Backe and syde goo bare, goo bare;Bothe hande and fote goo colde;But, belly, God sende the good ale inoughe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.But yf that I maye have, trwly,Goode ale my belly full,I shall looke lyke one (by swete sainte Johnn)Were shoron agaynste the woole.Thowthe I goo bare, take ye no care,I am nothynge colde.I stuffe my skynne so full withinOf joly good ale and olde.I cannot eate but lytyll meate;My stomacke ys not goode;But sure I thyncke that I cowde drynckeWith hym that werythe an hoode.Dryncke ys my lyfe; although my wyfeSome tyme do chyde and scolde,Yete spare I not to plye the potteOf joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I love no roste but a browne toste,Or a crabbe in the fyer;A lytyll breade shall do me steade,Mooche breade I never desyer.Nor froste, nor snowe, nor wynde, I trow,Canne hurte me yf hyt wolde;I am so wrapped within, and lappedWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I care ryte noughte, I take no thowteFor clothes to kepe me warme;Have I goode dryncke, I surely thynckeNothyng can do me harme.For trwly than I feare no man,Be he never so bolde,When I am armed, and throwly warmedWith joly good ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.But nowe and than I curse and banne;They make ther ale so small!God geve them care, and evill to fare!They strye the malte and all.Soche pevisshe pewe, I tell yowe trwe,Not for a crowne of goldeThere commethe one syppe within my lyppe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.Backe and syde, etc.Good ale and stronge makethe me amongeFull joconde and full lyte,That ofte I slepe, and take no kepeFrom mornynge untyll nyte.Then starte I uppe, and fle to the cuppe;The ryte waye on I holde.My thurste to staunche I fyll my pauncheWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.And Kytte, my wyfe, that as her lyfeLovethe well good ale to seke,Full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye seThe teares ronne downe her cheke.Then dothe she troule to me the bolleAs a goode malte-worme sholde,And say, "Swete harte, I have take my parteOf joly goode ale and olde."Backe and syde, etc.They that do dryncke tylle they nodde and wyncke,Even as good fellowes shulde do,They shall notte mysse to have the blysseThat good ale hathe browghte them to.And all poore soules that skoure blacke bolles,And them hath lustely trowlde,God save the lyves of them and ther wyves,Wether they be yonge or olde!Backe and syde, etc.John LylyALEXANDER AND CAMPASPEEdited with Critical Essay and Notesby George P. Baker, A.B., Asst.Professor in Harvard UniversityCRITICAL ESSAYLife.—John Lyly was born in Kent between October 8, 1553, and January, 1554. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, 1569, but was almost immediately rusticated. Returning in October, 1571, he was graduated B.A. April 27, 1573. In May, 1574, he wrote unsuccessfully to Lord Burleigh, begging for a fellowship at Magdalen. He proceeded M.A. June 1, 1575, and lived mainly at the Universities till 1579.Euphues, the Anatomie of Wit, appeared between December, 1578, and spring, 1579. Another edition was printed in 1579; twelve others before 1637. InAn Address to the Gentlemen Scholars of Oxford, prefixed to the second, the 1579, edition, he answered a charge of having unfairly criticised Oxford in theAnatomie of Wit. A sequel,Euphues and his England, was licensed July 24, 1579, but did not appear for months. Probably Lyly shared in the disfavour which, from late July, 1579, to July, 1580, the Queen showed the party of Robert Dudley because of his secret marriage with the Countess of Essex.Endimion, probably the first of Lyly's extant comedies, was presented between late July and early November, 1579, as an allegorical treatment of this quarrel. In or near July, 1580, Lyly was "entertained as servant" by the Queen, and was advised to aim at the Mastership of the Revels. By July, 1582, he is to be found in the household of Lord Burleigh. A letter of his was prefixed to Watson'sPassionate Centurie of Love, published 1582. By 1589, possibly earlier, he had become vice-master of St. Paul's choir school. Before 1584 the Chapel Children and the Paul's Boys, for whom he had written, ceased to act. During 1584 hisSapho and Phao, written not long after February 6, 1582, and hisAlexander and Campaspewere printed.Tityrus and Gallathea, licensed in 1584, was not printed till 1592. Probably the main plot was written before 1584, and the sub-plot for a revision of the play in or near 1588. From 1585 Lyly wrote for the Paul's Boys till in or near 1591, when the company was again silent. The Chapel Children were not acting publicly between November, 1584, and 1597. HisMydaswas acted between August, 1588, and November, 1589, and printed in 1592. In August or September, 1589, a pamphlet entitledPappe-with-an-Hatchet, written by him for the High Church party in the Marprelate controversy, made its appearance. HisMother Bombiewas acted in 1589 or 1590, and printed in 1594.Alexander and CampaspeandSapho and Phaowere reprinted in 1591, and in the same yearEndimionwas printed.Gallatheaappeared in 1592. Lyly wrote, in 1590 or 1591, an apparently unsuccessful begging letter to the Queen, and another in 1593 or 1594. He was married by 1589, and he had two sons and one daughter. He was member of Parliament for Hindon in 1589; for Aylesbury in 1593 and 1601; and for Appleby in 1597.The Woman in the Moonewas licensed in 1595, printed in 1597. The quality of the blank verse in this play and the absence of marked Euphuism favour a date of composition in or near 1590.Lillie's Lightwas licensed June 3, 1596. If printed, it is non-extant. He wrote prefatory Latin lines for Henry Lock'sEcclesiastes, otherwise calledThe Preacher, in 1597. In 1597-1600 the Chapel Children revived his plays. TheMaid's Metamorphosis, incorrectly attributed to Lyly, was printed in 1600. HisLove's Metamorphosiswas printed in 1601: it had been written about the time of theGallathea,—before 1584, or between 1588 and 1591. The Protea-Petulius part is probably from a different play, or is a survival in a revision. Lyly died November 30, 1606, and was buried at St. Bartholomew's.[751]The Place of Euphues in English Literature.—John Lyly was poet, pamphleteer, novelist, and dramatist. As a pamphleteer he is unimportant. As a poet he can best be studied in his plays. It is, then, as novelist and dramatist that he is important. The material of the two parts of theEuphuesmakes it decidedly significant in its own time. It is not, like most of the stories of Greene and Lodge, mere romance, nor, like Nash'sJack Wilton, a tale of adventure phrased with reportorial recklessness. It is a love story in which romance is subordinated to the inculcation of ideas of high living and thinking, and the demands of an involved style. It dimly foreshadows two literary products which reach a development only long after the days of Elizabeth—the novel with a purpose, and the stylistic novel. The appearance of the book was epochal. Young writers of the day—Munday, Greene, Nash, and Lodge—copied its style. Courtiers patterned their speech upon it. Yet Gabriel Harvey was probably right when he ill-naturedly wrote: "Young Euphues but hatched the egges that his elder freendes laide." TheAnatomie, at least, is such a book as a recent university graduate ofthe present day, well read in some of the classics, and especially susceptible to new literary influences and cults, might compile. In the divisionEuphues and His EphœbusLyly uses, with a few omissions and additions, Plutarch onEducation; in the letter to Botonio he translates Plutarch onExile. In the partEuphues and Atheoshe is indebted to chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 of theDial of Princes(1529) by Antonio de Guevara, Bishop of Guadix and Mendoza. Euphues and Lucilla debate "dubii," or artificial discussions of set questions, such as one finds in Hortensio Lando or Castiglione. There is, too, almost constant use of the unnatural natural history of Pliny. All this material is bound together by a style which, though it may ultimately be traced to the rounded periods of Cicero, had developed slowly in writers of the Renaissance and the years just beforeEuphuesappeared. George Pettie, for instance, in hisPettie Palace of Pettie His Pleasure, published in 1576, has all the stylistic characteristics of theEuphuesexcept the fabulous natural history. It is, however, to Guevara in theDial of Princesthat Lyly is thought to be particularly indebted for his style. This man used "lavishly the well-known figures of pointed antithesis and parisonic balanced clauses, in connection with a general climactic structure of the sentence or period, the emphatic or antithetic words being marked by rhyme or assonance." Lyly substitutes for rhyme alliteration, and adds persistent play on words. The book is genuinely Renaissance, then, for, looking to classic literature for much of its substance, it expresses itself in a style that typifies an intellectual mood of the hour.Lyly's Plays: their Subdivision.—Just before 1580 the acting of choir boys was in great favour with the Queen and, as a consequence, with the public. The boys of Westminster, Windsor, the Chapel Royal, and St. Paul's were often summoned to court. For the last two companies, with whom acting became a profession, Lyly wrote his plays. These divide into four classes. The allegorical comedies, in which what is alluded to is as important as what is said, areEndimion,Sapho and Phao, andMydas.Endimion, perhaps the most complete example of Lyly's allegorical comedy, presents the apology of Leicester to the Queen for his secret marriage with Lettice, Countess of Essex.Sapho and Phaois full ofallusions to the coquetting of the Queen with the Duc d'Alençon and his wrathful departure from England in February, 1582.Mydasallegorises—though with less detail than the others—as to the designs of Philip II. on the English throne, and the Spanish Armada.Gallathea,Love's Metamorphosis, andThe Woman in the Mooneform a second class—pastoral comedies. They are allegorical only when some figure is given qualities which the Queen was fond of hearing praised as hers.Mother Bombie, standing alone as a comedy on the model of Plautus, has a much more involved plot than any of the other plays. Finally, also in a class by itself, isAlexander and Campaspe.In this, as in all the comedies exceptMother BombieandLove's Metamorphosis, Lyly used classic myth for his chief material. Yet he but followed a custom of the day, for most of the plays given at court between 1570 and 1590 by the children's companies were based on such material: for instance,Iphigenia,Narcissus,Alcmæon,Quintus Fabius, andScipio Africanus. These subjects seem to have been treated as pastorals, histories, and possibly allegories. Lyly rejected inAlexander and Campaspethe allegorical and the pastoral form, and told rather naïvely, except in style, the story of the love of Alexander and Apelles for Campaspe, repeating in his sub-plot many historic retorts of Diogenes. In details of method Lyly seems to have had a precursor. Richard Edwardes (born 1523, died 1566) in hisDamon and Pythias, printed in 1582, but usually assigned to 1564, wrote in a way very suggestive of Lyly inAlexander and Campaspe. He disclaimed in his prologue intention of referring to any court except that of Dionysius at Syracuse; introduced lyrics; gave Aristippus the philosopher an important place; inveighed against flattery at the court; brought in the comic episode of Grim the collier without connection with the main plot, just as Lyly often introduces his comic material; and derived the fun of this scene mainly from two impudent pages. Certainly it would have been natural for Lyly, early in his career, to look to the plays of a former prominent master of the Chapel Children.Alexander and Campaspe: Date, Sources.—The exact date ofAlexander and Campaspeit seems impossible to determine. It was written before April, 1584, for it was licensed for printing inthat month. The facts that similes and references inEuphuesare found in it, and that the work—here of a kind which Lyly never exactly repeats—resembles the earlyDamon and Pythiassuggest thatAlexander and Campaspebelongs early in his dramatic career. It has been held that it should precedeEndimion, but the allegory in that play; the fact that Blount, who placesSapho and Phao,Gallathea,Mydas, andMother Bombiein the order approved by the most recent criticism, puts it second; and the better characterization, more natural dialogue, and slightly closer binding together of the main and the sub-plot, argue for the second place.The play, like theAnatomie of Wit, is a composite. The main plot—the story of Apelles and Campaspe—Lyly found in Book 35 of Pliny'sHistory of the World. His setting he took from Plutarch'sLife of Alexander. That, too, gave him the siege of Thebes, Timoclea, some of the philosophers' names, most of their speeches, the generals, and Hephestion, and probably suggested the possibilities of Diogenes as a comic figure. The material for the scenes of the Cynic, and the name Manes, he found in theLives of the Philosophersby Diogenes Laertius.Literary Estimate.—In the extant plays from 1550 to 1580 love has but a subordinate part. InAlexander and Campaspe, however, as in all the Lyly comedies, the central idea is that of nearly all the great plays of the Elizabethan drama—the love of man for woman. Doubtless the subject appealed to Lyly especially because in the self-abnegation of Alexander the Queen might choose to see a compliment to her final position toward Leicester and the Countess of Essex. Diogenes he used in order to get comic relief. That Lyly's comedies are comparatively free from vulgarity is probably because they were given by children before the Queen and her ladies. Possibly the youth of the actors is the reason for the absence of strong emotional expression, but it is more probable that the temperament of the author is responsible. It is hard to believe that a dramatist who felt keenly emotional possibilities in his material could have passed by Timoclea so rapidly, for in Plutarch she has all the requisites of the heroine in a Beaumont and Fletcher play. Nor would such a dramatist have made so little of the struggle of Alexander between infatuation and the desire to regain his accustomedself-command. Lyly's position toward his work is like that of the early writers of chronicle-history plays. He does not depend on selecting the most characteristic situations and speeches, on supplying missing motives, on unification of material which history has passed down in somewhat disordered fashion, but on repeating as many as possible of the situations and speeches associated with the names. Like those writers, too, he makes no attempt to get behind his material, to see its interrelations and its dramatic significance as a whole.Some allowance, however, must be made for faults in this play, for the Prologue states that it was hastily written. The comedy itself shows that Lyly planned as he wrote. The opening scene of the play leaves one to suppose that Timoclea, who, rather than Campaspe, is the chief female speaker, is to play an important part. She never appears again, and is mentioned but once. Later parts of the play call for some manifestation, in this first scene, of Campaspe's intense fascination for Alexander, but there is nothing of the kind. Nor does the action in any later scene really prepare for Alexander's self-reproaches for his mad infatuation. Until late in the play, when Lyly speaks of Campaspe as Alexander's concubine, a reader is not even entirely clear as to their relations. Perhaps some of this lack of clearness and sequence may result because the Timoclea part, at least, of the first scene is a survival from an older play. In theAccounts of the Revels at Court, under an entry for expenditures between January and February, 1573(4), "One Playe showen at Hampton Coorte before her Maᵗⁱᵉ by Mr. Munkester's Children" (Mulcaster's of the Merchant Taylors' School) is mentioned. Interlined are the words: "Timoclia at the Sege of Thebes by Alexander."The movement of the comedy is episodic. The clever little pages bind the scenes together; Alexander connects the incidents of the main story; but too often, especially in the sub-plot, the action is not prepared for, and does not lead to anything. Nor does Lyly care much for climax. The Diogenes sub-plot does not end; it is dropped just before the main story closes. The great dramatic possibilities of the final scene are practically thrown away. It is significant that they could be developed only by a hand whichcould paint vividly the contest of a soul, the gradual reascendency of old motives, and manly renunciation.Growth in character Lyly does not understand. As a rule his figures are types rather than many-sided human beings. Nor are the types always self-consistent. All the nobility of Alexander's renunciation disappears when he says: "Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe; Alexander is cloyed with looking on that which thou wond'rest at." In general, Lyly is too ready to depend on the way in which his figures speak rather than on truth to life in what they speak. In the retorts of Apelles as he talks with Alexander of his work, there is, of course, something of the real artist's pride in his art and irritation at royal omniscience. There is characterization, too, in many of the speeches of Diogenes, but in both of these instances Lyly is either quoting or paraphrasing. Campaspe, it is true, is almost a character, and slightly anticipates the arch heroines of Shakespeare. Hers are coquettishness, womanly charm. In her scene with Apelles in the studio (Act IV. scene 2), the underlying passion of both almost breaks through the frigid medium of expression. The pages may doubtless be traced back to the witty, graceless slaves of Latin comedy, and more immediately to precursors in the work of Edwardes, but Lyly adds so much individuality and humour that they are a real accession in the history of the drama. Moreover, many of his figures often comment incisively on customs and follies of the time, preparing for the later comedy of manners.No preceding play is so full of charming and lasting lyrics. In all his comedies exceptThe Woman in the Moone, Lyly writes neither in the usual jingling rhymes nor the infrequently used blank verse, but in prose. He shows the men of his day new possibilities in dialogue; for though his artificial style prevents easy characterisation, it does not keep him from effective repartee and a closer representation of the give and take of real conversation than was possible with the rhyming lines, or with blank verse as it was handled in his day. Probably, however, the greatest importance of this play for the student of Elizabethan drama is the way it shows interest in a romantic story breaking through classic material and Renaissance expression, thus anticipating the romantic dramaof 1587. Clearly, then, the merits ofAlexander and Campaspeare literary and historical, not dramatic.Lyly's Development as a Dramatist.—That Lyly worked, however, steadily toward more genuine drama becomes clear if one reads his plays in order. In all he shows classical influence by his choice of subject, or by constant allusion, but he is not a scholar in the sense of Jonson or Chapman. He is well read in certain authors—Ovid, particularly theMetamorphoses, Plutarch, Pliny, perhaps Lucian; he has at his tongue's end many stock Latin quotations, and delights in misquoting or paraphrasing for the sake of a pun, sure that the quick-witted courtiers will recognize the originals. Classical in construction he certainly is not. His interest is to find a pretty love story which gives opportunities for dramatic surprises and complications, effective groupings, graceful dances, and dainty lyrics. He is fertile in finding interesting figures to bring upon the stage—the fairies ofEndimion, the fiddlers ofMother Bombie, the shepherds ofLove's Metamorphosis. If one examines the only two plays of his which lack the contrasting comic under-plot,—Love's Metamorphosis, andThe Woman in the Moone,—it becomes clear that they are pastorals or masques. Even the other plays owe to their sub-plots the right to be called comedies. By choice of topics and by temperament, then, Lyly is a writer of masques.At first he developed his two plots side by side, as inEndimion. One is used simply to relieve the other, or to fill time-spaces necessary between incidents of the main plot. Later, he joins the two slightly by letting figures in the sub-plot refer to incidents of the main story. InMother Bombiehe brings the groups together formally two or three times, and closes the play with nearly all the characters on the stage. In his last comedy,The Woman in the Moone, he discards contrasted plots, and tries to get his effects from one large group of figures. Even if his success in meeting his problem is not great, the mere recognition of it is significant. Yet it cannot be said that he ever becomes a good plotter, for he is always willing to bring in anywhere new people, new interests, or even, as inMydas, to shift to a new plot midway. InMother Bombie, when the climax of complication is reached in the meeting of the disguised Accius and Silena and their fathers, Lyly is unable tomaster the difficulties of the situation. He lets the two reveal themselves tamely, confusingly, before he has had anything like the potential fun out of the scene. Usually the plays ramble gently on till Lyly thinks the audience must have enough; then thedeus ex machinaappears, and all ends. Climax in closing he seems not to try for, but is content to end with a telling phrase.In characterization his work varies. In the allegories he wishes merely to suggest well-known figures; distinct, final characterization would be out of place, even dangerous. In the pastoral-masques, the land of fantasy, the lines of characterization need not be sharply drawn. But even if one looks atMother Bombieand the sub-plots of the plays, one sees that though there is perhaps a slight gain in portraying the figures, the people are too often significant for the way in which they talk rather than for action or characterizing speech. When Lyly attempts strong presentation of crucial moments or pathos, he stammers, or is particularly conventional.As he develops, he modifies the eccentricities of his style. Nor is it probable that the passing of the popular enthusiasm for Euphuism is wholly responsible for this. He had the good sense to see the superiority of prose to verse as the expression of comedy, and he must have felt how much his rigidly artificial style cramped him. InMother Bombie, 1589-91, Euphuism is well-nigh gone. In its place we have a style in which characterized dialogue is more possible and more evident. InThe Woman in the Moonethe exigencies of verse are too much for Euphuism, and it practically disappears.Very slowly, then, Lyly was working toward a drama of simple characterizing dialogue, more unified, and at the same time more complex. Even as he worked, however, Kyd, Greene, and Marlowe swept by to accomplishment impossible for him under any conditions.His Place in English Comedy.—John Lyly is not merely, then, as has been too often suggested, a scholar "picking fancies out of books (with) little else to marvel at." He was keenly alive to foreign and domestic influences at work about him. His use of what other men offer foreshadows the marvellous assimilative power ofShakespeare. He seems to retain and apply with freedom all the similes and illustrations that come in his way; many are not to be hunted down except in out-of-the-way corners of the books best known to him. Only a man of poetic feeling would have cared to work in these allegories and pastorals. Humorous he is in the scenes of the pages. Here and there, as in some of the replies of Apelles to Alexander, and in the words of Parmenio on the rising sun (Act I, scene 1), there is caustic irony. Lyly is a thinker, too, and a critic, as his frequent satire of existing social customs or follies shows. Now and then he is fearless; for instance, in his portrayal before the Queen of the artist's contempt for royal assumption of knowledge (Act III, scene 4), and in his comment on the impossibility of happy love between a subject and a monarch (Act IV, scene 4). His allegories show best his ingenuity and inventiveness. His mastery of involved phrasing is indubitable.Without doubt, however, his attitude toward his work is more that of the scholar than the poet or dramatist. His work is imitation of others who seem to him models, with the main attention on style. He has the inventiveness of the dramatist, but not his instinct for technique or recognition of the possibilities of a story and care in working them out. He never says a thing for himself if he can find it anywhere in a recognized author. In this, however, he shared in the mood of Spenser and his group. Indeed, a little comparison of Lyly with Spenser will show that, though in accomplishment he is far below the poet, he expresses in his comedies the historical influences, the existing intellectual conditions, and the literary aspirations which Spenser phrases in his early work. It is in poetic power, in imaginative sweep, that the two separate widely.Yet Lyly, drawing on what preceded and what surrounded him, did more than express the literary mood and desires of his day. Through him the lyric in the drama came to Dekker, Jonson, and Shakespeare, more dainty and more varied. He broke the way for later men to use prose as the means of expression for comedy. He gave them suggestions for clever dialogue. At a time of loose and hurried dramatic writing he showed that literary finish might well accompany such composition. His pages are the prototypes of theboys and servants in Peele, Chapman, Jonson, and Shakespeare. In a small way he foreshadowed the comedy of manners. For as close a relationship between the drama and politics as we find in his allegories, we must look to the declining days of the Jacobean drama—to Middleton'sGame of Chess. The romantic spirit found expression in him, not in a drama of blood, but in pastorals and masques which look forward to the masques of Jonson, toLove's Labour's Lost,Midsummer Night's Dream, andAs You Like It. His influence on the highly sensitized mind of Shakespeare may be traced in many lines and scenes.His vogue as a dramatist was short. By 1590 the boisterous, romantic drama, the often inchoate chronicle history, both frequently accompanied by scenes of would-be comic horse-play, engrossed public attention. The great period of experimentation with both old and crude forms was beginning. It is not surprising that when Lyly's plays were revived by the Chapel Children in 1597-1600, they could not stand comparison with the work of Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, and other dramatists of the day, but were called "musty fopperies of antiquity." Their work, in bridging from the classic to romantic comedy, as the Drama of Blood bridged from Seneca to real tragedy, was done. Thereafter their main interest must be historical.Previous Editions and the Present Text.—The title of the first quarto (1584) is, "A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes, played before the Queene's Maiestie on twelfe day at night, by her Maiestie's Children, and the Children of Paules. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Cadman, 1584." In the second edition, issued the same year by the same publisher, the title is changed toCampaspe, and the play is said to have been given "on new yeares day at night." The title,Campaspe, was retained in the third quarto, 1591, for William Broome, and in Edward Blount's duodecimo collective edition, 1632. (Manly.) Both, too, state that the play was given "on twelfe-day at night." The headlines of all the quartos readAlexander and Campaspe; of Blount,A tragicall Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe. Besides the quartos and Blount'sSixe Court Comediesthere are these reprints: in Vol. II., Dodsley'sSelect Collection of Old Plays, 1825; in Vol. I.,John Lilly's DramaticWorks, F. W. Fairholt, 1858; in Vol. II.,Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, J. M. Manly, 1897. In the footnotes of the present edition the quartos are indicated by A. B. and C., the other editions by Bl. Do. F. and M. respectively. Blount's text, mainly, is followed. The variant readings of the quartos are given on the authority of Fairholt.George P. Baker.FOOTNOTES:[751]The Introduction toEndimion, Holt & Co., carefully considers the evidence for all these statements.CAMPASPEPlayed before the QueenesMaiestieonTwelfeday at Night:By herMaiestiesChildren, and the ChildrenofPaules.Vignette withmotto:Mollia cum durisLondon,Printed byWilliam Stansby,forEdward Blount.1632.The Persons of the Play[752]Alexander,King of Macedon.Hephestion,his General.Clytus,Warriors.Parmenio,Milectus,Phrygius,Melippus,Chamberlain to Alexander.Aristotle,Philosophers.Diogenes,Crisippus,Crates,Cleanthes,Anaxarchus,Crysus,Apelles,a Painter.Solinus,Citizens of Athens.Sylvius,Perim,Sons of Sylvius.Milo,Trico,Granicus,Servant to Plato.Manes,Servant to Diogenes.Psyllus,Servant to Appelles.Pageto Alexander.Citizens of Athens.Soldiers.Campaspe,Theban Captives.Timoclea,Lais,a Courtezan.SCENE: ATHENS]FOOTNOTES:[752]Do. first gives the list. The two companies were probably united for the Court performance. Thus the doubling of parts, common in the days of Elizabeth, was avoided.THE PROLOGUE ATthe blacke Friers[753]Theythat feare the stinging of waspes make fannes of peacocks tailes, whose spots are like eyes; and Lepidus, which could not sleepe for the chattering of birds, set up a beast whose head was like a dragon;[754]and wee, which stand in awe of report, are compelled to set before our owle Pallas shield,[755]thinking by her vertue5to cover the others deformity. It was a signe of famine to Ægypt when Nylus flowed lesse than twelve cubites or more than eighteene: and it may threaten despaire unto us if wee be lesse courteous than you looke for or more cumbersome. But, as Theseus, being promised to be brought to an eagles nest, and, travailing all the day,10found but a wren in a hedge, yet said, "This is a bird," so, we hope, if the shower[756]of our swelling mountaine seeme[757]to bring forth some elephant, performe but a mouse, you will gently say, "This is a beast." Basill softly touched yieldeth a sweete sent, but chafed in the hand, a ranke savour: we feare, even so, that our15labours slily[758]glanced on will breed some content, but examined tothe proofe, small commendation. The haste in performing shall be our excuse. There went two nights to the begetting of Hercules; feathers appeare not on the Phœnix under seven moneths; and the mulberie is twelve in budding: but our travailes are like the hares,20who at one time bringeth forth, nourisheth, and engendreth againe,[759]or like the brood of Trochilus,[760]whose egges in the same moment that they are laid become birds. But, howsoever we finish our worke, we crave pardon if we offend in matter, and patience if wee transgresse in manners. Wee have mixed mirth with councell, and25discipline with delight, thinking it not amisse in the same garden to sow pot-hearbes that wee set flowers. But wee hope, as harts that cast their hornes, snakes their skins, eagles their bils, become more fresh for any other labour, so, our charge being shaken off, we shall be fit for greater matters. But least, like the Myndians,30wee make our gates greater than our towne,[761]and that our play runs out at the preface, we here conclude,—wishing that although there be in your precise judgements an universall mislike, yet we may enjoy by your wonted courtesies a generall silence.FOOTNOTES:[753]Before 1584 the Chapel Children acted publicly in a Blackfriars' inn-yard. See pp. cxi-cxxxv, Lyly'sEndimion, Holt & Co.[754]"It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."—Pliny,Hist. of World, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.[755]The favor of the Queen. Elizabeth, like Minerva, was called Pallas because of her celibacy. These words, with ll. 12, 13, p. 331, show that the Court performance came first.[756]The author, who presents the play.[757]'Seeming'?[758]'Slightly'? M.[759]Holland, IX. 55; Topsell,Hist. of Four-footed Beasts, 1607, p. 267.[760]A small, plover-like Nile bird.[761]"Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"—Diogenes Laertius,Lives of Philosophers, 1606, VI. 425.The Prologue at the Court.Weare ashamed that our bird, which fluttereth by twilight, seeming a swan, should[762]bee proved a bat, set against the sun. But, as Jupiter placed Silenus asse among the starres, and Alcibiades covered his pictures, being owles and apes, with a curtaine imbroidered with lions and eagles, so are we enforced upon a rough discourse to5draw on a smooth excuse, resembling lapidaries who thinke to hide the cracke in a stone by setting it deepe in gold. The gods supped once with poore Baucis;[763]the Persian kings sometimes shaved stickes; our hope is Your Highnesse wil at this time lend an eare to an idle pastime. Appion, raising Homer from hell, demanded10only who was his father;[764]and we, calling Alexander from his grave, seeke only who was his love. Whatsoever wee present, we wish it may be thought the dancing of Agrippa[765]his shadowes, who, in the moment they were seene, were of any shape one would conceive; or Lynces,[766]who, having a quicke sight to discerne, have a short15memory to forget. With us it is like to fare as with these torches, which giving light to others consume themselves; and we shewing delight to others shame ourselves.FOOTNOTES:[762]'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?[763]Ovid,Meta.III. 631.[764]Holland, XXX. 2.[765]Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits—of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.—Godwin,Lives of Necromancers, 1834, 324-25.[766]Lynxes. "It is thought that of all beastes they seeme most brightly, for the poets faine that their eie-sight pierceth through every solid body, although it be as thicke as a wall.... Although they be long afflicted with hunger, yet when they eate their meate, if they heare any noise, or any other chaunce cause them to turne aboute from their meate, oute of the sight of it, they forgette their prey, notwithstanding their hunger, and go to seeke another booty."—Topsell, 489-492.[Alexander and Campaspe]Actus primus. Scæna prima[767]EnterClitusandParmenio[768]CLYTUS.Parmenio, I cannot tell whether I should more commend in Alexanders victories courage, or courtesie, in the one being a resolution without feare, in the other a liberalitie above custome. Thebes is razed, the people not racked; towers throwne downe, bodies not thrust aside; a conquest5without conflict, and a cruell warre in a milde peace.[769]Par.Clytus, it becommeth the sonne of Philip to bee none other than Alexander is; therefore, seeing in the father a full perfection, who could have doubted in the sonne an excellency? For, as the moone can borrow nothing else of the sunne but light,[770]so of a sire10in whom nothing but vertue was what could the childe receive but singular?[771]It is for turkies to staine each other, not for diamonds; in the one to bee made a difference in goodnesse, in the other no comparison.[772]Clytus.You mistake mee, Parmenio, if, whilest I commend Alexander,15you imagine I call Philip into question; unlesse, happily, you conjecture (which none of judgement will conceive) that because I like the fruit, therefore I heave at the tree, or, coveting to kisse the childe, I therefore goe about to poyson the teat.Par.I, but, Clytus, I perceive you are borne in the east, and20never laugh but at the sunne rising;[773]which argueth, though a dutie where you ought, yet no great devotion where you might.Clytus.We will make no controversie of that [of][774]which there ought to be no question; onely this shall be the opinion of us both, that none was worthy to be the father of Alexander but Philip, nor25any meete to be the sonne of Philip but Alexander.[Enter Soldiers withTimoclea,Campaspe,other captives, and spoils.]Par.Soft, Clytus, behold the spoiles and prisoners! A pleasant sight to us, because profit is joyned with honour; not much painfull to them, because their captivitie is eased by mercie.Timo.[aside]. Fortune, thou didst never yet deceive vertue,30because vertue never yet did trust fortune! Sword and fire will never get spoyle where wisdome and fortitude beares sway. O Thebes, thy wals were raised by the sweetnesse of the harpe,[775]but rased by the shrilnes of the trumpet! Alexander had never come so neer the wals, had Epaminondas walkt about the wals; and yet35might the Thebanes have beene merry in their streets, if hee had beene to watch their towers. But destinie is seldome forseene, never prevented. We are here now captives, whose neckes are voaked by force, but whose hearts cannot yeeld by death.—Come Campaspe and the rest, let us not be ashamed to cast our eyes on40him on whom we feared not to cast our darts.Par.Madame, you need not doubt;[776]it is Alexander that is the conquerour.Timo.Alexander hath overcome, not conquered.Par.To bring all under his subjection is to conquer.45Timo.He cannot subdue that which is divine.Par.Thebes was not.Timo.Vertue is.Clytus.Alexander, as hee tendreth[777]vertue, so hee will you. Hee drinketh not bloud, but thirsteth after honour; hee is greedie of50victorie, but never satisfied with mercie; in fight terrible, as becommeth a captaine; in conquest milde, as beseemeth a king; in all things[778]than which nothing can be greater, hee is Alexander.Camp.Then, if it be such a thing to be Alexander, I hope it shall be no miserable thing to be a virgin. For, if hee save our55honours, it is more than to restore our goods; and rather doe I wish he preserve our fame than our lives: which if he doe, we will confesse there can be no greater thing than to be Alexander.[EnterAlexanderandHephestion.[779]]Alex.Clytus, are these prisoners? Of whence these spoiles?Clytus.Like your Majestie,[780]they are prisoners, and of Thebes.60Alex.Of what calling or reputation?Clytus.I know not, but they seeme to be ladies of honour.Alex.I will know. Madam, of whence you are I know, but who, I cannot tell.Timo.Alexander, I am the sister of Theagines, who fought a65battell with thy father, before the citie of Chieronie,[781]where he died, I say—which none can gainsay—valiantly.[782]Alex.Lady, there seeme in your words sparkes of your brothers deedes, but worser fortune in your life than his death; but feare not, for you shall live without violence, enemies, or necessitie. But70what are you, faire ladie, another sister to Theagines?Camp.No sister to Theagines, but an humble hand-maid to Alexander, born of a meane parentage, but to extreme[783]fortune.Alex.Well, ladies, for so your vertues shew you, whatsoever your births be, you shall be honorably entreated. Athens shall be75your Thebes; and you shall not be as abjects of warre, but as subjectsto Alexander. Parmenio, conduct these honourable ladies into the citie; charge the souldiers not so much as in words to offer them any offence; and let all wants bee supplied so farre forth as shall be necessarie for such persons and my prisoners.80ExeuntParme.[NIO] &captivi.Hephestion,[784]it resteth now that wee have as great care to governe in peace as conquer in warre, that, whilest armes cease, arts may flourish, and, joyning letters with launces, wee endevour to bee as good philosophers as souldiers, knowing it no lesse prayse to bee wise than commendable to be valiant.85Hep.Your Majestie therein sheweth that you have as great desire to rule as to subdue: and needs must that commonwealth be fortunate whose captaine is a philosopher, and whose philosopher a captaine.Exeunt.Actus primus. Scæna secunda[785][Enter]Manes,[786]Granichus,PsyllusManes.I serve in stead of a master a mouse,[787]whose house is a tub, whose dinner is a crust, and whose bed is a boord.Psyllus.Then art thou in a state of life which philosophers commend: a crum for thy supper, an hand for thy cup, and thy clothes for thy sheets; forNatura paucis contenta.5Gran.Manes, it is pitie so proper a man should be cast away upon a philosopher; but that Diogenes, that dogge,[788]should haveManes, that dog-bolt,[789]it grieveth nature and spiteth art: the one having found thee so dissolute—absolute[790]I would say—in bodie, the other so single—singular—in minde.10Manes.Are you merry? It is a signe by the trip of your tongue and the toyes[791]of your head that you have done that to day which I have not done these three dayes.Psyllus.Whats that?Manes.Dined.15Gran.I thinke Diogenes keepes but cold cheare.Manes.I would it were so; but hee keepeth neither hot nor cold.Gran.What then, luke warme? That made Manes runne from his master the last day.[792]20Psyllus.Manes had reason, for his name foretold as much.Manes.My name? How so, sir boy?Psyllus.You know that it is called mons a movendo, because it stands still.Manes.Good.25Psyllus.And thou art named Manesa manendo, because thou runnest away.Manes.Passing[793]reasons! I did not run away, but retire.Psyllus.To a prison, because thou wouldst have leisure to contemplate.30Manes.I will prove that my bodie was immortall because it was in prison.Gran.As how?Manes.Did your masters never teach you that the soule is immortall?35Gran.Yes.Manes.And the bodie is the prison of the soule.Gran.True.Manes.Why then, thus[794]to make my body immortall, I put it in prison.[795]40Gran.Oh, bad!Psyllus.Excellent ill!Manes.You may see how dull a fasting wit is: therefore, Psyllus, let us goe to supper with Granichus. Plato is the best fellow of all philosophers: give me him that reades[796]in the morning in the45schoole, and at noone in the kitchen.Psyllus.And me!Gran.Ah, sirs, my master is a king in his parlour for the body, and a god in his studie for the soule. Among all his men he commendeth one that is an excellent musition; then stand I by and clap50another on the shoulder and say, "This is a passing good cooke."Manes.It is well done Granichus; for give mee pleasure that goes in at the mouth, not the eare,—I had rather fill my guts than my braines.Psyllus.I serve Apelles, who feedeth mee as Diogenes doth55Manes; for at dinner the one preacheth abstinence, the other commendeth counterfaiting[797]: when I would eate meate, he paints a[798]spit; and when I thirst, "O," saith he, "is not this a faire pot?" and pointes to a table[799]which containes the Banquet of the Gods, where are many dishes to feed the eye, but not to fill the gut.60Gran.What doest thou then?Psyllus.This doth hee then: bring in many examples that some have lived by savours; and proveth that much easier it is to fat by colours; and telles of birdes that have been fatted by painted grapes in winter, and how many have so fed their eyes with their mistresse65picture that they never desired to take food, being glutted with the delight in their favours.[800]Then doth he shew me counterfeites,—such as have surfeited, with their filthy and lothsome vomites; and the riotous[801]Bacchanalls of the god Bacchus and his disorderly crew; which are painted all to the life in his shop. To70conclude, I fare hardly, though I goe richly, which maketh me when I should begin to shadow a ladies face, to draw a lambs head, and sometime to set to the body of a maid a shoulder of mutton, forSemper animus meus est in patinis.[802]Manes.Thou art a god to mee; for, could I see but a cookes75shop painted, I would make mine eyes fatte as butter, for I have nought but sentences to fill my maw: as,Plures occidit crapula quam gladius;Musa jejunantibus amica; Repletion killeth delicatly; and an old saw of abstinence by[803]Socrates,—The belly is the heads grave. Thus with sayings, not with meate, he maketh a gallimafray.[804]80Gran.But how doest thou then live?Manes.With fine jests, sweet ayre, and the dogs[805]almes.Gran.Well, for this time I will stanch thy gut, and among pots and platters thou shall see what it is to serve Plato.Psyllus.For joy of it, Granichus, lets sing.85Manes.My voice is as cleare in the evening as in the morning.[806]Gran.An other commoditie of emptines!Song[807]
Backe and syde goo bare, goo bare;Bothe hande and fote goo colde;But, belly, God sende the good ale inoughe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.But yf that I maye have, trwly,Goode ale my belly full,I shall looke lyke one (by swete sainte Johnn)Were shoron agaynste the woole.Thowthe I goo bare, take ye no care,I am nothynge colde.I stuffe my skynne so full withinOf joly good ale and olde.I cannot eate but lytyll meate;My stomacke ys not goode;But sure I thyncke that I cowde drynckeWith hym that werythe an hoode.Dryncke ys my lyfe; although my wyfeSome tyme do chyde and scolde,Yete spare I not to plye the potteOf joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I love no roste but a browne toste,Or a crabbe in the fyer;A lytyll breade shall do me steade,Mooche breade I never desyer.Nor froste, nor snowe, nor wynde, I trow,Canne hurte me yf hyt wolde;I am so wrapped within, and lappedWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I care ryte noughte, I take no thowteFor clothes to kepe me warme;Have I goode dryncke, I surely thynckeNothyng can do me harme.For trwly than I feare no man,Be he never so bolde,When I am armed, and throwly warmedWith joly good ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.But nowe and than I curse and banne;They make ther ale so small!God geve them care, and evill to fare!They strye the malte and all.Soche pevisshe pewe, I tell yowe trwe,Not for a crowne of goldeThere commethe one syppe within my lyppe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.Backe and syde, etc.Good ale and stronge makethe me amongeFull joconde and full lyte,That ofte I slepe, and take no kepeFrom mornynge untyll nyte.Then starte I uppe, and fle to the cuppe;The ryte waye on I holde.My thurste to staunche I fyll my pauncheWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.And Kytte, my wyfe, that as her lyfeLovethe well good ale to seke,Full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye seThe teares ronne downe her cheke.Then dothe she troule to me the bolleAs a goode malte-worme sholde,And say, "Swete harte, I have take my parteOf joly goode ale and olde."Backe and syde, etc.They that do dryncke tylle they nodde and wyncke,Even as good fellowes shulde do,They shall notte mysse to have the blysseThat good ale hathe browghte them to.And all poore soules that skoure blacke bolles,And them hath lustely trowlde,God save the lyves of them and ther wyves,Wether they be yonge or olde!Backe and syde, etc.
Backe and syde goo bare, goo bare;Bothe hande and fote goo colde;But, belly, God sende the good ale inoughe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.But yf that I maye have, trwly,Goode ale my belly full,I shall looke lyke one (by swete sainte Johnn)Were shoron agaynste the woole.Thowthe I goo bare, take ye no care,I am nothynge colde.I stuffe my skynne so full withinOf joly good ale and olde.I cannot eate but lytyll meate;My stomacke ys not goode;But sure I thyncke that I cowde drynckeWith hym that werythe an hoode.Dryncke ys my lyfe; although my wyfeSome tyme do chyde and scolde,Yete spare I not to plye the potteOf joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I love no roste but a browne toste,Or a crabbe in the fyer;A lytyll breade shall do me steade,Mooche breade I never desyer.Nor froste, nor snowe, nor wynde, I trow,Canne hurte me yf hyt wolde;I am so wrapped within, and lappedWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.I care ryte noughte, I take no thowteFor clothes to kepe me warme;Have I goode dryncke, I surely thynckeNothyng can do me harme.For trwly than I feare no man,Be he never so bolde,When I am armed, and throwly warmedWith joly good ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.But nowe and than I curse and banne;They make ther ale so small!God geve them care, and evill to fare!They strye the malte and all.Soche pevisshe pewe, I tell yowe trwe,Not for a crowne of goldeThere commethe one syppe within my lyppe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.Backe and syde, etc.Good ale and stronge makethe me amongeFull joconde and full lyte,That ofte I slepe, and take no kepeFrom mornynge untyll nyte.Then starte I uppe, and fle to the cuppe;The ryte waye on I holde.My thurste to staunche I fyll my pauncheWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.And Kytte, my wyfe, that as her lyfeLovethe well good ale to seke,Full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye seThe teares ronne downe her cheke.Then dothe she troule to me the bolleAs a goode malte-worme sholde,And say, "Swete harte, I have take my parteOf joly goode ale and olde."Backe and syde, etc.They that do dryncke tylle they nodde and wyncke,Even as good fellowes shulde do,They shall notte mysse to have the blysseThat good ale hathe browghte them to.And all poore soules that skoure blacke bolles,And them hath lustely trowlde,God save the lyves of them and ther wyves,Wether they be yonge or olde!Backe and syde, etc.
Backe and syde goo bare, goo bare;Bothe hande and fote goo colde;But, belly, God sende the good ale inoughe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.
Backe and syde goo bare, goo bare;
Bothe hande and fote goo colde;
But, belly, God sende the good ale inoughe,
Whether hyt be newe or olde.
But yf that I maye have, trwly,Goode ale my belly full,I shall looke lyke one (by swete sainte Johnn)Were shoron agaynste the woole.Thowthe I goo bare, take ye no care,I am nothynge colde.I stuffe my skynne so full withinOf joly good ale and olde.
But yf that I maye have, trwly,
Goode ale my belly full,
I shall looke lyke one (by swete sainte Johnn)
Were shoron agaynste the woole.
Thowthe I goo bare, take ye no care,
I am nothynge colde.
I stuffe my skynne so full within
Of joly good ale and olde.
I cannot eate but lytyll meate;My stomacke ys not goode;But sure I thyncke that I cowde drynckeWith hym that werythe an hoode.Dryncke ys my lyfe; although my wyfeSome tyme do chyde and scolde,Yete spare I not to plye the potteOf joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.
I cannot eate but lytyll meate;
My stomacke ys not goode;
But sure I thyncke that I cowde dryncke
With hym that werythe an hoode.
Dryncke ys my lyfe; although my wyfe
Some tyme do chyde and scolde,
Yete spare I not to plye the potte
Of joly goode ale and olde.
Backe and syde, etc.
I love no roste but a browne toste,Or a crabbe in the fyer;A lytyll breade shall do me steade,Mooche breade I never desyer.Nor froste, nor snowe, nor wynde, I trow,Canne hurte me yf hyt wolde;I am so wrapped within, and lappedWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.
I love no roste but a browne toste,
Or a crabbe in the fyer;
A lytyll breade shall do me steade,
Mooche breade I never desyer.
Nor froste, nor snowe, nor wynde, I trow,
Canne hurte me yf hyt wolde;
I am so wrapped within, and lapped
With joly goode ale and olde.
Backe and syde, etc.
I care ryte noughte, I take no thowteFor clothes to kepe me warme;Have I goode dryncke, I surely thynckeNothyng can do me harme.For trwly than I feare no man,Be he never so bolde,When I am armed, and throwly warmedWith joly good ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.
I care ryte noughte, I take no thowte
For clothes to kepe me warme;
Have I goode dryncke, I surely thyncke
Nothyng can do me harme.
For trwly than I feare no man,
Be he never so bolde,
When I am armed, and throwly warmed
With joly good ale and olde.
Backe and syde, etc.
But nowe and than I curse and banne;They make ther ale so small!God geve them care, and evill to fare!They strye the malte and all.Soche pevisshe pewe, I tell yowe trwe,Not for a crowne of goldeThere commethe one syppe within my lyppe,Whether hyt be newe or olde.Backe and syde, etc.
But nowe and than I curse and banne;
They make ther ale so small!
God geve them care, and evill to fare!
They strye the malte and all.
Soche pevisshe pewe, I tell yowe trwe,
Not for a crowne of golde
There commethe one syppe within my lyppe,
Whether hyt be newe or olde.
Backe and syde, etc.
Good ale and stronge makethe me amongeFull joconde and full lyte,That ofte I slepe, and take no kepeFrom mornynge untyll nyte.Then starte I uppe, and fle to the cuppe;The ryte waye on I holde.My thurste to staunche I fyll my pauncheWith joly goode ale and olde.Backe and syde, etc.
Good ale and stronge makethe me amonge
Full joconde and full lyte,
That ofte I slepe, and take no kepe
From mornynge untyll nyte.
Then starte I uppe, and fle to the cuppe;
The ryte waye on I holde.
My thurste to staunche I fyll my paunche
With joly goode ale and olde.
Backe and syde, etc.
And Kytte, my wyfe, that as her lyfeLovethe well good ale to seke,Full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye seThe teares ronne downe her cheke.Then dothe she troule to me the bolleAs a goode malte-worme sholde,And say, "Swete harte, I have take my parteOf joly goode ale and olde."Backe and syde, etc.
And Kytte, my wyfe, that as her lyfe
Lovethe well good ale to seke,
Full ofte drynkythe she that ye maye se
The teares ronne downe her cheke.
Then dothe she troule to me the bolle
As a goode malte-worme sholde,
And say, "Swete harte, I have take my parte
Of joly goode ale and olde."
Backe and syde, etc.
They that do dryncke tylle they nodde and wyncke,Even as good fellowes shulde do,They shall notte mysse to have the blysseThat good ale hathe browghte them to.And all poore soules that skoure blacke bolles,And them hath lustely trowlde,God save the lyves of them and ther wyves,Wether they be yonge or olde!Backe and syde, etc.
They that do dryncke tylle they nodde and wyncke,
Even as good fellowes shulde do,
They shall notte mysse to have the blysse
That good ale hathe browghte them to.
And all poore soules that skoure blacke bolles,
And them hath lustely trowlde,
God save the lyves of them and ther wyves,
Wether they be yonge or olde!
Backe and syde, etc.
John LylyALEXANDER AND CAMPASPEEdited with Critical Essay and Notesby George P. Baker, A.B., Asst.Professor in Harvard University
Edited with Critical Essay and Notesby George P. Baker, A.B., Asst.Professor in Harvard University
Life.—John Lyly was born in Kent between October 8, 1553, and January, 1554. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, 1569, but was almost immediately rusticated. Returning in October, 1571, he was graduated B.A. April 27, 1573. In May, 1574, he wrote unsuccessfully to Lord Burleigh, begging for a fellowship at Magdalen. He proceeded M.A. June 1, 1575, and lived mainly at the Universities till 1579.Euphues, the Anatomie of Wit, appeared between December, 1578, and spring, 1579. Another edition was printed in 1579; twelve others before 1637. InAn Address to the Gentlemen Scholars of Oxford, prefixed to the second, the 1579, edition, he answered a charge of having unfairly criticised Oxford in theAnatomie of Wit. A sequel,Euphues and his England, was licensed July 24, 1579, but did not appear for months. Probably Lyly shared in the disfavour which, from late July, 1579, to July, 1580, the Queen showed the party of Robert Dudley because of his secret marriage with the Countess of Essex.Endimion, probably the first of Lyly's extant comedies, was presented between late July and early November, 1579, as an allegorical treatment of this quarrel. In or near July, 1580, Lyly was "entertained as servant" by the Queen, and was advised to aim at the Mastership of the Revels. By July, 1582, he is to be found in the household of Lord Burleigh. A letter of his was prefixed to Watson'sPassionate Centurie of Love, published 1582. By 1589, possibly earlier, he had become vice-master of St. Paul's choir school. Before 1584 the Chapel Children and the Paul's Boys, for whom he had written, ceased to act. During 1584 hisSapho and Phao, written not long after February 6, 1582, and hisAlexander and Campaspewere printed.Tityrus and Gallathea, licensed in 1584, was not printed till 1592. Probably the main plot was written before 1584, and the sub-plot for a revision of the play in or near 1588. From 1585 Lyly wrote for the Paul's Boys till in or near 1591, when the company was again silent. The Chapel Children were not acting publicly between November, 1584, and 1597. HisMydaswas acted between August, 1588, and November, 1589, and printed in 1592. In August or September, 1589, a pamphlet entitledPappe-with-an-Hatchet, written by him for the High Church party in the Marprelate controversy, made its appearance. HisMother Bombiewas acted in 1589 or 1590, and printed in 1594.Alexander and CampaspeandSapho and Phaowere reprinted in 1591, and in the same yearEndimionwas printed.Gallatheaappeared in 1592. Lyly wrote, in 1590 or 1591, an apparently unsuccessful begging letter to the Queen, and another in 1593 or 1594. He was married by 1589, and he had two sons and one daughter. He was member of Parliament for Hindon in 1589; for Aylesbury in 1593 and 1601; and for Appleby in 1597.The Woman in the Moonewas licensed in 1595, printed in 1597. The quality of the blank verse in this play and the absence of marked Euphuism favour a date of composition in or near 1590.Lillie's Lightwas licensed June 3, 1596. If printed, it is non-extant. He wrote prefatory Latin lines for Henry Lock'sEcclesiastes, otherwise calledThe Preacher, in 1597. In 1597-1600 the Chapel Children revived his plays. TheMaid's Metamorphosis, incorrectly attributed to Lyly, was printed in 1600. HisLove's Metamorphosiswas printed in 1601: it had been written about the time of theGallathea,—before 1584, or between 1588 and 1591. The Protea-Petulius part is probably from a different play, or is a survival in a revision. Lyly died November 30, 1606, and was buried at St. Bartholomew's.[751]
The Place of Euphues in English Literature.—John Lyly was poet, pamphleteer, novelist, and dramatist. As a pamphleteer he is unimportant. As a poet he can best be studied in his plays. It is, then, as novelist and dramatist that he is important. The material of the two parts of theEuphuesmakes it decidedly significant in its own time. It is not, like most of the stories of Greene and Lodge, mere romance, nor, like Nash'sJack Wilton, a tale of adventure phrased with reportorial recklessness. It is a love story in which romance is subordinated to the inculcation of ideas of high living and thinking, and the demands of an involved style. It dimly foreshadows two literary products which reach a development only long after the days of Elizabeth—the novel with a purpose, and the stylistic novel. The appearance of the book was epochal. Young writers of the day—Munday, Greene, Nash, and Lodge—copied its style. Courtiers patterned their speech upon it. Yet Gabriel Harvey was probably right when he ill-naturedly wrote: "Young Euphues but hatched the egges that his elder freendes laide." TheAnatomie, at least, is such a book as a recent university graduate ofthe present day, well read in some of the classics, and especially susceptible to new literary influences and cults, might compile. In the divisionEuphues and His EphœbusLyly uses, with a few omissions and additions, Plutarch onEducation; in the letter to Botonio he translates Plutarch onExile. In the partEuphues and Atheoshe is indebted to chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 of theDial of Princes(1529) by Antonio de Guevara, Bishop of Guadix and Mendoza. Euphues and Lucilla debate "dubii," or artificial discussions of set questions, such as one finds in Hortensio Lando or Castiglione. There is, too, almost constant use of the unnatural natural history of Pliny. All this material is bound together by a style which, though it may ultimately be traced to the rounded periods of Cicero, had developed slowly in writers of the Renaissance and the years just beforeEuphuesappeared. George Pettie, for instance, in hisPettie Palace of Pettie His Pleasure, published in 1576, has all the stylistic characteristics of theEuphuesexcept the fabulous natural history. It is, however, to Guevara in theDial of Princesthat Lyly is thought to be particularly indebted for his style. This man used "lavishly the well-known figures of pointed antithesis and parisonic balanced clauses, in connection with a general climactic structure of the sentence or period, the emphatic or antithetic words being marked by rhyme or assonance." Lyly substitutes for rhyme alliteration, and adds persistent play on words. The book is genuinely Renaissance, then, for, looking to classic literature for much of its substance, it expresses itself in a style that typifies an intellectual mood of the hour.
Lyly's Plays: their Subdivision.—Just before 1580 the acting of choir boys was in great favour with the Queen and, as a consequence, with the public. The boys of Westminster, Windsor, the Chapel Royal, and St. Paul's were often summoned to court. For the last two companies, with whom acting became a profession, Lyly wrote his plays. These divide into four classes. The allegorical comedies, in which what is alluded to is as important as what is said, areEndimion,Sapho and Phao, andMydas.Endimion, perhaps the most complete example of Lyly's allegorical comedy, presents the apology of Leicester to the Queen for his secret marriage with Lettice, Countess of Essex.Sapho and Phaois full ofallusions to the coquetting of the Queen with the Duc d'Alençon and his wrathful departure from England in February, 1582.Mydasallegorises—though with less detail than the others—as to the designs of Philip II. on the English throne, and the Spanish Armada.Gallathea,Love's Metamorphosis, andThe Woman in the Mooneform a second class—pastoral comedies. They are allegorical only when some figure is given qualities which the Queen was fond of hearing praised as hers.Mother Bombie, standing alone as a comedy on the model of Plautus, has a much more involved plot than any of the other plays. Finally, also in a class by itself, isAlexander and Campaspe.
In this, as in all the comedies exceptMother BombieandLove's Metamorphosis, Lyly used classic myth for his chief material. Yet he but followed a custom of the day, for most of the plays given at court between 1570 and 1590 by the children's companies were based on such material: for instance,Iphigenia,Narcissus,Alcmæon,Quintus Fabius, andScipio Africanus. These subjects seem to have been treated as pastorals, histories, and possibly allegories. Lyly rejected inAlexander and Campaspethe allegorical and the pastoral form, and told rather naïvely, except in style, the story of the love of Alexander and Apelles for Campaspe, repeating in his sub-plot many historic retorts of Diogenes. In details of method Lyly seems to have had a precursor. Richard Edwardes (born 1523, died 1566) in hisDamon and Pythias, printed in 1582, but usually assigned to 1564, wrote in a way very suggestive of Lyly inAlexander and Campaspe. He disclaimed in his prologue intention of referring to any court except that of Dionysius at Syracuse; introduced lyrics; gave Aristippus the philosopher an important place; inveighed against flattery at the court; brought in the comic episode of Grim the collier without connection with the main plot, just as Lyly often introduces his comic material; and derived the fun of this scene mainly from two impudent pages. Certainly it would have been natural for Lyly, early in his career, to look to the plays of a former prominent master of the Chapel Children.
Alexander and Campaspe: Date, Sources.—The exact date ofAlexander and Campaspeit seems impossible to determine. It was written before April, 1584, for it was licensed for printing inthat month. The facts that similes and references inEuphuesare found in it, and that the work—here of a kind which Lyly never exactly repeats—resembles the earlyDamon and Pythiassuggest thatAlexander and Campaspebelongs early in his dramatic career. It has been held that it should precedeEndimion, but the allegory in that play; the fact that Blount, who placesSapho and Phao,Gallathea,Mydas, andMother Bombiein the order approved by the most recent criticism, puts it second; and the better characterization, more natural dialogue, and slightly closer binding together of the main and the sub-plot, argue for the second place.
The play, like theAnatomie of Wit, is a composite. The main plot—the story of Apelles and Campaspe—Lyly found in Book 35 of Pliny'sHistory of the World. His setting he took from Plutarch'sLife of Alexander. That, too, gave him the siege of Thebes, Timoclea, some of the philosophers' names, most of their speeches, the generals, and Hephestion, and probably suggested the possibilities of Diogenes as a comic figure. The material for the scenes of the Cynic, and the name Manes, he found in theLives of the Philosophersby Diogenes Laertius.
Literary Estimate.—In the extant plays from 1550 to 1580 love has but a subordinate part. InAlexander and Campaspe, however, as in all the Lyly comedies, the central idea is that of nearly all the great plays of the Elizabethan drama—the love of man for woman. Doubtless the subject appealed to Lyly especially because in the self-abnegation of Alexander the Queen might choose to see a compliment to her final position toward Leicester and the Countess of Essex. Diogenes he used in order to get comic relief. That Lyly's comedies are comparatively free from vulgarity is probably because they were given by children before the Queen and her ladies. Possibly the youth of the actors is the reason for the absence of strong emotional expression, but it is more probable that the temperament of the author is responsible. It is hard to believe that a dramatist who felt keenly emotional possibilities in his material could have passed by Timoclea so rapidly, for in Plutarch she has all the requisites of the heroine in a Beaumont and Fletcher play. Nor would such a dramatist have made so little of the struggle of Alexander between infatuation and the desire to regain his accustomedself-command. Lyly's position toward his work is like that of the early writers of chronicle-history plays. He does not depend on selecting the most characteristic situations and speeches, on supplying missing motives, on unification of material which history has passed down in somewhat disordered fashion, but on repeating as many as possible of the situations and speeches associated with the names. Like those writers, too, he makes no attempt to get behind his material, to see its interrelations and its dramatic significance as a whole.
Some allowance, however, must be made for faults in this play, for the Prologue states that it was hastily written. The comedy itself shows that Lyly planned as he wrote. The opening scene of the play leaves one to suppose that Timoclea, who, rather than Campaspe, is the chief female speaker, is to play an important part. She never appears again, and is mentioned but once. Later parts of the play call for some manifestation, in this first scene, of Campaspe's intense fascination for Alexander, but there is nothing of the kind. Nor does the action in any later scene really prepare for Alexander's self-reproaches for his mad infatuation. Until late in the play, when Lyly speaks of Campaspe as Alexander's concubine, a reader is not even entirely clear as to their relations. Perhaps some of this lack of clearness and sequence may result because the Timoclea part, at least, of the first scene is a survival from an older play. In theAccounts of the Revels at Court, under an entry for expenditures between January and February, 1573(4), "One Playe showen at Hampton Coorte before her Maᵗⁱᵉ by Mr. Munkester's Children" (Mulcaster's of the Merchant Taylors' School) is mentioned. Interlined are the words: "Timoclia at the Sege of Thebes by Alexander."
The movement of the comedy is episodic. The clever little pages bind the scenes together; Alexander connects the incidents of the main story; but too often, especially in the sub-plot, the action is not prepared for, and does not lead to anything. Nor does Lyly care much for climax. The Diogenes sub-plot does not end; it is dropped just before the main story closes. The great dramatic possibilities of the final scene are practically thrown away. It is significant that they could be developed only by a hand whichcould paint vividly the contest of a soul, the gradual reascendency of old motives, and manly renunciation.
Growth in character Lyly does not understand. As a rule his figures are types rather than many-sided human beings. Nor are the types always self-consistent. All the nobility of Alexander's renunciation disappears when he says: "Go, Apelles, take with you your Campaspe; Alexander is cloyed with looking on that which thou wond'rest at." In general, Lyly is too ready to depend on the way in which his figures speak rather than on truth to life in what they speak. In the retorts of Apelles as he talks with Alexander of his work, there is, of course, something of the real artist's pride in his art and irritation at royal omniscience. There is characterization, too, in many of the speeches of Diogenes, but in both of these instances Lyly is either quoting or paraphrasing. Campaspe, it is true, is almost a character, and slightly anticipates the arch heroines of Shakespeare. Hers are coquettishness, womanly charm. In her scene with Apelles in the studio (Act IV. scene 2), the underlying passion of both almost breaks through the frigid medium of expression. The pages may doubtless be traced back to the witty, graceless slaves of Latin comedy, and more immediately to precursors in the work of Edwardes, but Lyly adds so much individuality and humour that they are a real accession in the history of the drama. Moreover, many of his figures often comment incisively on customs and follies of the time, preparing for the later comedy of manners.
No preceding play is so full of charming and lasting lyrics. In all his comedies exceptThe Woman in the Moone, Lyly writes neither in the usual jingling rhymes nor the infrequently used blank verse, but in prose. He shows the men of his day new possibilities in dialogue; for though his artificial style prevents easy characterisation, it does not keep him from effective repartee and a closer representation of the give and take of real conversation than was possible with the rhyming lines, or with blank verse as it was handled in his day. Probably, however, the greatest importance of this play for the student of Elizabethan drama is the way it shows interest in a romantic story breaking through classic material and Renaissance expression, thus anticipating the romantic dramaof 1587. Clearly, then, the merits ofAlexander and Campaspeare literary and historical, not dramatic.
Lyly's Development as a Dramatist.—That Lyly worked, however, steadily toward more genuine drama becomes clear if one reads his plays in order. In all he shows classical influence by his choice of subject, or by constant allusion, but he is not a scholar in the sense of Jonson or Chapman. He is well read in certain authors—Ovid, particularly theMetamorphoses, Plutarch, Pliny, perhaps Lucian; he has at his tongue's end many stock Latin quotations, and delights in misquoting or paraphrasing for the sake of a pun, sure that the quick-witted courtiers will recognize the originals. Classical in construction he certainly is not. His interest is to find a pretty love story which gives opportunities for dramatic surprises and complications, effective groupings, graceful dances, and dainty lyrics. He is fertile in finding interesting figures to bring upon the stage—the fairies ofEndimion, the fiddlers ofMother Bombie, the shepherds ofLove's Metamorphosis. If one examines the only two plays of his which lack the contrasting comic under-plot,—Love's Metamorphosis, andThe Woman in the Moone,—it becomes clear that they are pastorals or masques. Even the other plays owe to their sub-plots the right to be called comedies. By choice of topics and by temperament, then, Lyly is a writer of masques.
At first he developed his two plots side by side, as inEndimion. One is used simply to relieve the other, or to fill time-spaces necessary between incidents of the main plot. Later, he joins the two slightly by letting figures in the sub-plot refer to incidents of the main story. InMother Bombiehe brings the groups together formally two or three times, and closes the play with nearly all the characters on the stage. In his last comedy,The Woman in the Moone, he discards contrasted plots, and tries to get his effects from one large group of figures. Even if his success in meeting his problem is not great, the mere recognition of it is significant. Yet it cannot be said that he ever becomes a good plotter, for he is always willing to bring in anywhere new people, new interests, or even, as inMydas, to shift to a new plot midway. InMother Bombie, when the climax of complication is reached in the meeting of the disguised Accius and Silena and their fathers, Lyly is unable tomaster the difficulties of the situation. He lets the two reveal themselves tamely, confusingly, before he has had anything like the potential fun out of the scene. Usually the plays ramble gently on till Lyly thinks the audience must have enough; then thedeus ex machinaappears, and all ends. Climax in closing he seems not to try for, but is content to end with a telling phrase.
In characterization his work varies. In the allegories he wishes merely to suggest well-known figures; distinct, final characterization would be out of place, even dangerous. In the pastoral-masques, the land of fantasy, the lines of characterization need not be sharply drawn. But even if one looks atMother Bombieand the sub-plots of the plays, one sees that though there is perhaps a slight gain in portraying the figures, the people are too often significant for the way in which they talk rather than for action or characterizing speech. When Lyly attempts strong presentation of crucial moments or pathos, he stammers, or is particularly conventional.
As he develops, he modifies the eccentricities of his style. Nor is it probable that the passing of the popular enthusiasm for Euphuism is wholly responsible for this. He had the good sense to see the superiority of prose to verse as the expression of comedy, and he must have felt how much his rigidly artificial style cramped him. InMother Bombie, 1589-91, Euphuism is well-nigh gone. In its place we have a style in which characterized dialogue is more possible and more evident. InThe Woman in the Moonethe exigencies of verse are too much for Euphuism, and it practically disappears.
Very slowly, then, Lyly was working toward a drama of simple characterizing dialogue, more unified, and at the same time more complex. Even as he worked, however, Kyd, Greene, and Marlowe swept by to accomplishment impossible for him under any conditions.
His Place in English Comedy.—John Lyly is not merely, then, as has been too often suggested, a scholar "picking fancies out of books (with) little else to marvel at." He was keenly alive to foreign and domestic influences at work about him. His use of what other men offer foreshadows the marvellous assimilative power ofShakespeare. He seems to retain and apply with freedom all the similes and illustrations that come in his way; many are not to be hunted down except in out-of-the-way corners of the books best known to him. Only a man of poetic feeling would have cared to work in these allegories and pastorals. Humorous he is in the scenes of the pages. Here and there, as in some of the replies of Apelles to Alexander, and in the words of Parmenio on the rising sun (Act I, scene 1), there is caustic irony. Lyly is a thinker, too, and a critic, as his frequent satire of existing social customs or follies shows. Now and then he is fearless; for instance, in his portrayal before the Queen of the artist's contempt for royal assumption of knowledge (Act III, scene 4), and in his comment on the impossibility of happy love between a subject and a monarch (Act IV, scene 4). His allegories show best his ingenuity and inventiveness. His mastery of involved phrasing is indubitable.
Without doubt, however, his attitude toward his work is more that of the scholar than the poet or dramatist. His work is imitation of others who seem to him models, with the main attention on style. He has the inventiveness of the dramatist, but not his instinct for technique or recognition of the possibilities of a story and care in working them out. He never says a thing for himself if he can find it anywhere in a recognized author. In this, however, he shared in the mood of Spenser and his group. Indeed, a little comparison of Lyly with Spenser will show that, though in accomplishment he is far below the poet, he expresses in his comedies the historical influences, the existing intellectual conditions, and the literary aspirations which Spenser phrases in his early work. It is in poetic power, in imaginative sweep, that the two separate widely.
Yet Lyly, drawing on what preceded and what surrounded him, did more than express the literary mood and desires of his day. Through him the lyric in the drama came to Dekker, Jonson, and Shakespeare, more dainty and more varied. He broke the way for later men to use prose as the means of expression for comedy. He gave them suggestions for clever dialogue. At a time of loose and hurried dramatic writing he showed that literary finish might well accompany such composition. His pages are the prototypes of theboys and servants in Peele, Chapman, Jonson, and Shakespeare. In a small way he foreshadowed the comedy of manners. For as close a relationship between the drama and politics as we find in his allegories, we must look to the declining days of the Jacobean drama—to Middleton'sGame of Chess. The romantic spirit found expression in him, not in a drama of blood, but in pastorals and masques which look forward to the masques of Jonson, toLove's Labour's Lost,Midsummer Night's Dream, andAs You Like It. His influence on the highly sensitized mind of Shakespeare may be traced in many lines and scenes.
His vogue as a dramatist was short. By 1590 the boisterous, romantic drama, the often inchoate chronicle history, both frequently accompanied by scenes of would-be comic horse-play, engrossed public attention. The great period of experimentation with both old and crude forms was beginning. It is not surprising that when Lyly's plays were revived by the Chapel Children in 1597-1600, they could not stand comparison with the work of Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, and other dramatists of the day, but were called "musty fopperies of antiquity." Their work, in bridging from the classic to romantic comedy, as the Drama of Blood bridged from Seneca to real tragedy, was done. Thereafter their main interest must be historical.
Previous Editions and the Present Text.—The title of the first quarto (1584) is, "A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes, played before the Queene's Maiestie on twelfe day at night, by her Maiestie's Children, and the Children of Paules. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Cadman, 1584." In the second edition, issued the same year by the same publisher, the title is changed toCampaspe, and the play is said to have been given "on new yeares day at night." The title,Campaspe, was retained in the third quarto, 1591, for William Broome, and in Edward Blount's duodecimo collective edition, 1632. (Manly.) Both, too, state that the play was given "on twelfe-day at night." The headlines of all the quartos readAlexander and Campaspe; of Blount,A tragicall Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe. Besides the quartos and Blount'sSixe Court Comediesthere are these reprints: in Vol. II., Dodsley'sSelect Collection of Old Plays, 1825; in Vol. I.,John Lilly's DramaticWorks, F. W. Fairholt, 1858; in Vol. II.,Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, J. M. Manly, 1897. In the footnotes of the present edition the quartos are indicated by A. B. and C., the other editions by Bl. Do. F. and M. respectively. Blount's text, mainly, is followed. The variant readings of the quartos are given on the authority of Fairholt.
George P. Baker.
FOOTNOTES:[751]The Introduction toEndimion, Holt & Co., carefully considers the evidence for all these statements.
[751]The Introduction toEndimion, Holt & Co., carefully considers the evidence for all these statements.
[751]The Introduction toEndimion, Holt & Co., carefully considers the evidence for all these statements.
CAMPASPEPlayed before the QueenesMaiestieonTwelfeday at Night:By herMaiestiesChildren, and the ChildrenofPaules.Vignette withmotto:Mollia cum durisLondon,Printed byWilliam Stansby,forEdward Blount.1632.
Played before the QueenesMaiestieonTwelfeday at Night:
By herMaiestiesChildren, and the ChildrenofPaules.
Vignette withmotto:Mollia cum duris
Vignette withmotto:Mollia cum duris
London,Printed byWilliam Stansby,forEdward Blount.1632.
SCENE: ATHENS]
FOOTNOTES:[752]Do. first gives the list. The two companies were probably united for the Court performance. Thus the doubling of parts, common in the days of Elizabeth, was avoided.
[752]Do. first gives the list. The two companies were probably united for the Court performance. Thus the doubling of parts, common in the days of Elizabeth, was avoided.
[752]Do. first gives the list. The two companies were probably united for the Court performance. Thus the doubling of parts, common in the days of Elizabeth, was avoided.
Theythat feare the stinging of waspes make fannes of peacocks tailes, whose spots are like eyes; and Lepidus, which could not sleepe for the chattering of birds, set up a beast whose head was like a dragon;[754]and wee, which stand in awe of report, are compelled to set before our owle Pallas shield,[755]thinking by her vertue5to cover the others deformity. It was a signe of famine to Ægypt when Nylus flowed lesse than twelve cubites or more than eighteene: and it may threaten despaire unto us if wee be lesse courteous than you looke for or more cumbersome. But, as Theseus, being promised to be brought to an eagles nest, and, travailing all the day,10found but a wren in a hedge, yet said, "This is a bird," so, we hope, if the shower[756]of our swelling mountaine seeme[757]to bring forth some elephant, performe but a mouse, you will gently say, "This is a beast." Basill softly touched yieldeth a sweete sent, but chafed in the hand, a ranke savour: we feare, even so, that our15labours slily[758]glanced on will breed some content, but examined tothe proofe, small commendation. The haste in performing shall be our excuse. There went two nights to the begetting of Hercules; feathers appeare not on the Phœnix under seven moneths; and the mulberie is twelve in budding: but our travailes are like the hares,20who at one time bringeth forth, nourisheth, and engendreth againe,[759]or like the brood of Trochilus,[760]whose egges in the same moment that they are laid become birds. But, howsoever we finish our worke, we crave pardon if we offend in matter, and patience if wee transgresse in manners. Wee have mixed mirth with councell, and25discipline with delight, thinking it not amisse in the same garden to sow pot-hearbes that wee set flowers. But wee hope, as harts that cast their hornes, snakes their skins, eagles their bils, become more fresh for any other labour, so, our charge being shaken off, we shall be fit for greater matters. But least, like the Myndians,30wee make our gates greater than our towne,[761]and that our play runs out at the preface, we here conclude,—wishing that although there be in your precise judgements an universall mislike, yet we may enjoy by your wonted courtesies a generall silence.
FOOTNOTES:[753]Before 1584 the Chapel Children acted publicly in a Blackfriars' inn-yard. See pp. cxi-cxxxv, Lyly'sEndimion, Holt & Co.[754]"It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."—Pliny,Hist. of World, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.[755]The favor of the Queen. Elizabeth, like Minerva, was called Pallas because of her celibacy. These words, with ll. 12, 13, p. 331, show that the Court performance came first.[756]The author, who presents the play.[757]'Seeming'?[758]'Slightly'? M.[759]Holland, IX. 55; Topsell,Hist. of Four-footed Beasts, 1607, p. 267.[760]A small, plover-like Nile bird.[761]"Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"—Diogenes Laertius,Lives of Philosophers, 1606, VI. 425.
[753]Before 1584 the Chapel Children acted publicly in a Blackfriars' inn-yard. See pp. cxi-cxxxv, Lyly'sEndimion, Holt & Co.
[753]Before 1584 the Chapel Children acted publicly in a Blackfriars' inn-yard. See pp. cxi-cxxxv, Lyly'sEndimion, Holt & Co.
[754]"It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."—Pliny,Hist. of World, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.
[754]"It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."—Pliny,Hist. of World, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.
[755]The favor of the Queen. Elizabeth, like Minerva, was called Pallas because of her celibacy. These words, with ll. 12, 13, p. 331, show that the Court performance came first.
[755]The favor of the Queen. Elizabeth, like Minerva, was called Pallas because of her celibacy. These words, with ll. 12, 13, p. 331, show that the Court performance came first.
[756]The author, who presents the play.
[756]The author, who presents the play.
[757]'Seeming'?
[757]'Seeming'?
[758]'Slightly'? M.
[758]'Slightly'? M.
[759]Holland, IX. 55; Topsell,Hist. of Four-footed Beasts, 1607, p. 267.
[759]Holland, IX. 55; Topsell,Hist. of Four-footed Beasts, 1607, p. 267.
[760]A small, plover-like Nile bird.
[760]A small, plover-like Nile bird.
[761]"Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"—Diogenes Laertius,Lives of Philosophers, 1606, VI. 425.
[761]"Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"—Diogenes Laertius,Lives of Philosophers, 1606, VI. 425.
Weare ashamed that our bird, which fluttereth by twilight, seeming a swan, should[762]bee proved a bat, set against the sun. But, as Jupiter placed Silenus asse among the starres, and Alcibiades covered his pictures, being owles and apes, with a curtaine imbroidered with lions and eagles, so are we enforced upon a rough discourse to5draw on a smooth excuse, resembling lapidaries who thinke to hide the cracke in a stone by setting it deepe in gold. The gods supped once with poore Baucis;[763]the Persian kings sometimes shaved stickes; our hope is Your Highnesse wil at this time lend an eare to an idle pastime. Appion, raising Homer from hell, demanded10only who was his father;[764]and we, calling Alexander from his grave, seeke only who was his love. Whatsoever wee present, we wish it may be thought the dancing of Agrippa[765]his shadowes, who, in the moment they were seene, were of any shape one would conceive; or Lynces,[766]who, having a quicke sight to discerne, have a short15memory to forget. With us it is like to fare as with these torches, which giving light to others consume themselves; and we shewing delight to others shame ourselves.
FOOTNOTES:[762]'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?[763]Ovid,Meta.III. 631.[764]Holland, XXX. 2.[765]Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits—of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.—Godwin,Lives of Necromancers, 1834, 324-25.[766]Lynxes. "It is thought that of all beastes they seeme most brightly, for the poets faine that their eie-sight pierceth through every solid body, although it be as thicke as a wall.... Although they be long afflicted with hunger, yet when they eate their meate, if they heare any noise, or any other chaunce cause them to turne aboute from their meate, oute of the sight of it, they forgette their prey, notwithstanding their hunger, and go to seeke another booty."—Topsell, 489-492.
[762]'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?
[762]'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?
[763]Ovid,Meta.III. 631.
[763]Ovid,Meta.III. 631.
[764]Holland, XXX. 2.
[764]Holland, XXX. 2.
[765]Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits—of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.—Godwin,Lives of Necromancers, 1834, 324-25.
[765]Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits—of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.—Godwin,Lives of Necromancers, 1834, 324-25.
[766]Lynxes. "It is thought that of all beastes they seeme most brightly, for the poets faine that their eie-sight pierceth through every solid body, although it be as thicke as a wall.... Although they be long afflicted with hunger, yet when they eate their meate, if they heare any noise, or any other chaunce cause them to turne aboute from their meate, oute of the sight of it, they forgette their prey, notwithstanding their hunger, and go to seeke another booty."—Topsell, 489-492.
[766]Lynxes. "It is thought that of all beastes they seeme most brightly, for the poets faine that their eie-sight pierceth through every solid body, although it be as thicke as a wall.... Although they be long afflicted with hunger, yet when they eate their meate, if they heare any noise, or any other chaunce cause them to turne aboute from their meate, oute of the sight of it, they forgette their prey, notwithstanding their hunger, and go to seeke another booty."—Topsell, 489-492.
[Alexander and Campaspe]
EnterClitusandParmenio[768]
CLYTUS.Parmenio, I cannot tell whether I should more commend in Alexanders victories courage, or courtesie, in the one being a resolution without feare, in the other a liberalitie above custome. Thebes is razed, the people not racked; towers throwne downe, bodies not thrust aside; a conquest5without conflict, and a cruell warre in a milde peace.[769]
Par.Clytus, it becommeth the sonne of Philip to bee none other than Alexander is; therefore, seeing in the father a full perfection, who could have doubted in the sonne an excellency? For, as the moone can borrow nothing else of the sunne but light,[770]so of a sire10in whom nothing but vertue was what could the childe receive but singular?[771]It is for turkies to staine each other, not for diamonds; in the one to bee made a difference in goodnesse, in the other no comparison.[772]
Clytus.You mistake mee, Parmenio, if, whilest I commend Alexander,15you imagine I call Philip into question; unlesse, happily, you conjecture (which none of judgement will conceive) that because I like the fruit, therefore I heave at the tree, or, coveting to kisse the childe, I therefore goe about to poyson the teat.
Par.I, but, Clytus, I perceive you are borne in the east, and20never laugh but at the sunne rising;[773]which argueth, though a dutie where you ought, yet no great devotion where you might.
Clytus.We will make no controversie of that [of][774]which there ought to be no question; onely this shall be the opinion of us both, that none was worthy to be the father of Alexander but Philip, nor25any meete to be the sonne of Philip but Alexander.
[Enter Soldiers withTimoclea,Campaspe,other captives, and spoils.]
Par.Soft, Clytus, behold the spoiles and prisoners! A pleasant sight to us, because profit is joyned with honour; not much painfull to them, because their captivitie is eased by mercie.
Timo.[aside]. Fortune, thou didst never yet deceive vertue,30because vertue never yet did trust fortune! Sword and fire will never get spoyle where wisdome and fortitude beares sway. O Thebes, thy wals were raised by the sweetnesse of the harpe,[775]but rased by the shrilnes of the trumpet! Alexander had never come so neer the wals, had Epaminondas walkt about the wals; and yet35might the Thebanes have beene merry in their streets, if hee had beene to watch their towers. But destinie is seldome forseene, never prevented. We are here now captives, whose neckes are voaked by force, but whose hearts cannot yeeld by death.—Come Campaspe and the rest, let us not be ashamed to cast our eyes on40him on whom we feared not to cast our darts.
Par.Madame, you need not doubt;[776]it is Alexander that is the conquerour.
Timo.Alexander hath overcome, not conquered.
Par.To bring all under his subjection is to conquer.45
Timo.He cannot subdue that which is divine.
Par.Thebes was not.
Timo.Vertue is.
Clytus.Alexander, as hee tendreth[777]vertue, so hee will you. Hee drinketh not bloud, but thirsteth after honour; hee is greedie of50victorie, but never satisfied with mercie; in fight terrible, as becommeth a captaine; in conquest milde, as beseemeth a king; in all things[778]than which nothing can be greater, hee is Alexander.
Camp.Then, if it be such a thing to be Alexander, I hope it shall be no miserable thing to be a virgin. For, if hee save our55honours, it is more than to restore our goods; and rather doe I wish he preserve our fame than our lives: which if he doe, we will confesse there can be no greater thing than to be Alexander.
[EnterAlexanderandHephestion.[779]]
Alex.Clytus, are these prisoners? Of whence these spoiles?
Clytus.Like your Majestie,[780]they are prisoners, and of Thebes.60
Alex.Of what calling or reputation?
Clytus.I know not, but they seeme to be ladies of honour.
Alex.I will know. Madam, of whence you are I know, but who, I cannot tell.
Timo.Alexander, I am the sister of Theagines, who fought a65battell with thy father, before the citie of Chieronie,[781]where he died, I say—which none can gainsay—valiantly.[782]
Alex.Lady, there seeme in your words sparkes of your brothers deedes, but worser fortune in your life than his death; but feare not, for you shall live without violence, enemies, or necessitie. But70what are you, faire ladie, another sister to Theagines?
Camp.No sister to Theagines, but an humble hand-maid to Alexander, born of a meane parentage, but to extreme[783]fortune.
Alex.Well, ladies, for so your vertues shew you, whatsoever your births be, you shall be honorably entreated. Athens shall be75your Thebes; and you shall not be as abjects of warre, but as subjectsto Alexander. Parmenio, conduct these honourable ladies into the citie; charge the souldiers not so much as in words to offer them any offence; and let all wants bee supplied so farre forth as shall be necessarie for such persons and my prisoners.80
ExeuntParme.[NIO] &captivi.
Hephestion,[784]it resteth now that wee have as great care to governe in peace as conquer in warre, that, whilest armes cease, arts may flourish, and, joyning letters with launces, wee endevour to bee as good philosophers as souldiers, knowing it no lesse prayse to bee wise than commendable to be valiant.85
Hep.Your Majestie therein sheweth that you have as great desire to rule as to subdue: and needs must that commonwealth be fortunate whose captaine is a philosopher, and whose philosopher a captaine.
Exeunt.
[Enter]Manes,[786]Granichus,Psyllus
Manes.I serve in stead of a master a mouse,[787]whose house is a tub, whose dinner is a crust, and whose bed is a boord.
Psyllus.Then art thou in a state of life which philosophers commend: a crum for thy supper, an hand for thy cup, and thy clothes for thy sheets; forNatura paucis contenta.5
Gran.Manes, it is pitie so proper a man should be cast away upon a philosopher; but that Diogenes, that dogge,[788]should haveManes, that dog-bolt,[789]it grieveth nature and spiteth art: the one having found thee so dissolute—absolute[790]I would say—in bodie, the other so single—singular—in minde.10
Manes.Are you merry? It is a signe by the trip of your tongue and the toyes[791]of your head that you have done that to day which I have not done these three dayes.
Psyllus.Whats that?
Manes.Dined.15
Gran.I thinke Diogenes keepes but cold cheare.
Manes.I would it were so; but hee keepeth neither hot nor cold.
Gran.What then, luke warme? That made Manes runne from his master the last day.[792]20
Psyllus.Manes had reason, for his name foretold as much.
Manes.My name? How so, sir boy?
Psyllus.You know that it is called mons a movendo, because it stands still.
Manes.Good.25
Psyllus.And thou art named Manesa manendo, because thou runnest away.
Manes.Passing[793]reasons! I did not run away, but retire.
Psyllus.To a prison, because thou wouldst have leisure to contemplate.30
Manes.I will prove that my bodie was immortall because it was in prison.
Gran.As how?
Manes.Did your masters never teach you that the soule is immortall?35
Gran.Yes.
Manes.And the bodie is the prison of the soule.
Gran.True.
Manes.Why then, thus[794]to make my body immortall, I put it in prison.[795]40
Gran.Oh, bad!
Psyllus.Excellent ill!
Manes.You may see how dull a fasting wit is: therefore, Psyllus, let us goe to supper with Granichus. Plato is the best fellow of all philosophers: give me him that reades[796]in the morning in the45schoole, and at noone in the kitchen.
Psyllus.And me!
Gran.Ah, sirs, my master is a king in his parlour for the body, and a god in his studie for the soule. Among all his men he commendeth one that is an excellent musition; then stand I by and clap50another on the shoulder and say, "This is a passing good cooke."
Manes.It is well done Granichus; for give mee pleasure that goes in at the mouth, not the eare,—I had rather fill my guts than my braines.
Psyllus.I serve Apelles, who feedeth mee as Diogenes doth55Manes; for at dinner the one preacheth abstinence, the other commendeth counterfaiting[797]: when I would eate meate, he paints a[798]spit; and when I thirst, "O," saith he, "is not this a faire pot?" and pointes to a table[799]which containes the Banquet of the Gods, where are many dishes to feed the eye, but not to fill the gut.60
Gran.What doest thou then?
Psyllus.This doth hee then: bring in many examples that some have lived by savours; and proveth that much easier it is to fat by colours; and telles of birdes that have been fatted by painted grapes in winter, and how many have so fed their eyes with their mistresse65picture that they never desired to take food, being glutted with the delight in their favours.[800]Then doth he shew me counterfeites,—such as have surfeited, with their filthy and lothsome vomites; and the riotous[801]Bacchanalls of the god Bacchus and his disorderly crew; which are painted all to the life in his shop. To70conclude, I fare hardly, though I goe richly, which maketh me when I should begin to shadow a ladies face, to draw a lambs head, and sometime to set to the body of a maid a shoulder of mutton, forSemper animus meus est in patinis.[802]
Manes.Thou art a god to mee; for, could I see but a cookes75shop painted, I would make mine eyes fatte as butter, for I have nought but sentences to fill my maw: as,Plures occidit crapula quam gladius;Musa jejunantibus amica; Repletion killeth delicatly; and an old saw of abstinence by[803]Socrates,—The belly is the heads grave. Thus with sayings, not with meate, he maketh a gallimafray.[804]80
Gran.But how doest thou then live?
Manes.With fine jests, sweet ayre, and the dogs[805]almes.
Gran.Well, for this time I will stanch thy gut, and among pots and platters thou shall see what it is to serve Plato.
Psyllus.For joy of it, Granichus, lets sing.85
Manes.My voice is as cleare in the evening as in the morning.[806]
Gran.An other commoditie of emptines!
Song[807]