksteed, P. H. +Wilcox, Thomas +Wilde, George +Wilson, H. +Wilson, Thomas +_Wily Beguiled_ +Windscheid, Katharina +Winstanley, William +_Winter's Tale_ +Wither, George +Wolfe, John +Wolsey, Thomas, _Cardinal_ +_Woman in the Moon_ +_Wonder of Women_ +Wood, Anthony a +Wotton, Sir John +Wotton, Sir Henry +Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder +Wynkyn de Worde + +Yong (or Young), Bartholomew + +_Zanitonella_ +Zinano, Gabriele +Zola, Emil +Zurla, Lodovico + + + +Oxford: Horace Hart, Printer to the University. + + + + +Footnotes + + + + +[1] The often cited pastoralism of the _Song of Solomon_ resolves itself +on investigation into an occasional simile. These argue familiarity with +the scenes of pastoral life, but equally reveal the existence of the +contrast in the mind of the writer. It was on the orthodox interpretation +of this love-song that Remi Belleau founded his _Eclogues sacrees_, but +they contain little or nothing of a pastoral nature. The same may be said +of Drayton's paraphrase, included in his _Harmony of the Church_ in 1591, +which is chiefly remarkable for the evident and honest pleasure with which +he rendered the unsophisticated meaning of the original. It is, however, +just possible that the Hebrew poem may have had some influence on pastoral +poetry in Italy. There is a monograph on the subject by A. Abbruzzese, _Il +Cantico dei Cantici in alcune parafrasi poetiche italiane: contributo alla +storia del dramma pastorale_, which, however, I have not seen. With regard +to possible Greek predecessors of Theocritus, it must be borne in mind +that there were singing contests between shepherds at the Sicilian +festival of Artemis, and it is possible that the competitors may have been +sufficiently influenced by other orders of civilization to have given a +definitely pastoral colouring to their songs. Little is known of their +nature beyond the fact that they probably contained the motive of the +lament for Daphnis, which appears to be as old as Stesichorus. They have +perished all but two lines which are found prefixed by way of motto to the +_Idyls_: + + [Greek: de/xai ta\n a)gatha\n ty/chan, de/xai ta\n y(gi/eian + a(\n phe/romen para\ ta~s theoy~, a(\n e)kale/ssato te/na] + +What I have wished to emphasize above is the fact that because shepherds +sang songs we have no reason to assume that these were distinctively +pastoral. In later times the pastoral generally acknowledged a theoretical +dependence on rustic song, and the popular compositions did actually now +and again affect literary tradition. But this was rare. + +[2] Details concerning the conception of the golden age will be found in +Moorman's _William Browne_, p. 59. + +[3] The tendency to form an ideal picture of his own youth is common both +to mankind and man. The romance of childhood is the dream with which age +consoles itself for the disillusionments of life. This it is that gives a +peculiar appropriateness to the title of Mr. Graham's pictures of +childhood in _The Golden Age_, a work of the profoundest insight and +genius, as delightful as it is unique. I am not aware that there has ever +been another author in English who could have written thus intimately of +children without once striking a false note. + +[4] There is some truth in the charge. Even Symonds wrote of Theocritus, +possibly with Fontenelle's words in his mind: 'As it is, we find enough of +rustic grossness on his pages, and may even complain that his cowherds and +goatherds savour too strongly of their stables.' (_Greek Poets_, ii. p. +246.) + +[5] Landscapes as decoration may be seen on the walls of the so-called +Casa Nuova at Pompeii. It should be remarked that one idyl is addressed to +Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, and it is quite possible that Theocritus may +have been a frequent visitor there. + +[6] Theocritus flourished in the first half of the third century B.C. Some +authorities place the younger poets more than a hundred years later. + +[7] Familiar to English readers through Matthew Arnold's translation. + +[8] Suidas says that Moschus came from Sicily, and some authorities speak +of him as a Syracusan. But in his 'Lament' he alludes to his 'Ausonian' +song, apparently as distinguished from that of Theocritus 'of Syracuse.' +The passage, however, is rendered obscure by an hiatus. Another tradition +made Theocritus a native of the island of Cos. More probably it was +between the time of his leaving Syracuse and that of his settling at +Alexandria that he was the pupil of the Coan poet and critic, Philetas. + +[9] Ernest Myers' version from Andrew Lang's delightful volume in the +Golden Treasury Series. + +[10] Placing the romance, that is, in the third century A.D. Authorities +assign it to various dates from the second to the sixth centuries, +according as they regard it as a model or an imitation of Heliodorus' +work. + +[11] A similar use of [Greek: a)nagno/risis] is very frequent in the +Italian pastoral drama, where, however, it is more probably derived from +Latin comedy. + +[12] This was not the first Italian version of Longus. _Daphnis and Chloe_ +had been translated directly from the Greek by Annibale Caro in the +previous century. + +[13] Two poems, written in close imitation of Theocritus' natural manner, +and entitled respectively _Moretum_ and _Copa_, have sometimes, but +wrongly, been attributed to Vergil. + +[14] _Greek Poets_, ii. p. 265. + +[15] Symonds speaks strongly on the point. 'Virgil not only lacks his +[Theocritus'] vigour and enthusiasm for the open-air life of the country, +but, with Roman bad taste, he commits the capital crime of allegorising.' +(_Greek Poets_, ii. p. 247.) + +[16] Seyffert's classical dictionary, as revised by Nettleship and Sandys +(1899), definitely assigns Calpurnius to the middle of the first century. +In that case the amphitheatre mentioned was no doubt the wooden structure +that preceded the Colosseum. + +[17] See, in Conington and Nettleship's _Virgil_, 1881, the essay on 'The +Later Bucolic Poets of Rome,' in which will be found a detailed account of +this very intricate controversy. + +[18] It would appear that the two founders of the renaissance eclogue +deliberately chose the Vergilian form as that best suited to their +purpose. Petrarch calls attention to the advantages offered by the +pastoral for covert reference to men and events of the day, since it is +characteristic of the form to let its meaning only partially appear. He +was therefore perfectly aware of the allegorical nature of the Vergilian +eclogue, and adopted it for definite purposes of utility. Boccaccio is +even more explicit, and I cannot do better than transcribe the very +interesting summary of the history of pastoral verse down to his day, +given in a letter addressed by him to Martino da Signa, which I shall +again have occasion to mention in dealing with his own contributions to +the kind. He writes: 'Theocritus Syracusanus Poeta, ut ab antiquis +accepimus, primus fuit, qui Graeco Carmine Buccolicum escogitavit stylum, +verum nil sensit, praeter quod cortex verborum demonstrat. Post hunc +Latine scripsit Virgilius, sed sub cortice nonnullos abscondit sensus, +esto non semper voluerit sub nominibus colloquentium aliquid sentiremus. +Post hunc autem scripserunt et alii, sed ignobiles, de quibus nil curandum +est, excepto inclyto Praeceptore meo Francisco Petrarca qui stylum praeter +solitum paululum sublimavit et secundum Eclogarum suarum materias continue +collocutorum nomina aliquid significantia posuit. Ex his ego Virgilium +secutus sum quapropter non curavi in omnibus colloquentium nominibus +sensum abscondere.' _Lettere di G. Boccaccio_, ed. Corazzini, 1877, p. +267. + +[19] Line 1228. See Skeat's note in the _Athenaeum_, March 1, 1902. + +[20] On all points connected with these compositions see the elaborate +monograph by Wicksteed and Gardner. + +[21] Dante's poems do not stand altogether isolated in this respect. It +would be possible to cite eclogues formerly ascribed to Mussato, as also +some from the pens of Giovanni de Boni of Arezzo and Cecco di Mileto, in +support of the above remarks. It is significant of their independence of +medieval pastoralism, that Giovanni del Virgilio repeatedly speaks of +Dante as the first to write bucolic poetry since Vergil, thus ignoring the +whole production from Calpurnius to Metellus. + +[22] Boccaccio was of course acquainted with Dante's eclogues, and in his +life of the poet he allows them considerable beauty. It seems never to +have occurred to him, however, to regard them as serious contributions to +pastoral literature, for, as we have already seen, he stigmatizes all +bucolic writers between Vergil and Petrarch as _ignobiles_. I do not think +this attitude was due to the influence of Petrarch having lessened his +admiration of Dante, as maintained by Wicksteed and Gardner, but simply to +his recognition of the absolute unimportance of the poems in question from +the historical point of view. + +[23] In this connexion it will be remembered that Dante places Brutus and +Cassius, the betrayers of Julius, in company with Judas, the betrayer of +Christ, as arch-traitors in the innermost circle of hell (_Inferno_, +xxxiv). He was no doubt influenced in this by his philosophical Ghibelline +tendencies. + +[24] The evolution of this idea, suggested of course by John X. II, can be +clearly traced in the mosaics at Ravenna. + +[25] So Hortis (_Scritti inediti di F. Petrarca_, pp. 221, &c.), who +combats A. W. von Schlegel's view that the Epy of Eclogue VII stands for +Avignon. + +[26] This spelling was current for some centuries, Spenser among others +adopting it. Indeed, _egloghe_ is still the prevalent form among Italian +scholars. + +[27] One other was discovered and published from MS. by Hortis, in his +_Studi sulle opere latini_, p. 351. + +[28] It is not impossible that Boccaccio may have begun composing eclogues +before his acquaintance with Petrarch, since the influence of the poems +sent by Dante to Giovanni del Virgilio has been traced in the eclogue +printed by Hortis, and in an early version of the _Faunus_, as well as in +the work of Boccaccio's correspondent, Cecco di Mileto. + +[29] So Aeneas Sylvius, in his _De Remedio Amoris_, after a particularly +virulent tirade against women, explained: 'De his loquor mulieribus quae +turpes admittunt amores.' + +[30] 'Syncerius' is the form used, but there can be little doubt who was +intended. + +[31] In the days when it was fashionable for men of learning to discuss +the laws of pastoral composition, a certain northern giant fell foul of +the Neapolitan's piscatory eclogues on somewhat theoretical grounds. +Having never seen the blue smile of the bay of Naples, he suggested that +the sea was an object of terror; forgetful of the monotonous setting of +pastoral verse, he complained that the piscatory life offered little +variety; finally, he contended that the technicalities of the craft were +unfamiliar to readers--but are we to suppose that the learned author of +the _Rambler_ was competent to tend a flock? + +[32] They were at least the first to appear in print. The contributors +were Girolamo Benivieni, of Florence, and Francesco Arsocchi and Fiorino +Boninsegni, of Siena. The first possibly deserves mention as having +introduced Pico della Mirandola as a character in his eclogues: some of +the poems of the last are noteworthy as having been composed as early as +1468. There exists a poem by Luca Pulci on the story of Polyphemus and +Galatea in the form of an eclogue. Luca died in 1470. Leo Battista +Alberti, the famous architect, who died in 1472, also left a poem, which +was published from MS. in 1850, with the heading 'Egloga.' This, however, +proves not to be strictly pastoral. Among other early ventures were ten +Italian eclogues in _terza rima_, by Boiardo. These, and also his ten +Latin eclogues, will be found printed from MS. in his _Poesie volgari e +latine_ (ed. A. Solerti, Bologna, 1894), while full accounts of both will +be found in the essays contributed by G. Mazzoni and A. Campani to the +_Studi su M. M. Boiardo_, edited by N. Campanini (Bologna, 1894). There +can be no doubt that the court of Lorenzo was full of pastoral experiments +in the vernacular for some time before the publication mentioned above. + +[33] Having regard to the general character of the _Ameto_, I am not sure +that it might not be possible to find some hidden meaning in the poem in +question, if one were challenged to do so. The allegory is, however, +mostly of the abstract kind, and the eclogue can hardly conceal allusions +to any actual events. + +[34] A very useful and representative, though of course by no means +complete, collection is that by G. Ferrario, in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[35] Castiglione also figured among the Latin eclogists of his day, and +the influence of his _Alcon_ is even traced by Saintsbury in _Lycidas_ +(_Earlier Renaissance_, p. 34). + +[36] It is said to have been by way of penance for having written the +_Vendemmiatore_ that he later undertook the composition of the _Lagrime di +San Pietro_, a lengthy religious poem, which remained unfinished at his +death in 1568. + +[37] _La Beca_ is ascribed by mistake to Luca Pulci in the first edition +of Symonds' _Renaissance_. + +[38] The best imitation is said to be the _Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo_ +by Francesco Baldovini (1643-1700), which is graceful, though rather more +satiric in tone than its model. + +[39] It differs, however, from most poems of the sort, in that the +langnage of the fisher craft in Italy was capable of the same wantonly +double meaning as was suggested to English writers by the name and terms +of the noble art of venery. This serves to differentiate it from the style +of pastoral, and suggests that we should rather class it along with such +works as Berni's _Caccia d'amore._ + +[40] It is occasionally traceable in the French _pastourelles_, but that +form of courtly composition never became popular south of the Alps. Its +vogue passed completely with the decline of Provencal tradition. D'Ancona +quotes one Italian example of the thirteenth century, the work of a +Florentine, Ciacco dell' Anguillaja. It begins gracefully enough: + + O gemma leziosa, + Adorna villanella, + Che se' piu virtudiosa + Che non se ne favella, + Per la virtude ch' hai + Per grazia del Signore, + Aiutami, che sai + Che son tuo servo, amore. + + +[41] Further evidence of the popularity of this poem will be found in the +existence of a religious parody beginning: + + O vaghe di Gesu, o verginelle, + Dove n' andate si leggiadre e belle? + +(_Laude spirituali di Feo Belcari_, &c., Firenze, 1863, p. 105.) It is +founded on the fourteenth ceutury, not on the popular, version. + +[42] The foregoing remarks follow very closely Symonds' treatment in the +third chapter of his _Italian Literature_. In point of fact, I lit on +Donati's poem quite accidentally, before reading the chapter in question, +but I have made no scruple of availing myself of his guidance wherever it +was to be had. + +[43] Symonds has some very severe strictures on these songs from the moral +point of view. Judging from the actual songs themselves his remarks would +appear somewhat exaggerated, but if we take into consideration the +historical circumstances they are probably amply justified. + +[44] It is perhaps worth putting in a word of warning against the possible +confusion of this poem with Politian's Latin composition bearing the same +title. Ambra was a rustic resort in the neighbourhood of Florence, to +which Lorenzo was much attached. By the lover Lauro the author seems to +have meant himself. At least this is rendered probable by some lines near +the end of Politian's poem, in which the villa is again personified as a +nymph: + + Et nos ergo illi grata pietate dicamus + Hanc de Pierio contextam flore coronam, + Quam mihi Caianas inter pulcherrima nymphas + Ambra dedit patriae lectam de gramine ripae: + Ambra mei Laurentis amor, quam corniger Vmbro, + Vmbro senex genuit domino gratissimus Arno: + Vmbro suo tandem non erupturus ab alneo. + (_Opera,_ Basel, 1553, p. 581.) + + +[45] He was born at Montepulciano in 1454, and died, at the age of forty, +two years after Lorenzo. + +[46] Symonds, _Renaissance_, iv. p. 232, note 3. + +[47] It has been sometimes thought that the description of Mars in the lap +of Venus, in stanzas 122-3, suggested Botticelli's picture in the National +Gallery; but, though the lines are worthy of having inspired even a more +successful example of the painter's art, the resemblance is in this case +too general to warrant any such conclusion. + +[48] A favourite phrase of his. 'What has been well called _la volutta +idillica_--the sensuous sensibility to beauty, finding fit expression in +the Idyll--formed a marked characteristic of Renaissance art and +literature.' _Renaissance_, v. p. 170. + +[49] The similar alternation of verse and prose found in the French and +Provencal _cante-fables,_ notably in _Aucassin et Nicolette,_ is of a +different nature, for in them the prose served properly to explain and +connect the verse-passages which contained the actual story, and it +probably formed no part of the original composition. + +[50] I quote from the handy edition of Boccaccio's _Opere minori_ in the +'Biblioteca classica economica.' The passages cited above will be found on +pp. 246 and 250, or in the _Opere volgari_, 1827-34. xv. pp. 186 and 194. + +[51] It is probably no accident that, like Dante's poem, Boccaccio's +romance is styled a 'comedy.' Both represent, in allegorical form, the +ascent of the human soul from sin, through purgation, to the presence of +God. + +[52] It has been suggested that there is a gradual spiritualization in the +motives of the tales; but this would appear to be a somewhat fanciful +view. + +[53] Proemio, _Opere minori_, p. 145; _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 4. + +[54] _Opere minori_, p. 176, _Opere volgari_, xv. p. 60. + +[55] While greatly shortening the passage, and taking considerable +liberties in the way of paraphrase, I have endeavoured, as far as +possible, to preserve the style and diction of the original. This will be +found in the _Opere minori_, pp. 213, &c., _Opere volgari_, xv. pp. 126, +&c. + +[56] The description of the spring is from Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, III, +407, &c. No doubt a great deal more could be traced to Latin sources. + +[57] For details concerning tree-lists see Moorman's _William Brown_, p. +154. + +[58] Dunlop's notion of the verse being the important part, and the prose +only written to connect the varions eclogues, is clearly wrong. Verse +started by being subordinate in Boccaccio's romance, and remained so in +all subsequent examples. + +[59] _Prosa_ VIII. The whole passage was versified in Spanish by +Garcilaso, whence a portion found its way into Googe's eclogues. Among +other ingenions devices Sannazzaro mentions that of pinning down a crow by +the extremity of its wings and waiting for it to entangle its fellows in +its claws. If any reader should be tempted to imagine that the author has +been drawing on a fertile imagination, let him turn to the adventures of +one Morrowbie Jukes, as related by Mr. Rudyard Kipling, for a description +of this identical method of crow-catching as practised on the banks of an +Indian stream. + +[60] It may be well to point out that at times, as in Carino's invocation +to the Dryads, Symonds has infused into his version a beauty of diction of +which Sannazzaro appears to be innocent. + +[61] The _Arcadia_ must have been extant in its original form as early as +1481, when it served as model for the eclogues of Pietro Jacopo de +Jennaro. The earliest known MS. dates from 1489, and contains the first +ten _Prose_ and _Ecloghe_. In this form it was surreptitiously printed in +1502; the complete work first appeared in 1504. The earliest commentary, +that of Tommaso Porcacchi, appeared in 1558, and went through several +editions. An elaborate variorum edition was printed at Padua in 1723. I +have followed the text in the 'Classici italiani.' + +[62] Arcadia had been called 'the mother of flocks' in the Homeric _Hymn +to Pan_, and Polybius had described the softening effects of music upon +its rude inhabitants. See some interesting remarks on the snbject by J. E. +Sandys, in his lectures on the _Revival of Learning_, Cambridge, 1905; +also J. P. Mahaffy, _Rambles and Studies_, ch. xii. + +[63] Having had occasion in the course of the following pages to call +attention to certain inaccuracies of Ticknor's, I should like in this +place to record my indebtedness to what still remains the standard history +of Spanish literature. I have likewise made free use of +Fitzmaurice-Kelly's admirable monograph. + +[64] _Don Quixote_, pt. ii. ch. 62. + +[65] Calderon wrote an early play on the tale of Cephalus and Procris, +which met, it is said, with success. It was entitled _Celos aun del aire +matan_, and was styled a 'fiesta cantada.' Later in life he parodied it in +the 'comedia burlesca' entitled _Cefalo y Pocris_ (sic). Neither play +appears to have any connexion with the _Cefalo_ of Niccolo da Correggio +(_v. post_, ch. iii). Both are printed in the third volume of Calderon's +comedies in the 'Biblioteca de autores espanoles,' 1848-50. The _Pastor +fido_ will be found in vol. iv. + +[66] Mr. Gosse has protested against the use of such terms as 'exotic' in +connexion with products of literary art, and no doubt the word has been +not a little abused. I employ it in its strict sense of 'introduced from +abroad, not indigenons,' and without implying any critical censure. + +[67] Though a Portuguese, and one of the most notable poets in his own +dialect, much of his poetical work is in Castillan. + +[68] So, at least, Theophilo Braga interprets what he calls 'o drama +amoroso das Eclogas,' in his monograph on _Bernardim Ribeiro e o +bucolismo_. Porto, 1897. + +[69] Ticknor is responsible for an unfortunate error, and much consequent +confusion, respecting this date. Some one had cited an imaginary edition +of 1545. Of this Ticknor confessed ignorance, but stated that he had in +his possession a copy consisting of 112 quarto leaves, printed at Valencia +in 1542. This description applies exactly to the earliest edition extant +in the British Museum, except in the matter of the date. There can be no +doubt that this is a mistake. The date 1542 is intrinsically impossible. +Fitzmaurice-Kelly, who himself dates the work 1558-9, points out that one +of the songs refers to events which took place in 1554. The sudden crop of +reprints, dated 1561 and 1562, proves the _Diana_ to have been then a new +book, and inclines me to place the actual publication somewhat after the +date suggested by Kelly. I may mention that Ticknor is also in error over +the date of Ribeiro's work, which he assigns to 1557. + +[70] See the collection of Latin student songs, _Gaudeamus! Carmina +uagorum selecta in usum laetitiae_, Leipzig, 1879, p. 124. + +[71] The novels alluded to will be found in the _Ecatommiti_, I. i, _Cent +Nouvelles nouvelles_, No. 82, and _Novelle de' Novizi_, No. 12. + +[72] _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, II. viii. (Dyce, ii. p. 172), and +_The Pilgrim_, IV. ii. (Dyce, viii. p. 66). + +[73] B. M., Roxburghe, III. 160, also II. 30. + +[74] References are best given to F. J. Child's monumental collection, in +five volumes, where all variants are printed. _Cowdenknows_ and the _Bonny +May_ are No. 217; _The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter_ 110, the _Bonny +Ilynd_ 50, _Child Waters_ 63, _The Laird of Drum_ 236, _Lizie Lindsay_ +226, _Lizie Baillie_ 227, _Glasgow Peggie_ 228, and _Johnie Faa_ 200. No +doubt further examples might be collected. + +[75] Similar shepherd-scenes are found not only in French but even in +Italian miracle plays. The tendency they indicate, however, is not +traceable in later pastoral, as it is with us. That such representations +as those of the Sienese 'Rozzi' formed no exception to this general +statement I shall have to show later. + +[76] For the literary history of the Wakefield cycle, see A. W. Pollard's +admirable introduction to the edition published by the Early English Text +Society. + +[77] They also criticize the angels' singing in curiously technical +language. + +[78] Towneley Plays, XII. l. 377, &c., and l. 386, &c., cf. Vergil, +_Bucolics_, IV. 6. + +[79] It is perhaps necessary to define the above use of 'idealization' as +that modification of photographie reality observable in all true art. It +is only when the methods of art have become self-conscious that realism +can become an end in itself. + +[80] _An English Garner_: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. +Pollard, 1903, p. 87. The carol is from a MS. at Balliol College. + +[81] The poem will be found in Arber's edition of the 'Miscellany,' p. +138, and in A. H. Bullen's reprint of _England's Helicon_, p. 56. In +dealing with isolated poems I have quoted, wherever possible, from +Bullen's reprints of the song books, &c. + +[82] Forst = cared for. + +[83] It first appeared as 'The Ploughman's Song' in the 'Entertainment at +Elvetham' in 1591. This has been recently claimed for Lyly. Without +expressing any opinion in this place as to the likelihood of such an +ascription for the bulk of the piece, it may be remarked that the song in +question is as like the rest of Breton's work in style as it is unlike +anything to be found in Lyly's writings. + +[84] Of all pedestrian, not to say reptilian, metres, this is perhaps the +most intolerable; indeed, it was not until touched to new life by the +genius of Blake that it deserved to be called a metre at all. + +[85] See R. B. McKerrow's articles on the Elizabethan 'classical metres' in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for December, 1901, and April, 1902, iv. +p. 172, and v. p. 6. + +[86] Eclogues i-iv were printed by Pynson, and the fifth by Wynkyn de +Worde early in the century; i-iii were twice reprinted about 1550. Barclay +died in 1552. + +[87] Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II. I suppose that +it is on account of this statement of Barclay's that English critics have +constantly referred to the work as pastoral. It is nothing but a prose +invective against court life. + +[88] See Dyce's _Skelton_, Introduction, p. xxxvi. + +[89] 'Eglogs Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Newly written by Barnabe Googe: +1563. 15. Marche.' Reprinted by Professer Arber from the Huth copy. + +[90] The title of the collection as originally published is obviously +ambiguous--is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There +is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases +by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice +seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be +little doubt that the title of Spenser's work was suggested by the +_Calender of Shepherds_. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear +that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin +Clout--that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the +shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for +shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I +think, a defensible spelling. + +[91] The alternative view, which would make Spenser his own commentator, +is not without supporters both in Germany and in this country. Even were +the question, however, one of greater importance from our point of view, +the 'proofs' so far adduced do not constitute sufficient of an _a priori_ +case to justify discussion here. + +[92] _Anglia_, iii. p. 266, and ix. p. 205. + +[93] At the end of the _Calender_ Spenser placed as his motto 'Merce non +mercede'--as merchandise, not for reward. + +[94] On all questions relating to the _Shepherd's Calender_ see C. H. +Herford's edition, to which I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. So +far as I am aware, we possess no more admirable edition of any monument of +English literature. + +[95] Cf. the titles of Drayton's _Idea_ and Basse's MS. eclogues, _infra_. + +[96] _Discoveries_, 1640 (-41), p. 116 (Gifford, 1875; Sec. cxxv). The +'ancients,' as appears from the context, are Chaucer and Gower. + +[97] _Apology for Poetry_, 1595; Arber's edition, p. 63. + +[98] Even Sidney's authorities break down to some extent. Theocritus +certainly modified the literary dialect in his pastoral idyls, and we may +recall that when Vergil began his third eclogue with the line-- + + Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei? + +a wit of Rome retorted: + + Die mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus?' anne Latinum? + +Or again it may be asked whether Lorenzo de' Medici is not as good a name +to conjure by as Jacopo Sannazzaro. + +[99] Some of the eclogues are mucn more pronouncedly dialectal than +others, but even within the limits of a single one, literary and dialectal +forms may often be found used indiscriminately. See Herford's remarks on +the subject. + +[100] 'February,' l. 33, &c. Lines 35-6 contain one of the few direct +reminiscences of Chaucer. Cf. _House of Fame_, II. 1225-6. Spenser +repeated the imitation, _Faery Queen_, VI. ix. 43-5, and was followed by +Fletcher, _Faithful Shepherdess_, V. v. 183-4. + +[101] _Pastime of Pleasure_, xxxv. 6, from the edition of 1555 (Percy +Soc., 1845, p. 113). + +[102] In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that +all anomalous lines in Spenser's measure become strict decasyllables when +done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident. My point is +that Chaucer's verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have +often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser's. The view I have +indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (_History of English +Poetry_, ii. p. 253). Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to +Chancer's influence to explain Spenser's anomalies, regards the metre in +question as derived from the old alliterative line. From this view I am +reluctantly forced to dissent. The alliterative line may be readily traced +in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes +and such comedies as _Royster Doyster_; and this tradition may have +affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even +the popular ideas concerning Chaucer's metre. But as to the actual origin +of Spenser's four-beat line there can surely be no doubt. + +[103] The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of +literary casuistry _(Spenser_, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly +astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and +similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the _Calender_ and +elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores +the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done +nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a +Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his +own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for +their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, +while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their +authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. +Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at +all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily +unknown. + +[104] The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is +contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue. It is entitled +_Poimenologia_. The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, +fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596. Dove became Master of Arts in +1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation +probably belongs to an earlier date. I am indebted for knowledge of and +information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof. Moore Smith, and +of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College. + +[105] Winstanley (_Lives of the English Poets_, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it +to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin +version of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. + +[106] _Faery Queen_, VII. vi. 349, &c. + +[107] Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the _Orlando_ and the +_Gerusalemme_, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in +Spenser can be directly referred. + +[108] See A. H. Bullen's edition, two vols., 1890-91. The poems in question +will be fonnd in vol. i, pp. 48, 58, 63 and 76. + +[109] It is worth noting that in the last stanza all the early editions +read 'Thenot' instead of 'Wrenock'; Thenot being the corresponding +character in Spenser. + +[110] Perhaps Anne Goodere: but the question is alien to our present +discussion. Some of the allusions in the eclogues are obvious, and +probably all the names, except perhaps the speaker's, conceal real +personalities. In the _Muses' Elizium_, on the other hand, most of the +names and characters appear to me fictitious. In connexion with the name +'Idea,' in which certain critics have wished to see a deep philosophical +meaning, I would suggest that it may be nothing but the feminine of +'Idaeus,' that is, a shepherd of Mount Ida, a name found in the second +eclogue of Petrarch. It is, however, true that the word 'idea' bore the +meaning of 'an ideal,' in which sense, no doubt, we occasionally find it +applied to England. + +[111] Concerning translations of Watson's Latin poems, I may be allowed to +refer to a paper contributed to the _Modern Language Quarterly_, February, +1904, vi. p. 125. + +[112] Cf. the passage from Spenser's October eclogue, quoted on p. 88. + +[113] A certain similarity between this poem and the song in _Love's +Labour's Lost_, beginning: + + On a day--alack the day!-- + Love, whose month was ever May; + +has caused them to be at times ascribed to Shakespeare. They are +subscribed 'Ignoto' in _England's Helicon_, but appeared among the poems +published with Barnfield's _Lady Pecunia_ in 1598, a tail of thirty lines +of very inferior quality being substituted for the singularly perfect and +effective final couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in +the _Passionate Pilgrim_, this time with both the couplet and the +addition. The _Helicon_ version is certainly by far the best, and not +improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of +Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in _An English Miscellany_, +Oxford, 1901. + +[114] Gascoigne's _Steel Glass_ is far rather medieval in conception. + +[115] Compare with the lines in _Rosalynd_, beginning 'Phoebe sat, sweet +she sat,' those in _Tarlton's News out of Purgatory_, beginning, 'Down I +sat, I sat down,' and see A. H. Bullen's _Poems from Elizabethan Romances_, +1890, p. xi. + +[116] The copy of _Pan's Pipe_ in the British Museum wants the _Tale_, but +this will be found by itself marked C. 40. e. 68 (2, 3). + +[117] Collier and Hazlitt supposed two William Basses, but the balance of +evidence seems against the theory. See S. L. Lee in _Dic. Nat. Biog_., and +the edition by R. W. Bond, 1893. + +[118] Fleay (_Biographical Chronicle_, i. p. 67) identifies Musidore with +Lodge, and 'Hero's last Musaeus' with H. Petowe. The latter +identification, which had already been proposed by Collier +(_Bibliographical Account_, i. p. 130), is in all probability correct. + +[119] Printed by me in the _Modern Language Quarterly_, July, 1901, iv. p. +85. + +[120] These are missing in most copies of the book; the only one I know +containing them is in the Bodleian. + +[121] I do not know who started the idea. It was mentioned in the +_Retrospective Review_ (ii. p. 180) in 1820, accepted by Sommer, and +elaborated with small success by K. Windscheid. Masson makes no mention of +it in his edition of Milton's poetical works. The author of _Lycidas_ was +probably a reader and admirer of Browne's poems, but of _Britannia's +Pastorals_ rather than of the decidedly inferior eclogues. + +[122] The _Arcadian Princess_, translated by Brathwaite from Mariano +Silesio, a kind of metaphorical manual of judicial polity, is in no way +pastoral. It may be remarked that in 1627 there appeared as the work of +one I. D. B. an 'Eclogue, ou Chant Pastoral,' on the marriage (1625) of +Charles and Henrietta Maria, in which two Scotch Shepherds, Robin and +Jacquet, discourse in French Alexandrines. _Taylor's Pastoral_ of 1624 +again, a fanciful treatise of religious and secular history, does not +properly belong to pastoral tradition. + +[123] One of these appeared two years previously, entitled _The Shepherd's +Oracle_. + +[124] Appended to the third edition of the _Arcadia_, 1598. + +[125] Appended to the _Arcadia_ in 1613. + +[126] _Arcadia_, 1590, fol. 237 verso. + +[127] _Opera_, Basel, 1553, p. 622. + +[128] The song is said to be between 'two nymphs, each answering other +line for line'; but the simple alternation adopted by Spenser makes +nonsense of the present poem. The above arrangement seems to distribute +the lines best; viz. the first quatrain to Phillis, with interposition of +lines 2 and 4 by Amaryllis, the second quatrain to Amaryllis, with +interposition of line 2 only by Phillis. + +[129] Others in the _Passionate Pilgrim_, 1599, and Walton's _Complete +Angler_, 1653. + +[130] So, rather than 'Fair-lined,' as Bullen prints; but query +'Fur-lined.' + +[131] This is the text of _England's Helicon_, which is superior to that +in the play, except for the omission of the couplet in brackets, and +possibly in the reading 'hath sworn' for 'is sworn,' in l. 11. + +[132] From E. K. Chambers' _English Pastorals_, p. 113. The date is +uncertain, but a tune of the name was extant in 1603. The earliest +recorded text is a broadside, of about 1650, in the Roxburghe collection +(III. 142). The conjecture of an 'original issue, _circa_ 1600,' is on the +whole plausible. In that case there was, somewhere, a poet capable of +anticipating the particular cadences of _Sirena_ and _Agincourt_, and that +poet is more likely to have been Drayton than another. See Ebsworth's +edition for the Ballad Society (_Roxburghe Ballads_, vi. p. 460). + +[133] _Lycidas_ is almost too familiar, one might suppose, to need +comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different +authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt +to view the work critically in relation to pastoral tradition as a whole. + +[134] When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as 'easy, +vulgar, and therefore disgusting,' he was but exhibiting a critical +incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters. + +[135] For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of +parallel passages--as well as some of doubtful relevance--the reader may +be referred to F. W. Moorman's monograph. I use the text of G. Goodwin's +edition of Browne's poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., +1894. + +[136] K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third +book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne. Its merit +is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; +and Browne's work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for +depriving or relieving him of its authorship. + +[137] + + The hatred which they bore was only this, + That every one did hate to do amiss; + Their fortune still was subject to their will; + Their want--O happy!--was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.) + +Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that + + First of all joys that unto sin belong-- + The sweet felicity of doing wrong. + +[138] Pail. + +[139] The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to +ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful +minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been +constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on _Spanish +Literature in England_, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his +wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this +country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. +18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both +on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke +Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator +himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' +The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of +Spanish by Thomas Wilso Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle +of Southampto who was then uppon y'e Spanish voiage w'th my Lord of +Essex--Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers +are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish +nation, as is of y'e English of [_sic_] y't admirable & never enough +praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.' + +[140] Arber's edition, p. 83. + +[141] See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his +paper on the _Pastoral Influence in the English Drama_. All needful +apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness' +'Variorum' edition of the play. + +[142] Macaulay once remarked of the _Faery Queen_, that few and weary are +the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. It might with +equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere +the Arcadian princesses in Sidney's romance are rescued from the power of +Cecropia. + +[143] Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the +Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here. + +[144] Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile +of the first edition, 1891. + +[145] Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10. + +[146] K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the _Arcadia_ (_Sir Philip Sidneys +Arcadia und ihre Nachlaeufer_, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to +find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's +influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style +and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet +belonged essentially to the Spanish school. + +[147] Analyses of the _Arcadia_ will be fouud in all works upon the novel +from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which +is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the _Retrospective +Review_, 1820, ii. p. 1. + +[148] An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the +critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his _Art of English +Poesy_ (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas +Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the _Diana_, +given above (p. 141, note). + +[149] A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum. + +[150] See Jusserand's _English Novel in the time of Shakespeare_, 1890, p. +274. + +[151] The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the _Astree_ +as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most +concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here. + +[152] I should at once say that the view of the development of the +pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set +forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have +swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, +however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I +believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an +appendix. + +[153] 'Orfeo cantando giugne all' Inferno' is one of the stage directions. + +[154] For an elaborate example (1547) of this kind of stage, on which +various localities were simultaneously represented, see Petit de +Julleville, _Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaise_, ii. +pp. 416-7. + +[155] Concerning the play see the account given by Symonds, together with +his admirable translation in _Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece_, +ii. p. 345, also an elaborate essay, 'L'Orfeo del Poliziano alla corte di +Mantova,' by Isidoro del Lungo, in the _Nuova antologia_ for August, 1881, +and A. D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro italiano_, ii. pp. 2 and 106. The +standard edition of Poliziano's Italian works, that by Carducci, is +unfortunately not in the British Museum. + +[156] A note concerning the use of the term 'nymph' may save confusion. +Creizenach remarks that the introduction of a nymph as the beloved of a +shepherd is a peculiarity of the renaissance pastoral which manifestly +owes its origin to Boccaccio's _Ninfale fiesolano_ (_Geschichte des +neueren Dramas_, ii. p. 196). In so far as this view implies that the +'nymphs' of pastoral convention are the same order of beings as those +either of the _Ninfale_ or of classical myth, it appears to me utterly +erroneous. The 'nymphs' who love the shepherds in the renaissance +pastorals are nothing but shepherdesses. The confusion no doubt began with +Boccaccio. The nymph of Diana in the _Ninfale_ is, as we have already +seen, nothing but a nun in pagan disguise. The nymphs of the _Ameto_ are +represented as of the classical type, but their amorous confessions reveal +them as in nowise differing from mortal woman. The gradual change in the +connotation of the word is one of the results of the blending of Christian +and classical ideas. The original elemental or local spirits even in Greek +myth acquired some of the characteristics of votaries (as in the legeud of +Calisto), and these Christian tradition tended to accentuate, while +popular romance, and in many cases contemporary manners, facilitated the +connecting of such characters with tales of secret passion. Gradually, +however, the idea of illicit love gave place to one merely of unrestrained +natural desire, the religious elements of the character were forgotten as +the supernatural had been earlier, and 'nymph' came to be no more than the +feminine of 'shepherd' in an ideal society which by its freedom of +intercourse, as by its honesty of dealing, presented a complete contrast +to the polished circles of aristocratic Italy. + +[157] A small circular picture in _chiaroscuro_ among the arabesques of +the _cappella nova_ in the cathedral at Orvieto. It represents the +youthful Orpheus crowned with the laureate wreath playing before Pluto and +Proserpine upon a fiddle or crowd of antique pattern. At his feet lies +Eurydice, while around are spirits of the other world. + +[158] In some passages of this speech the resemblance with Ovid is very +close: + + famaque si ueteris non est mentita rapinae, + uos quoque iunxit Amor... + omnia debentur nobis, paulumque morati + serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam... + haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos, + iuris erit uestri; pro munere poscimus usum. + quod si fata negant ueniam pro coniuge, certum est + nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum. (_Met_. x. 28, &c.) + + +[159] Cf. _Amores_, II. xii, ll. 1, 2, 5, and 16. + +[160] This interpretation of the passion of Orpheus, characteristic as it +is of renaissance thought, was not original. Though unknown in early +times, it is found in Phanocles, a poet probably of the third or fourth +century B. C. + +[161] So original: revision 'oe oe.' + +[162] The earliest edition I have seen is that contained in the 'Opere' of +June 10, 1507, where the heading runs: 'Fabula di Caephalo coposta dal +Signor Nicolo da Correggia a lo Illustrissimo. D. Hercole & da lui +repsentata al suo floretissimo Populo di Ferrara nel. M. cccc. lxxxvi. +adi. xxi. Ianuarii.' In this edition, printed at Venice by Manfrido Bono +de Monteferrato, the works are said to be 'Stampate nouamente: & ben +corrette.' Bibliographers record no edition previous to 1510. The date in +the heading is either a misprint, or refers to the year 1486-7 according +to the Venetian reckoning. See D'Ancona, _Origini del teatro_, ii. p. +128-9. Symonds (_Renaissance_, v. p. 120) quotes some Latin lines as from +the prologue to this play. This is an error. He has misread D'Ancona, to +whom he refers (ed. 1877), and from whom he evidently copied the +quotation. The lines actually occur in the prologue to a Latin play on the +subject of the taking of Granada. + +[163] Rossi, _Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido_, 1886, p. 171, note 2. + +[164] I do not, of course, mean that no mythological plays were produced +between the days of Correggio and those of Beccari, but that they show no +signs of consistent development in a pastoral or indeed in any other +direction. + +[165] _Il Verato secondo_, 1593, p. 206. + +[166] _Compendio della poesia tragicomica, tratto dai duo Verati_, 1602, +pp. 49-50. + +[167] In this and the following section I have used the texts of the +exceedingly useful collection of _Drammi de' boschi_ in the 'Biblioteca +classica economica,' which comprises the _Aminta, Pastor fido, Filli di +Sciro_, and _Alceo_. + +[168] Symonds, in dealing with Tasso in the sixth volume of his _Italian +Renaissance_, lays, to my mind very justly, considerable stress upon this +quality. + +[169] Quoted by Serassi, Tasso's biographer, in his preface to the Bodoni +edition of the play (Crisopoli, 1789), p. 8. + +[170] See Angelo Solerti, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Torino, Loescher, 1895, i. +p. 181, &c. Carducci, 'Storia dell' _Aminta_,' the third of the _Saggi_, +80, 1st edition. + +[171] Leigh Hunt pointed out, in some interesting if rather uncritical +remarks prefixed to his translation of the _Aminta_ (London, 1820), that +some at any rate of the regular choruses cannot have formed part of the +original composition. In fact the first edition (Aldus, 1581) contains +those to Acts I and V only; that to Act II appeared in the second edition +(Ferrara, 1581), and also in the collected _Rime_ (Aldus, 1581); the rest +were added in the Aldine quarto of 1590. + +[172] Supposing always that this representation, of which Filippo +Baldinucci, in his _Notizie dei professori del disegno_ (sec. iv, dec. +vii; 1688, p. 102), has left a glowing account, was a representation of +the _Aminta_, and not, as some have maintained, of the _Intrichi d' +amore_, another play sometimes ascribed to Tasso. + +[173] Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce's _Dido_; +and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is +extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of +the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209). The prologue to +the _Pastor fido_ is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of +Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_, which begins with another Ovidian +reminiscence (_Amores_, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken +by a personification of night, that of Ongaro's _Alceo_ by Venus, of +Castelletti's _Amarilli_ by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' of Cristoforo +Lauro's _Frutti d'amore_ by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana's _Prova +amoroso_, by Hercules. The list might be extended indefinitely. Contarini, +at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his +_Finta Fiammetta_ has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, +Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of _amoretti_; that +of his _Fida ninfa_ is spoken by the shade of Petrarch. + +[174] Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, +1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would +identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt +possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience +conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino +contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see +Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and +sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal +Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the +part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent +attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred +the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on +his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on +three of Pigna's wooden _canzoni_, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is +appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the +words: + + Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava + Pur di colei che nell' istessa rete + Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse; + E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo + Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.) + +The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. +94), be sought in an epigram, _Ad Licorim_, found among Pigna's Latin +_Carmina_ (1553). The whole incident throws a curious light on the +pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, +however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while +mentioning that by the _antro dell' Aurora_ was no doubt intended the room +in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of +Leonora, still known as the _sala dell' Aurora_, from a wretched fresco on +the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi. + +[175] _Aminta_, I. i; _Canace_, IV. ii. + +[176] _Lettere del Guarini_, Veneta, Ciotti, 1615, p. 92. See Rossi, +56^{1} + +[177] I have already had occasion to point out that, from the time of +Boccaccio onwards, a nymph of Diana might represent a nun, but the whole +of Silvia's relations with Dafne make it plain that she is in no way vowed +to virginity. Her being represented as a follower of Diana implies no more +than that she is fancy-free, and so in a sense under the protection of the +virgin goddess. This use of the phrase is as old as Theocritus: 'Artemis, +be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow' (_Idyl_ 27). And it is so used +by Silvia herself in her proud and petulant retort to Aminta: 'Pastor, non +mi toccar; son di Diana' (III. i). + +[178] The idea passed from Italian into English verse: + + tell me why + This goblin 'honour,' by the world enshrined, + Should make men atheists, and not women kind-- + +to improve upon the exceedingly neat bowdlerization which the Rev. J. W. +Ebsworth has sought to palm off as the genuine text of Tom Carew. + +[179] We have, in the passages quoted, a foretaste of the priggish +extravagance of the _Faithful Shepherdess_. That there should have been +found critics to combine just but wholly otiose condemnation of Cloe with +reverential appreciation of the absurdities of Clorin and Thenot, and to +clap applause to the self-conscious virtue, little removed from smugness, +in which the 'moral grandeur' of the Lady of the Ludlow masque is clothed, +is indeed a striking witness to the tyranny of conventional morality. If +virginal purity were in fact the hypocritical convention which it is to +some extent possible to condone in the _Aminta_, but which becomes wholly +loathsome in the work of Fletcher, the sooner it disappeared from the +region of practical ethics the better for the moral health of humanity. + +[180] Menagio's edition is said to have appeared in 1650, but I have only +seen the edition of 1655, which I also notice is the date given by Weise +and Percopo (p. 319). The play is said to have been printed in Italy alone +some two hundred times; there are twenty French translations, five German, +at least nine English, several in Spanish and other languages. A version +in the Slavonic Illyrian dialect appeared in 1598; a Latin one in iambic +trimeters by Andrea Hiltebrando, a Pomeranian physician, in 1615; another +in modern Greek in 1745. See Carducci, p. 99. + +[181] Published, together with Paglia's reply, by Antonio Bulifon in his +_Lettere memorabili_, Naples, 1698, iii. p. 307. The play had already been +adversely criticized by Francesco Patrizi and Gian Vincenzo Gravina. + +[182] 'L'Aminta difeso e illustrato da G. Fontanini,' Roma, 1700. Another +edition appeared in 1730 at Venice, with further annotations by Uberto +Benvoglienti. + +[183] It is, however, perfectly true that the play, together with the +writings in its defence and the notes, to be considered later, occupied +the attention of the author for a period of fully twenty years, and it is +possibly thus that the tradition arose. I may say that throughout this +section I am under deep obligations to Rossi's monograph. + +[184] Rossi, p. 183. I shall return to the point. + +[185] In later days he was often called Giovanbattista, but the addition +is without authority, in spite of its appearance in the British Museum +catalogue. + +[186] This preliminary history is drawn, as Guarini himself points out in +his notes of 1602, from Pausanias (VII. 21), though less closely than he +there implies. The rest of the plot he claimed as original, but it is to a +large extent merely a rehandling of the same motive. + +[187] Carino is said to represent Guarini in the same manner as Tirsi does +Tasso. + +[188] There is a legend that this scene was placed on the Index. This, +anyhow, cannot refer to the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_, but only to the +_Index Expurgatorius_, which was at no time an officiai publication. But +the whole story appears to be without foundation. + +[189] In comparing the two pieces, it is worth remembering that, whereas +the _Aminta_ contains about 2,000 lines, the _Pastor fido_ runs to close +upon 7,000. + +[190] _Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo XVI_, Milano, 1880, +pp. 244-7. See Rossi, p. 264. His argument is that it anticipated a revolt +against the conventional nature of domestic love, reflecting better than +any other dramatic work the ideas that towards the end of the +_cinquecento_ were, according to him, leading in the direction of a moral +regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile +his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the +counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a +tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical +convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of +domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid tragedy +of Guarini's own family. + +[191] The quotations are from the opening scene of either play. The +parallel is that selected by Symonds for quotation, and is among the most +striking examples of Guarini's method, but similar instances might be +collected from almost every scene. + +[192] G. B. Manso, _Vita di T. Tasso_, Venezia, Denchino, 1621, p. 329. +Carducci, p. 99. + +[193] 'Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale di Battista Guarini, Dedicata +al Ser'mo. D. Carlo Emanuele Duca di Sauoia, &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S. A. +con la Ser'ma. Infante D. Caterina d'Austria.' The tradition of a +performance on this occasion dates from early in the seventeenth century, +and is endorsed by the poet's nephew and biographer, Alessandro Guarini. +It is in part due to a confusion of words: the play was _presentato_, but +not _rappresentato_. + +[194] Guarini, _Lettere_, Venetia, Ciotti, 1615, p. 174. Rossi, 228^{7}. + +[195] At least one of these, a worthless production by a certain Niccolo +Averara, is extant. That of 1598 was probably spoken by Hymen. Rossi, pp. +232-3. + +[196] It has sometimes been supposed that the Baldini edition, Ferrara, +1590, was the earlier, but Guarini's letter is conclusive. + +[197] Of this edition the British Museum possesses a magnificent copy on +large and thick paper, bearing on the title-page the inscription: 'Al +Ser^{mo}. Principe di Vinegia Marin Grimani,' showing that it was the +presentation copy to the Doge at the time of publication. Another copy on +large but not on thick paper is in my own possession, and has on the +title-page the remains of a similar inscription beginning apparently 'All +Ill^{mo} et R^{mo}...' I rather suspect it of being the copy presented to +the ecclesiastic, whoever he was, who represented the Congregation of the +Index at Venice. Innumerable editions followed; I have notes of no less +than fifty during the half-century succeeding publication, i.e. 1590-1639. + +[198] The authorship of the notes is placed beyond doubt by a letter of +Guarini's, otherwise it might have been doubted whether even he could have +been guilty of the fulsome self-laudation they contain. On the controversy +see Rossi, pp. 238-43. + +[199] Certain modern writers have shown themselves worthy descendants of +the criticaster of Vicenza by insisting that the play should properly be +called the _Pastorella fida_. Guarini was weak enough to reply to +Malacreta's carpings in his notes, and thereby exposed himself to similar +attacks from posterity. + +[200] The absurdity lies of course in the commanding merit ascribed to the +piece. As Saintsbury has pointed out in his _History of Criticism_, had +Aristotle known the romantic drama of the renaissance, the _Poetics_ would +have been largely another work. + +[201] Summo evidently thought that Pescetti's defence at least was the +work of Guarini himself. There is no evidence that this was so, but Rossi +considers it not improbable that Guarini at least directed the labours of +his supporters. + +[202] It is unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of these +plays. The following titles, however, quoted by Stiefel in his review of +Rossi, may be mentioned. Scipione Dionisio, _Amore cortese_, 1570 (?) (not +the Alessandro Dionisio whose _ecloga_, entitled _Amorosi sospiri_, with +intermezzos of a mythological character, was printed in 1599); Niccolo +degli Angeli, _Ligurino_, 1574 (so Allacci, _Drammaturgia_, 1755; the only +edition in the British Museum is dated 1594; Venus and Silenus are among +the characters, and the prologue is spoken by 'Tempo'); Cesare della +Valle, _Filide_, 1579; Giovanni Fratta, _La Nigella_, 1580; Cristoforo +Castelletti, _Amarilli_, 1580 (which edition, though given by Allacci, +appears to be now unknown, as is also the date of composition; a second +edition appeared in 1582; the prologue was spoken by 'Apollo in habito +pastorale,' and Ongaro contributed a commendatory sonnet); Giovanni Donato +Cuchetti, _La Pazzia_, 1581; Pietro Cresci, _Tirena_, 1584; Alessandro +Mirari, _Mauriziano_, 1584; Dionisio Rondinelli, _Galizia_, 1583 (his +_Pastor vedovo_ was printed in 1599, with a prologue spoken by +'Primavera,' and an echo scene). + +[203] Preface to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_, p. 12. + +[204] This episode of the double love of Celia formed the subject of an +attack on the play. The author wrote an elaborate defence which was +printed at Ancona in 1612. It runs to 221 quarto pages. + +[205] I am aware that attempts have been made to find evidence of Italian +influence in Lyly, but of this later. + +[206] The piece appeared anonymously, but the authorship is attested by +Nashe in his preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 1589. Some songs from the +play also appear over Peele's signature in _England's Helicon_, 1600. I +have quoted from A. H. Bullen's edition of Peele's works, 2 vols. 1888. + +[207] Fraunce's translation in his _Ivychurch_ (_vide post_), and J. +Wolfe's edition, together with the _Pastor fido_, both 1591. + +[208] Like Dove. Cf. p. 98. + +[209] i.e. coupled impartially with its reward. + +[210] Umpire. + +[211] Groves. + +[212] The entry of the piece to R. Jones, on July 26, 1591, in the +Stationers' Register, coupled with the fact that _England's Parnassus_ +quotes almost entirely from printed works, puts this practically beyond +doubt. It is of course possible that a copy may yet be discovered. + +[213] Dr. Henry Jackson, than whom no classical scholar has devoted more +study to the Elizabethan drama, draws my attention to the fact that a +somewhat indelicate passage in the play, obscurely hinted at in Drummond's +notes (ed. Bullen, ii. p. 366), evidently forms the basis of that poet's +own epigram 'Of Nisa' (ed. Turnbull, p. 104). + +[214] Two other plays of Lyly's appear at first sight to present pastoral +features. There are five 'shepherds' among the dramatis personae of +_Mydas_, but they appear in one scene only (IV. ii), and merely represent +the common people, introduced to comment on the actions of the king. The +names, as is usual with Lyly, except in the case of comic characters, are +classical. The other play is _Mother Bombie_, which, however, is nothing +but a comedy of low life, combining the tradition of the Latin comedy with +the native farce, which goes back through _Gammer Gurton_ to the old +interludes. It contains a good deal of honest fun and a notable lack of +Euphuism. + +[215] For many years, indeed, his romance continued to run through +ever-fresh editions, that of 1636 being the twelfth. It is clear, however, +that its public had changed. + +[216] It is a curious fact that the authorship of these songs, though it +has never been seriously questioned, rests on very uncertain evidence. I +may refer to an article on the subject in the _Modern Language Review_ for +October, 1905, i. p. 43. + +[217] A play entitled 'Iphis and Ianthe, or A marriage without a man,' was +entered on the Stationers' Register on June 29, 1660, as the work of +Shakespeare. + +[218] Lyly may very possibly have known the story of Hesione cited by R. W. +Bond (ii. 421), but it presents no particular points of similarity, and the +outline of the legend was of course common property. A similar sacrifice +forms an episode in _Orlando furioso_, VIII. 52, &c.; the sacrifice of a +youth to an _orribile serpe_ also forms the central incident in Orazio +Serono's _Fida Armilla_, 1610; while the motive of the annual sacrifice +occurs of course in the _Pastor fido_. + +[219] There can be little doubt as to the identity of the 'Commoedie of +Titirus and Galathea,' entered on the Stationers' Register under date +April 1, 1585; and now that, thanks to Bond's researches, it is evident +that the reference to _Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus_ (see III. iii) +was no _ex post facto_ prophecy, but borrowed from Richard Harvey's +_Astrological Discourse_ of 1583, there is no reason to suppose a double +date. + +[220] Bond argues in favour of the extant text being mutilated, and +representing a late revival about 1600. I am not prepared, and in the +present place certainly not concerned, to dispute his hypothesis; whatever +the cause, the literary result is unsatisfactory, and from his remarks +concerning its dramatic merits I must emphatically dissent. + +[221] Bond's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for _nip_ of the quarto. + +[222] This story, strangely characterized as 'extremely attractive' by +Bond, is elaborated from that given by Ovid in the eighth book of the +_Metamorphoses_. I have elsewhere alluded to the theory of Italian +pastoral influence in Lyly. I had in mind L. L. Schiicking's monograph on +_Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komodie zur italienischen bis +Lilly_, Halle, 1901, but must here state that to my mind he has completely +failed to prove his thesis. I need not enter into details in this place, +but may refer to Bond's discussion in his 'Note on Italian influence in +Lyly's plays' (ii. p. 473). There is, however, one passage in _Love's +Metamorphosis_ (not mentioned by Schucking) which suggests a reminiscence +of the _Aminta_; Cupid, namely, describes himself (V. i.) as 'such a god +that maketh thunder fall out of Joves hand, by throwing thoughts into his +heart.' Compare the lines in Tasso's Prologue: + + un dio... + Che fa spesso cader di mano a Marte + La sanguinosa spada... + E le folgori eterne al sommo Giove. + +I give the parallel for what it is worth. So far as I am aware it is the +only one which can claim the least plausibility, and alone it is clearly +insufficient to prove any borrowing on the part of the English playwright. + +[223] Bond adduces some fairly strong reasons for supposing it later than +1590. A. W. Ward was evidently unable to make up his mind upon the +question, and treats the play at the head of the list of Lyly's works, in +which it seems to me that he hardly does justice to his critical powers. + +[224] A very similar reminiscence of Marlowe's rhythm: /p And think I wear +a rich imperial crowne, p/ occurs in the old play of _King Leir_, which +must belong to about the same date, _c._ 1592. + +[225] It is possible, though of course by no means necessary, that we have +a specifie reminiscence of the lines in _Faustus_: + + More lovely than the monarch of the sky + In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.) + + +[226] I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays +which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the +question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, +mention the _Atalanta_ of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than +Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 +to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though +the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion +with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced. + +[227] See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to +the _Ivychurch_, in which the translation appeared, 1591. + +[228] The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that +Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the +Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in +the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's +relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die +englischen Tasso-Uebersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in _Anglia_, vol. xi +(1889), p. 11. + +[229] 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would +be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oime! tu vivi; +Altri non gia': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules. + +[230] Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as +happened to be more familiar with that language. + +[231] Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the +opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has +surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests +ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose _Theatrum +Poetarum_, 1675, we find _s.v._ Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): +'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' +Who this John was is open to question. The _Dic. Nat. Biog._ recognizes +three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John +Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, +Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (_fl._ 1621-50), author of _God's +Revenge against Murder_, and of translations from French and Dutch; and +(3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British +Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, +of Exeter, author of _God's Revenge_ and other works, and John Reynolds +the translator (to whom the _Aminta_ is tentatively ascribed). I am not +aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in +the composition of _God's Revenge_ to make one suppose the author capable +of producing the translation of the _Aminta_. On the other hand, it must +be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably +in the _Flower of Fidelity_, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on +a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John +Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is +second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present +case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with +this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which +appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end +of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with +Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable +series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the +Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. +112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice +in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ This ascription is based upon the entry in the +Stationers' Register, which runs: '7 Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred +for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A +booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... +vj^{d}' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an +epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more +reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._ +further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is +proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his +remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the _Aminta_ (Parma, 1789), +ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the +dates 1628 and 1698. + +[232] Streams or inlets. + +[233] The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the +translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line. + +[234] Later translations of the _Aminta_ may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, +1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; +Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by +Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had +the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of +the _Aminta_ as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention +that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of +Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the +B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared _c._ 1650. I +have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the +second belongs to _c._ 1730. + +[235] The facts are as follow. The entry on the Stationers' Register is +dated September 16, 1601, and does not mention the translator's name. The +first edition, quarto, 1602, contains a sonnet by Daniel, addressed to Sir +Edward Dymocke, in which he refers to the translator as the knight's +'kinde Countryman.' This is followed by 'A Sonnet of the Translator, +dedicated to that honourable Knight his kinsman, Syr Edward Dymock.' After +this comes an epistle dedicatory addressed to Sir Edward, and signed by +Simon Waterson, the publisher, dated 'London this last of December. 1601.' +In it the writer speaks of Sir Edward's 'nearenesse of kinne to the +deceased Translator.' The play was reprinted in 1633, in 12mo, with an +epistle dedicatory by John Waterson to 'Charles Dymock, Esquire,' +beginning: 'That it may appeare unto the world, that you are Heire of what +ever else was your Fathers, as well as of his vertues, I heere restore +what formerly his gracious acceptance made onely his: Which as a +testimonie to all, that it received Life from none but him, was content to +loose its being with us, since he ceased to bee.' Through the hyperbolical +ambiguity of this passage it clearly appears that Charles was Sir Edward's +son, but not in the least that he was the translator as has been supposed, +still less that he was the son of the translator, as has also been +suggested. The play is first mentioned in the second edition (1782) of the +_Biographia Dramatica_, where the translator is said to be a 'Mr. Dymock,' +and Charles is identified as his son. This was copied in the 1812 edition, +and also by Halliwell, while Mr. Hazlitt has the astonishing statement +that the version was by 'Charles Dymock and a second person unknown.' The +_Dic. Nat. Biog._ does not recognize any of the persons concerned. There +is, however, one curious piece of evidence which has been so far +overlooked. In the list of plays, namely, appended by the publisher Edward +Archer to his edition of the _Old Law_ in 1656, occurs the entry: +'Faithfull Shepheardesse. C[omedy]. John Dymmocke.' The compiler has of +course confused the translation with Fletcher's play, but the ascription +is nevertheless interesting. If we insist on identifying the translator at +all, it must be with this John Dymocke. The entries in Archer's list, +however, are far too untrustworthy for their unsupported evidence to carry +much weight. A translation 'by D. D. Gent. 12mo. 1633,' recorded by +Halliwell and others, is evidently due to a series of blunders on the part +of bibliographers, though what the origin of the initials is I have been +unable to discover. They are probably due to Coxeter. + +[236] MS. Addit. 29,493. + +[237] I understand that an edition of Fanshawe's works is in preparation +for Mr. Bullen. + +[238] Later translations of the _Pastor fido_ appeared in 1782 [by +William Grove], and in 1809 [by William Clapperton?]. + +[239] MS. Ff. ii. 9. + +[240] The allusion, which has hitherto escaped notice, will be found +quoted below, p. 252 note. + +[241] In this note the _Pastor fido_ is said to have been 'Translated by +some Author before this,' but the context makes it evident that 'some' is +a misprint for 'the same.' + +[242] It might be objected that J. S. is called 'Gent,' while Sidnam is +termed esquire; but it should be remarked that in the MS. the 'Esq;' has +been added in a later hand. + +[243] MS. Sloane 836, folio 76^{v}. + +[244] MS. Sloane 857, folio 195^{v}. + +[245] MS. Addit. 12,128. Another MS. in the Bodleian. + +[246] No doubt the Samuel Brooke who became Master in 1629. He was the +brother of the Christopher Brooke who appears in Wither's eclogues under +the pastoral name of Cuddie. Cf. p. 116. + +[247] There is something wrong with this date. The princes were at +Cambridge 2-4 March, 1612-13. (See Nichols' _James I_, iii. (iv.) p. +1086-7. The date 'March 6' in ii. p. 607 is an error.) Probably 'Martij +30,' which appears in the University Library MS., as well as in several +MSS. at Trinity, is a slip of the transcriber for 'Martij 3,' which would +set both day and year right. Nichols, indeed, gives the date as 'Martii +3,' but he refers to the Emmanuel MS., which, like the others, reads +'30.' + +[248] MS. Ee. 5. 16. + +[249] An anonymous writer in B. M. MS. Harl. 7044, quoted by Nichols +(_James I_, i. p. 553), has the following description: '_Veneris_, 30 +_Augusti_ [1605]. There was an English play acted in the same place before +the Queen and young Prince, with all the Ladies and Gallants attending the +Court. It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which +was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cambridge. I was not there +present, but by report it was well acted and greatly applauded. It was +named "Arcadia Reformed."' This has led Fleay into a strange error. '_The +Queen's Arcadia_' he says _(Biog. Chron._ i. p. 110), 'although it is not +known to have been acted till 1605, Aug. 30, had been prepared earlier +(and perhaps acted at Herbert's marriage, 1604, Dec. 27), for it is called +"_Arcadia, reformed_."' Of course the allusion is to the reformation of +Arcadia, not the revision of the play. The play was printed the following +year. + +[250] For further details concerning the occasion of this piece, as also +for information on the state of the text, I may refer to an article of +mine in the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for August, 1903, vi. p. 59. The +first edition appeared in 1615. + +[251] Grosart's edition, printed, not always very correctly, from the +collected works of 1623, offers too unsatisfactory a text for quotation. I +have therefore quoted from the edition of 1623 itself, corrected, where +necessary, by the separate editions, and, in the case of _Hymen's +Triumph_, by Drummond's MS. + +[252] Dramatic prologues occur in some of the later Italian pastorals (see +p. 185, note). That to _Hymen's Triumph_ recalls the dialogue between +Comedy and Envy prefixed to _Mucedorus_. + +[253] Alexis is one of those characters whose appearance, while not +essential to the plot, lends life to the romantic drama, and whose +conspicuous absence in the neo-classic type is ill compensated by the +prodigal introduction of superfluous confidants. + +[254] It is just possible that Daniel took a hint for this episode from +Dickenson's romance, _Arisbas_ (1594), meutioned above, p. 147. + +[255] The similarity between Silvia and Shakespeare's Viola and Beaumont's +Euphrasia-Bellario is too obvious to need comment. It may, however, be +remarked that in Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised +as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. See p. 212. + +[256] This narrative has been much admired, notably by Lamb and Coleridge, +critics from whom it is not good to differ; but I must nevertheless +confess that, to my taste, Daniel's sentiment, here as elsewhere, is +inclined to verge upon the fulsome and the ludicrous. + +[257] It is evident that this pompous inflation of style damaged the piece +upon the stage, for on Feb. 10, 1613-4, John Chamberlain, writing to Sir +Dudley Carleton, described the performance as 'solemn and dull.' + +[258] The corresponding passage in the _Aminta_ (I. ii.) is marred by a +series of rather artificial conceits. + +[259] Architecture or building. A very rare use not recognized by the New +English Dictionary, though it is also found in Browne's _Britannia's +Pastorals_ (I. iv. 405): + + To find an house ybuilt for holy deed, + With goodly architect, and cloisters wide. + + +[260] Guarini had already called dreams (_Pastor fido_, I. iv): + + Immagini del di, guaste e corrotte + Dall' ombre della notte. + + +[261] Saintsbury, in his _Elizabethan Literature_, insists, not +unnaturally, on Daniel's lack of strength. Upon this Grosart commented in +his edition (iv. p. xliv.): 'This seems to me exceptionally uncritical.... +One special quality of Samuel Daniel is the inevitableness with which he +rises when any "strong" appeal is made to ... his imagination.' The +partiality of an editor could surely go no further. + +[262] The prodigality of _Oh's_ and _Ah's_ is an obvious characteristic of +his verse, which may possibly have been in Jonson's mind when, in the +prologue to the _Sad Shepherd_, he wrote: + + But that no stile for Pastorall should goe + Current, but what is stamp'd with _Ah_, and _O_; + Who judgeth so, may singularly erre. + + +[263] This could hardly be maintained as literally true were we to include +the Latin plays of the Universities. Of these, however, I propose to take +merely incidental notice. In no case do they appear to be of considerable +importance, and they are, as a rule, only preserved in MSS. which are +often difficult of access. I may here mention one which reached the +distinction of print, and is of a more regularly Italian structure than +most. The title-page reads: 'Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Iacobus +Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniae Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, +ibidemq; Musarum, atque eius animi gratia dies quinque Commoraretur. +Egerunt alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. +Excudebat Cantrellus Legge. Mart. 27. 1615.' The play was acted, according +to the invaluable John Chamberlain, on March 10, 1614-5, and appears to +have made a very favourable impression. It belongs to the series of +entertainments which included the representation of _Albumazar_, and was +to have included that of Phineas Fletcher's _Sicelides_, had the king +remained another night. The author of _Melanthe_ is said to have been 'Mr. +Brookes,' probably the Dr. Samuel Brooke who had produced the +already-mentioned translation of Bonarelli's _Filli di Sciro_ two years +before. See Nichols' _Progresses of James I_, iii. p. 55. + +[264] Fleay considers the _Faithful Shepherdess_ a joint production of +Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory +is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten +yeers since, hath [_sic_] written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a +Tragicomedie, well done.' Considering that the same authority makes Jonson +ascribe the _Inner Temple Masque_ to Fletcher, his statement as to the +_Faithful Shepherdess_ cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think +that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher +in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to +think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his _Biographical +Chronicle_, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For +myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand +Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on +account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but +A. H. Thorndike (_The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere_, +Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that +dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than +Fleay imagined. + +[265] Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of +Thenot and the unconventional role of the satyr, find parallels in the +earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls +the enchanted lake of the _Sacrifizio_; the introduction of a supernatural +agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's +_Mirzia_; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, +indebted to the revised version of the _Orfeo_; the character of Thenot is +anticipated in the _Sfortunato_. I give the resemblances for what they are +worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have +been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not +impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a +survival of the ordeal by fire. + +[266] Certain critics have suggested that the _Pastor fido_ might more +appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, +since it would mean giving the title-role to the wholly secondary Dorinda. +Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. +With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely +nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the +piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central +character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I +incline to believe that it is the latter that is the 'faithful +shepherdess,' since it might be contended that, in the conventional +language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the +'constant shepherdess.' (Cf. II. ii. 130.) + +[267] See Homer Smith's paper on _Pastoral Influence in the English +Drama_. His theory concerning the _Faithful Shepherdess_ will be found on +p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the +detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular +instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea. + +[268] 'Poems' [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral +poetry already quoted, p. 18, note. + +[269] One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is +the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to +sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent +absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the +good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in +the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score. + +[270] I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added +the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the 'Temple Dramatists.' + +[271] The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr +is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's +beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle +disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious +power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage +nature appears a little fatuous. + +[272] Specifically from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is +almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when +we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been. + +[273] In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of _La +Fida pastora,_ by 'FF. Anglo-Britannus,' namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as +appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page. + +[274] As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to +court representation. + +[275] Randolph's familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there +is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis' humorous +expansion of Corisca's remark about changing her lovers like her clothes: + + Other Nymphs + Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne, + Nay, every petticote; I have only one, + The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.) + +[276] A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, [Greek: o)mphe/], a +divine voice or prophecy. He may possibly have associated the word with the +Delphic [Greek: o)mphalo/s]. + +[277] It is possible that Laurinda's indecision may owe something to the +_doppio amore_ of Celia in the _Filli di Sciro_. See especially III. i. of +that play. + +[278] Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as +'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking +of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a +servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the +comments in the _Dictionary of Plays_ are original. The above first +appears in the _Biographia Dramatica_ of 1812, and may therefore be +ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further +words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' +The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical +claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his _Illustrations of +the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (Shakespeare Soc., +1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we +are not informed. + +[279] 1822, p. 61. This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of +the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever +better deserved than that administered by the _Saturday Review_ on August +21, 1875. As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have +had recourse to the very correct first edition of the _Poems_, 1638, +checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues. + +[280] The sense in the original is defective. + +[281] i.e. Tethys, a very common confusion. + +[282] The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes +it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole +collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 +twice. In 1703 appeared the _Fickle Shepherdess_, 'As it is Acted in the +New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all +by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to +be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose +rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the +language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good +verse into bad prose. + +[283] Vide post, p. 382. + +[284] For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to +the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the _Materialien zur Kunde +des aelteren Englischen Dramas_ (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may +be quoted. '(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed +more of the _Sad Shepherd_ than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of +the substantial identity of the _Sad Shepherd_ and the _May Lord_ must be +rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at +all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected +in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. +(iv) The _May Lord_ was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) +The date of the _Sad Shepherd_ cannot be fixed with certainty; but there +is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and +the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in _Jonsonus Virbius_], which agree in +placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.' + +[285] The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected +editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary +state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a +separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldrou, whose edition, with +continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. +viii), was given in Lamb's _Specimens_. In quoting from the play I have +preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely +correcting certain obvions errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which +wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text. + +[286] Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion. + +[287] It involves, moreover, the critical fallacy of supposing that poetry +is a sort of richly embroidered garment wherewith to clothe the nakedness +of the underlying substance. This may be so in certain cases in which the +poet is made and not born, or in which he forces himself to work at an +uncongenial theme. But in a genuine work of art the substance cannot so be +separated from the form without injury to both. The poetry in this case is +not an external adornment, but a necessary part of the structure, without +which it would be something else than what it is. Verse, when in organic +relation with the subject, modifies the character of that subject itself, +and the subject can only be rightly apprehended through the medium of the +verse. I contend that the _Sad Shepherd_ is a case in point, and Mr. +Swinburne's remarks, I conceive, bear out my view. I shall not, therefore, +seek to analyse the types represented by the characters--styling poor +little Amie a modification of the type of the 'forward shepherdess'!--nor +count the number of lines assigned respectively to the shepherds, to the +huntsmen, or to the witch; but shall endeavonr to ascertain the particular +object Jonson had in view in adopting a particular presentation of the +subject, the means he employed, and the measure of success he achieved. + +[288] The distinction which appears to belong peculiarly to the drama is +most likely a survival of the influence of the mythological plays, in +which the huntress nymphs of Diana frequently appear. We find, however, a +tendency to a similar dualism in Mantuan's upland and lowland swains. + +[289] It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is +originally none other than the familiar figure of French _pastourelles_. +However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. +It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough +material. See E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_, i. p. 175. + +[290] The author, however, is at fault in his terms of art. If the quarry +to which he likens Aeglamour had a dappled hide, it was a fallow and not a +red deer. In this case it should have been called a buck, and not a hart. +Again, the female should have been a doe: deer is a generic name including +both sexes of red, fallow, and roe alike. + +[291] A translation of the _Astree_ appeared as early as 1620, but the +French fashion obtained no hold over the popular taste till the later days +of the Commonwealth. + +[292] I may say that this section was written as it stands before K. +Brunhuber's essay on _Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaufer_ came into my +hands. He gives a superficial account of several printed plays, but was +unaware of the existence of those in MS. + +[293] The quotations are from the Gifford-Dyce edition of Shirley's Works +(1833), the only collected edition that has appeared. The text stands +badly in need of revision, but I have had to content myself with a few +obvious corrections. For instance, in the passage quoted above, the +editors have followed the quarto in reducing l. 13 to nonsense, by reading +'no man,' and l. 20 by reading 'And the imagination.' + +[294] So at least in the printed play. In the original draft, and probably +also in the acting version, as Fleay has pointed out, they were king and +queen, and of this traces remain. Thus we twice find Gynetia addressed as +'Queen,' while elsewhere 'Duke' rimes with 'spring,' and 'Duchess' with +'spleen.' The alteration was no doubt made from motives of prudence. Even +so the play was, according to Fleay, published surreptitiously, i.e. it +does not appear on the Stationers' Register. + +[295] A. H. Bullen's reprint of Day's works was privately printed in 1881. +Though the text is not in all respects satisfactory, I have thought myself +justified in quoting from it as the only edition available. + +[296] Not tennis, as Mr. Bullen states (Introd. p. 17), oblivious for the +moment of the impossibility of representing a tennis match on the stage, +as well as of the fact that the game was never, in Elizabethan times, +played by ladies. + +[297] There is one printed play, the relation of which to the _Arcadia_ is +not very clear. The title, _Mucedorus_, at once suggests some connexion, +but it is difficult to follow it out in detail. Mucedorus, 'the king's +sonne of Valentia,' leaves his father's court and goes disguised as a +shepherd to win the love of Amadine, 'the king's daughter of Arragon.' He +twice rescues the princess, is sentenced to banishment, and reveals his +identity just as his father arrives in search of him. The play was +originally printed in 1598, but no doubt originated some years earlier, +_c._ 1588 according to Fleay. Most of the resemblances with the _Arcadia_, +however, are due to scenes which first appeared in 1610, in which edition +the king of Valentia first plays a part. Beyond Mucedorus' disguise there +is absolutely nothing pastoral in the play. With the exception of some of +the additional scenes, which are undoubtedly by a different hand from the +rest, the play is unrelieved rubbish. Probably the original author +utilized in the composition of his piece such elements and incidents of +the _Arcadia_ as he had gathered orally while the unfinished work still +circulated in MS. Later the reviser, being aware of this source, expanded +the play from a knowledge of the completed work. It cannot be said to be a +dramatization of the romance, though it is undoubtedly in a manner founded +upon it. + +[298] Egerton MS. 1994. Not _Love's Changelings Changed_, as usually +quoted. + +[299] _Old Plays_, ii. p. 432. + +[300] Rawl. Poet, 3. + +[301] In the Bodleian MS. Ashmole 788 is a Latin epistle by Philip Kynder, +a miscellaneous writer and court agent under Charles I, born in 1600 at +latest, which was 'prefixt before my _Silvia_, a Latin comedie or +pastorall, translated from the _Archadia_, written at eighteen years of +age.' (See Halliwell's _Dic. of Plays_.) The 'Archadia' might, of course, +refer either to Sannazzaro's or Lope de Vega's romances, though this is +highly improbable. + +[302] So much we learn from the title-page itself. The play had very +likely been acted at court some years earlier, but the document mentioning +such a performance, printed by Cunningham, is of doubtful authenticity, +while Fleay contradicts himself upon the subject. The question is, +happily, immaterial to our present purpose. + +[303] Here, as in the _Isle of Gulls_, the titles of Duke and Duchess have +been imperfectly substituted for King and Queen, probably for court +performance. + +[304] The story in the romance is very different. Erona, after many +adventures, marries her lover. Both episodes are related in Book II, +chapters xiii and following (ed. 1590). They are epitomized by Dyce, whose +edition I have of course used. + +[305] Here, again, the catastrophe of the play bears no resemblance to the +romance. + +[306] See III. v. According to Chetwood (_British Theatre_, 1752, p. 47), +the play was revived in 1671, with a prologue attributing it to Shirley. +This is, of course, possible, but it requires more than Chetwood's +unsupported authority to render it probable. Fleay suggests that the +author is the same as the J. S. of _Phillis of Scyros_, namely, as I have +shown, Jonathan Sidnam. This seems to me highly improbable. The play is +printed in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xiv, whence I quote, with necessary +corrections. + +[307] Bk. I. chaps. v-viii, Bk. III. chap. xii, in the edition of 1590. + +[308] Quotations are taken, with corrections, from Pearson's reprint of +Glapthorne's works (1874). + +[309] K. Deighton's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for 'Love' of the +original. (_Conjectural Readings_, second series, Calcutta, 1898, p. 136.) + +[310] I have been unable to trace this work beyond a reference to Heber's +sale given in Hazlitt's _Handbook_. The original story will be found in +_Albion's England_, Book IV, chap. xx, of the first Part, published in +1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of +Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to +Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base +scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has +sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the +princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this +Argentile is ignorant, and when she hears of her uncle's purpose, she +contrives to escape from court and lives disguised as a shepherdess. After +her flight Curan also leaves the court and assumes a shepherd's garb, and +meeting Argentile by chance again falls in love with her without knowing +who she is. After a while he reveals his identity, and she hers; they are +married, and he conquers back her kingdom from the usurping Edel. + +[311] So far as I am aware, A. B. Grosart was the first to point this out. +(_Spenser_, iii. p. lxx.) + +[312] It is printed in Hazlitt's _Webster_, vol. iv. Fleay, with +characteristic assurance, identifies the _Thracian Wonder_ with a lost +play of Heywood's, known only from Henslowe's Diary, and there called 'War +without blows and love without suit.' He argues: 'in i. 2, "You never +shall again renew your suit;" but the love is given at the end without any +suit; and in iii. 2, "Here was a happy war finished without blows."' The +identification, however, will not bear examination. No battle, it is true, +is fought at Sicily's first appearance, but the title, _War without Blows_ +could hardly be applied to a play in which the whole of the last act is +occupied with fierce fighting between three different nations. So with the +second title, _Love without Suit_. Serena indeed grants her love in the +end without any reason whatever, but only after her lover has 'suited' +himself clean out of his five wits. Moreover, it is not certain that this +second title should not be _Love without Strife_. Heywood's play, I have +little doubt, was a mere love-comedy (cf. such titles as _The Amorous +War_, and similar expressions in the dramatists _passim_). The +identification, moreover, would necessitate the date 1598, though this +does not prevent Fleay from stating that the piece is founded on William +Webster's poem published in 1617. So early a date seems to me rather +improbable. Since William Webster's poem has nothing to do with the +present piece, the suggestion that Kirkman's attribution of the play to +John Webster was due to a confusion of course falls to the ground. + +[313] According to S. L. Lee in the _Dic. Nat. Biog._, who follows the +_Biographia Dramatica._ + +[314] It will be found in Mr. Bullen's admirable collection, _Lyrics from +the Dramatists_, 1889, p. 231. + +[315] Reprinted in 1882 by A. H. Bullen in the first volume of his _Old +English Plays_, and more recently by R. W. Bond in his edition of Lyly. In +quoting, I have generally followed the latter, though I have preferred my +own arrangement of certain passages. None of the suggestions that have +been put forward as to the authorship of the play appear to me to carry +much weight. The ascription of the whole to Lyly, first made by Archer in +1656, and repeated by Halliwell as late as 1860, is now utterly +discredited. The view, first advanced by Edmund Gosse, that the author was +John Day, has been tentatively endorsed by both editors of the piece; but +I agree with Professer Gollancz in thinking it unlikely on the ground of +style. Fleay assigns the serious (verse) portion of the play to Daniel, +and the comic (prose) scenes to Lyly. It seems to me unlikely, however, +that Daniel, who was shortly to appear as the chief exponent of the +orthodox Italian tradition, should at this date have been concerned in the +production of a typical example of the hybrid pastoral of the English +stage. Nor do I believe that Lyly was in any way concerned in the piece, +though some scenes are evident imitations of his work. This, however, +involves the question of the authorship of the lyrics found in Lyly's +plays, and I must refer for a detailed discussion to my article upon the +subject already cited (p. 227). + +[316] _Metamorphoses_, ix. 667, &c. Ward is moved to characterize the plot +as a theme of 'Ovidian lubricity.' I question whether any such censure is +merited. That the theme is one which would have become intolerably +suggestive in the hands of the Sienese Intronati, for instance, may be +admitted, but the author has treated the story with complete _naivete_. +The obscene passages referred to later on (p. 345) occur in the comic +action, and are in no way connected with the point in question. Ward +further informs us that the play is 'throughout in rime,' notwithstanding +the fact that something approaching a quarter of the whole is in prose. + +[317] I must repeat that I see no advantage to be gained from the method +adopted by Homer Smith, who tries to extract and separate the strictly +pastoral elements from the medley. A play is not a child's puzzle that can +be taken to pieces and labelled, nor even a chemical compound to be +analysed into its component parts. What is of interest is to note the +various influences which have affected and modified the growth of the +literary organism. + +[318] Though the author may very likely have known Spenser's description +of the house of Morpheus _(Faery Queen_, I. i. 348, &c.), he certainly +drew his own account straight from Ovid (_Metam._ xi. 592, &c.), to which, +of course, Spenser was also indebted. I am rather inclined to think the +author drew his material from Golding's translation (xi. 687, &c.). With +the second passage quoted, cf. _Faery Queen_, II. xii. 636, &c. + +[319] 'Trip and go' was a proverbial expression, and is found, with its +obvious rime 'to and fro,' in several old dance-songs. + +[320] The only composition I can recall which at all anticipates the +peculiar effect of this lyric is Thestylis' song in the _Arraignment of +Paris_ (III. ii.), to which, in the old edition, is appended the quaint +note, 'The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.' + +[321] Fleay gives the date 1601, following Halliwell, but Haslewood has +1603. + +[322] According to Fleay, it 'was intended to be presented to James I on +13th Mar. 1614.' This date must be a slip, since it was not till 1615 that +the king was at Cambridge. It is, moreover, correctly given in his +_History of the Stage_. The preparations also appear to have been for the +eleventh, not the thirteenth. Fleay further mentions a performance at +King's before Charles I, but gives no authority. + +[323] An exception must be made of Ward, whose remarks are almost +excessively laudatory, though his treatment of the piece is necessarily +slight. + +[324] The incidents occur, however, in Book II of Browne's work (Songs 4 +and 5), which was not printed till 1616. Either, therefore, Fletcher had +seen Browne's poem in manuscript, or else the play, as originally +performed, differed from the printed version. I think it unlikely that the +borrowing should have been the other way. + +[325] Fleay confuses the two performances, and, by placing Goffe's death +in 1627, is forced to suppose that the 'praeludium' was added by another +hand. It may be noticed that, if this introduction is by Goffe, Salisbury +Court was probably opened in the spring, a point otherwise unsettled. + +[326] The resemblance with the _Sad Shepherd_, I. i, is almost too close +to be fortuitous. It is, on the other hand, not easily accounted for. The +whole passage quoted above is somewhat markedly superior to the general +level of the verse in the play, not merely the two or three lines in which +a distinct resemblance to Jonson can be traced. Is it possible that both +Goffe and Jonson were following, the one slavishly, the other with more +imagination, one common original, now unknown? Or can it be that Goffe is +here reproducing a passage from an early unpublished work of Jonson's own, +a passage which Jonson later refashioned into the singularly perfect +speech of Aeglamour? + +[327] Homer Smith, in making these assertions, overlooks historical +evidence. It is, however, only fair to Goffe to say that other critics +apparently take a very much more favourable view of the merits of the +piece than I am able to do. + +[328] Hardly in those of the prologue to _Hymen's Triumph_, as suggested +by Homer Smith. + +[329] W. C. Hazlitt (_Manual of Plays_, p. 25) records: 'Bellessa, the +Shepherd's Queen: The scene, Galicia. An unpublished and incomplete drama +in prose and verse. Fol.' In the absence of further evidence I conclude +that this is an imperfect MS. of Montagu's piece. + +[330] The designs for the scene, by Inigo Jones, are preserved in the +British Museum, MS. Lansd. 1,171, fols. 15-16. Fols. 5-6 of the same MS. +contain the ground-plans 'for a pasterall in the hall at whitthall w'ch +was ackted by the ffrench on St Thomas day the 23th of decemb'r 1635,' +which may refer to the same piece. + +[331] It may, however, be founded on some French romance. + +[332] The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I +quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have +had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and +Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of +Dorset's _liaison_ with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought +necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author +explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a +pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely +overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, +apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in +pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts +the scene is laid at court. + +[333] See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in +question. + +[334] Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed +Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's +Plautine comedy into confusing it with the _Amyntas_. The criticism is +from an article in the _Cornhill_ for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites +it. + +[335] The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the +Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be +accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name. + +[336] II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition. + +[337] Halliwell, _Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to +which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished_. +MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. +Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, +1899; I have been unable to trace it. + +[338] I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin +plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. +Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play +entitled _Parthenia_, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but +concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan +Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was +influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. +The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male +characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be +recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. +Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no +correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any +allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the _Silvanus_, a MS. of +which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, +1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson--the +name is erased. + +[339] Bullen's _Peele_, i.p. 363. + +[340] The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but +is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at +present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different +edition, is found in Nichols' _Progresses of Elisabeth_, from which a +modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, +it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote. + +[341] See the excellent edition by W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des +alteren englischen Dramas_, vol. iii, 1903. + +[342] All necessary apparatns for the study of this literary curiosity +will be fonnd in Miss M. L. Lee's edition, 1893. The original is a MS. in +the Bodleian. + +[343] See A. H. Thorndike, _Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on +Shakspeare_, 1901, p. 32. In _Mucedorus_ (I. i. 51) we find mention of a +shepherd's disguise used 'in Lord Julio's masque.' The passage occurs in +the additional scenes of 1610, and there are numerous masques of the +period that might claim to be that referred to. Fleay conjectures '_The +Shepherds' Mask_ of James I.'s time,' and elsewhere identifies this title, +which he gets from Halliwell's _Dictionary_, with Jonson's masque, _Pan's +Anniversary, or the Shepherds' Holiday_. This, however, was produced at +earliest in 1623, and can hardly therefore have been alluded to in 1610. +Halliwell took his title from the British Museum MS. Addit. 10,444, in +which appears the music for a number of 'masques,' or dances taken from +masques, and in which this particular _Shepherds' Masque_ (fol. 34^{v}) is +dated 1635. + +[344] The date here assigned presents obvions difficultes. It would +naturally mean that it was performed after March 24, 1625; but as James +died after about a fortnight's serious illness on March 27, this can +hardly be accepted. Nichols placed the performance conjecturally in +August, 1624, for reasons which I am inclined to regard as satisfactory. +Fleay pronounces in favour of June 19, 1623, with a confidence not +altogether calculated to inspire the like feeling in others. + +[345] _Lives_, Oxford, 1898, i. p. 251. + +[346] 'The Dramatic Works of John Tatham,' 1879. In Maidment and Logan's +_Dramatists of the Restoration_. + +[347] Another parallel may be found in Shirley's _Maid's Revenge_, IV. iv, +where the wounded Antonio exclaims: + + Where art, Berinthia? let me breathe my last + Upon thy lip; make haste, lest I die else. + +The situation, however, is different. Shirley's play was licensed in 1626. + +[348] In a small quarto volume, classed as Addit. MS. 14,047. The piece +has hitherto been ascribed to George Wilde, on the authority of Halliwell. +There appears to be no reason for this ascription, beyond the fact that +the same volume also contains two pieces by Wilde. His name, however, does +not occur in connexion with the present play, and the volume, which is in +a variety of hands, certainly includes work not by him. Wilde was scholar +and fellow of St. John's, chaplain to Laud, and Bishop of Londonderry +after the restoration. His plays consist of the two comedies in this +volume, viz. the Latin _Euphormus, sive Cupido Adultus_, acted on Feb. 5, +1634/5, and the _Hospital of Lovers_, acted before the king and queen on +Aug. 29, 1636, both at St. John's. He is also said to have written another +Latin play, called _Hermophus_, though nothing is known of it beyond the +record of its being acted. It was most probably the same as _Euphormus_, +the titles being anagrams of each other. + +[349] The _Dic. Nat. Biog_. gives the date as 1635. + +[350] The stage directions for these entries are interesting: (l) 'Enter +An Antique [i.e. antimasque] of Sheapheards'; (2) 'enter the Masque'; (3) +'the masque enters and dances, and after wardes exit.' The terms 'masque' +and 'antimasque' appear to have been used technically for the dances of +the masque proper, and of its burlesque counterpart. In this sense the +words occur repeatedly in the British Museum Addit. MS. 10,444, which +contains the music only. In the present case the masquers appear to have +been distinct from the characters of the play. + +[351] R. Brotanek, _Die englischen Maskenspiele_, 1902, p. 201. See also +the edition by R. Brotanek and W. Bang, _Materialien zur Kunde des aelteren +Englischen Dramas,_ vol. ii, 1903; and further in the _Modern Language +Quarterly_ for April, 1904, vii. p. 17. + +[352] The first issue was printed 'for the use of the Author,' without +date, but was received by Thomason on Sept. 1, 1656, which would appear to +dispose of the fiction that Cox died in 1648. + +[353] This letter was prefixed to the masque in the collected edition of +the Poems (1645), but was written to the author without view to +publication. + +[354] Fifty-eight lines in decasyllabic couplets--not eighty-three lines +of blank verse, as for some inexplicable reason Masson asserts (i. p. +150). + +[355] Specific references will be found scattered through Masson's notes. +To supplement his work I may refer to some interesting remarks on _Comus_ +as a masque, and a useful comparison with Peele's play, by M. W. Samson, of +Indiana University, in the introduction to his edition of Milton's Minor +Poems, New York, 1901. Here, as elsewhere in the case of Milton's Works, I +follow H. C. Beeching's admirable text, Oxford, 1900. + +[356] Not wishing to pursue this point further, I may be allowed to refer +to certain candid and judicious remaries in Saintsbury's _Elizabethan +Literature_, p. 387. + +[357] I am perfectly aware of, and in writing the above have made every +allowance for, three considerations which may be urged in explanation of +the passages in question. In the first place, it must be remembered that +the age was an outspoken one, and used to giving free expression to +thoughts and feelings which we are in the habit of passing over in +silence. Secondly, the age was unquestionably one of considerable licence, +which must be held to have warranted somewhat direct speaking on the part +of those who held to a stricter code of morals; and, moreover, it must be +conceded that the Puritan failing of self-righteous protestation was as a +rule combined with very genuine practice of the professed virtues. +Thirdly, there is the fact that the age of thirteen was at that time, by +common consent, regarded as already mature womanhood. On one and all of +these heads a good deal might be written, but it would only extend yet +further a discussion which has already, it may be, exceeded reasonable +limits. + +[358] I ought, perhaps, to apologize for thus alluding to these poems as +subsequent to _Comus_, seeing that criticism usually places them some +years earlier. There is, however, no external evidence of any kind, and to +me the internal evidence of style points strongly to a later date. +Possibly, since they are not fonnd in the Trinity MS., they were composed +during Milton's travels, which would place them after _Lycidas_ even, +somewhere about 1638 or 1639. One of the ablest of our living critics, +himself a close and original student of Milton, writes in a private +letter: 'I long ago heard a good critic say that _Comus_ seemed to him +prentice work beside _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_; and these do seem to +me, I must confess, the maturer poems.' The point was raised by F. Byse in +the _Modern Language Quarterly_ for July, 1900, iii. p. 16. + +[359] Conversations, IV and III, Shakespeare Society, 1842, pp. 4 and 2. + +[360] Those who wish to pursue the subject further will find the necessary +references in Sommer's _Erster Versuch ueber die Englische Hirtendichtung_, +and a full discussion in an elaborate 'Inquiry into the propriety of the +rules prescribed for Pastoral Poetry,' prefixed to the edition of Ramsay's +_Gentle Shepherd_, published at Edinburgh in 1808. Some judicious remarks +will also be found in the Introduction to Chambers' _English Pastorals_, +pp. xliv, &c. + +[361] This limitation, it may be observed, does not necessarily apply to +all literary forms. It may, I think, reasonably be maintained that the +form of the drama, for instance, is essentially conditioned by the +psychological relation of author to audience, through the medium of actual +representation, and that this relation is equivalent to, or at least +capable of forming the basis of, a theory of drama. I am aware that such +an abstract view as this finds little favour with the majority of modern +critics, but while myself doubtful as to its practical value, I do not see +that it involves any critical absurdity. + +[362] This impulse can certainly be traced in some of the eclogues, and +still more markedly in the purely lyrical verse of a pastoral sort. But +the cross influences are too complex to be recapitulated here. + +[363] The influence of the Latin eclogue of the renaissance was +undoubtedly also direct, but though widespread it was hardly vital, and +its importance, as compared with that of the vernacular tradition, may be +not inadequately measured by the relative importance of the chief +exponents of either, Googe and Spenser. + +[364] Especially the allusions to religions controversy. The romance was, +of course, highly topical in Spain, but, waiving the rather debatable +point of Sidney's allusive intentions, it never appears to have been +generally so regarded in this country. + +[365] Possibly I ought to add a fourth, the masques at court; but their +influence in large measure duplicated that of the Italian drama, and +cannot be distinguished from it. + +[366] See Rossi, p. 175, note 1. + +[367] Ferrara, Caraffo, 1588, p. 50. Rossi, 175^{1}. Carducci, 59. + +[368] _Discorso_, Padova, Meieto, 1587; Rossi, 175^{1}. + +[369] _Apologia contro l'autor del Verato_, Padova, Meietti, 1590. + +[370] _Il Verato secondo_, Firenze, Giunti, 1593, pp. 206-7; Carducci, +59-60. + +[371] I make no pretence at having myself examined all the texts mentioned +in the following discussion. Many, indeed, are only to be found in +out-of-the-way provincial libraries in Italy, and have, I believe, never +been examined by any one but Carducci himself. The references in my notes +equally testify my indebtedness to Rossi's monograph; indeed, my whole +treatment of the subject is based on his work. + +[372] I shall endeavour to note the various verse-forms employed, as the +evidence is often of use in determining the question of development. It +may, however, be very easily misleading if unduly pressed, as by Carducci. +In general, the _terza rima_ may be taken as pointing to the influence of +Sannazzaro's _Arcadia; ottava rima_, courtly or rustic, to that of +Poliziano's _Orfeo_ and _Giostra_ and Lorenzo de' Medici's _Nencia_ +respectively; the _endecasillabi sciolti_, or blank verse, to that of the +regular drama. Of the free measures, _endecasillabi e settinari_, of the +later plays I shall have to speak more in detail hereafter. + +[373] Edited from MS. by Felice Bariola, with other poems of Taccone's, +Firenze, 1884, p. 14. Rossi, 166^{2}; Carducci, 28^{1}. + +[374] Printed in the 'Opere dello elegante poeta Seraphino Aquilano,' +Venetia, Bindoni, 1516, sig. D5. Rossi, 167^{1}. For the date, Carducci, +29^{2}. + +[375] Of these authors little or nothing appears to be known. Both pieces +have come down to us in MS.; see Adolfo Bartoli, _Mss. italiani della +Nazionale di Firenze_, Firenze, 1884, ii. pp. 138 and 163. Concerning the +first, see further, _Poesie inedite di G. Del Carretto_, by A. G. Spinelli, +Savona, pp. 10-15; concerning the second, R. Renier, in the _Giornale +storico della letteratura italiana_, 1885, v. p. 236, note 1. Rossi, +167^{2},^{3}; Carducci, 30^{2}, 28^{3}. + +[376] _Opere_, 1516, as cited, sig. E. Rossi, 167^{4}. + +[377] In _Rime_, ed. P. Fanfani, 1876-8, ii. p. 225. Rossi, 168^{1}. + +[378] Rossi, 169^{2}. Carducci, 26^{3}. + +[379] See B. Croce, 'Napoli dal 1508 al 1512 (da un antico romanzo +spagnuolo),' in _Archivio storico per le provincie napolitane_, anno xix, +fasc. i, pp. 141 and 157. Carducci, 29^{1}. + +[380] _Opera nova_, Venetia, Rusconi, 1508. In the old edition the pieces +are merely termed 'commedie,' the designation 'pastorali' being due to the +'Arcadian,' G. M. Crescimbeni, whose _Istoria delia volgar poesia_ +originally appeared in 1698. Carducci, 41^{1}. + +[381] See Carducci, p. 35. Stiefel, being only aware of the edition of +1543, hoped to find in the piece a link between Casalio and Beccari. Among +several female characters introduced is one 'la quale volentieri starebbe +in mezzo di due amanti o mariti: il che,' pursues Carducci, 'e del tutto +opposto all' idealita delia favola pastorale.' One would have thought that +certain traits in the characters of Dafne and Corisca would have occurred +to him. Bitter satire on women was indeed one of the most permanent +features of pastoral comedy, as it had been of the Latin eclogue. + +[382] See D'Ancona, 'II teatro mantovano nel secolo _XVI_,' in the +_Giornale storico_, v. p. 19. Rossi, 170^{1}. + +[383] See G. Campori, _Notizie sulla vita di L. Ariosto_, Modena, 1871, p. +68. Rossi, 172^{1}. No mention of these is made by Carducci, his thesis +being that the _ecloga rappresentativa_ did not obtain at Ferrara, the +home _par excellence_ of the Arcadian drama. Thus, on p. 54 he writes: +'Delie parecchie ecloghe pastorali e rusticali passate in rassegna fin qui +non una ce n' e o scritta o rappresentata o stampata in Ferrara, non una +d'origine ferrarese. In Ferrara entriamo classicamente e signorilmente con +l'_Egle_ [1545].' + +[384] Rossi, 173^{1}. Carducci, 37. + +[385] See L. Frati, 'Un' ecloga msticale del 1508,' in the _Giornale +storico_, xx(1892), p. 186. Carducci, 27^{2}. + +[386] See O. Guerrini, _Narrazione di Paolo Palliolo_, Bologna, Romagnoli, +1885, p. 96. Carducci, 31^{1}. + +[387] See C. Mazzi, _La congrega dei Rozzi di Siena_, i. p. 139 and ii. p. +100. Carducci, 31^{2}. Also Rossi, 174^{3}; his suggestion of the possible +identity of the two last-mentioned pieces has been shown by later research +to be inadmissible. + +[388] A battle was fought at Tai, near Pieve di Cadore. + +[389] The number of such pieces is very large. A list appended to the +_Assetta_ in 1756 runs to 109 items. An exhaustive bibliography will be +found in Mazzi's work. See also the useful collection by Giulio Ferrario, +forming vol. x of the 'Teatro antico' in the 'Classici italiani,' Milan, +1812. It is unfortunate that Symonds should have referred to Ferrario's +list as evidence of the fertility of the pastoral drama, even though +adding that the list is 'devoted solely to rural scenes of actual life,' +since he can hardly escape the charge of regarding the rustic compositions +as part of the pastoral drama proper--a position to which they certainly +have no claim. + +[390] Not, of course, to be confused with the _sacra rappresentazione_ so +called. + +[391] See F. Flamini's edition of Tansillo's poems, Napoli, 1893. Rossi, +171^{1}; Carducci, 39^{2}. + +[392] Used, for example, by Sannazzaro, in his _Farsa_. See his 'Opere +volgari,' Padova, 1723, p. 422. + +[393] See E. Percopo, 'M. Ant. Epicuro,' in the _Giornale storico_, 1888, +xii. p. 1. Carducci, 39^{1}. The earliest edition with the later title I +have met with is one dated 1533, in my possession. The British Museum has +none earlier than 1535. + +[394] Siena, Mazochi, 1530. Carducci, 44^{3}. + +[395] It continued to be occasionally reprinted till as late as 1612. +Carducci, 44. + +[396] Venezia, Zoppino, 1538. Carducci, 43^{1}. + +[397] It may have been a direct borrowing, for we know that Tasso was +acquainted with the plays of Epicuro, whom he imitated in his _Rinaldo_ +(V. 25, &c.). The _Mirzia_ is printed in 'I drammi pastorali di A. Marsi,' +ed. I. Palmerini, Bologna, 1887-8. See also Percopo in the _Giornale_, as +cited. Carducci, 62. The authorship is a little doubtful. Creizenach, ii. +365^{1}. + +[398] Firenze, 1545. Carducci, 46^{1}. + +[399] _Rime_, Venezia, Giolito, 1546. Carducci, 51^{1}. + +[400] Vinegia, Bertacagno, 1553. Carducci, 53^{1}. + +[401] _Egle_, s.l. et a. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 54. + +[402] This strong feeling concerning the incestuous nature of connexion +between cousins, however strange to us, appears to have been very real in +Italy in the sixteenth century. _Sorella germana_, a common term for a +female cousin, is in itself sufficient evidence of the feeling. Readers of +the _novelle_ will remember the discussion on the subject by Pietro +Fortini in his _Novelle de' Novizi_, xxxi. The explanation of the +phenomenon is no doubt to be sought in the peculiar conventions of Italian +society. + +[403] Speaking of the _Favola_, Carducci says: 'lo stile e quel nobile del +Giraldi.' This is a point on which the opinion of a foreigner can never +carry very much weight; but with all deference to Signer Carducci's +judgement, I cannot help expressing my opinion that the verse is +characterized by awkward verbal repetitions and a certain stiffness of +expression, which impart to it a quality of heaviness similar to that +found in the prose of the _Ecatommiti_. It seems to be the result of a +conscious endeavour on the part of the Ferrarese to write pure Tuscan, and +the reader is constantly reminded of the memorable words in the preface to +the _Cortegiano_, in which Castiglione announces his intention 'di farmi +piu tosto conoscere per Lombardo, parlando Lombardo, che per non Toscano, +parlando troppo Toscano.' + +[404] Ferrara, De Rossi, 1555. Rossi, 176^{1}; Carducci, 57. The piece +must not, of course, be confused either with the _Sacrifizio pastorale_, +paraphrased by Firenzuola from the _Arcadia_, or with the masque called +_El Sacrifizio_, performed by the Intronati at Siena in 1531, and printed +in 1537. + +[405] The remark is Rossi's, and, though strongly controverted by +Carducci, appears to me absolutely true. + +[406] 'Comedia pastorale di nuovo composta per mess. Barth. Brayda di +Summariva,' Torino, Coloni da Saluzzo, 1556. Carducci, 64^{2}. The date is +given as 1550 in the note, and correctly, I take it, as 1556 in the text. + +[407] Vinezia, Zopini, 1583, B. M. The preface is dated Sept, 1, 1580. +Carducci (71^{1}) speaks of the edition of 1586 as the first. + +[408] Ferrara, Panizza, 1564. Carducci, 69^{1}. + +[409] Edited by A. Solerti in the _Propugnatore_, 1891, new series, iv. p. +199. Carducci, 70^{1}. + +[410] Venezia, Giolito, 1568. Carducci, 71^{2}; Klein, v. p. 61. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama +by Walter W. Greg + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASTORAL POETRY AND PASTORAL DRAMA *** + +***** This file should be named 12218.txt or 12218.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1/12218/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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