C. Custance. Faith rather than to mary with such a doltish

loute, I woulde match my selfe with a begger out of doute.
Af. Mery. Then I can say no more, to speede wc arc not like. Except ye rappe out a ragge of your Rhetorikc.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 163
But Royster Doyster, failing in grace, resolves to try terror, and, egged on by the treacherous Merygreeke, who arranges the whole business for a huge joke, he threatens Mistress Custance that he will come with his whole follow- ing and tear and burn and destroy her household utterly. In the seventh scene of the fourth act we find him in a ridiculous armour, with drums and colours, actually march- ing upon the doomed house with his followers. In the next scene the valiant Dame Custance sets her maidens in array to withstand him. No better fun for Tib Talkapace and Annot Alyface and the rest of them ; they fall upon Royster Doyster with brooms and household utensils, and the comedy becomes a pure farce. Tib accomplishes a brilliant military manoeuvre by bringing up a terrible war- like goose and letting it fly at the enemy ; Dame Custance herself, who had at first fled by a previous arrangement with Merygreeke, now returns and undertakes the redoubt- able Captain Royster Doyster in single combat. Mery- greeke flies to the rescue of his master, and, pretending to defend him from the ferocious lady Custance, manages ingeniously to miss her every time and to whack poor Roy- ster Doyster, insomuch that the latter receives a fearful drubbing, until finally Royster Doyster is utterly put to rout and runs off, pursued by the derision of the women. In the fifth act Gawyn Goodlucke, the betrothed of Dame Custance, appears on the scene, coming, it seems, from sea, after an absence. There is at first some obstruc- tive plot. His man Sym Suresby had come on ahead to Dame Custance's house, and, having arrived there at a moment when Merygreeke had been talking of the ring and letter which Royster Doyster had sent, had posted back to his master with talk that Dame Custance was treating with another lover. But Gawyn Goodlucke comes to find out for himself. He meets Tristram Trusty,
1 64 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
an old friend of his and of his betrothed, who vouches for her constancy to Goodlucke and her contempt for Royster Doyster ; so that finally, in the plenitude of his happiness, Gawyn Goodlucke brings all together. Royster Doyster is brought up and appeased, they all chafF him to their heart's content, and so the play ends with a merry song and a rimed prayer for the Queen.
At the end of the published play is given T^he Psalmo- didy which Merygreeke chants derisively when Royster Doyster says he must die for the love of Custance :
Placebo dilexi. Maister Royster Doyster wil streight go home and die, Oure Lorde Jesus Christ his soule have mercy upon ; Thus you see today a man, to morrow John. Yet saving for a woman's extreeme crueltie. He might have ly ved yet a moneth or two or three. But in spite of Custance which hath him weried. His mashyp shall be worshipfully buried. And while some piece of his soule is yet hym within, Some parte of his funeralls let us here beginne.
Dirige, He will go darklyng to his grave. Neque lux^ neque crux^ nisi solum clinke Never gentman so went toward heaven I thinke. . . . Good night Roger olde knave, Farewel Roger olde Knave. Good night Roger olde Knave, knave, knap.
Nequando. Audivi vocem^ Requiem aternam.
The Peale of belles rang by the parish Clerk And Royster Doyster^ s four e men.
The first Bell a Triple^
When dyed he ? When dyed he ?
The Seconde^
Wc have hym, We have hym.
The thirdey
Royster Doyster, Royster Doyster.
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 165
The fourth Bell^
He commeth. He commeth.
The greate Bell^
Our owne, Our owne.
When the play ended, Shakspere moved out as well as he could through the struggling throng. Just as he gained the street, he observed that the handsome young cavalier who had shared his box was apparently in haste to get ahead of him. At the same moment Shakspere noticed that the stranger, while quite elegantly appointed, wore his sword awry and seemed to manage it awkwardly as if un- accustomed to bear arms. In the next moment stronger proof of this fact appeared ; for as the small cavalier quick- ened his pace forward his sword dangled between his legs and tripped him so that he fell flat on the ground. As Shakspere ran forward and lifted the prostrate young gal- lant from the earth, the latter, as if to thank him, turned upon him a charming face which was now itself a very pretty comedy of blushes and smiles ; and in the same instant Shakspere recognised that the stranger was no other than Anne Hathaway disguised in male costume. For the moment he was quite stupefied with astonishment, while Anne Hathaway's eyes shone and sparkled with unbounded merriment at his serious face. As they walked back to the Bell Savage Inn — for Anne Hathaway also lodged there — Shakspere recovered himself, and presently the whole deli- cious romance of the adventure took possession of him, and he entered into it with the maddest abandonment. What could be more delightful ? Two young lovers on their first visit to London, one a poet with all the world in his soul, the other an adoring, spirited, adventurous girl. It seems that Anne Hathaway, when a child, had a great passion for climbing trees, as I have known more modern
1 66 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
girls sometimes to have ; and her mother, like a wise farmer's wife, had indulged her in a costume suitable for this purpose, and had allowed her often to roam about the woods dressed in her brother's clothes. Thus she had in early life acquired that familiarity with her present costume of which she had now availed herself to accompany Shik- spere to London.
Perhaps this adventure, or some one like it, is the original of all those employments of this device which Shakspere so often makes. \n As Ton Like //, you all remember, Rosalind dresses herself in boy's clothes and finds her lover in the Forest of Arden; in AlTs.fFtU That Ends Welly the sweet, womanly Helena dresses herself in boy's clothes and follows her lover like a protectiDg angel to France ; in Cymbeliney Imogen dresses herself in boy's clothes and fares off towards her Leonatus ; in The Two Gentlemen of VeronUy Julia arrays herself in boy's clothes and seeks her absent Proteus ; while in The Mer- chant of Venice^ Portia pranks it as a doctor of laws, Nerissa as a lawyer's clerk, and Jessica as a boy.
And so, after a week of glory in London Sunday came round again, and Shakspere and Anne Hathaway went again to the theatre. This time the play was a tragedy ; let us say that it was GorboduCj the first English tragedy.
GorboduCy or F err ex and PorreXy was written by Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, in collaboration with Thomas Norton. Modern criticism has assigned to the laQter, how- ever, the smaller part of the work. Sackville, to whom criticism has assigned the best share in the work, was a great and strong soul and a true poet, by his famous Induc- tion to The Mirrour for Magistrates ; and his portions of the play of Gorboduc are not difiicult to discriminate by one who is familiar with the musical terms and huge ima- ginations of the Induction.
i^ iiS^^&^Sii , ^
^^^^^
fit
fi
1
lilii
I
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 167
Gorboduc was first acted in 1 562. You will observe, as I go on to read the substance of it, that it is a vast and solid mass of good thought and correct language. Sack- ville was indeed endeavouring to impose the limitations of the Greek tragedy upon English dramatic endeavour: Gorboduc was a professed attempt to revive the methods of the classic drama ; it had its chorus, its unities, and a stern severity of treatment. It belongs to a period, you remember, when the union of tragic and comic elements in the same play would have been looked upon as worse than folly by the greatest critics — a period when we find even Sir Philip Sidney condemning in the strongest terms such a blasphemous perversion of all the spiritual unities as the introduction of wit into a tragedy.
Sir Philip Sidney was, in fact, very fond of this very play. " Gorboduc ^^ he says in his Defense of Poesie^ " is full of stately speeches and well-sounding .phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca his style, and as full of notable mo- rality ; which it doth most delightfully teach, and thereby obtain the very end of poetry."
The argument of the tragedy, as given in the quaint and strong English of the old edition, is this (and if you have ever meditated upon the subtle indications which are revealed in the very choice of subjects you will be able to formulate a certain moral status from the very plot as given here ; I must ask you to observe also, by the way, the won- derfully brief, pithy, and effective sentences which, I think, make this argument a most notable piece of sixteenth-cen- tury prose) : " Gorboduc, king of Brittanie, divided his realme in his lifetime to his sonneSy Ferrex and Porrex. The sonnes fell to discention. The younger killed the elder. The mother that more dearely loved the elder, for revenge killed the younger. The people moved with the crueltie of the fact, rose in rebellion and slew both father and
i68 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
mother. The Nobilirie assembled, and most terribly destroyed the Rebels, and afterwards for want of issue of the Prince, whereby the succession of the Crown became uncertain, they fell to civil Warre, in which both they and many of their issues were slain, and the land for a long time almost desolate and miserably wasted."
The edition of 1 571 has a naive address of the printer to the reader which gives us a lively idea of the manner in which plays were often stolen from their owners, the pro- prietors of the theatres (either by reporters who copied them off imperfectly during the representation and then filled up the gaps out of their own stupid heads afterwards, or in other ways), and sold to publishers, who thus gave to the world such corrupt editions as those which have since given us so much trouble in restoring the true text of Shakspere.
"the p. [printer] to the reader.
" Where [as] this Tragedie was for furniture of part of the grand Christmasse in the Inner-Temple, first written about nine yeares agoe by the right honourable Thomas, now Lorde Buckherst, and by T. Norton, and after shewed before her majestic and never intended by the Authors thereof to be published : yet one W. G. getting a copy thereof at some young man's hand that lacked a little money, and much discretion in the last great plage in 1565, about 5 yeares past, while the said lord was out of Eng- land, and T. Norton farre out of London, and neither of them both made privie, put it forth exceedingly corrupted."
(Before each act of the play, what was called the Domme Shew^ came forth and expressed by some allegorical pan- tomime the substance of the act which was to follow.)
" Order of the Domme Shew before the first Act and the Signification thereof:
^ Dumb-show.
The troublcfome
Fi^jic and lamentabie death of ijlward thefccond, King of SngUnd; rettbthe tragicdl
lall of prcuci Moriimeri
And alfo the life and death ofPeirs Gauejion] the great S^trU cf Corncwall, and mighty
lauoricr of king Edrrgrd tdc Tccond, as ii wa» fuikiatljiiicdhi the rig^ht hannrAhU iht Enrlt of Femdrtakt hk
Writtmh^ Chri. Marlow C/nr«
^2mfirhiedat LottdaahyKkhtLT^ Bradoclie^
A Tragedy of the Period : Marlowe's " Edward II."
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 169
" First y the musicke of violenze began to play, during which came in upon the stage sixe wild men clothed in leaves. Of whom the first bare on his neck a fagot of small stickes, which they all both severallye and together assayed with all their strengthes to breake, but it could not be broken by them. At the length one of them plucked out one of the sticks, and broke it : and the rest plucking out all the other stickes one after another, did easely breake the same being severed, which being enjoyned, they had before attempted in vaine. After they had this done, they departed the stage and the musick ceased. Hereby was signified that a state knit in unitie doth continue strong against all force, but being divided, is easily destroyed ; as befel upon duke Gorboduc dividing his lande to his two sonnes, which he before held in monarchic, and upon the discendon of the brethren to whom it was divided."
NAMES OF THE SPEAKERS:
GoRBODUC, King of Great Britain. ViDENA, ^eene and wife to King Gorboduc. Ferrex, eUUr sonne to King Gorboduc. PoRREX, younger sonne to King Gorboduc. Cloyton, duke of Cornewall. Fergus, duke of Albany e. Mandud, duke of Lacgris. GwENARD, duke of Cumberland. EuBULUS, secretarie to the king. Arostus, a counsellor to the king.
DoRDAN, a counsellor assigned by the king to his eldest son^ Ferrex. Philander, a counsellor assigned by the king to his youngest son^ Porrex.
(Both being of the olde kinges counsel before^ Hermon, a parasite remaining with Ferrex. Tyndar, a parasite remaining with Porrex.
lyo SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
NuNTlus, a messenger of the eldest brother's death, NuNTlUS, a messenger of duke Ferrex rising in arms, Marcella, a lady of the queenes privie-chamher. Chorus^ foure auncient and sage men of Brittaine.
" Actus Primus, Scena Prima " opens with these musical lines from Videna, Queen to King Gorboduc :
Fidena. The silent night that bringes the quiet pawse, From painefuU travailes of the wearie day, Prolonges my carefuU thoughtes, and makes me blame The slowe Aurora, that so for love or shame Doth long delay to shewe her blushing face ; And now the day renewes my griefull plaint.
She goes on to complain that the king her husband intends to give half the kingdom to the younger son, Porrex, in- stead of giving it all to the elder, Ferrex, according to cus- tom ; and she prophesies harm from it : " Murders, mischief, or civill sword at length. Or mutual treason or a just revenge."
In Scene II, Gorboduc, with his counsellors Arostus, Philander, and Eubulus, appears. Observe the weight and sweet dignity and courteousness of the speeches. Shak- spere unquestionably drew liberal sustenance from this source. Everywhere you see reproductions of the grave politeness and musical cadence of these stately speeches upon high matters.
Gorboduc. My Lords, whose grave advise and faithfull aide Have long upheld my honour and my realme, And brought me to this age from tender yeres Guidyng so great estate with great renowne ; Nowe more importeth me than erst to use Your faith and wisdom whereby yet I reigne ;
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 171
That when by death my life and rule shall cease, The kingdom yet may with unbroken course Have certayne prince, by whose undoubted right Your wealth and peace may stand in quiet stay : And eke that they whom nature hath preparde In time to take my place in princely state, While in their father's tyme their pliant youth Yeldes to the frame of skilfull govemaunce, Maye so be taught, and trayned in noble artes. As what their fathers which have reigned before Have with great fame devined down to them With honour they may leave unto their seede. . . .
In Arostus's reply, note by the way the rhythmic ten- dency to group terms by threes, particularly at the end of a stately line, as in
To me, and myne, and to your native land.
or
Whose honours, goods, and lyves are whole avowed, To serve, to ayde, and to defende your grace.
or
For kings, for kingdoms, and for common weales ;
and compare, in the opening of Midsummer Night^s Dream^ Theseus's
With mirth, with triumph and with revelry.
These three groups are a sort of sporadic rhythm agreeably varying the monotony of regular rhythms in poetry. You will all remember how they were quite characteristic of English prose not many years ago, when they became, not sporadic, but regular rhythms. It is,
172 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
indeed, a habit of composition which is apt to grow to extremes if not watched. A pleasant story is told of a most worthy clergyman who had fallen into the trichoto- mous style, and who was betrayed by its necessities once, in offering an extemporaneous prayer, as follows : " Lord, make all the ///tractable tractable, all the /»temper- ate temperate, and all the wdustrious dustrious."
Arostus goes on to respond to the King that his ad- visers shall not
neede in boasting wise to shewe Our trueth to you, nor yet our wakefull care For you, for yours, and for our native lande. . . . Doubt not to use our counsells and our aides Whose honours, goods and lyves are whole avowed. To serve, to ayde, and to defende your grace.
Gorboduc. My lordes, I thanke you all. This is the case. Ye know, the Gods, who have the soveraigne care For kings, for kingdoms, and for common weales. Gave me two sonnes in my more lusty age. Who nowe in my decaying yeres are growen Well towardes ryper state of minde and strength To take in hande some greater princely charge. . . . When fatall death shall end my mortall life My purpose is to leave unto them twaine The realme divided in two sondry partes : The one, Ferrex, myne elder sonne shall have, The other, shall the younger Porrex rule.
They advise, some for, some against. But the old King Gorboduc has made up his mind ; he proceeds to divide the kingdom, and the two young kings depart to assume their realms. Act II opens at the court of Ferrex, with a scene between him, Hermon the parasite, and Dordan the old counsellor, in which the parasite succeeds in so far poisoning Ferrex's mind against his younger
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 173
brother as to persuade him to raise an army in order to protect himself against possible invasion. The next scene of the act is at the court of the younger brother, who has heard of his elder brother's raising an army, and immedi- ately resolves not only to do the same but to push forward and be beforehand in invading Ferrex. We now come to Act III. It opens with Gorboduc, surrounded by his counsellors, to whom Nuntius the messenger has just brought the wretched tidings of the war between the brothers. Gorboduc is stricken to the soul with a sudden vision of the terrible mistake he has made, and cries :
O cruell fates, O mindful wrath of goddes Whose vengeance neither Simois stayned streames Flowing with bloud of Trojan princes slaine, Nor Phrygian iieldes made ranck with corpses dead Of Asian kings and lordes, can yet appease, Ne slaughter of unhappie Priam's race, Nor Ilion's face made levell with the soile Can yet suffice ; but still continued rage Pursues our lyves and from the farthest seas Doth chase the issues of destroied Troye, Oh, no man happie till his ende be seene.
Hereupon follow disastrous tidings in quick succession, culminating in the arrival of Nuntius with news that Porrex has slain his elder brother and usurped his realm, the scene ending with a majestic and mournflil chant from the chorus which begins :
The lust of kingdome knowes no sacred faith, No rule of reason, no regarde of right. No kindely love, no feare of heaven's wrath. But with contempt of goddes, and man's despite. Through blodie slaughter doth prepare the waies To fatall scepter and accursed reigne.
174 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
Act IV now opens. Queen Videna is discovered alone. After a considerable soliloquy she resolves to avenge her favourite son's death by slaying her other son, his mur- derer. Scene II now comes on, and shows us Porrex standing repentant before his father and the counsellors, receiving the weight of the King's wrath for his conduct. Presently, — and here we have a quaint illustration of the contempt of the old play for the unities, — without any notification that Porrex has even gone out, and with the intervention of only one or two short speeches of the counsellors since Porrex himself was speaking, in rushes Marcella, a lady of the Queen's, and horrifies them with the news that Porrex has been stabbed in his sleep by the Queen herself. After their first exclamations of horror, she proceeds to relate his death in a very dramatic and beautiful speech. Here is the only touch of love in the whole play :
Marcella. But heare hys ruthful end. The noble prince, pearst with the sodeine wound. Out of his wretched slumber hastely start, . . . When in the fall his eyes, even now unclosed, Behelde the queene, and cryed to her for helpe ; We, then, alas, the ladies which that time Did there attend,
. . . hearing him oft call the wretched name Of mother, and to crye to her for aide. Whose direfull hand gave him the mortall wound, Pitying, alas, (for nought else could we do) His ruthefull ende, ranne to the wofull bedde, Dispoyled straight his brest, and all we might Wiped in vaine with napkins next at hand The sodeine streames of bloud that flushed fast Out of the gaping wound : O what a looke, O what a ruthefull stedfast eye me thought He fixt upon my face, which to my death
DOMESTIC LIFE OF SHAKSPERE'S TIME 175
Will never part from me, when with a braide A deepe fet sigh he gave, and therewithal, Clasping his handes, to heaven he cast his sight. And straight pale death pressing within his face. The flying ghost his mortall corpes forsook.
After this relation of the manner of the young prince's frightful death, Marcella, who appears — though by this sole indication — to have loved the dead prince, falls into a beautiful lament, which makes me think of Othello's farewell to the instruments of war :
O queen of adamant, O marble brest.
If not the favour of his comely face.
If not his princely chere and countenance.
His valiant active armes, his manly brest.
If not his faire and seemely personage.
His noble limmes in such proportion cast
As would have wrapt a sillie woman's thought ;
If this mought not have moved thy bloodie hart. . . .
Should nature yet consent to slay her sonne ? . . .
Ah, noble prince, how oft have I behelde
Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling stede.
Shining in armour bright before the tilt.
And with thy mistresse sieve tied on thy helme.
Charge thy staflFe, to please thy ladies eye.
That bowed the head-peece of thy frendly foe !
How oft in armes on horse to bend the mace.
How oft in armes on foot to breake the sworde.
Which never now these eyes may see againe !
And in the fifth act we find all the direful facts come to pass which were briefly rehearsed in the argument. The people, enraged at the cruelties which go on in the court, rise and slay the King and the Queen ; whereupon the four dukes proceed to slay the rebellious people. Then the
176 SHAKSPERE AND HIS FORERUNNERS
dukes fall to war for the succession ; everywhere there is battle, bloodshed, and sudden death, till, as Mandud says, we
beholde the wide and hugie fieldes With bloud and bodies spread of rebelles slayne ; The lofty trees clothed with corpses dead. That strangled with the cord do hang thereon.
And finally, in the last lines of the play, Eubulus closes a wild scream of lamentation with these words :
But now, O happie man, whome spedie death
Deprives of life, nc is enforced to sec
These hugie mischiefes and these miseries,
These civill warres, these murders, and these wronges.
Of justice yet must God in fine restore
This noble crowne unto the lawfull heire :
For right will alwayes live, and rise at length.
But wrong can never take deepe roote to last.