The plays & poems of Robert Greene

CENTRE
for
REFORMATION
and
RENAISSANCE
STUDIES

VICTORIA
UNIVERSITY

TORONTO

THE PLAYS AND POEMS OF

ROBERT GREENE

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON EDINBURGH
NEW YORK AND TORONTO

THE PLAYS & POEMS OF

ROBERT GREENE

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES

By J. CHURTON COLLINS, Lrrx.D.
(PROFESSOR OF EIN'GIISH LITEIA'I'URE IN THE UNIVERI''Y OF BIRI%IING;IAII)

VOL. I
GENERAL INTRODUCTION. ALPHONSUS. A LOOKING
GLASSE. ORLANDO FURIOSO. APPENDIX TO
ORLANDO FURIOSO (THE ALLEYN MS.)
NOTES TO PLAYS

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

M DCCCCV

OXFORD
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BV HORACE HARTj M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

TO
FREDERICK JAMES FURNIVALL
PH.D. D.LITT.
THESE VOLUMES ARE
RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

PREFACE ix
in the Plays and Poems as appeared in extract in England's
tarnassus with the extracts there printed, but to give a
transcript of them in an Appendix to the Poems, so that
the reader can make, if he pleases, the comparison for
himself.
I have spared no pains to ascertain whether anything in
verse from Greene's pen exists either in print or in manu-
script which has not been included in the editions of Dyce
and Grosart. But I have discovered nothing, and no trace
of anything. And I own I am not sorry, for we have
too much of Greene's work already. I have met with
several anonymous productions in verse, particularly in
threnody and in celebration of public events, which may
have been, or may have had assistance from, his pen; but
I have left them where I found them. If it could be
established that they are Greene's they are not worth
printing; as there is nothing to connect them with him,
they are not worth discussing.
The Notes have purposely been made as full as possible,
for they have been designed to illustrate generally the
characteristics, especially as they pertain to diction, allusion,
imagery, and sentiment, of the early Elizabethan drama.
My debt to my predecessors is no small one, and I hasten
to acknowledge it. Had Dyce, instead of modernizing his
text both in spelling and in inflection, adhered faithfully
to the original, had he been thorough in collation, had he
been less sparing in his elucidatory notes, had he properly
investigated the sources of the plots, any other edition of
Greene's Plays and Poems would have been a work of
supererogation. There is scarcely a page in the present
edition, as the critical apparatus sufficiently testifies, in
which his hand is not seen. The lists of the dramatis
personae have been adapted from him : all the obvious and
many of the happiest corrections of the text are due to his
vigilance and acumen. Much, and very much, which xvhen
it came into his hands was unintelligible and desperate, he
elucidated with final certainty. As a textual critic he had
few equals. His learning was without pedantry, and his

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

hislorisch-kritische Skizze, but this, on the biographical side, is
a somewhat superficial compilation from Dyce, and contributed
nothing new to our knowledge of Greene. But in i878 a very
remarkable contribution to Greene's biography was made by a
Russian scholar, Professor Storozhenko of Moscow, an English
translation of which, by Mr. E. A. 13. Hodgetts, was inserted in
the first volume of Dr. Grosart's edition of Greene's complete works.
This added much--though nothing of great importance--to what
Dyce had accumulated. It is seriously defective in point of
accuracy--some of its inaccuracies are corrected by Dr. Grosart in
a critical Introductionmand still more seriously defective in not
sufficiently discriminating between what is palpably fiction and
what is fact in Greene's semi-autobiographical novels. It still how-
ever remains the fullest account which exists of Greene's career and
character. Dr. Ingleby, in his General Introduction to the Shake-
seare Allusion 2ooks, has thrown much useful light on our author's
relations with his contemporaries, and so also has Dr. Grosart in
his editions of the collected works of Nash and Harvey. Simpson,
in his School of Shakespeare (I878), has indulged in theories which
may interest those who find pleasure in ingenious speculation, but
are hardly likely to find much favour with students whose aim is
certainty and truth. Mr. Bullen's article in the Dictionary of
2Vational 2iogra2aly is a fairly satisfactory epitome of such facts as
had up to 89o been ascertained ; and if to this be added the notice
in the first volume of Mr. Fleay's Chronicle of the English Drama
( 89 I), which throws some new but doubtful light on the chronology
of Greene's plays and his relations with Lodge, we may be said
to have completed the review of what has been contributed to a
biography of Greene.
Before proceeding to the facts of Greene's life, to his actual
biography, it may be well to try and ascertain how far he has
himself assisted us by his own confessions ; in other words, in
what way and to what extent the novels which are assumed to be
autobiographical really are so. That they have been pressed too
far by some of his biographers will be clear from a very cursory
examination of them. Theyare four in number, The ourning Gar-
ment, 2Vever too lale, with the second part of )Trancesco's f?ortunes,
and the Groalsworth of fVille boughl ze,ith a 3lillion of 2gepenlance.
In the first, Rabbi 13ilessi, an old and pious man of large fortune
and a Burgomaster of his native city, has two sons, Sophonos and

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENT IN NOVELS 3
Philador. Sophonos is a handsome and attractive youth, but
unenterprising and prudent, 'who preferred the olive before the
sword and peace before wars, and therefore, giving himself to
merchandize,' has no desire to leave home or his father's side.
lhilador, the younger son, is all culture and accomplishments,
a poet, a student, and a gallant, 'an adamant to every eye for his
beauty, a syren to every ear for his eloquence.' Being anxious to
travel, he persuades his father, though much against the old man's
will, to allow him to do so. He sets out, and after various
adventures finds himself in a boarding-house kept by three
beautiful sisters who are courtesans. With the youngest of these
sisters he becomes infatuated. After some days of revelling,
gambling, and wantonness they reduce him to absolute beggary
and then turn him adrift, calling up the servants of the house to
thrust him into the street. Ashamed and forlorn he makes his way
back to his old father, who, in spite of the protests of his elder son,
receives the repentant prodigal home again and forgives him.
The hero of lver too late is one Francesco, ' a gentleman of an
ancient house, a man whose parentage though it were worshipful
yet it was not indued with much wealth'; he is a scholar,
' nursed up in the Universities,' and a poet. He was so generally
loved of the citizens--he lived at Caerbranck (Brancaster in
Norfolk ?)--' that the richest merchant or gravest Burgomaster would
not refuse to grant him his daughter in marriage, hoping more of
his ensuing fortunes than of his present substance.' Francesco
falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a gentleman named
Fregoso, who dwelt not far from Caerbranck. But her churlish
father opposes the match. However, the lovers manage to
correspond--for Isabel returns Francesco's love--and finally she
makes her escape from the close custody in which her father keeps
her, and the lovers fly to Dunecastrum (Doncaster?)where they are
married. As soon as Fregoso hears of his daughter's flight
he posts after her, but arrives too late to prevent their union.
However, he accuses Francesco of having stolen certain plate from
him, and persuades the Mayor to arrest him and throw him into
prison. But the Mayor, convinced of his innocence and seeing
through the real motives of Fregoso's action, releases him.
Francesco supports himself and his wife by turning his University
education to account and teaching in a school. Seven cloudless
and prosperous years pass, during which Fregoso is reconciled and
B2

4

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

a boy is born to the happy married lovers. At the end of that
time business calls Francesco to Troynovant, 'where, after he was
arrived, knowing that he should make his abode there for the
space of some nine weeks, he hired him a chamber, earnestly
endeavouring to make speedie despatch of his affaires that he
might the sooner enjoy the sight of his desired Isabel, for did he
see any woman beautiful he viewed her with a sigh, thinking how
far his wife did surpasse her in excellence: were the modesty of
any woman well noted it greeved hint hee was not at home
with his Isabel who did excell them all in vertues.' But unhappily
Francesco happened one day to be looking out of his window
' when he espied a young gentlewoman who looked out at a case-
ment right opposite against his prospect, who fixed her eyes upon
him with such cunning and artificial glances as she shewed in them
a chaste disdaine and yet a modest desire.' This was Infida.
Gradually Francesco becomes infatuated with her, and the struggle
between the pure love which draws him to his angelic wife and
the frenzied passion which binds him to this cruel but irresistible
syren is depicted with terrible intensity and vividness. For more
than three years, in spite of Isabel's pathetic appeals to him to return
to her and their child, he remains in this ignoble bondage. 'For
no reason could divert hint from his damned intent, so had he
drowned himself in the dregges of lust, insomuch that he counted
it no sinne to offend with so faire a saint, alluding to the saying of
the holy father Consueludo eccandi tollil senszon 2eccati.' At last
Infida, having succeeded in reducing him to his last penny, laugh-
ingly bids hint to return to his wife and reflect at leisure on the dif-
ference between 'painted sepulcres with rotten bones' and ' honest
saints with the purity of nature and the excellence of virtue.'
In the second part Francesco, driven out in poverty, falls
in with a company of players, who 'persuaded him to try his wit
in writing of Comedies, Tragedies or Pastorals.' This he does,
and succeeds ' in writing a Comedy which so generally pleased
all the audience that happie were those actors in short time that
could get anie of his works, he grew so exquisite in that facultie.'
As his purse was now well-lined, Infida tries to lure him back to
her, but in vain.
The narrative then breaks off to recount the fortunes of his
deserted wife, and what follows is practically an adapted repetition
of the story of Susanna which Greene had already told in his

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENT IN NOVELS 7
as well as anie of them all.' Now loberto was acquainted with
a courtesan 'who kept her Hospital which was in the Suburbes
of the cittie pleasantly seated, and made more delectable by
a pleasant Garden wherein it was scituate.' And her name was
Lamilia, 'for so wee call the curtezan.' ' No sooner come they within
ken but mistresse Lamilia like a cunning angler made readie her
chaunge of baytes that she might effect Lucanio's bane, and to
begin, shee discovered from her window her beauteous inticing face.'
loberto introduces Lucanio to her, and the simple youth is at
once fascinated by her. But his bashfulness and modesty keep
him tongue-tied, loberto, however, smoothes the way for him,
and his passion soon finds voice. First he presents her with
a ring 'wherein was apointed a diamond of wonderful worth,
which she accepting with a love conge returned him with a silke
riband.' After this 'Diomedis et Glauci pernmtatio' all goes
smoothly. He becones her slave. Chess, cards and dice follow,
and he loses all he has with him and goes home to provide
himself with more money, loberto now proposes to divide
the spoil with Lamilia. But Lamilia treats him precisely as
Infida had treated Francesco. She rejects the proposal with
scorn. 'No poore pennilesse Poet, thou art beguilde in me,
and yet I wonder how thou couldest, thou hast been so often
beguilde. But it fareth with licentious men as with the chased
bore in the streame, who being greatly refreshed with swimming
never feeleth any smart until he perish recurelessly wounded with
his owne weapons. Faithlesse loberto, thou hast attempted to
betray thy brother, irreligiously forsaken thy wife, deservedly beene
in thy fathers eie an abject: thinkest thou Lamilia so loose to
consort with one so lewd ? No, hypocrite, the sweete Gentleman
thy brother I will till death love and thee while I live loathe.
This share Lamilia gives thee, other gettest thou none.' She keeps
her promise and tells Lucanio ' the whole deceit of his brother, and
never rested intimating malitious arguments till Lucanio utterly
refused Roberto for his brother and for ever forbad him of his house.'
Roberto accordingly wanders forth after rending his hair, cursing
his destiny and breaking out into tirades against enticing courtesans.
While he is thus soliloquizing and sadly sighing out ' Heu, parlor
telis vulnera facta reels' he is overheard by a gentleman on the
other side of the hedge. This gentleman accosts him, enters into
conversation, and informs him that he is a player. This l.oberto

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

seems at least probable that Robert Greene the poet was the
son of Robert Greene, the saddler in Norwich, and Jane his
wife, and that he was baptized, the second child of his
parents, July xth, 55 8. He tells us in the 2eentance that
his 'father had care to have mee in nay Nonage brought up
at school, that I might through the studie of good letters grow
to be a friend to myself,' &c. The school referred to would
presumably be the Free Grammar School at Norwich, which
was then attached to the Great Hospital and under the con-
trol of the Mayor and Court of Aldermen. It provided free
education 'for fourscore and ten scholars,' and Ordinances
issued on April end, r566 , and accepted June r4th , r566 , enacted
that a Register should be kept. If this Register was kept all
traces of it have vanished, and though the names of the Head
Masters have been preserved, the names of the scholars have
not. If Greene's name was entered it has disappeared with
the rest. The late Head Master tells me that there is no tra-
dition that Greene was at the School, and what is certainly
curious is this, that though there were exhibitions to Corpus
Christi College and to Caius College, Cambridge, there were
none to St. John's . Vhether Greene was educated at the
Grammar School must therefore remain doubtful.
The boy was father to the man, and before he left for
Cambridge his characteristic vices had, according to his own
account, begun to display themselves. 'As early prickes the
tree that will prove a thorne, so even in my first yeares I began
to followe the frettings of mine owne desires and neyther to
listen to the wholesome advertisements of my parents nor bee
rulde by the careful corrections of my Maister. ' Residence
at Cambridge at the time when Greene entered it was little
likely either to improve his morals or correct defects in his
education. He arrived at a time when the reaction against
the restrictions imposed on the students by the regulations
of Whitgift and his coadjutors appears to have been at its
height. William Soone might pronounce 'that the way of life

1 All this from information kindly contributed by the Rev. O. W. Tancock, late
Head biaster of Norwich Grammar School. It may be added that the Head
Masters between I556 and 599 were Mr.' Bache, Walter Hall, and Stephen
Lambert. Great ttosibital lolls.
 Repentance.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

I5

in these Colleges is the most pleasant and liberal, and if
I might have my choice I should prefer it to a kingdom';
but about a year and a half after Greene's arrival, riot, luxury,
and insubordination had reached such a pitch that we find
the authorities complaining that 'if some remedy be not speed-
ily provided, the University which hath been from the begyning
a collection and society of a multitude of all sorts of ages and
professyng to godliness, modesty, virtue and learning, and a ne-
cessary storehouse to the realm of the same, shall become rather
a storehouse for a staple of prodigal], wastful], ryotous, unlerned
and insufficient persons 1., Extravagance in dress, drunkenness,
insubordination, and rudeness to superiors and strangers, are fre-
quent complaints made against the undergraduates. Harrison
complains bitterly of the slander into which gentlemen or rich
men's sons brought the University. ' For standing upon their repu-
tation and liberty they ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparel
and bantling riotous companie which draweth them from their
books into another trade.' And the plebeian and poor scholars
aped the gentlemen. One of Greene's friends at St. John's,
Nash, made himself so notorious in this way that his name
became proverbial, and ' a verie Nash' passed into a synonym, says
Gabriel Harvey, for ' everie untoward scholar 3., Giordano :Bruno's
account of Oxford and its students is well known, and certainly
there was nothing to choose between the Universities at this time.
In the studies prescribed for degrees there was little to attract
a youth with liberal tastes. In the Logic schools the arid
dialectics of Ramus--the abhorrence of :Bacon--dominated.
In Theology, the only subject in which a student could obtain
popular distinction, the old barren Scholasticism blended with
the new dreary polemics engendered in the religious controversies
succeeding the Reformation. The study of Physics was in its
infancy. Polite Literature was practically unrepresented. Lec-
tures were announced, and perhaps delivered, on the Institutes
of Quintilian and the oratorical treatises of Cicero, but no
one attended them 3. Of the indifference of the University to
the study of Humanity we have a striking illustration in the

 Cooper, Annals, ii. 36o-I.
* Furnivall's Harrison's England, part i. 77-78.
3 See Bass Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, vol. ii. 369-
439, and Cooper's Annals, passim, vol. ii.

RETURN TO ENGLAND. ALLEGED ORDINATION x 9
He had now begun his career as a writer, for on the 3rd of October
x58o was entered on the Stationers' Registers the first part of
Afamillia 1, but it was not published till nearly three years after-
wards. Meanwhile (583) Greene had proceeded to the degree
of M.A., and had migrated from Saint John's to Clare Hall, for
what reason does not appear. It would seem that he resided
at Clare Hall, for the Dedication to the second part of Afamillia
(not published till after his death, but licensed on Sept. 6, 583)
is dated 'from my Studie in Clare Hall the vij of ]ulie,' pre-
sumably July  583, though no year is given . The title of student
of Physic which he afterwards (585) appended to his name
on the title-page of 2lanetomacMa has, doubtless, no reference to
his pursuits at Cambridge.
We have now to examine a singular tradition that Greene
entered the Church. Sir Harris Nicholas discovered among the
Lansdowne manuscripts (982, art. o2, fol. 87), under the head
of 'Additions to Mr. Wood's Report of Mr. Robert Green, an
eminent poet who died about 592,' a reference to a document
in Rymer's 7eedera, from which it appears that a Robert Grene
was in 576 one of the Queen's Chaplains, and that he was pre-
sented by Elizabeth to the rectory of Walkington in the'-d.iocese
of York. The passage in Rymer, which is to be found in the
7eedera, vol. xv. p. 765, has been translated by Dyce. This, .Hunter
thinks, is corroborated by the connexion of some of Greene's
early patrons and friends with Yorkshire . But this supposition
may be rejected without reserve, for in !576 Greene was an
undergraduate at Cambridge and was within less than a year from
his matriculation . This, however, is not the only hypothesis
which connects Greene with the Church. Octavius Gil6hrist, in his
xambaion often .]onson's mniy owards hakeseare, p. 22,
states, though without citing his authority, hat aRobert Greene

t , 3r d October, 58o. Thomas Woodcock, Lycensed unto him #Ianilia, A
lookinge Glasse for ye ladies of ngland: Aranilia is of course only a slip of
the pen, as the second title shows, Stationers" Register, Arb6r Transcript, ii. 378.
 ' Master Ponsonbye, Licensed to him under Master Watkins hande a booke
entituled 2lamilia, the Seconde parte of the 2-ryunhe of Pallas, &e.', Star.
Yegisl., Arber, ii. 428.
 See Collectanea Irunteriana, vol. iii. p. 36o. They are in manuscript, and
are deposited in the British Museum.
* i.e. Nov. I575, vhile the document appointing Greene to the rectory of
Walkington is signed ' trice-imo primo die Augusti.'
C2

24

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

named Ball, who with the aid of his gang of desperadoes protected
him from arrests for debt 1. This 13all's sister he kept as his
mistress, and she bore him a child whom he named, with bitter
irony perhaps, Fortunatus. Chased from one haunt of squalid
profligacy to another, from the 13ankside to Shoreditch, and from
Shoreditch to Southwark, he made shift to keep out of prison,
now by pawning his sword and cloak, and now by 'yarking up
some pamphlet,' which his friend Nash says he could do ' in a day
and a night as well as in seven yeare.' Nash tells us how
he once saw him in a tavern make an apparitor eat his own

citation, 'wax and all very handsomely served between two
dishes3? One of his haunts was the Red Lattise in Tormoyle
Street*, where he appears to have been on very pleasant terms
with the hostess . There is always a discrepancy hard to

reconcile between Greene as he lived and Greene as he appears
in his writings, and the discrepancy becomes the more remarkable
as we proceed . In i589 appeared the S2anistz 3Zasquerado. In

' Harvey's fi'oure Letters, p. o. Harvey was the bitterest of Greene's
enemies, but his statements are corroborated by other testimony.
 This poor child's burial is entered on the Register of St. Leonard's, Shore-
ditch. '  593- Fortunatus Grene was buried the same day,' i.e. xth of August.
 Straege Newes, sigil E. 4- t Id., sig. C. 3-
 See Greene's 1Vewes both from tleaven and [lell, p. 2, where his ghost i
represented as speaking of  a porte of that liquor that I vas vont to drink with
my hostesse at the Red Lattise in Tormoyle Street.'
s Harvey gives the following lively picture of poor Greene's life :
' I was altogether unacquainted with the man and never once saluted him by
name : but who in London hath not heard of his dissolute and licentious living,
his fonde disguisinge of a blaster of Arte with ruffianly haire, unseemely
apparell, and more unseemelye Company ; his vaineglorious and Thrasonicall
bravinge : his pipefly Extemporizing and Tarletonizing : his apish counterfeiting
of every ridiculous and absurd toy: his fine coosening of Juglers and finer
jugling with cooseners: hys villainous cogging and foisting: his monstrous
swearinge and horrible forswearing : his impious profaning of sacred Textes :
his other scandalous and blasphemous ravinge: his riotous and outragious
surfeitinge : his continuall shifting of lodginges : his plausible musteringe and
banquetinge of roysterly acquaintaunce at his first comminge : his beggarly
departing in every hostisses debt : his infamous resorting to the Banckeside,
Shoreditch, Southwarke and other filthy hauntes: his obscure lurkinge in
basest Corners: his pawning of his svord, cloake and vhat not vhen money
came short : his impudent pamphletting, phantasticall interIuding and desperate
libelling when other coosening shifts failed : his imployinge of Ball, (surnamed
cuttinge Ball) till he was intercepted at Tiborne to leavy a crecy of his trustiest
companions to guarde him in daunger of arrestes : his keping of the Aforesaid
Bails sister, a sorry ragged queane, of whome hee had his base sonne Itfor.

:6 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Epistle Dedicatory, ' Robin Good Fellowes Epistle,' Robin being
the name by which Greene was known among his boon companions,
Good Fellow no doubt being added 1. That Greene should have
taken exception to this imputation is not surprising. Whatever
his life had been, he had never prostituted his pen to coarseness
and licentiousness. His writings had been Puritanic in their
scrupulous abstinence from anything approaching profanity and
impurity. He was greatly hurt at the wrong which had been done
him and his reputation. And this wrong had a further effect. It
led him to reflect on the absence of any serious purpose in his
own writings. The only difference after all between the Cobbler's
tales and his own was that they pandered to the amusement of the
vulgar, and his to the amusement of more refined readers. His
conscience reproached him for the abuse of the talents which had
been entrusted to him. He would henceforth direct them to
nobler uses. If he anmsed he would instruct; he would turn what
the errors and vices of his life had taught him to the profit of his
fellow countrymen. All this he embodied in the form of a protest,
an apology, and a declaration in a pamphlet, entitled Greene's
l5sion 2. It is very probable that these serious reflections and
x Cf. ' Greene who had in both. Academies ta'en
Degree of Master, yet could never gaine
To be eall'd more than Robin.'
Heywood, I-tierarchie of the Blessed 4ngels, edit. 1635 , p. 206.
Nash calls Greene a Goodfellow--'a Goodfellowe hee was,' Strange ]Vewes,
sig. E. 4-
 This was published with a false announcement on the tide-page that it was
' Written at the instant of his death,' after his death in a592. It was xvritten,
as internal evidence shows, ill 159 o, before, the publication of The Iournbt g
Garmen! and 2Vever too late, both published in a59 o. He says on p. 274,
Works, vol. xii : ' Onelie this I must end my 2Vunquam Sera esl, and for that
I crave pardon' (that is, he must finish one of those anaorous pamphlets which he
now intended to abandon), ' but for all these follies that 1 may with the
Ninivites shew in sackcloth my harry repentance, looke as speedily as the presse
will serve for my Mourning Garment, a weede that I know is of so plaine a cut
that it will please the gravest eie.' The opening sentence also shows that it
must have been written directly after the appearance of the Cobler of Cantcr-
buy, to which it is a reply. It would be very interesting to be able to determine
whether the Address to the Gentlemen Readers was written, as it may have been,
by himself at the instant of his death, or whether it was written in 59 o under
the stress of a severe illness when he thought himself on the point of death, or
whether, finally, it was a forgery of the publisher. No doubt this Vision was
left anaong the many papers which Chettle tells us were in sundry booksellers'
hands (Address to Gentlemen Readers in 2Uind-harts 1Dream), and then hurried
out immediately after his death. It is a proof, I am sorry to say, of the careless-

' GREENE'S VISION'

this determination to devote himself to nobler duties were induced
by a fever, which he appears to have contracted about this time
and which kept him in the country 1
In this interesting work he tells how sad the imputation of having
been the author of the Cobler of Cazterbury had made him, and how
in his depression he began 'to call to remembrance what fond and
wanton lines had past his pen, how he had bent his course to a
wrong shore, sowing his seed in the sand, and so reaping nothing
but thorns and thistles.' He then, he says, turned to his standish and
wrote the Ode 'Of the vanityofwanton writings. ' The composition
of this brings home to him the enormity of the offence he had com-
mitted in not realizing the seriousness of life's responsibilities, ' that
wee were born to profit our Countrie, not only to please ourselves.'
Then follows a fervent prayer to God, expressing his remorse for his
vicious life and frivolous writings. Falling asleep he has a vision
in which he sees two aged men, the one is Chaucer and the other
is Gower, both of whom are described in verse, parodying seriously
the verse descriptions in the Cobler of Canterbury. On com-
plaining to Chaucer of the grievance which was depressing him,
namely the fact that he had been represented as the author of
' a booke called the Cobler of Canterburie, a merrie worke made
by some madde fellow containing plesant tales, a little tainted
with scurilitie such reverend Chaucer as you yourself set forth in
your journey to Canterbury.' Chaucer replies in effect that no
great wrong had been done him. ' Knowest thou not, Greene,
that the waters that flow from Parnassus Founte, are not types to
any particular operation ? That there are Nine Muses anaongst
whom as there is a Clio to write grave matters so there is a Thalia
to endite pleasant conceits.' _And the merry old poet goes on to
tell him that there was nothing to be ashamed of in writing wanton
stories, that remorse for such things was absurd. 'Therefore,
resolve thyself, thou hast done scholler-like in setting forth thy
pamphlets and shalt have perpetual fame which is learnings due
for thy endeavour.' Upon that Gower rose up 'with a sowre
countenance'and rebuked Chaucer for expressing such opinions.

ness of Greene's editors and biographers that they have taken the date of this
piece for granted, and not seen that so far from it being his last piece it is
the first piece which initiates the period of repentance.
1 See Latin verses at end of the Address to Akida, Works, ix. 9-
 See the Ode.

PROMISES REPENTANCE 2 9

puncture, probably because it was written before his reformation
But as it is an essentially moral tale sent, as the title-page announces,
'as a Powder of Experience to all youthful gentlemen to roote
out the infectious follies that over-reaching conceits foster in the
spring time of their youth' he does not apologize for it. This.was
immediately succeeded by the second part, Hrancesco's Horlunes,
which would not, he says, have been written if it had not been
promised at the end of the First Part. In the title-pages he sub-
stitutes his new motto sero sed serio for his old one. In the follow-
ing year 159t he published his Harewell to Yollie, which he had
announced his intention of writing in the concluding paragraph of
2Vever 1oo lale. It was to follow, he said, Hrancesco's Hortunes--
'and then adieu to all amourous pamphlets.' The Dedication
repeats what he had said before. His works, he says, have been
accounted follies, and follies are the fruit of youth. But years
had now bitten him with experience; age was growing on him
bidding him elere graviora. The present work was an ullimum
vale to all youthful vanities, it was the last he ever meant to
publish of such superficial labours, it was to conclude his ' amour-
ous pamphlets.'
But he did not keep his word. He had long had by him in
manuscript a story which he had written at the request of a great
lady, 'a Countesse in this land,' its theme the approval of
woman's chastity. He had long been anxious to dedicate
something to Lady Fitzwater, to whose husband he was under
obligations. He could think of nothing more appropriate than a
story delineating the character and celebrating the virtues of a para-
gon of her sex. He had then determined to revise and complete
his novel, and present it publicly to his patroness, ' knowing service
done to the wife is gratified in the husband.' But in the Address to
the Gentlemen Readers he says he is ashamed of himself for having
broken the promises so solemnly made in his ll[ourbg Garmenl
and in his Harewell to Hollie. His only excuse is that the work
was written before his vow, and ' published upon duty to so honour-
able and beautiful a Lady.' He had assuredly no reason to be
ashamed of it, for it is one of the most pleasing of his novels. We
need not suspect the sincerity of his desire to atone for his follies
and vices by turning his experience to the profit of others. That
he did not employ his pen, as he at first intended, in didactic
treatises is hardly matter for regret. Of all modes of influence

CONNY-CATCHING PAMPHLETS 33
Swift's Zast s2#eech and dying words of benezer lliston 1. Greene
tells us in the Preface that he had intended to add to Browne's
Confessions the tdeenlance of another Conny-Catcher who had
lately been executed at Newgate. But on reconsideration he had
resolved to defer the publication of the second, as being more
important because the man had died 'penitent and passionate,'
whereas Browne had died 'resolute and desperate.' He hoped,
he said, to make out of the Newgate felon's tdeentance an edifying
work which would be worth the regard of every honest person,
which parents might present to their children, and masters to
their servants 
It is no wonder that these pamphlets of Greene struck terror
into the scoundrels with whom they declared war, and whose
villainies they so mercilessly exposed. For he was constantly
threatening to divulge their names, and place the rope round
their necks by putting the officers of the law on their tracks.
He frequently gives their initials, and even leaves a blank with
' I will not betray his name.' On one occasion, in giving an
account of their meeting-places, he boldly says that a favourite
haunt was the house of Lawrence Pickering, 'a man that hath
been if he be not still a notable foist, though a man of good
calling and well allied, being brother-in-law to Bull the hangman.'
Greene certainly went in danger of his life. The woman whom
he had designated Nan had sworn to carry about with her ' a Ham-
borough knife' and stab him as soon as she had an opportunity.
Her companions had solemnly sworn to dispatch him. On one
occasion some fourteen or fifteen of them surrounded the St. John's
Head tavern in Ludgate where he seelns to have been at supper,
and he would have been assassinated had it not been for some
citizens and apprentices taking his part. As it was, a gentleman
who was with him was severely wounded, and matters were not
quiet till two or three of them had been carried off to the

x There is, it may be noted, a very curious parallel between Greene's war and
methods of warfare with the criminal classes of Elizabethan London and Swift's
war with the same class in Dublin. Browne's supposed Confessions and
Elliston's are exactly analogous, and had, it appears, the same salutary effect in
striking terror into these desperadoes. See Scott's Swift, vol. vii. 47-54-
.o See Epistle to the Reader. But with regard to Ned Browne, Greene either
changed his mind or forgot his desiffn, for thongh Brown begins his confession
impenitently and defiantly enough, yet he ends by moralizing on his career and
giving very excellent advice.
COLLINS. I D

42 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
him for failure. This is confirmed by Brabine's commendatory
verses :--
' Come forth, you witts that vaunt the pompe of speech,
And strive to thunder from a Stageman's throat ;
View Menaphon a note beyond your reach,
Whose sight will make your drumming descant doate.
Players avaunt, you know not to delight;
Welcome sweete shepheard, worth a schollers sight.'
Again, we learn from the close of tlhozs,ts that it was Greene's
intention to write a second part, just as Marlowe had done in the
case of Tambtrlaine; but this second part, so far as we know,
was never written. The natural deduction from this is, that
Greene had failed on the stage and had betaken himself again to
prose writing, and that in this resolution he had been confirmed
by his friends, who, partly no doubt from jealousy of bIarlowe's
success, had made Greene and his novels the rallying-point of
their war against the triumphant tragedian. The ingenuity of
Mr. Fleay I has furnished an important piece of collateral evidence
in favour of .4lphonsts having been produced as early as x 588, and
even, I cannot but think, in presumption of its having been
ridiculed. In Peele's Farewell to Sir John Norris and his com-
panions, printed in the spring of i589, occur these lines :-
'Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomets /9oo and mighty Tamburlaine
King Charlemayne, Tom Stukeley and the rest
Adieu.'
Dyce and Mitford, not understanding the word 'Poo,' supposed
that it was a corruption of Scipio--' a great name anaong old poets
and dramatists'--and have so printed it : but Mr. Fleay contends
that it is no corruption at all, but a reference to a scene in Greene's
Xlphonsus, where Mahomet speaks out of a brazen head (a poll).
It is a little strange that, where in the other cases the reference
should be to characters, an incident should in this case be sub-
stituted for a character. The scene in Greene's play is a very
ridiculous one, and it is just possible that it may have passed
into a proverb, and that 'Mahomet's pow,' or poll, may have
been a joke as current as Marlowe's ' pampered jades of Asia L'
 Clzroniclesoftnglislz S/affe, vol. ii. 54. Mr. Fleay's conjectural explana-
tion, however ingenious, is far from being conclusive. A play entitled Scipio
,4fi'icanus was, according to his own Chronicles. vol. ii. 381, acted by the
Children of Paul's in I58o.
 Still, against this interpretation it seems to me there i another at least

44

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

'The Historie of Job.' Judging from internal evidence I should
be inclined to place Orlando fi'urioso in the third place among his
extant plays. The appearance of Harington's Mriosto in 159,
as I have shown in the Introduction, almost certainly suggested it.
The opening scene with its couplet refrain reminds us closely
of the opening scene in the Z.ooking-Glasse, while the blank verse
is slightly freer in movement and has certainly a greater variety
in the pauses.
The remaining plays present a remarkable contrast to those
of the first group, and show how immensely and rapidly Greene
improved as a dramatist. Friarl?acon andZeriar tungay probably
succeeded Orlando, and was in all likelihood written in i591 , and
to the same year we may assign with some confidence.lames IV
of Scotland, undoubtedly Greene's masterpiece. If he wrote the
]i.nner of IVakefield, the versification places it beyond doubt that
it must have been the last of his extant plays.
The order of his plays is, as I said before, purely conjectural, and
it may be well, perhaps, if I sum up what is certainly known. We
know from Henslowe's Diary that Friar taco ad Zeriar
was acted, and was not a new play, Feb. 9, 59- ; that Orlando
ffztrioso was acted, and was not a new play, on the 2st of the
same month in the same year; that on the 8th of March in
the same year the Zooking-Glasse was acted, and was not a new
play ; that George a gren (presumably the Jier of lVakefield), was
acted, and was not a new play, on Dec. 9, i593. With regard
to James IV, the earliest reference to it is its entrance on the
Stationers' Registers on the i5th of May i594. Of Alhomus
all we know is that it was printed in x599. The rest is mere
conjecture. Nothing therefore can be more slender or unsatis-
factory than the evidence which assigns these dramas to Greene.
It rests purely on the ascription of them to him with no other
testimony, neither his own nor that of any contemporary beside
the publisher to support it, on the title-pages of the quartos
At the beginning of September i59  it became apparent that
Greene's days were numbered, and dismal and tragical indeed

x The only exceptions are the Looking-Glasse, which is ascribed to Thomas
Lodge and Robert Greene in the entry in the Stationers' Registers, and Orlando
Furioso, which the author of a Z)efence of Conny-Catching (1592) aceuses
Greene of having sold twice. Allot it is needless to say, took the title-pages of
the Quartos as his authority.

AUTHENTICITY OF THE ' REPENTANCE' 5
very naturally been thrown. The circumstances under which
it appeared are certainly pregnant with suspicion. There is no
indication in the Groatsze,orth either that he had written this
autobiography or that he intended to write it. Chettle, who ap-
pears to have had the handling of his papers, says nothing about
it, indeed he distinctly states that the Groalszeorlh was Greene's
last book 1. There was every temptation to hurry out such a pub-
lication, for Greene, being a very popular writer, his wretched
death was much talked about. The sole sponsor for the work
w'as Cuthbert Burby *, at that time a young and struggling
publisher who was naturally anxious to seize this opportunity
for bringing himself into prominence, nor does he give any
particulars as to how it came into his possession. It bears a
suspiciously close resemblance to the Compressions of A'ed ]3rozwte
published by Greene not long before s. On the 'other hand, we

 Address to the Readers in Groatsworlh.
 He vas apprenticed to William Wright for eight .years in Dee. x583,
Arber's Transcrils of Slag. RegisL ii. x7 and he took up his freedom on
Jan. 3, x59, Id. vol. ii. 7o ; the first work registered by him for publication
being on May x, x59z , Id. Index, vol.
 Compare the following passages : ' My paents who for their gravitie and
honest life were well knowne and esteemed amongst their neighbours,' Repent.
' Knowe therefore that my parents were honest, of good reporte and no little
esteeme amongst their neighbours,' Ned trowne. ' But as out of one self same
clod of clay there sprouts both stinking weedes and delightful flowers, so from
honest parents often grow most dishonest children : for my father had care to
have me in my nonage brought up at schoole that I might, &c.,' ebezl. '(My
parents) sought of good nature and education would have served to have me
made an honest man, but as one self same ground brings forth flowers and
thistles so of a sound stock proved an untoward syon, and of a vertuous father
a most vicious sonne. It bootes little to rehearse the sinnes of my nonage,'
2Ved lrowne. Young yet in yeares though old in wickedness, I began to
resolve that there was nothing bad in that was profitable. Whereupon I grew
so rooted in all mischief that I had as great a delight in wickedness as sundrie
hath in godliness,' dejettl. "For when I came to eighteen years old what
sinne was it that I would not commit with greediness. Why I held them
excellent qualities, and accounted him unworthy to live that could not or durst
not live by such damnable practises,' 2Veal rowte.  Nor let them haunt the
eompauie of harlots whose throats are smooth as oyl, but their feet lead the
steps unto death and destruction, for they like Syrens with their sweete
inchaunting notes soothed me up in all kind of ungodliness,' Repenl. ' Beware
of whores, for they be Syrens that drawe men on to destruction, their sweet words
are inchantments, their eyes allure and their beauties bewitch,' ed lrowne.
 So that by their foolish persuasion the good and wholesome lesson I had learnt
went quite out of my remembrance and I fel againe with the dog to my olde

54 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
on his 'unseemly apparell.' For his braving and roistering
manners our only authority is his enemy Harvey. Eoth Chettle
and Nash have spoken of his gentlemanlike manners 1. His
habits were extremely convivial; he was what was called in
those days a 'good fellow,' 'of singular pleasance the very sup-
porter,' to borrow Chettle's expression. Nash tells us that he
' made no account of winning credit by his works;.., his only
care was to have a spell in his purse to conjure up a good cup of
wine with at all times.' That he was the monster of iniquity de-
picted by his enemies and depicted by himself is refuted by ,his
writings. Measured by a Puritan standard as he has measured
himself, or measured by the moral standard of the present day,
his life might no doubt be represented to be all that he and
his enemies have represented it. But a man, to be judged
fairly, must be judged by the standards of his time. That
standard has been indicated by Nash :--' Debt and deadly sinne,'
he bluntly says, 'who is not subject to? with any notorious
crime I never knew him tainted2.' He was a man of sensitive
conscience with a strong tendency perhaps to religious hypo-
chondria, like 13unyan. -The Groatsort]z of Iitle and _The
pentance remind us closely of Grace 4bounding. The contrast
between the looseness of his life and the purity of his writings,
between his unfeigned desire to serve the cause of Virtue and to
promote the welfare of his fellow citizens, and his lapses to the
very last into lawlessness and profligacy, were simply the struggle
in a very weak man of two equally undisciplined natures. Of
what was the best in him he was not the master: of what was
worst in him he was not the slave. And he acted and fared as
such men, in different degrees and under different conditions, will
always act and fare.

IV

Greene's services to English Literature were great. If he
was not the father of the English novel, he carried it much
further than it had been carried before. Many of his novels are
overloaded with ornament, stagnate in prolix discussions, and
a Nash, who had no reason to praise him, says: ' He might have writ
another Galat,'eo of manners, for his manners every time I came in his company,"
Strange Newes, Works, ii. 8 3.
 Id. p. zo.

GREENE'S POEMS

55

are little better than tedious moral dissertations. But the best
are really interesting, and the best of all is _Pandosto. The first
and second parts of ]Vever too late, and a Groatsworth af lVitte
have high merit. They are not, it is true, remarkable for their
subtle or even vivid delineation of character : they strike no deep
chords, they have no profound reflections ; but they are transcripts
from life and are full of beauty and pathos.
Greene followed Sannazzaro in interspersing prose with poetry;
and it is in his prose writings that all his non-dramatic poetry
is, with the exception of his Affdens Dreame, to be found.
Greene's best lyrics are not equal to the best lyrics of Lodge
and Barnfield. In spontaneity and grace Rosalynda's Madrigal
is incomparably superior to Menaphon's song. In finish and
felicity of expression Menaphon's picture of the maid with the
dallying locks must yield to Rosader's picture of Rosalynda ; and,
charming as Greene's octosyllabics always are, they have not the
charm of Barnfield's ' Nightingale's Lament.' But Greene's ordin-
ary level is, I venture to think, far above the ordinary level of both
those poets. For one poem which we pause over in theirs, there
are half a dozen which we pause over in his. He has moreover
much more variety. What could be more exquisite, simple though
it be even to homeliness, than Sephestia's song in 3[enaphon ?
The tranquil beauty of the song beginning 'Sweet are the
thoughts that savour of content' in the Farewell to Follie and of
Barmenissa's song in ]genelope's IUeb fascinates at once and for
ever. His fancy sketches are delightful. The pictures of Diana
and her bathing nymphs invaded by Cupid in the little poem
entitled 'Radagon in Dianam,' the picture of the journeying
Palmer in 2Vever too late, of Phillis in the valley in Tullies
fore, of

The God that hateth sleepe
Clad in armour all of fire
Hande in hande with Queene Desire,'

in the Palmer's Ode, are finished cameos of rare beauty. Not
less charming are the love poems; and among them is one real
gem--the song in ]gandasta, 'Ah, were she pitiful as she is faire.'
The powerful 'Sonnetto' in 3fenaphan beginning 'What thing
is love' reminds us closely of the still more powerful hundred and
twenty-ninth sonnet of Shakespeare, and perhaps suggested it.

CHARACTERISTICS AS A DRAMATIST 57
add a third--assuming that Greene wrote it--the P,?mer of Wake-
2feld. His tragedies Ahonsus and Orlando Furioso may be dis-
missed as ahnost beneath criticism; they are redeemed from
absolute contempt by little more than a few passages of rhetorical
merit. Nor is the Zooking-Glasse entitled to higher praise. Had
this group of dramas perished it would have been no loss to our
Literature, but it would have been some loss to our students of
dramatic history.
Greene's true position among dramatists was indicated by
Elizabethan critics. About his tragedies Meres is silent, but
he ranks him among the best 'Comedians' of his age. It is not
too much to say that the author of Friar tacon atd Far
tungay and of.ames ZVOf Scolland stands in the same relation to
Romantic Comedy as the author of Tamburlaine and Edward II
stands to Romantic Tragedy and History. If, historically speak-
ing, it is only a step from Edward II to I-fenry V,, it is, historically
speaking, only a step from Friar tacon and Friar tungay and
.frames IV to The Tzvo Genllemen of Verona and to As you like it.
We have only to glance at the condition of Comedy before it
came into Greene's hands to see how great was the revolution
accomplished by him. On the popular stage it had scarcely cast
off the trammels of the old barbarism. It still clung to the old
stanzas or lumbering rhymes as in the Sir Clyomon and 'ir
Clamydes, 1)amon and Pylhias, and The Rare Triloths of Zove
and Fortune " or if, as in 27ze R)mck lo knoe a 5zave and in The
2aming of a Shrew, it employed blank verse, it was blank verse
often hardly distinguishable from prose. It still clung to the
old buffoonery, as in Kemp's l[errimenls of lhe A[en of Golham.
It still remained unilluminated by romance or poetry. In the
theatre of the Classical school, on the other hand, it was as
yet little more than an academic eideixis in prose, as it was with
Lyly, or a mere version from the Italian as it had been with
Gascoigne. We open Greene's Comedies, and we are in the
world of Shakespeare; we are with the sisters of Olivia and
Imogen, with the brethren of Touchstone and Florizel, in the
homes of Phebe and Perdita. We breathe the same atmos-
phere, we listen to the same language.
It was Greene who first brought comedy into contact with the
blithe bright life of Elizabethan England, into contact with poetry,
into contact with romance. He took it out into the woods and

62 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

his l?nglands ]garnassus assigned to Greene 'two passages' (as
a matter of fact he has assigned to him six passages), one consisting
of seven and the other of five lines, which are found in Selimus,
thereby showing that Allot supposed that Greene was the author
of Selimus. Allot, it is shown, was well acquainted with Greene's
writings, as he takes no fewer than  thirty-nine' quotations from
them: he was a contemporary of Greene, and was probably
acquainted with Greene's friends, and must therefore have had
access to the best information. This would undoubtedly be
a very strong presumption in favour of the theory if Allot could
be depended upon, but he cannot. He has in many cases, where
it is possible for us to detect him, mis-assigned his quotations.
He has, for example, attributed Gaunt's dying speeches in Shake-
speare's Richard zr to Drayton, as well as the opening lines of
Spenser's3ZoI/zerZ-lubberd's 2"ale and two passages from Spenser's
UirgiYs Gnat to Greene. It is therefore impossible to allow
very nmch weight to Allot's authority; unsupported by cor-
roboration it is ahnost worthless. Dr. Grosart's next piece of
evidence is that Thomas Creede, the publisher of Selimus, was
also the publisher oframes IV and Ilthonsus , and that he
published the three with the same device on the title-page.
But unfortunately for Dr. Grosart, Thomas Creede was a regular
publisher of plays, and published many others with the same
device. The fact that he published James IV and Alhonsus
with Greene's name, and published Sdimus as anonymous, seems
to be a very strong presumption that the play was not Greene's,
for Greene's name at that time was a name to conjure with. The
internal evidence adduced by Dr. Grosart is even less satisfactory
than the external. He quotes the following lines, and tells us
that this passage alone would have 'determined nay assigning
Selimus to Greene"--

'The sweet content that country life affords
Passeth the royal pleasures of a king;
For there our joys are interlaced with fears,
But here no fear nor care is harboured
But a sweet calm of a most quiet state.'

'Every one,' he says, 'who knows Greene, knows that over and
over he returns on anything of his that caught on, sometimes
abridging and sometimes expanding, as in this of "sweet content,"'
and he then places side by side with it the well-known verses in

64 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
centage of rhymes, many of which appear to be accidental, is
very small indeed, and there are no rhymed stanzas at all.
Dr. Grosart next points out that in both plays are found ' senti-
parodyings of Marlowe.' Considering that Alhonsus is a servile
and Sdimus in some slight degree an imitation of Marlowe's
iTamburlai,e, the circumstance is not very striking. Next Dr.
Grosart gives a list of verbal coincidences to be found in passages
in elimus and in passages in Greene's acknowledged writings
and to this he attaches great importance. Of these there is not
one which might not be found in the writings of Greene's con-
temporaries, indeed the majority of them are ordinary Elizabethan
words and phrases, such as 'armestrong,' 'forged,' 'gentles,'
' gratulate,' ' harbinger,' ' misconsters,' ' negromancy,' ' overslipt,'
' ought' for owedthat is, nine out of the twelve he gives.
The presumptions in favour of the author of Locrine having
been the author of Seh?nus are infinitely more cogent than
the arguments adduced in favour of Greene having been the
author of Selimus: or, to put it in other words, if Greene
was the author of Sdimus, he must have been, according to
Dr. Grosart's reasoning, the author of Zocrine, and it would
be most illogical to assign one to him and not assign the
other. Take first the parallels to be found in the two plays :
' Ah crel tyrant and unmerciftd,
More bloodie than the Anthropophagi
That fill their hungry stomachs with mens flesh.'
Selimus,  347-9-
' Or where the bloodie Anthropophagi
\Vith greedie jaws devour the wandering wights.'
Zocrine iii. v.
' Even as the great Aegyptian crocodile,
Wanting his praie, with artificial tears
And fained plaints his subtill tongue doth file
T' entrap the silly wandering traveller
And move him to advance his footing neare,
That when he is in danger of his clawes
He may devour him with his famished jawes.'--SeL 375-8.
' High on a bank by Nilus boisterous streames
Tearfully sate the Aegyptian crocodile,
Dreadfully grinding in her sharp long teeth
The broken bowels, &c.'Zoc. iii. Prol.
 Send out thy furies from thy firie hall,
The pitiless Erynnis arm'd with whippes,
And all the damnd monsters of black hell.'SeL  248-50.

GREENE'S RELATION TO HENRY VI PROBLEM 6 9
strengthens her case, or resolves itself into anything more than
what might be mere coincidence, or what he shares in common
with other contemporaries. And the truth is that these tests are
most fallacious. We know that the Elizabethan dramatists,
especially those of the older schools, borrowed without scruple
from one another; and in this particular problem the difficulty is
increased by the presence of unknown quantities, particularly
Peele, and by the impossibility of determining the dates of the two
plays. As an editor of Greene it has been my duty to study this
question carefully, and I may perhaps be permitted to say that
after weighing such evidence as is accessible, the balance of
probability seems to me to incline in favour of Greene having
had a hand in their composition, but in what parts and to what
extent can only be a subject of precarious conjecture. And pre-
carious conjecture I take to be no part of an editor's duty. That
Greene had any hand in The Troublesome Idaign of It'izg John,
as Mr. Fleay conjectures, is an hypothesis so absolutely baseless
that it does not come within the pale of discussion.
Nor, again, is there any foundation for what l Ir. Farmer seems
to imply ( Variorum Slzakeseare, vol. xix. p. 5oo), that Greene had
written, or had assisted in writing, a play on the subject of Henry
VIII. He had evidently confounded him with a Robert Greene
whom Stow, in a list of authors prefixed to the 6o edition of Iris
Annales, enmnerates among the authorities for that work, and
whose name he cites three or four times in the margin in the
accounts of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. It is
quite possible, indeed, that Stow's Greene was the poet, but hardly
likely; it is still less likely that, assuming Stow's Robert Greene to
be our Greene, Stow derived his information frown any drama or
work in verse.

7 2

ALPHONSVS

and lelhsabe, 'As when the sun attird in glistering robe,' which is
taken from Faerie Queene, I. v. st. 2.
That it was Greene's earliest attempt at drmnatic composition seems
to me in the highest degree probable from internal evidence. It is
impossible not to suppose that Greene is speaking of himself when
he put these lines in the mouth of Venus, especially when we read
them in the light of what he says in the prefaces to his Mourning
Garment and Farewell to Follie--

'And this my hand, which vsed for to pen
The praise of loue and Cupids peedes power,
Will now begin to treat of bloudie Mars,
Of doughtie deeds and valiant victories." (37-4o.)

He evidently intended to enter the field against Marlowe, to fight
him, so to speak, with his own weapons. Alibhonsus is an extravagant
imitation of the two parts of SFamburhdne, such as might be expected
from a mere tiro in dramatic composition. The career of Alphonsus, his
conquests, his partition of those conquests, his marriage with Iphigina
at the'climax of his success, his character, his language--in all this we
have Tamburlaine--and Tamburlaine crudely--over again. Amurack
is partly Tamburlaine and partly Bajazet. Albinius and Laelius revolt
from Flaminius and join Alphonsus as partners in his fortunes, just as
Theridamas in Marlowe revolts from Persia to cast in his lot with
Tamburlaine. Laelius, Miles, and Albinius are invested by Alphonsus
with the crowns of Naples, Milan, and Arragon, just as Theridamas,
Techelles, and Usumcasane are invested by Tamburlaine with the
crowns of Argier, Fez, and Morocco. And just as Tamburlaine will not
crown Zenocrate ' vntil with greater honours I be graced,' so Alphonsus
reserves no realm for himself except the vast reahn which, still
unconquered, he is determined to subdue. Parallels in detail are very
numerous. Among the most striking are Albhonsus, iv. iii. (I48I-2)--

' .,41plz. I clap vp Fortune in a cage of gold,
To make her turne her wheele as I thinke best.'

First part TamburlaDze, i. ii--

' Tam& I hold the fates bound fast in iron chain,
And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about.'

The words of Albinius when he receives the crown of Arragon,
A/phons. iii. i (766-9)--

Thou King of heauen, which by thy power diuine,
I)ost see the secrets of each liuers heart,
Beare record now with what vnwilling mind,
I do receiue the Crowne of Aragon.'

76

INTRODUCTION TO ALPHONSVS

incident in Greene's play. All Greene wanted was a hero in whom
he could find, or whom he could transform into, an analogy to
Marlowe's Tamburlaine, and him he found in Alphonso V. It is
not at all unlikely that he consulted the Memoirs of Alphonso V by
Barthlemy Fazio, printed in I56o and again in I563, ]artholomaei
Facii Z)e Rebus Gestis ab Alphonso Primo 2Veafiolitanorum Retie
Commentariorum Libri decem, the opening paragraph of which work
bears some resemblance to Greene's Prologue by Venus--
' Etsi nonnullos viros haec aetas tulit qui, praestanti ingenio atque doctrinfl
praediti, turn ad alia quaeque turn ad res gestas scribendas peridonei existimari
possunt, fuerantque, et nostra et patrum nostrorurn rnemoria, aliquot populi ac
principes clari qui magna ac laudabilia faciuora gessere, ea tamen est apud
plerosque nouarum rerum negligentia vt perpauci ad scribendam historiam
sese conferant. Sunt enim qui cum legerint aut Alexandri aut Caesaris aut
populi Romani facta, haec noua ac recentia non multum delectent. Namque
ira seres habet, vt quae nobis notiora et familiariora sunt haec in minore pretio
nescio quomodo habeamus.'
He may also have consulted, though this is not likely, a little work
by Albertus Timannus, printed in x 573, l)e dlfonso Rege drationum
el JVeajbolis Oratio. But Greene's Alphonsus bears the same relation
to the Alphonsus of Fazio and Timann as the Alexander of the
dlexandreis bears to the Alexander of Plutarch, of Arrian, and of
Quintus Curtius. His narrative is pure fiction, wreathed round a
framework of fact so slender that when discovered it is scarcely
discernible. Beyond the fact that Alphonso conquered Naples and
had relations with Milan and with the Turks, there is nothing in the
incidents or in the characters which corresponds with reality.

The text of the Quarto, of which there are two copies, one in the
Duke of Devonshire's Library and one which belonged to Dyce, now
in the Dyce and Forster Library at South Kensington, is remarkably
free from corruptions.

THE

COMICALL

HISTORIE OF

ALPHONSVS KN OF ARAGON

ts it hath bene sundrie times lcted

MADE BX" R. G.

LONDON

Brinted*

THOMAS CREEDE
IY99

' (DRAMATIS PERSONAE

CARINUS, the rightful heir lo the crown of Arragon.
aAxLPHONSUS, his son.
FLAMINIUS, _"t'Zff of Arragon.
BELINUS, King  Wales.
DUKE OF MLAN.
LBINIUS.
FABIUS.
LAELIUS.
MLES.

AMURACK, the Great Turk.
.ARCASTUS, k"l'g Of the Ioors.
CLARAMONT, King of Barbary.
CROCON, King of Arabia.
FAUSTUS, King of tabylon.
AIAZET.
Two 29riestsof lahomet.
29rovost, Soldiers, Ianissaries, 'c.
FAUSTA, wife to Amurack.
IPHIGINA, ]wr daught.er.
][EDEA, al ene]zantress.
MAHOMet (s2eakingfrom the brazen head).
"VENUS.
.The NINE MUSES.)

 2Vot in Q, adapted from 1)yce.

THE
COMICALL HISTORIE OF ALPHONSVS
KING OF ARRAGON

ACT I.

(PROLOOUE.)
After you haue sounded thr/se, let Venus be let downe from the lolb of
the Stage, and when she is downe, say
Poets are scarce, when Goddesses themselues
Are forst to leaue their high and stately seates,
Placed on the top of high Olynus Mount,
To seeke theln out, to pen their Champions praise.
The time hath bene when ffomers sugred Muse 5
Did make each Eccho to repeate his verse,
That euery coward that durst crack a speare,
And Tilt and Turney for his Ladies sake,
Was painted out in colours of such price
As might become the proudest Potentate.
But now a dayes so yrksome idless' slights,
And cursed charmes hatie witch'd each students mind,
That death it is to any of them all,
If that their hands to penning you do call:
Oh Virgil, Virgil, wert thou now aliue,
Whose painfull pen in stout Mugustus dayes,
Did daigne to let the base and silly fly
To scape away without thy praise f her.
I do not doubt but long or ere this time,
Mlphonsus fame vnto the heauens should clime: o
.41phonsus fame, that man of Zoue his seed,
Sprung from the loines of the immortall Gods,
Whose sire, although he habit on the Earth,
For the Quartos see ]ntroduttion, p. 76. toth are cited as Q : S. '. is Dj,ce's
Quarto in lhe South tk'ensitgton fuseum
11 idless' Z?yce : Idels Q 17 fly l?yce : flea Q

PROL.] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON 8t
You stand still lazing, and haue nought to do?
Clio. 3Ielpomine, make you a why of that ?
I know full oft you haue (in) Authors red,
The higher tree the sooner is his fall, 60
And they which first do flourish and beare s,:vay,
Ypon the sudden vanish cleane away.
Cal. Mocke on apace; nay backe is broad enough
To beare your flouts, as many as they be.
That yeare is rare that here feeles winters stormes: 65
That tree is fertile which here wanteth frute;
And that stone Muse hath heaped well in store
Which neuer wanteth clients at her doore.
But yet, my sisters, when the surgent seas
Haue ebde their fill, their waues do rise againe 70
And fill their bankes vp to the very brimmes:
And when my pipe hath easd her selfe a while,
Such store of suters shall nay seate frequent,
That you shall see my schollers be not spent.
trrato. Spent (quoth you) sister? then we were to blame, 5
If we should say your schollers all were spent:
]ut pray now tell me when your painfull pen
Will rest enough?
2ll-el. When husbandmen sheere hogs.
len. (coming forward). 3[elomine, J?rrato, and the rest, 80
From thickest shrubs dame l'enus did espie
The mortall hatred which you ioyntly beare
Vnto your sister high Calliope.
What, do you thinke if that the tree do bend,
It followes therefore that it needs must breake? 85
And since her pipe a little while doth rest,
It neuer shall be able for to sound?
Yes, _zll-uses, yes, if that she wil vouchsafe
To entertaine Dame IZenus in her schoole,
And further me with her instructions, 90
She shall haue schollers which wil daine to be
In any other _ses Companie.
Calliope. Most sacred Ienus, do you doubt of that?
Calliope would thinke her three times blest
59 in Zgj,ce 6 flours ? Q (S/') 75 too Q

COLLINS. I G

Sc. I1 ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON
'Next to Alphonsus should my father come
For to possesse the Diadem by right
Of Aragon, but that the wicked wretch
His yonger brother, with aspiring mind,
By secret treason robd him of his life,
And me his sonne of that which was nay due.'
These words, my sire, did so torment nay mind,
As had I bene with Zvion in hell,
The rauening bird could neuer plague me worse:
For euer since my mind hath troubled bene
Which way I might reuenge this traiterous fact,
And that recouer which is ours by right.
Carl Ah, my Ahonsus, neuer thinke on that,
In vain it is to striue against the streame;
The Crowne is lost, and now in hucksters hands,
And all our hope is cast into the dust:
t/ridle these thoughts, and learne the same of me,--
A quiet life doth passe an Emperie.
Ahon. Yet, noble father, ere Carinus brood
Shall brooke his foe for to vsurpe his seate,
Heele die the death with honour in the field,
And so his life and sorrowes briefly end.
But did I know my froward fate were such
As I should faile in this my iust attempt,
This sword, deare father, should the Author be
To make an end of this nay Tragedie.
Therefore, sweet sire, remaine you here a while,
And let me walke my Fortune for to trie:
I do not doubt but ere the time be long,
Ile quite his cost, or else my selfe will die.
Carl My noble sonne, since that thy mind is such
For to reuenge thy fathers foule abuse,
As that nay words may not a whit preuaile
To stay thy Journey, go with happie fate,
And soone returne vnto thy fathers Cell,
XVith such a traine as lulius C(esar came
To noble Rome, when as he had atchieu'd
The mightie Monarch of the triple world.

83

x4o

,6o

165 atchiu'd Q

G2

Sc. I] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON
Why doth dame 17'rra cease with greedie iawes
To swallow vp `dlinius presently?
What, shall I flie and hide my trayterous head,
From stout `dl/]onsus whom I so misusde?
Or shall I yeeld? Tush, yeelding is in vaine:
Nor can I flie, but he will follow me.
Then cast thy selfe downe at his graces feete,
Confesse thy fault, and readie make thy brest
To entertaine thy well deserued death.
Albinius kneeles downe.
`dl/. What newes, my friend? why are you so blanke,
That earst before did vaunt it to the skies ?
.4li. Pardon, deare Lord! `dl[nius pardon craues
For this offence, which, by the heauens I rowe,
Vnwittingly I did vnto your grace;
For had I knowne `dlphonsus had bene here,
Ere that my tongue had spoke so trayterously,
This hand should make my very soule to die.
`d/_pon. Rise vp, my friend, thy pardon soon is got."
Albinius rises
But, prithie, tell me what the cause might be,
That in such sort thou erst vpbraidest me?
.diM. Most mightie Prince, since first your fathers sire
Did yeeld his ghost vnto the sisters three,
And olde Carinus forced was to flie
His natiue soyle and royall Diadem,
I, for because I seemed to complaine
Against their treason, shortly was forewarnd
Nere more to haunt the bounds of .dragon,
On paine of death; then like a man forlorne,
I sought about to find some resting place,
And at the length did happe vpon this shore,
Where shewing forth my cruell banishment,
By King t3elinus I am succoured.
But now, my Lord, to answere your demaund:
It happens so, that the vsurping King
Of .dragon, makes warre vpon this land

205 you (now) Gvosart after Z)yce

85

210

220

230
218 & Z). inserted after 21 O.

86 THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF [ACT I

For certaine tribute which he claymeth heere:
Wherefore .Belinus sent me round about
His Countrey for to gather vp (his) men
For to withstand this most iniurious foe ;
Which being done, returning with the King,
Dispightfully I did so taunt your grace,
Imagining you had some souldier bene,
The which, for feare, had sneaked from the campe.
A/phou. Inough, Albinius, I do know thy mind:
But may it be that these thy happie newes
Should be of truth, or haue you forged them ?
AlbL The gods forbid that ere AINnius tongue
Should once be found to forge a fayned tale,
Especially vnto his soueraigne Lord:
But if Allwnsus thinke that I do faine,
Stay here a while, and you shall plainely see
My words be true, when as you do perceiue
Our royall arnfie march before your face ;
The which, ift please nay NobIe Lord to stay,
Ile hasten on with all the speed I may.
Alphon. Make haste, Albinius, if you loue my life:
But yet beware, when as your Armie comes,
You do not make as though you do me kno%
For I a while a souldier base will be,
Vntill I finde time more conuenient
To shew, Albinius, what is mine intent.
A/bL What ere Alphonsus fittest doth esteeme,
Albinius for his profit best will decree.
Aljhon. Now do I see both Gods and fortune too
Do ioyne their powers to raise Alphonsus fame:
For in this broyle I do not greatly doubt
But that I shall nay Couzens courage tame.
But see whereas l?elinus Armie comes,
_And he him selfe, vnlesse I gesse awrie:
Who ere it be, I do not passe a pinne,
Alhonsus meanes his souldier for to be.

235

4o

uSo

u55

6o

65
stands aside.

2 his om.Q 259 to Q

Sc. I] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON 99

Did strike such terror to their daunted mindes 6o
That glad was he which could escape away,
With life and limme, forth of that bloudie flay.
23elb, us flies vnto the Turkish soyle,
To craue the aide of ./tmuracke their King:
Ynto the which he willingly did consent, 675
And sends elipms, with two other Kings,
To know god 3lahamet's pleasure in the same:
Meane time the Empresse by 3[edea's helpe
Did vse such charmes that tmuracke did see,
In soundest sleepe, what afterward should hap. 680
How tmuracke did recompence her paine,
With mickle more, this Act shall shew you plaine.
Exit Venus.

(SCENE I.)
Enter one, carrying two crownes e,on a Crest : Alphonsus, Albinius,
Laelius and Miles, vith their souldiers.
Alph. Welcome, bmue youthes of Aragon, to me,
Yea welcome, 3liles, Laelius and the rest,
Whose prowesse alone hath bene the onely cause
That we, like victors, haue subdued our foes.
Lord, what a pleasure was it to my minde
To see ]dims, which not long before
Did with his threatnings terrifie the Gods,
Now scudde apace from warlike Laelius' blowes. 690
The Duke of Millaim, he increast our sport,
Who doubting that his force was ouerweake
For to withstand, 3riles, thy sturdie arme,
Did give more credence to his frisking skippes
Then to the sharpnesse of his cutting blade. 69
What Tabius did to pleasure vs withall,
./tlbinius knows as well as I my selfe:
For well I wot, if that thy tyred steed
Had bene as fresh and swift in foote as his,
lie should haue felt, yea knowne for certaintie, 700
To checke Alphonsus did deserue to die.
Breefly, my friends and fellow peeres in armes,
The worst of you deserue such mickle praise
699, Who sugg. 1)yce: When Q

708 deserue .Dyce : doo deserue Q
H2

THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF [Aca-III

As that my tongue denies for to set forth
The demie parcell of your valiant deeds ;
So that, perforce, I must by dutie be
Bound to you all for this your curtesie.
_ghl Not so, my Lord ; for if our willing armes
Haue pleasured you so much as you do say,
We haue done nought but that becommeth vs 7io
For to defend our mightie soueraigne.
As for my part, I count my labour small,
Yea though it had bene twise as much againe,
Since that Al_phonsus doth accept thereof.
Alphon. Thankes, worthie J[iles: least (that) all the world
Should count Alphonsus thanklesse for to be,
Zaelius sit downe, and les sit by him,
And that receiue the which your swords haue wonne.
Sit dowte Laelius and Miles.
First, for because thou, Zaelius, in these broyles,
By martiall might, didst proude elinus chase
From troupe to troupe, from side to side about,
And neuer ceast from this thy swift pursute
Vntill thou hadst obtain'd his royall Crowne,
Therefore, I say, Ile do thee nought but right,
And giue thee that (the) which thou well hast wonne. 7z
Set the Crowne on his head.
Here doth Alphonsus Crowne thee, Zadius, King
Of Vaples Towne, with all dominions
That earst belonged to our trayterous foe,
That proud elinus, in his regiment.
Sound trunbets and Drummes.
Miles, thy share the J[illaine Dukedome is, 730
For, well I wot, thy sword deseru'd no lesse;
Set the Crowne on his head.
The which Alphonsus frankly giueth thee,
In presence of his warlike men at armes;
And if that any stomacke this my deed,
Alphonsus can reuenge thy wrong with speed. 735
Sound Trumbels and Drumnes.
715 lest that conj. Halker : but lest conj. Dyce

725 the conj. Ialker

o6 THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF [AcrIIt

Sound Instruments a while withD, and then Amuracke say.
And doest thou think, thou proud iniurious God,
AZahound I meane, since thy vaine prophesies
Led Mmurack into this dolefull case,
To haue his Princely feete in irons clapt, 9io
Which erst the proudest kings were forst to kisse,
That thou shalt scape vnpunisht for the same?
No, no, as soone as by the helpe of loue
I scape this bondage, downe go all thy groues,
Thy alters tumble round about the streets, 95
And whereas erst we sacrifisde to thee,
Now all the Turks thy mortall foes shall bee.
Sound Instrumenls a while wilhin, Amuracke say.
Behold the Iemme and Iewel of mine age,
See where she comes, whose heauenly maiestie
Doth far surpasse the braue and gorgeous pace
Which Cytherea, daughter vnto loue,
Did put in vre when as she had obtaind
The golden Apple at the shepheards hands.
See, worthie tausta, where MZphonsus stands,
Whose valiant courage could not daunted be 95
With all the men at armes of Affrica ;
See now he stands, as one that lately sawe
3redusa's head, or Gorgons hoarie hue.
Sound Instruments a while within, Amurack say.
And can it be that it may happen so?
Can Fortune proue so friendly vnto me 930
As that Alphonsus loues Iphigina ?
The match is made, the wedding is decreed.
Sound trumpets, ho! strike drums for mirth and glee:
And three times welcome sonne in lawe to mee.

Fausta rise  as i! were in a furie, wake Amuracke, and say.
;au. Fie, Amurack, what wicked words be these?
How canst thou looke thy t;ausla in her face,
Whom thou hast wronged in this shamefull sort?
And are the vowes so solemnely you sware

935

933 ho! Ed.: hawQ

o8 THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF [AcT III

Delay is dangerous, and procureth harme: 975
The wanton colt is tamed in his youth:
Wounds must be cured when they be fresh and greene
And plurisies, when they begin to breed,
With little care are driuen away with speed.
Had Fausla then, when-Mmuracke begunne 980
With spightfull speeches to controll and checke,
Sought to preuent it by her martiall force,
This banishment had neuer hapt to me.
But the lchinus, fearing to be goard,
I)oth keepe her younglings in her paunch so long, 985
Till, when their prickes be waxen long and sharpe,
They put their damme at length to double paine:
And I, because I loathed the broyles of
Bridled my thoughts, and pressed downe my rage;
In recompence of which nay good intent 99o
I have receiu'd this wofull banishment.
Wofull, said I ? nay, happie I did meane,
If that be happie which doth set one free:
For by this meanes I do not doubt ere long
But Fausta shall with ease reuenge her wrong. 995
Come, daughter, come: my minde foretelleth me
That Amuracke shall soone requited be.

(Exeunt.)

(SCENE III. A Groue.)

( Enler Fausta vilh Iphigina ;) Medea meele her and say.

4[e..Fausla, what meanes this sudden flight of yours?
Why do you leaue your husbands princely Court,
And all alone passe through these thickest groues, IOOO
More fit to harbour brutish sauadge beasts
Then to receiue so high a Queene as you?
Although your credit would not stay your steps
From bending them into these darkish dennes,
Yet should the daunger, which is imminent ioo
979 care 29yce : ease Q 997, 8 Between these lines Q has only this S. D. :
' blake as though you were a going out, l#Iedea meete her and say.'

Sc. III] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON lO 9
To euery one which passeth by these pathes,
Keepe you at home with fayre IpMgina.
What foolish toy hath tickled you to this ?
I greatly feare some hap hath hit anais.
Hau. No toy, lfedea, tickled Fausla's head, io,o
Nor foolish fancie ledde me to these groues,
But earnest businesse egges nay trembling steps
To passe all dangers, what so ere they be.
I banisht am, _/l[edea, I, which erst
Was Empresse ouer all the triple world, iot5
Am banisht now from pallace and from pompe.
But if the Gods be fauourers to me,
Ere twentie dayes I will reuenged be.
_J/-e. I thought as much, when first from thickest leaues
I saw you trudging in such posting pace. io2o
But to the purpose: what may be the cause
Of this (so) strange and sudden banishment ?
Hau. The cause, aske you ? a simple cause, God wot:
'Twas neither treason, nor yet felonie,
But for because I blamde his foolishnes. Io25
21/e. I heare you say so, but I greatly feare,
Ere that your tale be brought vnto an end,
Youle proue your selfe the author of the same.
But pray, be briefe, what follie did your spowse ?
And how will you reuenge your wrong on him ? Io3o
Hau. What follie, quoth you ? such as neuer yet
Was heard or scene, since _P/loci)us first gan shine.
You know how he was gathering in all haste
His men at armes, to set vpon the troupe
Of proude Alphonsus; yea, you well do know Io35
How you and I did do the best we could
To make him shew vs in his drowsie dreame
What afterward should happen in his warres.
Much talke he had, which now I have forgot.
But at the length, this surely was decreed, io4o
How that A]ponsus and lpMgina
Should be conioynd in J'unoes sacred rites.
Which when I heard, as one that did despise
That such a traytor should be sonne to me,
1022 so conj. IValker and Dyce

Sc. III] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON xx
And headlong fall to Syllaes greedie gulph. ,085
I vowd before, and now do vow againe,
Before I wedde Alphonsus, Ile be slaine.
.,,lie. In vaine it is, to striue against the streame ;
Fates must be followed, and the Gods decree
Must needs take place in euery kinde of cause. o9o
Therefore, faire maide, bridle these brutish thoughts,
And learne to follow what the fates assigne.
When Saturne heard that Iupiter his sonne
Should driue him headlong from his heauenly seat
Downe to the bottome of the darke Auerne, 1o95
He did command his mother presently
To do to death the young and guiltlesse childe:
But what of that? the mother loathd in heart
For to commit so vile a massacre;
Yea, Ioue did liue, and, as the fates did say, lXOO
From heauenly seate draue Saturne cleane away.
What did auaile the Castle all of Steele,
The which Acrisius caused to be made
To keepe his daughter ]3anae clogged in ?
She was with childe for all her Castles force; i io
And by that childe Acrisius, her sire,
Was after slaine, so did the fates require.
A thousand examples I could bring hereof;
But Marble stones (do) need no colouring,
And that which euery one cloth know for truth iliO
Needs no examples to confirme the same.
That which the fates appoint must happen so,
Though heauenly Ioue and all the Gods say no.
tTau. IpMgina, she say(e)th nought but truth;
Fates must be followed in their iust decrees: iii$
And therefore, setting all delayes aside,
Come let vs wend vnto Amazone,
And gather vp our forces out of hand.
rphi. Since austa wils, and fates do so command,
2rphigina will neuer it withstand. II20
2xeunl omnes.
109.5 Auarne  1108 A thousand  : Thousand sugg. Zyce 1109 do need
sugg. 2Pyce : need Zyce : needs  : Query needeth llla. ayeth 2Pyce : ayth 

xx2 THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF [ACTIV

ACT IV.
(PROLOGVE.)
Enter Venus.
Thus haue you scene how Amuracke himselfe,
teausta his wife, and euery other King
Which hold their scepters at the rke his hands,
_Are now in armes, entending to destroy,
And bring to nought, the Prince of Aragon. I2 5
Charmes haue been vsde by wise 3[edeas art,
To know before what afterward shall hap;
And King telinus with high C[aramounl,
Ioynd to Arcastus, which with Princely pompe
Doth rule and gouerne all the warlike Afoores, II3o
Are sent as Legats to god A/lahomet,
To know his counsell in these high affaires.
21lahound, prouokte by Amurackes discourse,
Which, as you heard, he in his dreame did vse,
Denies to play the Prophet any more; I35
But, by the long intreatie of his Priests,
He prophesies in such a craftie sort
As that the hearers needs must laugh for sport.
Yet poore t?elinus, with his fellow Kings,
Did glue such credence to that forged tale I4o
As that they lost their dearest liues thereby,
And Amuraeke became a prisoner
Vnto Alhonsus, as straight shall appeare.

Exit Venus.

(SCENE I. Tetle of Mahomet.)
Let there be a brazen Head set in the middle of the blace behind
the Stage, out of the wMclz cast flames of flre, drums rumble within :
fnler two 19riesls.
I. fir. My fellow Priest of lahouads holy house,
What can you iudge of these strange miracles 1145
Which daily happen in this sacred seate ?
19rums rumble within.
Harke what a rumbling ratleth in our eares.
Act III Q 1123 holds Q 1129 Arcastus 19yce : Alphonsus Q
114 Priest zOyce : Priests Q

Sc. II] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON II7

Instead of beds set forth with Ibonie,
The greenish grasse hath bene my resting place,
And for my pillow stuffed "l" with downe,
The hardish hillockes haue sufficed my turne.
Thus I, which erst had all things at my will,
A life more hard then death do follow still.
Carl (aside). Me thinks I heare, not very far from hence,
Some wofull wight lamenting his mischance:
Ile go and see if that I can espie i29o
Him where he sits, or ouerheare his talke.
23u. Oh lillaine, A[illaine, litle dost thou thinke,
How that thy Duke is now in such distresse ;
For if thou didst, I soone should be releast
Forth of this greedie gulph of miserie.
Ca. (aside). The A[illaine Duke: I thought as much before,
When first I glaunst mine eyes vpon his face:
This is the man which was the onely cause
That I was forst to flie from Aragon.
High Ioue be prais'd, which hath allotted me 3oo
So fit a time to quite that iniurie.--
Pilgrime, God speed.
23u. Welcome, graue sir, to me.
Carl Me thought as now I heard you for to speak
Of Mil/aine land: pray, do you know the same? I3o5
(Z)u.) I, aged father, I haue cause to know
Both 21Hllaine land and all the parts thereof.
Carl Why then, I doubt not but you can resolue
Me of a question that I shall demaund.
Z)u. I, that I can, what euer that it be. I3io
Carl. Then, to be briefe, not twentie winters past,
When these nay liras, which withered are with age,
Were in the prime and spring of all their youth,
I still desirous, as young gallants be,
To see the fashions of Arabia
My natiue soyle, and in this pilgrims weed,
Began to trauell through vnkenned lands.
Much ground I past, and many soyles I saw ;
But when nay feete in A[i/laine land I set,
1284 soft with downe conj. tValker : Query with soft downe 106
.Dyce : CA. Q

Sc. III] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON

Before their King had notice of the same?
What, do they thinke to play bob foole with me?
Or are they waxt so frolicke now of late,
Since that they had the leading of our bands,
As that they thinke that mightie .4muracke
Dares do no other then to soothe them vp?
Why speakest thou not? what fond or franticke fit 36o
Did make those carelesse Kings to venture it ?
fla. Pardon, deare Lord ; no franticke fit at all,
No frolicke vaine, nor no presumptuous mind,
Did make your Viceroies take these wars in hand
But forst they were by fahounds prophecie 1365
To do the same, or else resolue to die.
Ainu. So, sir, I heare you, but can scarce beleeue
That Afahomet would charge them go before,
Against Aonsus with so small a troupe,
Whose number farre exceeds King Xerxes troupe. 37 o
fla. Yes, Noble Lord, and more then that, hee said
That, ere that you, with these your warlike men,
Should come to bring your succour to the field,
Telinus, Claramounl, and Ircastus too
Should all be crownd with crownes of beaten gold,
And borne with triumphes round about their tents.
Ainu. With triumph, man ? did Afaound tell them so ?
Prouost, go carrie 1radius presently,
Vnto the Marshalsie; there let him rest,
Clapt sure and safe in fetters all of steele, i38o
Till Amuracke discharge him from the same.
For be he sure, vnles it happen so
As he did say 3/[aound did prophesie,
By this my hand forthwith the slaue shall die.

Lay hold of Fabius, and make as thougl, you carrie him out; Enter
a (messenger) souldier and say.

JZess. Stay, Prouost, stay, let trabius alone:
More fitteth now that euery lustie lad
Be buckling on his helmet, then to stand
In carrying souldiers to the Marshalsie.

1867 scarce .Dyce : scare Q 1376 triumphes Q : triumph .Dyce

sc. II] ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON 2 5
Of Aragonians, was, with much adoo,
At length tooke prisoner by Ahonsus hands.
So that, vnles you succour soone do bring,
You lose your spowse, and we shall want our King.
]M. Oh haples .hap, oh dire and cruell fate! 56o
What iniurie hath Amuracke, my sire,
Done to the Gods, which now I know are wrath,
Although vniustly and without a cause?
For well I wot, not any other King,
Which now doth liue, or since the world begun s6s
Did sway a scepter, had a greater care
To please the Gods then mightie Amuracke.
And for to quite our fathers great good will,
Seeke they thus basely all his fame to spill ?
Fau. I2higina , leaue off these wofull tunes: S7o
It is not words can cure and ease this wound,
But warlike swords ; not teares, but sturdie speares.
High Amuracke is prisoner to our foes.
What then ? thinke you that our Amazoms,
Ioynd with the forces of the 2"urkish troupe, 57S
Are not sufficient for to set him free?
Yes, daughter, yes, I meane not for to sleepe
Vntill he is free, or we him company keepe.--
March on, my mates.

(SCENE II. Anolher art of lhe field.)
Slrike v2b alarum: flie Alphonsus,follow Iphigina, and say.
12hL How now, Alhonsus! you which neuer yet a sSo
Could meete your equall in the feates of armes,
How haps it now that in such sudden sort
You flie the presence of a sillie maide ?
What, haue you found mine arme of such a force
As that you thinke your bodie ouerweake ,585
For to withstand the furie of my blowes?
Or do you else disdaine to fight with me,
:For staining of your high nobilitie ?
Alp. No, daintie dame, I wold not haue thee think
That euer thou or any other wight ,590

1559 loose Q

132

THE COMICALL HISTORIE OF

[AcT V

Can suffer such a Goddes as this dame
Thus for to shead such store of Christall teares.
Beleeue me, sonne, although my yeares be spent, 8oo
Her sighes and sobs in twaine my heart do rent.
4/1. Like power, deare father, had she ouer me,
Vntill for loue I looking to receiue
Loue backe againe, not onely was denied,
But also taunted in most spightfull sort:
Which made me loathe that which I erst did loue,
As she her selfe with all her friends shall proue.
Carl How now, Al/zonsus? you which haue so long
Bene trained vp in bloudie broyles of _SZars,
What know you not, that Castles are not wonne
At first assault, and women are not wooed
Vhen first their suters profer loue to them ?
As for my part, I should account that maide
A wanton wench, vnconstant, lewde and light,
That yeelds the field, before she venture fight, I85
Especially vnto her mortall foe,
As you were then vnto ]2bldgina.
But, for because I see you fitter are
To enter Lists and combat with your foes
Then court faire Ladyes in God Cuids tents, t82o
Carims meanes your spokesman for to bee,
And if that she consent, you shall agree.
Alz. What you commaund, _/ll]zonss must not flie:
Though otherwise perhaps he would denie.
Carl Then, daintie damsell, stint these trickling teares ;
Cease sighes and sobs, yea make a merrie cheare,
Your pardon is already purchased,
So that you be not ouer curious
In granting to A/phonses iust demand.
Y_pld. Thankes, mightie Prince, no curioser Ile bee 8ao
Then doth become a maide of my degree.
Carl The gods forbid that ere Carinus tongue
Should go about to make a mayd consent
Vnto the thing which modestie denies:
That which I aske is neither hurt to thee,
Danger to parents, nor disgrace to friends,
But good and honest, and will profit bring

INTRODUCTION i4t
naye passing good if they make 5 pounds ; and I haue knowen of fortie but
fifteene pound and tenne shillings.'
Again, the third scene of the second act, where the judge enters with
the Usurer, is based on the following passage :--
' Why then, quoth the merchant, the matter standeth thus, if so be you will
seale me an estatute for my mony, no sooner shall you haue done it, but you
shal haue the mony, all your bonds in and a defesance to : this that I offer is
reasonable, and to morrow, if you vill, I vill doe it. Agreed, quoth the
gentleman, and so takes his leaue. The next morrove, according to promise,
the gentleman sealeth the assurance, acknowledging an estatute before some one
iustice of the bench, and comming to his merchant's house for his money is
delaied for that day, and in fine his absolute answere is this, that without a
suretie he promised him none. He takes witnesse of his friend (as he tearmeth
him) a prety peece of witnesse : vhen he seeth no remedie he demaundeth his
bonds, and he witholdeth them ; he craues his defeacance, and cannot haue it.
Thus is the poore gentleman brought into a notable mischiefe, first of being
cousoned of his mony, next deluded by his estatute, without defeasance (for if
the defeasance be not deliuered the same time or daie the statute is, it is nothing
auailable) ; thirdly, by his bonds detaining, which may be recouered against him,
and continue in full force ; and the Vsurer that playes all this vsurie will yet be
counted an honest and well dealing man. But flatter them vho list for me, I rather
wish their soules health then their good countenances, tho I know they vill storme
at me for opening their secrets, yet truth shall countenaunce mee, since I seek
my countries commoditie.'
It may be added that the old proverb, 'he is not wise that is not
wise for himself,' is quoted tvice by Lodge in Rosalynde. These
scenes, then, may be assigned with some probability to Lodge, and the
other scenes in prose with equal probability to Greene. I should be
inclined also to assign to Lodge, because of their general resemblance
to his style and rhythm, the speeches of the prophets Oseas and
Jonas. There can be little doubt that the scenes in vhich marine
technicology and incidents are introduced belong to him, namely, the
second scene of the third act, and the first scene of the fourth act.
The song in the third scene of the fourth act bears his sign manual ;
and as the second scene of the fifth act is little more than the
versification of a passage in the Alarum aabzst Usurers, that may
be presumably, though not certainly, assigned to him. But all this is
mere conjecture. What is quite clear is this, that there is very little
resemblance between the blank verse of this play and the blank verse
of Lodge's rarius and Sulla, which is much heavier and far more
monotonous. This is perhaps to be explained by the fact that ),rius
and Sulla vas probably composed before the appearance of Tam3ur-
laine.
Of this play there are five Quartos, all of which have been collated.
The first is that of 1594 in the Duke of Devonshire's library. On
that Quarto my text is based, and the text never deviates from it

i54 A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [AcT I

stand my friend and to fauour me with a longer time, and
I wil make you sufficient consideration.
Vsurer. Is the winde in that door? If thou hast my mony, so

it is, I will not defer a day, an
the forfeyt of the bond.
:Thras. I pray you, sir, consider that

houre, a minute, but take 290
my losse was great by the

commoditie I tooke vp ; you knowe, sir, I borrowed of you fortie
pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirty pounds
in Lute strings, which when I came to sell againe, I could get 295
but flue poundes for them, so had I, sir, but fifteene poundes for
my fortie. In consideration of this ill bargaine, I pray you, sir,
glue me a month longer.
Vsurer. I answered thee afore, not a minute ; what haue I to
do how thy bargain proued? I haue thy hand set to my 300
booke that thou receiuedst fortie pounds of me in mony.
:Thras. I, sir, it was your deuise that, to colour the Statute, but
your conscience knowes what I had.
Ale. Friend, thou speakest Hebrew to him when thou talkest to
him of conscience, for he hath as much conscience about the 305
forfeyt of an Obligation, as my blinde Mare, God blesse her, hath
ouer a manger of Oates.
27ras. Then there is no fauour, sir?
Vsurer. Come to morrow to mee, and see how I will vse thee.
27ras. No, couetous Caterpillar, know, that I haue made extreame 3o
shift rather than I would fall into the hands of such a rauening
panthar; and therefore here is thy mony and deliuer me the
recognisance of my lands.
Vsurer. What a spight is this! hath sped of his Crownes! If
he had mist but one halfe houre, what a goodly Farme had 35
I gotten for fortie pounds ! Well, tis my cursed fortune. Oh,
haue I no shift to make him forfeit his recognisance ?
27zras. Come, sir, will you dispatch and tell your mony ?
Strikes 4 a docke.
Vsurer. Stay, what is this a clocke ? foure: let me see--' to be paid
between the houres of three and foure in the afternoone' : this 3o
goes right for me ; you, sir, heare you not the clocke, and haue
you not a counterpaine of your obligation ? The houre is past,
it was to be paid betweene three and foure ; and now the clocke
291-299 3Iutilated in the Z)evonshire copy of Qt 802 it] that Q4 :
deuice Q2 3 312 thy ore. Q5 316 I] A Q5

Sc. II] LONDON AND ENGLAND x63
Za,e,ier. Trust me, father, I will do for thee as much as for my selfe.
.4fc. Are you married, sir ?
Zawier. I, marry, am I, father.
.4lc. Then goods Benison light on you and your good wife, and
send her that she be neuer troubled with my wiues disease.
Zawier. Vhy, whats thy wiues disease ?
,4lc. Truly, sir, she hath two open faults, and one priuie
fault. Sir, the first is, she is too eloquent for a poore man,
and hath her words of Art, for she will call me RascM1,
Rogue, Runnagate, Varlet, Vagabond, Slaue, Knaue. Why,
Masse sir, and these be but boll-day tearmes, but if you heard
her working-day words, in faith, sir, they be ratlers like thunder,
sir ; for after the dew followes a storme, for then am I sure 9.
either to be well buffetted, my face scratcht, or my head
broken, and therefore good M(aister) Lawyer, on my knees
I ask it, let me not go home again to my wife, with this word,
'no Cow': for then shee will exercise her two faults vpon me
with all extremitie. 6oo
Za,vier. Feare not, man. But what is thy wiues priuy fault ?
.41c. Truly, sir, thats a thing of nothing; Masse, she indeed, sirreue-
rence of your mastership, doth vse to breake winde in her sleepe.
Oh, sir, here comes the Iudge, and the old Caitife the Vsurer.
Enters the Iudge, the Vsurer, and his Attendants.
lsurer. Sir, here is fortie Angels for yotl, and if at any time you 6o5
want a hundreth pound or two, tis readie at your command,
or the feeding of three or foure fat bullocks: whereas these
needle slaues can reward with nothing but a cap and a knee ;
and therefore I pray you, sir, fauour nay case.
Zudge. Feare not, sir, Ile do what I can for you. 6xo
Vsurer. What, maister Lawier, what make you here ? mine aduersary
for these Clients ?
Zawier. So it chanceth now, sir.
Vsurer. I know you know the old Prouerbe, ' He is not wise, that
is not wise for himselfe.' I would not be disgracst in this
action; therefore here is twentie Angels ; say nothing in the
matter, and what you say, say to no purpose, for the Iudge
is my friend.
591 her] the Q4 592 Slaue and knaue Qfi 598 word] words
Q5 615 would] should Q5 617 and] or Z)yce
M2

x64 A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [AcT II
Zawier. Let me alone, Ile fit your purpose.
.hge. Come, where are these fellowes that are the plaintifes? 620
what can they say against this honest Citizen our neighbour,
a man of good report amongst all men?
.dlc. Truly, M(aister) Iudge, he is a man much spoken off;
marry, euery mans cries are against him, and especially we;
and therefore I think we haue brought our Lawier to625
touch him with as much law as will fetch his landes
and my Cowe, with a pestilence.
2"hras. Sir, I am the other plaintife, and this is my Councellour :
I beseech your honour be fauourable to me in equitie.
]udge. Oh,Signor Mizaldo, what can you say in this Gentlemans behalfe ? 630
Zawier. Faith, sir, as yet little good. Sir, tell you your owne case
to the Iudge, for I haue so many matters in my head,
that I haue almost forgotten it.
2"hras. Is the winde in that doore ? Why then, my Lord, thus.
I tooke vp of this cursed Vsurer, for so I may well 635
tearme him, a commoditie of fortie poundes, whereof
I receiued ten pounde in mony, and thirtie pound in
Lute-strings, whereof I could by great friendship make
but fiue pounds: for the assurance of this badde commoditie
bound him my land in recognisance: I came at my day 640
and tendred him his mony, and he would not take it: for the
redresse of my open wrong I craue but iustice.
.]ude. What say you to this, sir ?
Vsurer. That first he had no Lute-strings of me ; for looke you, sir,
I haue his owne hand to nay booke for the receit of fortie pound. 645
2"ras. That was, sir, but a deuise of him to colour the Statute.
]udge. Well, he hath thine owne hand, and we can craue no more
in law. But now, sir, he saies his money was tendred at the
day and houre.
l/surer. This is manifest contrary, sir, and on that I will depose ; 650
for here is the obligation, ' to be paide betweene three and route
in the after-noone,' and the clocke strooke route before he of-
fered it, and the words be ' betweene three and route,' therefore
to be tendred before route.
2"ras. Sir, I was there before foure, and he held me with brabling till 655
628 the other] another Q5 631 yet ore. Q4 you ore. Q3 5 62
wrongs Q5 648 saies] sayeth Qt tendred Q 34 tended Q

7 o A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [ACT II
Oh, Aluida, I am passing passionate, 820
And vext with wrath and anger to the death.
Mars, when he held faire Venus on his knee,
And saw the limping Smith come from his forge,
Had not more deeper furrowes in his brow
Than Rasni hath to see this Paphlagon. 825
,4lui. Content thee, sweet, ile salue thy sorow straight ;
Rest but the ease of all thy thoughts on me,
And if I make not Rasni blyth againe,
Then say that womens fancies haue no shifts.
aMa. Shamst thou not, Rasni, though thou beest a King, 830
To shroude adultry in thy royall seate?
Art thou arch-ruler of great Niniuie,
Who shouldst excell in vertue as in state,
And wrongst thy friend by keeping backe his wife ?
Haue I not battail'd in thy troupes full oft, 835
Gainst Aegypt, Iury, and proud Babylon,
Spending my blood to purchase thy renowne,
And is the guerdon of my chiualrie
Ended in this abusing of my wife ?
Restore her me, or I will from thy Courts, 84o
And make discourse of thy adulterous deeds.
Rarni. Why, take her, Paphlagon, exclaime not, man;
For I do prise mine honour more then loue.
Faire Aluida, go with thy husband home.
,4lui. How dare I go, sham'd with so deep misdeed ? 845
Reuenge will broile within my husbands brest,
And when he hath me in the Court at home,
Then Aluida shall feele reuenge for all.
Rasni. What saist thou, King of Paphlagon, to this ?
Thou hearest the doubt thy wife doth stand vpon. 850
If she hath done amisse, it is nay fault;
I prithie, pardon and forget (it) all.
apMa. If that I meant not, Rasni, to forgiue,
And quite forget the follies that are past,
I would not vouch her presence in my Courts; 855
80 passing Q2 3 4: passion Q 824 furrowes] sorrowes Q2 3 4 5
838 And is this the guerdon Q3 5 840 Courts] court Q3 and.Dyce 851
hath] have Q2 3 4 852 it add..Dyce 855 vouch] vouchsafe Q2 3 4
Courts] court .Dyce

I72 A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [AcrlII

Come, follow me, sweet goddesse of mine eye,
And taste the pleasures Rasni will prouide.

OSe(S.
As falling leaues before the winter blast.
A wicked life, trainde vp in endlesse crime,
Hath no regard vnto the latter time,
When Letchers shall be punisht for their lust,
When Princes plagu'd because they are vniust.
Foresee in time, the warning bell doth tome;
Subdue the flesh, by praier to sane the soule.
London, behold the cause of others wracke,
And see the sword of iustice at thy backe.
Deferre not off, to morrow is too late ;
By night he comes perhaps to iudge thy state.

Where whordome raines, there murther followes fast,

895

9oo

(ACT In.)
(SCENE I.)
lnler Ionas Solus.
lonas. From forth the depth of my imprisoned soule
Steale you, my sighes, (to) testifie my paine;
Conuey on wings of mine immortall tone,
My zealous praiers vnto the starrie throne.
Ah, mercifull and iust, thou dreadfull God,
Where is thine arme to laie reuengefull stroakes
Vpon the heads of our rebellious race ?
Loe, Israeli, once that flourisht like the vine,
Is barraine laide, the beautifull encrease
Is wholly blent, and irreligious zeale
Incampeth there where vertue was inthroan'd.
Ah-lasse the while, the widow wants reliefe,
The fatherlesse is wrongd by naked need,
Deuotion sleepes in sinders of Contempt,
Hypocrisie infects the holie Priest.
896 regard] reward Q2 3 4 902 see] set Qz 3 4 5
add..Dyce 907 mine] nay Q5

at] on Q5
910 thine] thy Q5

9IO

906 to

76 A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [Aca'III
Alc. Faith, my boy, I must be flat with thee, we must
feed vpon prouerbes now; as 'Necessitie hath no law,'
'A Churles feast is better than none at all'; for other
remedies haue we none, except thy brother Radagon
helpe vs. io2o
Samia. Is this thy slender care to helpe our childe ?
Hath nature armde thee to no more remorse ?
Ah, cruell man, vnkind and pittilesse!
Come, Clesiphon, my boy, ile beg for thee.
Clesi. Oh, how my mothers mourning moueth me! io2
tlc. Nay, you shall paie mee interest for getting the boye,
wife, before you carry him hence. Ah-lasse, woman,
what can Alcon do more? Ile plucke the belly out
of my heart for thee, sweete Samia; be not so waspish.
Samia. Ah, silly man, I know thy want is great, io3o
And foolish I to craue where nothing is.
Haste, Alcon, haste, make haste vnto our sonne,
Who, since he is in fauour of the King,
May helpe this haplesse Gentleman and vs
For to regaine our goods from tyrants hands. o35
27zras. Haue patience, Samia, waight your weale from heauen :
The Gods haue raisde your sonne, I hope, for this,
To succour innocents in their distresse.

Enters Radagon Solus.

Lo, where he comes from the imperial Court ;
Go, let vs prostrate vs before his feete, xo4o
/tlc. Nay, by my troth, ile neuer aske my sonne blessing; che
trow, cha taught him his lesson to know his father. What, sonne
Radagon, yfaith, boy, how doest thee?
_Rad. Villaine, disturbe me not ; I cannot stay. Io44
/tlc. Tut, sonne, ile helpe you of that disease quickly, for I can
hold thee: aske thy mother, knaue, what cunning I haue to
ease a woman when a qualme of kindnesse comes too neare
her stomacke. Let me but claspe mine armes about her
bodie and sale my praiers in her bosome, and she shall
be healed presently. Joso

1081 foolishly I do 02 3 4 1087 The] Tho OI 1088 innocents
ore. (25 1047 comes (23 : come 12t 2 4 1050 presently ore. Q3 5

18o A LOOKING GLASSE FOR [AcT III

Go, Lossell, trot it to the cart and spade!
Thou art vnmeete to looke vpon a King,
Much lesse to be the father of a King.
A/'c. You may see, wife, what a goodly peece of worke you
haue made: haue I taught you Arsmetry, as additior[
multilicarum, the rule of three, and all for the begetting
of a boy, and to be banished for my labour? O pittifull
hearing! Come, Clesiphon, follow me.
Clesi. Brother, beware: I off haue heard it told, II65
That sonnes who do their fathers scorne, shall beg when
they be old.
Exeunt Alcon, Clesiphon.

Bad. Hence, bastard boy, for feare you taste the whip.
Samia. Oh all you heauens, and you eternall powers,
That sway the sword of iustice in your hands,
(If mothers curses for her sonnes contempt
May fill the ballance of your furie full,)
Powre doune the tempest of your direfull plagues
Vpon the head of cursed Radagon.

V#on lhis 3raier she de#artelh, and aflame of flre a##earet/t from
beneath, and Radagon is swallowed.

So you are lust: now triumph, Samia.

2asnL What exorcising charme, or hatefull hag,
Hath rauished the pride of my delight ?
What tortuous planets, or maleuolent
Conspiring power, repining destenie,
Hath made the concaue of the earth vnclose,
And shut in ruptures louely Radagon ?
If I be Lord-commander of the cloudes,
King of the earth, and Soueraigne of the seas,
What daring Saturne from his fierie denne
Doth dart these furious flames amidst my Court ?
I am not chiefe, there is more great then I:
What, greater then Th'assirian Satrapos ?

1161 taught Q3 : tought Qi 2 4 1166 Exet _I 3 : Exit
for] of Q2 3 4 1177 tortuous] torturous (4 : malouolent
flambes Q5 1186 Satropos Q3 : Sairopos (25

Exit Samia.

-II80

I8 5

1170
1184

LONDON AND ENGLAND

To dally long and still protract the time ;
The Lord is iust, and you but dust and slime:
Presume not far, delaie not to amend ;
Who suffereth long, will punish in the end.
Cast thy account, & London, in this case,
Then iudge what cause thou hast to call for grace.

I395

(SCENE II.}
Ionas the Prolhet cast out of tke Whales belly Vlon the Stage.
Ionas. Lord of the light, thou maker of the world,
Behold, thy hands of mercy reares me vp.
Loe, from the hidious bowels of this fish i4oo
Thou hast returnd me to the wished aim.
Loe, here, apparant witnesse of thy power,
The proud Leuiathan that scoures the seas,
And from his nosthrils showres out stormy flouds,
Whose backe resists the tempest of the winde,
Whose presence makes the scaly troopes to shake,
With humble t stresse - of his broad opened chappes
Hath lent me harbour in the raging flouds.
Thus, though my sin hath drawne me down to death,
Thy mercy hath restored me to life. i4Io
Bow ye, my knees; and you, my bashfull eyes,
Weepe so for griefe as you to water would.
In trouble, Lord, I called vnto thee ;
Out of the belly of the deepest hell
I cride, and thou didst heare my voice, O God! 415
Tis thou hadst cast me downe into the deepe
The seas and flouds did compasse me about ;
I thought I had bene cast from out thy sight
The weeds were wrapt about my wretched head
I went vnto the bottome of the hilles: 42o
But thou, O Lord my God, hast brought me vp.
On thee I thought when as my soule did faint:
My praiers did prease before thy mercy seate.
1399 rear
simple stretche Grosart.
1419 my] thy Q3

1407 humble stresse] humble stretch sugg. JDyce :
theutctuation see notes 1416 hadstJ hast Q4

sc. v]

LONDON AND ENGLAND

Shall be rewarded with a bitter plague.
Repent, ye men of Niniuie, repent!
The Lord hath spoke, and I do erie it out,
There are as yet but fortie daies remaining,
And then shall Niniuie be ouer throwne.
Repent, ye men of Niniuie, repent.
There are as yet but fortie daies remaining,
And then shall Niniuie be ouerthrowne.

Vsurer. Confus'd in thought, oh, whither shall I wend ?

Thras. My conscience cries that I haue done amisse.

197

Ezit.
Fzil.

Ale. Oh God of heauen, gainst thee haue I offended.
Ea'it.
Samia. Asham'd of my misdeeds, where shal I hide me ?
ClesL Father, methinks this word 'repent' is good,
tie that punisheth disobedience
Doth hold a scourge for euery priuie fault.

Oseas. Looke, London, look; with inward eies behold
What lessons the euents do here vnfold.
Sinne growne to pride to misery is thrall ;
The warning bell is rung, beware to fall.
Ye worldly men, whom wealth doth lift on hie,
Beware and feare, for worldly men must die.
The time shall come, where least suspect remaines,
The sword shall light vpon the wisest braines.
The head that deemes to ouer-top the skie,
Shall perish in his humaine pollicie. 1725
Lo, I haue said, when I haue said the truth,
When will is law, when folly guideth youth,
When shew of zeale is prankt in robes of zeale,
When Ministers powle the pride of common-weale,
When law is made a laborinth of strife,
When honour yeelds him friend to wicked life,

1'14 punisheth Q5 : punish QI 2 3 4 : doth punish .Dyce
and (25 17g9 the pride ore. Q5 17gO labyrinth Q4

1716 with]

216 ORLANDO FVRIOSO

was to be delivered by the actor of the character of Orlando, with the
cues (as they were then and are still technically called) regularly marked,
exactly in the same manner as is done at the present day by tran-
scribers in our theatres.' It begins with the words in 1. 558, ' Faire
pride of morne.' It is now, probably, in a more dilapidated state
than when Collier first inspected it: the first words of the first
seven lines have been destroyed, and in consequence of the crumbling
away of some of the margins it is often impossible to restore the wordg,
and there are occasionally hiatuses which cannot now be supplied.
Where it is free from these defects it is not difficult to decipher.
Dyce's transcripts are fairly accurate, though he is often wrong in
spelling and has made some omissions. Dr. Grosart follows him, and
does not seem to have made an independent transcript. A comparison
of the text of the printed copies with that of this document will show
either how greatly the stage copies were altered when a play was
printed, or how greatly the printed copies must vary from that of the
stage copies, and presumably therefore from that of the author's manu-
script. The Alleyn MS. is printed as an Appendix to Orlando
Furioso, on pp. 266-78.
With regard to the period of its composition all that can be known
with certainty is that it had been acted before February 22, 1592 ,
for in Henslowe's l)iary (Collier's Transcript, p. 21) we find this
entry :--
 Rd at erlanda, the 2 x of febreary .......... xvj* vj d '
As M. Storozhenko has remarked, it could not have been written
before 1588 , as there is plainly an alIusion to the destruction of the
Spanish Armada in the lines :--
 And Spaniard tell, who, mand with mighty Fleetes
Came to subdue my Ilands to their King,
Filling our Seas with stately Argosies,
Camels and Magars, hulkes of burden great;
Vqhich ]3randemart rebated from his coast.'
There are two passages in this play which are found also in Peele's
Old Wives' Tale, 885-8 , one with a slight variation :--
' For thy sweet sake I haue o'oss'd the fren )hine,
Zeauingfaire Po, I sail'd vp l)antt3y
As nigh as Saa whose enhancing streams
C2tg gz, ixg the Tartars and tke ussiazs;
and one of the additions from the Alleyn MS. 'thre blue beanes in a
blewe bladder, rattle bladder.' The Old Wives' Tale almost certainly
appeared in 59o, but this will not help, because it is impossible to say
whether Peele copied from Greene or Greene from Peele. The 'rattle
bladder rattle' is merely a reference to a common amusement. See
Ben Jonson tarlholomew Fair, i. I.

INTRODUCTION

2I 9

Greene, but the influence of Marlowe's Tamburlalne is very discernible,
especially in the character of Sacripant, as M. S torozhenko has remarked.
In delineating the madness of Orlando, Greene is wholly untrue to
nature, and shows no knowledge at all of the psychology of insanity.
The jargon of Orlando is precisely that of Shakespeare's Edgar ; it is
such as might appropriately be put into the mouth of a man who is
shamming madness ; it is not like that of Lear, the expression of real
insanity. There is no teddy without progression,' no monstrous
premisses with correct conclusions, no consistency in inconsistency, no
chain of thought 'nothing impaired but all dishevelled'; it is mere
fustian and bombast.

224 THE HISTORIE OF [Aca-I
Set each man forth his passions how he can,
And let her Censure make the happiest man.-- 5
SouMan.
The fairest flowre that glories Affrica,
Whose beauty Phoebus dares not dash with showres,
Ouer whose Clymate neuer hung a clowde,
But smiling Titan lights the ttoryzon, m
Egypt is mine, and there I hold my State, 20
Seated in Cairye and in Babylon.
From thence the matchlesse beauty of Angelica,
Whose hew as bright as are those siluer Doues
That wanton Venus manth vpon her fist,
Forst me to crosse and cut th' atlanticke Seas, 25
To ouersearch the fearefull Ocean,
Where I ariud to eternize with my Launce
The matchles beauty of faire Angelica;
Nor Tilt, nor Tournay, but nay Speare and Shield
Resounding on their Crests and sturdy Helmes, o
Topt high with plumes, like Mars his Burgonet,
Inchasing on their Curats with my blade,
That none so faire as faire Angelica.
But leauing these such glories as they be,
I loue, my Lord  let that suffize for me. 35
_odamanL
Cuba my seate, a Region so inricht
With Sauours sparkling from the smiling heauens,
As those that seekes for trafficke to my Coast
Accounted like that wealthy Paradice
From whence floweth Gyhon and swift Euphrates: 40
The earth within her bowels hath inwrapt,
As in the massie storehowse of the world,
Millions of Gold, as bright as was the Showre
That wanton Ioue sent downe to Danae.
Marching from thence to manage Armes abroade, 45
I past the triple parted Regiment
That froward Saturne gaue vnto his Sonnes,
21 Cairye] Cairo Z)yce 22 the beauty s,tgg. IDyce
28 beauty... Angelica] beauty of Angelica sugg;. Z)yce
favours l)yce 88 seekes QI : seeke Q2 : seek 19yce

28 hew] hue 19yce
87 Sauours]
89 Account it Z)yc,

Sc. I]

ORLANDO FVRIOSO

Erecting Statues of my Chiualry,
Such and so braue as neuer Hercules
Vowd for the loue of louely Iole.
But leauing these such glories as they be,
I loue, my Lord; let that suffize for me.

A[andrecarde.
And I, my Lord, am Mandrecarde of Mexico,
Whose Clyrnate fayrer than Tyberius,
Seated beyond the Sea of Trypoly,
And richer than the plot Hesperides,
Or that sarne Ile wherein Vlysses loue
Luld in her lap the young Telegone;
That did but Venus tread a daintie step,
So would shee like the land of Mexico,
As, Paphos and braue Cypres set aside,
Vith rne sweete louely Venus would abide.
From thence, mounted vpon a Spanish ]3arke,
Such as transported Iason to the fleece,
Come from the South, I furrowed Neptunes Seas,
Northeast as far as is the frosen Rhene;
Leauing faire Voya, crost vp Danuhy,
As hie as Saba, whose inhaunsing strearnes
Cuts twixt the Tartares and the Russians: 1
There did I act as many braue attempts,
As did Pirothous for his Proserpine.
But leauing these such glories as they be,
I loue, my Lord ; let that suffize for me.

JBrandemarL
The bordring Ilands, seated here in ken,
Whose Shores are sprinkled with rich Orient Pearle,
More bright of hew than were the Margarets
That Caesar found in wealthy Albion;
The sands of Tagus all of burnisht Golde
Made Thetis neuer prowder on the Clifts
That ouerpiere the bright and golden Shore,
Than doo the rubbish of my Country Seas:
And what I dare, let say the Portingale,

225

5o

6

65

8o

48 Statutes Q2 54 climate['s] l)yce : Tyberius] Iberia's l)yce 58
Telegonus l)yce 61 Cyprus l)yce 69 Cut Z)yce 71 Pirithoiis l)yce
COLLINS. I Q

Sc. I] ORLANDO FVRIOSO 227
(An humor neuer fitting with my Minde,) i2o
But come there forth the proudest Champion
That hath Suspition in the Palatine,
And with my trustie sword Durandell,
Single, Ile register vpon his helme
What I dare doo for faire Angelica. I25
But leauing these such glories as they bee,
I loue, my Lord ;
Angelica her selfe shall speak for mee.
2Irar. Daughter, thou hearst what loue hath here alleadgd,
How all these Kings, by beautie summond here,
Puts in their pleas, for hope of Diademe,
Of noble deeds, of welth, and Chiualrie,
All hoping to possesse Angelica.
Sith fathers will may hap to ayme amisse,
(For parents thoughts in loue oft step awrie,)
Choose thou the man who best contenteth thee,
And he shall weare the Affricke Crowne next mee.
For trust me, Daughter, like of whom thou please,
Thou satisfide, my thoughts shall be at ease.
Ang. Kings of the South, Viceroyes of Affrica, 14o
Sith Fathers will hangs on his Daughters choyce,
And I, as earst Princesse Andromache
Seated amidst the crue of Priams Sonnes,
Have libertie to chuse where best I loue ;
Must freely say, for fancie hath no fraud, I45
That farre vnworthie is Angelica
Of such as deigne to grace her with their loues ;
The Souldan with his seate in Babylon,
The Prince of Cuba, and of Mexico,
Whose welthie crownes might win a womans wilt,
Yong ]3randemard, Master of all the Iles
Where Neptune planted hath his treasurie ;
The worst of these men of so high import
As may command a greater Dame than I.
But Fortune, or some deep inspiring fate, I55
Venus, or else the bastard brat of Mars,
Whose bow commands the motions of the minde,
Hath sent proud loue to enter such a plea
131 Put Q2
Q2

228 THE HISTORIE OF [AcT I

As nonsutes all your princely euidence,
And flat commands that, maugre Maiestie, i6o
I chuse Orlando, Countie Palatine.
2'o. How likes Marsilius of his daughters choice ?
Ajar. As fits Marsilius of his daughters spouse.
Ro. Highly thou wrongst vs, King of Affrica,
To braue thy neighbor Princes with disgrace, 6
To rye thy honor to thy daughters thoughts,
Whose Choyce is like that Greekish Giglots loue,
That left her Lord, prince Menelaus,
And with a swaine made scape away to Troy.
What is Orlando but a stragling mate,
Banisht for some offence by Charlemaine,
Skipt from his country as Anchises Sonne,
And meanes, as he did to the Cartilage Queene,
To pay her ruth and ruine for her loue ?
Orl. Injurious Cuba, ill it fits thy gree
To wrong a stranger with discurtesie.
Weft not the sacred presence of Angelica
Preuailes with me, (as Venus smiles with Mars),
To set a Supersedeas of nay wrath,
Soone should I teach the what it were to braue, i8o
2FZan. And, French man, weft not gainst the law of armes,
In place of parly for to draw a sword,
Vntaught companion, I would learne you know
What dutie longs to such a Prince as hee.
Orl. Then as did Hector fore Achilles Tent, I85
Trotting his Courser softly on the plaines,
Proudly darde forth the stoutest youth of Greece ;
So who stands hiest in his owne conceipt,
And thinkes his courage can perfonne the most,
Let him but throw his gauntlet on the ground, i9o
.And I will pawne nay honor to his gage,
He shall ere night be met and combatted.
,][ar. Shame you not, Princes, at this bad agree,
To wrong a stranger with discurtesie?
]3eleeue me, Lords, my daughter hath made choice,
And, mauger him that thinkes him most agreeud,
She shall enjoy the Countie Palatine.
tran. But would these Princes folow nay aduise,

Sc I]

ORLANDO FVRIOSO

231

Alan. They decree, my Lord, your Honor liues at peace,
As one thats newter in these mutinies,
And couets to rest equall frends to both ;
Neither enuious to Prince Mandricard, 275
Nor wishing ill vnto Marsilius,
That you may safely passe where ere you please,
With frendly salutations from them both.
.Sac. I, so they gesse, but leuell farre awrie;
For if they knew the secrets of my thoughts, 280
Mine Embleme sorteth to another sense,--
I weare not these as one resolud to peace,
But blue and red as enemie to both;
Blue, as hating King Marsilius,
And red, as in reuenge to Mandricard; aS5
Foe vnto both, frend onely to my selfe,
And to the crowne, for thats the golden marke
Which makes my thoughts dreame on a Diademe.
Seest not thou all men presage I shall be king ?
Marsilius sends to me for peace;
Mandrecard puts of his cap, ten mile of:
Two things more, and then I cannot mis the crowne.
Alan. O, what be those, my good Lord ?
.Sacr. First must I get the loue of faire Angelica.
Now am I full of amorous conceits, 295
Not that I doubt to haue what I desire,
But how I might best with mine honor woo:
Write, or intreate,--fie, that fitteth not;
Send by Ambassadors,--no, thats too base ;
Flatly command,--I, thats for Sacrepant: 300
Say thou art Sacrepant, and art in loue,
And who in Affricke dare say the Countie nay ?
O Angelica, fairer than Chloris when in al her pride
Bright Mayas Sonne intrapt her in the net
Vherewith Vulcan intangled the God of warre! 305
Alan. Your honor is so far in contemplation of Angelica
As you haue forgot the second in attaining to theCrowne.
274 friend Q2 and 29yce 289 Seest thou not Q2: See'st not all men
$ltffff. 19yge 291 Mandricard as part of L 290 29yce 0.92 Two things
more as part of L 29 Dyce 29 First must as one separate line 29yce
302 And who 303 O Angelica as separate lines 29yce 302 Affricke] Affrica
Q2 and YDyce 306, 7 yDyce prints as firose

sc. I]

ORLANDO FVRIOSO

241

Refusd, contemnd, disdaind! what worse than these ?--
Orgalio !
Org. My Lord ?
Orl. Boy, view these trees carued with true loue knots,
The inscription Medor and Angelica:
And read these verses hung vp of their loues : 65
Now tell me, boy, what dost thou thinke?
Org. By nay troth, my Lord, I thinke Angelica is a woman.
Orl. And what of that ?
Org. Therefore vnconstant, mutable, hauing their loues hanging
in their ey-lids ; that as they are got with a looke, so they are
lost againe with a wink. But heres a Shepheard ; it may be he
can tell vs news.
Orl. What messenger hath Ate sent abroad
With idle lookes to listen my laments ?
Sirra, who wronged happy Nature so, 635
To spoyle these trees with this Angelica ?
Yet in her name, Orlando, they are blest.
Shep. I am a shepheard swaine, thou wandring knight,
That watch nay flockes, not one that follow loue.
OrL As follow loue ! why darest thou dispraise my heauen, 640
Or once disgrace or prejudice her name?
Is not Angelica the Queene of lone,
Deckt with the compound wreath of Adons flowrs?
She is.
Then speake, thou peasant, what is he that dares 645
Attempt to court nay Queene of loue,
Or I shall send thy soule to Charons charge.
Sheik. Braue Knight, since feare of death inforceth stilt
To greater mindes submission and relent,
Know that this Medor, whose vnhappie name 650
Is mixed with the faire Angelicas,
Is euen that Medor that inioyes her loue.
Yon caue beares withes of their kind content ;
Yon medowes talke the actions of their Joy;
Our shepheards in their songs of solace sing, 655
Angelica doth none but Medor loue.
Orl. Angelica doth none but Medor loue!
640 why ore. Z)yce after Alleyn 1L7. 641-6 She... he That... love
as lwo lines Dyce
COLLINS. 1 R

_050 THE HISTORIE OF
Here, take this sword, and hie thee to the fight. 95 "
E.,-it Angelica.
Now tell me, Orgal[o, what dost thou thinke?
Will not this Knight proue a valiant Squire ?
Org. He cannot chuse, being of your making.
Ord. But wheres Angelica now?
Org'. Faith, I cannot tell. 930
OrZ Villaine, find her out,
Or else the torments that Ixion feeles,
The rolling stone, the tubs of the ]3elides--
Villaine, wilt thou finde her out.
Org. Alas, my Lord, I know not where she is. 935
OrL Run to Charlemaine, spare for no cost
Tell him, Orlando sent for Angelica.
Org. Faith, Ile fetch you such an Angelica as you neuer saw
before.
E-it Orgalio.
Orl. As though that Sagittarius in his pride 94o
Could take braue Laeda from stout Iupiter!
And yet, forsooth, Medor, base Medor durst
Attempt to reue Orlando of his loue.
Sirra, you that are the messenger of Ioue,
You that can sweep it through the milke white path 945
That leads vnto the Senate house of Mars,
Fetch me my shield temperd of purest steele,
My helme forgd by the Cyclops for Anchises Sonne,
And see if I dare not combat for Angelica.
Fnter Orgalio, wi[ the Clowne drest dyke Angelica.
Org. Come away, and take heed you laugh not. 950
C1. No, I warrant you ; but I thinke I had best go backe and
shaue nay beard.
Org. Tush, that will not be seene.
CL Well, you will giue me the halfe crowne ye promist me ?
Org. Doubt not of that, man. 955
C1. Sirra, didst not see me serue the fellow a fine tricke, when
we came ouer the market place ?
Org. Why, how was that ?
934 wilt thot not find Q2 a1d Z)yce 937 Sends Q2 948 My helm
as separate litle f)yce 94 not am. l?yce after Alley 21"ZS. 958 how]
what Q2

Sc. I] ORLANDO FVRIOSO 253
Og. In hope that he, whose Empire is so large,
Will make both minde and Monarchic agree.
[ar. Whence are you, Lords, and what request you here ?
2Vames. A question ouer-hautie for thy weed, IO3I
Fit for the King himselfe for to propound.
llZam O, sir, know that vnder simple weeds
The Gods haue maskt : then decree not with disdain
To answere to this Palmers question,
Whose coat includes perhaps as great as yours.
Og. Hautie their words, their persons ful of state;
Though habit be but meane, their mindes excell.--
Well, Palmers, know that Princes are in India arriud,
Yea, euen those westerne princely peeres of France o4o
That through the world aduentures vndertake,
To find Orlando late incenst with rage.
Then, Pahners, sith you know our stiles and state,
Aduise vs where your King Marsilius is.
llZar. Lordings of France, here is Marsilius, o45
That bids you welcome into India,
And will in person bring you to his campe.
Og. Marsilius! and thus disguisd!
ilZar. Euen Marsilius, and thus disguisd.
But what request these princes at my hand ? xoso
Tr2i. XVe sue for law and iustice at thy hand:
XVe seeke Angelica thy daughter out
That wanton maid, that hath eclipst the Joy
Of royall France, and made Orlando mad.
zlZar. My daughter, Lords! why, shees exilde ; o55
And her grieud father is content to lose
The pleasance of his age, to countnance law.
Oli. Not onely exile shall await Angelica,
But death and bitter death shall follow her.
Then yeeld vs right, Marsilius or our swords o6o
Shal make thee feare to wrong the Pieres of France.
[ar. Wordes cannot daunt mee, Princes, bee assurde;
But law and iustice shall ouerrule in this,
And I will burie fathers name and loue.
The haples maide, bannisht from out my Land, o65
1019 Well, palmers, know as searale line Z)yce 1055 shees] she is )yce
1061 o'er-rule

APPENDIX

TO ORLANDO FVRIOSO

BEING THE ALLEYN MS.

565
567-8
570

558 Or/, Faire pride of morne, faire bewty of yO euen,
Look on Orlando languishing in loue.
560 Sweete solitarie groues, wheras the nimphes
With pleasance laugh to see the Satyres play,
Witnes Orlandos faith vnto his loue.
Tread she thes lawdes, sweet flora bost thy flowers.
Seek she for shade, spred, Cedars, for her sake
Kinde Clora make her couch, fair cristall springes,
Washe you her Roses, if she long to drinck.
Oh thought, my heau oh heauen yt knowes my thowght
Smile, ioy in her that my content hath wrought.
................ dwell.
Orlando, what contrarious thoughtes are those
That flock with doutfull motion in thy minde?
Heauens smile, thes trees doe bost ther somer pride.
575 Venus hath graue hir triumphes here beside.
Shefi. Yet when thine eie hath seen, thy hart shal rue
The tragick chance that shortly shall ensue.
Orlando readetla
Angelica :--Ah, sweete and blessed name,
Lift to my life, an essence to my ioye!
580 This gordion knott together co vnites
Ah Medor partner in hit peerlese loue.
Vnkind and will she bend hit thoughts to change ?
Her name, her writing! foolishe and vnkind!
No nmne of hirs, vnlesse the brokes relent
585 Hear her name, and Rhodanus vouchsafe
To rayse his moystened locks fr6 out the reeds,
And flowe with calme along his turning bownds:
No name of hits vnlesse the Zephire blowe
Hir dignityes along the desert woodes
590 Of Arden whet the world for wonders waightes.
And yet her name! for why Angelica;
But, mixt with 5Iedor, then not Angelica.

z68 APPENDIX

659 i Why feast your gleames on others lustfull thoughtes ?
660 Delicious browes, why smile your heauen for those,
That woundring you proue poor Orlandos foes.
Lend me your playntes, you sweet Arcadian nimphes,
That wont to sing your late departed louts ;
Thou weping floud, leaue Orpheus; wayle for me;
66.5 Proud Titans neces, gather all in one
Those fluent springes of your lamenting eyes,
667 And let them streame along my faintfull lookes.
670 1 Argalio seek me out Medor, seek out that same dogg,
2 That dare inchase him with Angelica.
685 Feminile ingegno di tutti male sede
Cometi vuogi et muti facilmente
Contrario oggetto propri de la fede
O infelice O miser ........
Inportune superne ett . . . dispettose
690 Priue d amor di fede et di consigli
Temerarie crudeli inique ingrate
Par pestilenza eterna al mundo natae.
medor is, medor a knave
693 Vilayne, Argalio, whers medor? what lyes he here ?
And braues me to my face? by heaueuen, Ile tear
[dragges hint in]
Him pecemeale in dispight of these:
708 ........... on his neck.
[enters wilk a mts legg] Villayns prouide me straight a
lions skynne.
710 For I, thou seest, I am mighty Hercules.
See whets my massy clubb vpon nay neck.
I must to hell to fight with Cerberus,
718 And find out Medor ther, you vilaynes, or Ile dye.
713, ....... shall I doe ?
2 Ah, ab, ah, Sirha, Argalio!
3 Ile ge e the a spear framd out of .....
4 .... haue .... be .... pre
5 ......... of her glorious wayne
Orlatdo.
Solus ....
788 Woodes, trees, leaues, leaues, trees, woodes; tria sequntur
tria, ergo optimus vir, non est optimus magistratus, a peny

667 them corrected from thy 668-9 ont. All. IS.,/. 670 beitgblanklo
of Sacrepant. Then folloaes 11. 670 , e izserted above. .4 blank lite folloaes
ettdizg wilt be content 671-84 ont. All. 11S. 685-92 tll. IS.
different handwriting 688-9 hole ina2er 718 3-5 page much
torn. All followitg is omitted in AlL A1S. till beginning of Act Ill, L 788

THE ALLEYN MS.

I O ? I... les of the band corporalles Lancpresudes,
Gentlemen & mercenaryes. Seest thou not medor
Standes brauing me at the gates of Rome.
.......... to touche vages.
Follow me, I may goe seek my captaynes out
T5 That medor may not haue Angelica.
1074: Sirha, is she not like those purple coulered swannes,
1075 That gallopp by the coache of Cinthya ?
1077 Her face siluered like to lhe milkvhite shape
That Ioue came dauncing in to Semele ?
1078 1 Tell me, Argalio, what sayes Charlemayne ?
His nephew Orlando, palantyne of fraunce,
Is poet laureat for geometry.
5 ........... in the [? world]
Base mynded traytors ! yf you dare but say
Thetis is fayrer than Angelica,
lie place a peal of rising riuers in your throates.
[... ?Did] Virgill, Lucan, Ouide, Ennius,
io Sirha, ver not these poettes ? . . yes, my lord.
Then Ioue, trotting vpon proud Eolus,
Shall not gaynesay, but maug-re all his boultes
Ile try with vulcane cracking of a launce,
Yf any of the godes mislikes my rondelayes,
I5 Argalio, these be the lockes Apollo turnd to bowes,
When crimson Daphne ran away for loue.
Loue! whats loue, villayne, but the bastard of Mars,
The poyson of Venus, and yet thou seest I wear
T9 Badges of a poet laureat .... the world.
1080 Clyme vp the cloudes to Galaxsy straight,
And tell Apollo that Orlando sits
bIaking of verses for Angelica.
And if he doo denie to send me downe
The shirt which Deianyra sent to Hercules,
1085 To make me braue vpon my wedding day,
Ile vp the Alpes, and post to Meroe the
\Vatry lakishe hill, and pull the harpe
From out the ministrills hands, and pawne
Yt .... to louely Proserpine that she
1090 May fetch me fayre Angelica.
1090 t Vilayne, will he not send me it ?
............ no ansverr.
1074 This text iece follows immediately after a lize
from the Mll. .hiS. 1076 ore. All. IIIS. 1078 6 crimson bt atolher
hand in All. 11IS. 1080 Galaxsy itt atother hand iz All. IllS.

272 APPENDIX

So, Orlando must become a poet.
No, the palatyne is sent champion vnto the warts.
5 Take the Laurell, Latonas bastard sonne :
I will to flora, sirha, downe vpon the ground,
1094 For I must talke in secrett to the starres.
1094  .............. doth lye.
When Ioue rent all the welkin with a crake.
Fye, lye! tis a false verse . . . penylesse.
As how, fellow, wher is the Artick bear, late baighted
5 From his poel? scuruy poetry! a litell to long.
............... by force.
Oh, my sweet Angelica, brauer then Iuno was.
But vilayne, she conuerst with Medor.
........... I giue.
io Drowned be Canopus child in those arcadyan twins.
Is not that sweet, Argalio ?
......... confesse it.
Stabb the old whore, and send her soule to the diuell.
5 Lend me the nett that vulcan trapt for Mars.
Trumpett .... vilaynes, whats here adoe
The court is cald, an nere a Senatour.
Argalio, geue me the chayre; I will be iudg
My selfe ........ souldioures.
2o So, sirs, what sayes Cassius ? why stabbd .he Caesar
In the senate howse?
........... his furye.
Why speakes not, vilayne, thou peasaunt ?
Yf thou beest a wandring knight, say who
25 Hath crakt a Launce with the ? . . . to him.
'.Vhat sayest ? Is it for the armour of
Achilles thou dost striue ? Yf be Aiax
Shall trott away to troy, geue me thy
Hand Vlisses, it is thyne .... Armorer.
3o And you, fair virgin, what say you?
Argalio, make her confesse all
1130-1 haue rele . s . . . the flower of Ilium.
Fear not Achilles ouermadding boy:
Pyrrhus shall not. Argalio why sufferest
This olde trott to come so nere me.
1135  Away with thes rages !
Fetch me the Robe that proud Apollo wears,
That I may Iett it in the capytoll.
Argalio, is Medor here ? say whiche of
1094 4 As holy, fellow, in margin All. 1IS. 1094 5 poel in differelzt
hand iz All. IS. 1094 IO twins in differezt hatd it All. lS'.

8
1137

1141

1145

1150

1155

1159
1169i
1170

1175
1176
1177

1180

THE ALLEYN MS. 273

These is he. Courage! for why, the palatyne
Of fraunce straight will make slaughter
Of these daring foes ........
Currunt .............
Are all the troyans fledd ? then geue me
Some drynke, some drink .... my lord.
This is the gesey shepherdes bottle that Darius
Quaft. so, so, so, oh so ..... [Inchactnt.
Els will I sett my mouth to Tigris streames,
And drink vp ouerflowing Euphrates.
............. my lord.
What heauenly sightes of plesaunce filles my eyes,
That feed the pride with . . ev of such regard ?
.... admyres to se my slombring dreams.
Skies are fulfild with lampes of lasting ioye
That bost the pride of haught Latonas sonne,
Who lightneth all the candles of the night.
Mnemosyne hath kist the kingly Ioue,
And entertaind a feast within my brains,
Making her daughters solace on my browes.
hIethinkes I feele how Cinthya tunes conceiptes
Of sad repeat, and meloweth those desires
That frenzy scarse had ripened in my braynes.
Ate, Ile kisse thy restlesse cheek awhile,
And suffer fruitlesse passion bide control&
Decfibit ..........
What sights, what shapes, what strang conceipted dreams,
More dreadfull then apperd to Hecuba,
When fall of Troy was figured in her sleeps.
Iuno, methought sent from the heauen by Ioue,
Came sweping swiftly thorow the glomye aire ;
And calling Iris sent her straight abrode
To soNon fawnes ye Satyres and the nimphes,
The Dryades, and all the demygodes,
To secret counsayle .... ne parle past,
She gaue them violles (?) full of heauenly dew.
With that, mounted vpon her party-colered Coach,
Being drawen with peacockes proudly through the aire,
She slipt with Iris to the sphear of Ioue.
,Vhat thoughts arise vpon this fearfull showe!
Wher? in what woodes ? what vncouth groue is this

I-Iow thus disguysd ? wher is Argalio ? Argalio !
............. mad humores.
1139-40 ore. AlL 3IS. 1142 Inchaunt
am. All.
COLL$.  T

1160-9

NOTES

ALPHONSVS, KING OF ARRAGON

Pago '19. ACT i. sounded thrise: 'In our early theatres the per-
formance was preceded by three soundings or flourishes of trumpets.
At the third sounding the curtain which concealed the stage from
the audience was drawn (opening in the middle and running upon
iron rods) and the play began' (Dyce). Cf. Dekker, Preface to
Satiromastix: 'Instead of the trumpets sounding thrice before the
play begin it shall not be amiss for him that will read first to behold
this short Comedie of Errors ;' and Gull's Hornbook, Nares' Reprint,
p. I46 : ' Threw the cards.., just about the third sound.' So in the
Jests of George Peele, Peele's 'Works (Bullen), vol. ii. p. 390: ' And
putting on one of the players' silk robes after the trumpet had sounded
thrice out he comes,.., goes forward with the prologue.'
let downe : so Providence descends in Sir CVyomon and Sir
Clamydes, and Fortune in The Valiant Welshman.
11. so yrksome idless' slights: Dyce's correction for the unin-
telligible ' idels sleights ' of the Quartos is no doubt right ; the passage
is obscurely expressed, but the sense is clear--the allurement of idleness
and its cursed charms have so bewitched each student that he would
rather die than be asked to write. The ' so' is out of place, as is very
common ; cf. infra, I. IO7  - : ' As thoughan oath can bridle so my minde
As that I dare not,' &c. For 'sleights' in this sense cf. A A[aidens
Dreante, 1. 166 :
'Loues luring follies with their strange deceits
Could wrap this lord within their baleful sleights.'
16-18. the base and silly fly : the allusion is to the Cule G a poem
attributed to Virgil. Spenser had recently (I591) brought it into
prominence by a translation of it into Ottava rima.
Painful in the sense of painstaking, careful, or industrious is
very common in Elizabethan English. Cf. 1. 77, and Second Part of
Tritameron, vol. iii. p. 153 (Grosart) : 'After the example of the industrious
and painful bee' ; also Dorastus and Fawnia, vol. iv. p. 270 (Grosart) :
' Every day she went forth with her sheepe to the field keeping them
with such care and diligence as all men thought she was verie painful.'
The term fly was applied to anything that could fly. Spenser
applies it to a butterfly, see A/fuio#otmos,bassim : and to a beetle, see
Visions of the Worlds Vanitie, iv. 5. So Holland in his Pliny.translates

282 NOTES

165-6. atchieu'd the mightie [onarch, &c. : this is a very harsh
expression, unless we are to suppose that ' monarch' stands for
'monarchy,' which is just possible; probably, however, it is a loose
expression for ' had succeeded in making himself,' ' had arrived at
being.' The reference is either to Caesar's triumphant return to Rome
in September 3.c. 47, after the battle of Pharsalia in the preceding
year, or to his return after the complete destruction of the Pompeian
army at Thapsus in 3.c. 46. Cf. Peele, Edward1, sc. 1 (ed. Bullen):
 Not Caesar leading through the streets of Rome
The captive kings of conquered nations
Was in his princely triumphs honoured more.'
triible world is a very favourite phrase with the Elizabethan
dramatists from Gorodttc downwards. It is the  triplex mundus'
of Ovid and the Latin poets. Cf. A[et. xii. 39, 40 :
'Orbe locus medio est inter terrasque fretumque
Caelestesque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi.'
Cf. biarlowe, t Tamburlaine, iv. 4, who seems to take it not in the
sense of earth, air, and water, but of Europe, Asia, and Africa, which
was perhaps the sense in which the Elizabethan writers generally
took it :
' I will confute those blind geographers
That make a triple region in the world.'
In Orlando, i. I. 46-7, Greene calls the world 'the triple parted
Regiment That froward Saturne gaue vnto his Sonnes.' ,Vith Greene
it is an epithet almost inseparable from the world, occurring at least a
dozen times in his plays.
1:'. 84, 174 S.D. ,41honsus tae, &c. : this is simply a stage-direc-
tion addressed, as is common, in the second person to the player taking
the part. Cf. 1. 331. Dyce omits it altogether, and substitutes As
Alphonsus is about to go out, enter Albinius.'
177. Vnles : for ' lest,' a common form. Cf. infra, 11. 5o5-6 :
Tis best for thee to hold thy tatling tongue,
Vnlesse I send some one to scourge thy breech,'
and 11. 167o-1 :
'Beware you do not once the same gainsay,
Vnles with death he do your rashnes pay.'
It is common with the earlier Elizabethan dramatists, but grew
obsolete early in the seventeenth century.
188. Seeke as a disyllable can be paralleled by Shakespeare,
Henry Vl11, iii. I. 38:
'Seek me out, and that way I am wife in.'
P. 85, 205. friend: a disyllable, as in Shakespeare, Tanning of
lhe Shrew, i. . I93 :
'No, sayst me so, friend? What countryman ?'

316 NOTES

mentators on Virgil, Aen. iv. I 19. It was a favourite term with the
earlier Elizabethan poets.
675-7. tgroud, disdainfull . . . mateth all our mindes : the text is
here imperfect and corrupt. I insert' and' after 'proud,' and so restore
the scansion. For 'are shaded' Dyce suggests 'o'er shaded,' which
would restore sense at the cost of grammar.
685. Ohfemminile ingegno : these Italian verses are taken respec-
tively from the last four lines of Ariosto's Orlando trurioso, canto
xxvIl, st. cxvii, where they run:
' Oh feminile ingegno (egli dicea),
Come ti volgi e muff facilmente,
Contrario oggetto proprio della fede!
Oh infelice, oh miser chi ti crede!'
and the last four from the last four verses in stanza cxxi of the same

canto :

 Importune, superbe, dispettose,
Prive d'amor, di fede e di consiglio,
Temerarie, crudeli, inique, ingrate,
Per pestilenzia eterna al mondo nate.'
It will be seen that the alterations made by Greene are the substitution
of' di tutti mali sede' for ' egli dicea,' while he has very awkwardly,
in omitting the other lines in the second stanza, left the adjectives
without any substantive, though it is easily understood.
P. 245, 765. banderoll: /V. E. D., q.v., gives sixteen variations in
the spelling of this word. It here means a small ornamental streamer
attached to a lance, as in Spenser's traerie Qteetze, vi. 7. st. 27 : 'And
lastly to despoyle of knightly bannersall.'
783. warrantize: warrant or pledge. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet cl:
 In the very refuse of thy deeds
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds.'
P. 9.47, 829. [oly : see Odyssey, x. 3o2 seqq. Allusions to it are
frequent in Lyly, Eufihues (ed. Bond). ii. pp. I8 and 78 ; Gallathea, iii.
4; and in Greene's prose works, Anatomie of Forlune, Works (Grosart),
vol. iii. p. I9O ; lourning Garmenl, Works, vol. ix. p. 773 ; and Id.
p. oo. Cf. also James 1 V.
853. as il ibasseth: this curious phrase, signifying, as Warburton
explains, the excess or extraordinary degree of anything, is common in
Elizabethan English. Cf. Lingua, iL t : ' Your travellers so dote upon
me, as passes ' ; Ierty ICives of bVindsor, i. I. 311 : ' I warrant you the
women have so cried and shrieked at it, that it passed' ; laid of the
Mill, ii. 2 : ' You shall see such sport as passes.' For further illustra-
tions see Nares's Glossary by Halliwell and Wright.
1:'. 9.:8, 884. rebated from : see note on ' rebate,' suibra , 1. 87.

ORLANDO FVRIOSO 3t9

1:'. 2(]0, 1260. cuillance all mywrongs: for 'quittance' as averb 'to
requite' cf. I ttenry VI, ii. I. 14:  As fitting best to quittance their
deceit I Contriv'd by art,' and the l?umb Knight, ad fin. : ' I thank
you and will quittance it.'
1272. Demogorgot : see note on Frier iacon, 1. 1636.
1282. Cladde all lhy slbheres : ' clad' is often used in the sense of
clothe, being apparently educed from the preterite 'clad,' see N. E. I).;
cf. 1Dido Queen ofCarlhage, v. 1 : ' And clad her in a crystal livery,'
which Dyce compares with Sir John Harington's Ejbgrams, i. Ep. 88 :
'Yet sure she doth . . . but feed and clad a synagogue of Satan.'
Cf. also Peele, tTaltle ofiIlcar.ar, iii. 9. :  That clads himself in coat of
hammer'd steele.'
1:'. 9.68, 1367. 3Ialgrado: in spite of, notwithstanding; adopted
directly from the Italian, but not infrequent in the earlier Elizabethan
writers, it had become quite obsolete in the middle of the seventeenth
century, and is not found in Shakespeare. Cf. Marlowe, Edward II
(Dyce, p. 9.oo): 'Breathing in hope malgrado all your beards.' So
Greene, Sibanish ,lasquerado, Works (Grosart), v. 9.58 : 'Sir Francis
Drake who on passing malgrado of the Spaniard . o . went,' &c. ;
hL p. 9.82 : ' Malgrad of the Spaniard landed.'
186. Orlando or ttze diuell: suggested of course by the old
proverb ' aut Erasmus aut Diabolus.'
1:'. 9.64, 1406. 1Vere was the Queene, &c. : Dyce thinks that a line
has dropped out here which informed us why the Queen of Cyprus,
Venus, was glad, but there is no reason to suppose this.
1:'. 9.6/5, 1438. sailesofsendall: cf. Looking Glasse, 1. 886: 'In Sendall
and in costly Sussapine.' Minsheu (Guide bto the 2rongues) says that
Sendal is 'a kinde of Cipres stuffe or silke.' Du Cange, quoted by
Dyce sub voce' Cendalum,' thus defines : ' Tela subserica vel pannus
sericus, Gallis et Hispanis, Cendal: quibusdam quasi Setal inter-
posito N. ex seta, seu serico : aliis ex Graeco a,d,,, anaictus ex lino
Aegyptiaco : aliis denique ex Arabico Cendali folium delicatum, subtile,
vel lamina subtilior.'
1445. Cyibarissus Change : Cyparissus was the name of an ancient
town of Phocis near Delphi, the neighbourhood of vhich appears to
have been celebrated for its cypress trees: so that according to one
tradition the town took its name from these trees. See Strabo, ix. 3- 13 :
ropo@o, doq brrb Avopda.. ' Cyparissus Change' seems to mean what
Cyparissus sends by way of change or barter, that is, Cyprus wood.

END OF VOL. I

OXFORD
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