The influence of seneca on Elizabethan tragedy; an essay

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THE

INFLUENCE OF SENECA
ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY '

AN ESSAY

BY

JOHN W. CUNLIFFE, D.LiT., M.A.,
Late Berkeley Fell<nv of the Owens College, Manchester.

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK
1893

ANASTATIC REPRINT 1907.

G.E. STECHERT&C2., NEW YORK.

ft:

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PREFACE.

This investigation was suggested to me while
attending Dr. Ward's English Literature Lectures at
the Owens College in the Session 1885-6; and after
going through the degree courses on which I was then
engaged, I gave the subject such attention as was at
my command. It would probably have been a long
time before I arrived at results worthy, even in my own
opinion, of publication, but for my appointment to
a Bishop Berkeley Fellowship at the College, which has
enabled me to give undivided attention to the inquiry
for the last two years. I have to thank Dr. Ward for
help and encouragement in addition to the original
suggestion of the subject of investigation ; indeed, I
should have liked to dedicate this little work to him as
its " only begetter," but that I hesitate to connect his
name with faults which are all my own. I am also
under obligations to Dr. Wilkins, to Mr. Elton, Lecturer
in English Literature, and to other members of the staff
of the Owens College for their kindly interest in my
work and ready response to any appeal on questions of
scholarship in connection with a subject which has
points of contact with many branches of ancient and
modern literature.

In giving the results of the investigation, I have
endeavoured to keep as closely as possible to the main
lines of an inquiry which offers unusual temptations to

IV.

digression. I may, however, be permitted to state here,
very shortly, my opinion on some of the points I have
declined to discuss in the essay. The identity of the
author of the tragedies with Seneca the philosopher
seems to me sufficiently established ; but the Octavia
and the Hercules Oetac-us are clearly not his, and there
is something to be said against the Thebais and the
Agamemnon. As to the Sbaksperean controversies referred
to, I accept Miss Jane Lee's theory as to the authorship
of Parts II and III of Henry VI, and it seems to me
not unlikely that in Richard If I Shakspere made use of
a previous play. The arguments lately brought forward
by Dr. Sarrazin in Anglia,, coupled with the recently dis-
covered fact that Kyd's father was a scrivener, convince
me that Kyd is the tragedian attacked by Nash in the
Preface to Greene's Mcnaphon, and therefore the author of
the old Hamlet upon which Shakspere founded his immortal
tragedy. Having given considerable attention to this
famous controversy, I was tempted to add another appen-
dix dealing with Nash's allusions and the developement
of the Hamkt tragedy, but in the end 'I deemed it wiser
not to wander so far from the path on which I had set
out.

It remains to be added that the essay was submitted
to the examiners for the Doctorate of Literature in the
University of London, and accepted by them as a sufficient
qualification for the degree.

JOHN W. CUNLIFPE,

January, 1893.

THE INFLUENCE OF SENECA ON
ELIZABETHAN1 TRAGEDY.

THE influence of Seneca (or, to speak more correctly, of
the tragedies ascribed to him) upon the Elizabethan
drama is so plainly marked that no competent historian
of our literature could fail to notice it. The translations
of Seneca and their connection with the beginnings of
the regular drama in England have been referred to by
Warton, by Collier, and by Dr, Ward; and Mr. J. A.
Symonds has an admirable review of the whole subject.2
Indeed, the obligations of our early dramatists to Seneca,
did not escape the attention of contemporary critics.)
Writing " to the Gentlemen Students of both Universi-
ties" in the preface to Greene's Menaphon (pub. 1589),
Thomas Nash inveighs in his usual lively style against Thomas Nash-

v " the seruile imitation of vain-glorious tragoedians

who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to out-
braue better pens with the swelling bumbast of a bragging
blanks verse. "/ After a violent outburst of contemptuous

1 I have used the term "Elizabethan" in its broad literary meaning
rather than in the strict historical sense. It seems to me more ex-
pressive, as well as more convenient, than the cumbrous " Elizabetho-
Jacobsean," or even the less objectionable term, "pre-Restoration." The
drama was one in spirit throughout the three reigns, and exhibits only
continuous stages of developement from the first plays of Lyly and
Marlowe to the last plays of Shirley.

2 Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Dra/ma^ Chapter VI.

2 The Influence of Seneca

indignation, he threatens " to leane these to the mercie
of their mother tongue, that feed on nought but the
crummes that fal from the translators trencher;" but he
soon resolves to " turne back to his first text ; and talke a
little in friendship with a few of our triuiall translators."
"It is," he says, " a common practise now a daies amongst
a sort of shifting companions, that runne through euery
arte and thritie by none, to leaue the trade of Nouerint
whereto they were borne, and busie thomselaes with the
indeuors of Art, that could scarcelie latinize their uecke-
verse if they should haue neede ; yet English Seneca read
by candle light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Blond
is a'legger, and so foorth : and if you intreate him fairo
in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets,
I should say handfulls of tragical speaches. But 6 griefe 1
tempus edax renim, what's that will last alwaies ? The sea
exhaled by droppes will in continuance be drie, and Seneca
let blood line by line and page by page, at length must

needes die to our stage '; The whole passage is one of

great interest as a contemporary criticism of the dramatic
models of the time, but it is too long for full quotation .
I must content myself with drawing attention to the
reference to the translation of Seneca, which is also
mentioned by Ascharn in The Schokmaster (1570), by
Arthur Hall in the preface to his Homer (1581), by
William Webbe in his Discourse of English Poetrle (1586),
and by Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598). This
translation, which held a high place in the esteem of
contemporary critics, and, according to Nash, was laid
under heavy contribution by the dramatists, merits care-

on Iliizalethan Tragedy. &

fnl examination, because of its close and important
connection with the subject of this essay.

The translation gtJfeneca's "Tenne

appeared as a whole i^58LKut all the plays composing
the volume had been previously published, with the
exception of the fragmentary Thebais. The Troas had
been printed in 1559, theT^^Jn 1560, the Hercules
Furcns in 1561, all from the pen of Jasper Hey Wood ;
the Oedipus was translated by Alexander Nevyle in 1560
and published in 1563 ; the Octavia was done by Thomas
Nuce in 1562 and printed in 1566, the Medea and
Agamemnon by John Studley appearing in the same year ;
the Hippolytus was licensed to Henry Denham in 1556-7,
and was doubtless printed, though no copy of this edition
is known ; the Thebcds was added in 1581 by Thoinas
Newton, the editor of the whole, for the sake of complete-
ness.

The translation seems to have been intended, at
least in part, for dramatic representation. Nevyle, in his
preface to the Oedipus, says his translation was not at
first meant for publication, "but onely to satisfy the
instant requests of a few my familiar frencls, who thought
to haue put it to the very same vse, that Seneca himselfe
in his Inueution pretended : Which was by the tragicall-
and Pompous showe upon Stage, to admonish all
men...." The translator of the Troas seems to have
had the same end in view, as may be gathered from the
last line of the chorus at the end of Act II : —

And now (good Ladies) heare what shall be done,

4 The Influence of Seneca.

Taken as a whole the translation is generally close,
but not always correct. Difficult passages are rendered
in a literal and often meaningless way, and sometimes
slurred over or omitted altogether. Occasionally the
translator expands a familiar reflection, or inserts a few
lines of his own. Jasper Heywood added a long soliloquy
to the Thyestes, and made in the Troas a considerable
numher of alterations, which he details in the preface to
that tragedy ; his additions are affected to some extent
by the tastes of his time, but are for the most part after
the style of the original, the third Chorus in Heywood's •
Troas being borrowed from the third Chorus in Seneca's
Hippolytus. There is an interesting insertion in the
speech of Phaedra on folio 73 (And sith that I .....) by
Studley, who also altered the first Chorus in the Medea
out of all semblance of translation, and added to the
Agamemnon a long speech by Eurybates. Studley also
made omissions and additions of some interest in the
Hercules Oetaeus. In Nevyle'a Oedipus the first Chorus is
considerably shortened, the second is left out altogether, ,
and the third and fourth bear little or no resemblance to
the original. Nevyle apologises for thus " adding and
subtracting at pleasure," and in the preface to the Troas
Heywood excuses himself on the ground that the author's
mind is " in many places verye harde and doubtfull, and
the worke much corrupt by the default of euil printed
Bookes." ' Doubtless everyone of the translators would
be able to make with truth the avowal of the editor,
'Newton, "Yet this dare I saye, I haue deliuered myne
Authors meaning with as much perspicuity, as so meane

0

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 5

a Scholler, out of so meane a stoare, in so smal a time,
and vpon so short a warning was well able to performe;"
and when we take into consideration the state of the text
at that day, and the youth of some of the authors (Nevyle
was only 15), the translation seems a very creditable,
and even an admirable performance. There is every
evidence that it was highly esteemed and extensively
used ; but I have been unable to confirm Hash's taunt i
that playwrights ignorant of Latin found in English I
Seneca, not merely urnanie good sentences," but " whole
Hamlets, I should say handfullsof tragical speaches." A i
large and important chapter of Shaksperean controversy
centres in this reference by Nash in 1589 to an earlier ^^-^

Hamlet.

Hamlet, which is also referred to in Lodge's Wits <^_
miserie, and the Worlds madnesse, discovering the Devils
incarnat of this Age (1596). One of these devils is

described as " a foule lubber, who looks as pale as

the visard of the ghost, which cried so iniserally at the
theator, like an oisterwife, Hamlet reuenge." We find
from Henslowe's Diary that a Hamlet had been acted at
Newington on June 9th, 1594, and there is also a
reference by Tucca in Dekker's Satiromastix (1602). This
earlier Hamlet doubtless formed the foundation for
Shakspere's tragedy as we have it, but the text of 1603-4
offers no confirmation for Nash's sneers, and the German
Hamlet published by Mr. Cohn does not help us. Doubt-
less in the old Hamlet, if we had it, we should be able to
discover the "good sentences" and "tragical speaches"
borrowed- by the author from English Seneca; and in
many other old plays now lost we might find evidence in

^ / <J

6 The Influence of Seneca

support 'of Hash's criticisms. The learned dramatists
of the Inns of Court and the popular playwrights of a letter
date who borrowed from Seneca seem to have gone to the
Latin text, and their version is often more accurate, as
well as more elegant, than the rendering of the pro-
fessed translators. Of course the dramatists who used
Seneca's lines without acknowledgment would not be
likely to reveal their indebtedness to the English version,
if they could avoid it ; and there can be little doubt that
the translation would be extensively used in conjunction
with the original by those who had but " small Latin,"
and were glad to take advantage of what help they could
get to puzzle out Seneca's aphoristic obscurities and
far-fetched allusions. The translation must also have
had considerable effect in spreading a general knowledge
of Seneca's form, style, and manner, the character of
his subjects, and the leading ideas of his philosophical
teaching as contained in the tragedies.

translation of 1581 is further remarkable as the
only complete version of Seneca's tragedies in the
English language. Sir Edward Sherburne in 1701
published a translation, of the Medea, the Hippolytm, and
the Troas, and odd plays were printed by other transla-
tors ; l but the issue of 1581 still remains the first and
only English translation of the ten tragedies. For many
years past, Seneca has been treated, at any rate in England,

1 In the Bodleian Library there is a translation from the Hercules
Oetaeus by Queen Elizabeth.

on Elizabethan Tragedy, 7

with a contemptuous neglect contrasting strangely with \
the high esteem in which he was once held. I suppose
no one nowadays would think of upholding the judgement
of Scaliger: "Senecam nullo Graecoruni maie tatem
inferiorem existimo, cultu vero ac nitore, etiam Euripide
maiorem." Few critics would pin their faith even to the
more moderate claim of Muretns : "Est profecto poeta
ille praeclarior et uetusti sermonis diligentior quani quidain
inepte fastidiosi suspicantur."^ But altogether apart from
- his intrinsic merits, Seneca held such' a prominent place sen** and i

x European 1

in the Revival of Learning in Europe, and exercised such «•«««<*•
a great influence on the developenient of the modern
Tlraina, that the study of his tragedies is of the utmost
importance. When Alberto Mussato gave new life to the
European drama at the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury, though his subjects were taken from modern history,
his model, both in style and metre, was Seneca. At a
later date Italian tragedy, to use the words of Klein,1
"indeed exchanged Mussato's Latin for the vulgar tongue;
but only to again force this too into the Senecan buskin."
" With every subsequent tragedy of the sixteenth cen-
tury," Klein says later, " with every step we fall deeper

and deeper into the savagery qf the tragedy of Seneca.^

The influence of Seneca runs through Italian tragedy from
Mussato right down to Alfieri ; and, to again quote Klein,
through Seneca " Euripidean tragedy leavened the dra-
matic poetry of every cultured nation in Europe through
all the centuries, while Aeschylus and Sophocles fed the
worms in the libraries." As to the French drama, it will

1 Geschichte des Dramas, V. 236,

8 The Inflmnce of Seneca

be enough to give the statement of Mr. George Saints-
bury1 that Seneca took captive "the whole drama of
France, from Jodelle, through Gamier and Montchrestien
and even Hardy, through Corneille and Eacine and
Voltaire, leaving his traces even on Victor Hugo." The
"Primeras Tragedias Esgatfdles" of Geronymo Bermudez,
published at Madrid in 1577, bear traces of Seneca's in-
fluence; and the " Nueva Idea de la Tragedia Antigua"
of Gonzalez de Salas (Madrid, 1633) contains a transla-
tion of the Troas ; but the main current of the Spanish
drama seems to have been little affected by classical in-
fluence. The German dramatist Gryphius took Seneca
as his model ; and as early as 1540-3 the Scotch scholar,
Buchanan, had written in Seneca's manner a Latin
tragedy, Jepkthac-s, which, after being acted by the stu-
dents of Bordeaux, was printed in 1554, and became
very popular. It is commended by Ascham in The
Scholemaster, and by R. Wilmott in his preface to the
revised edition of Tancred and Gismund (1592). Latin
imitations of Seneca, as well as the original plays,
were acted at the Universities.2

1 In a Preliminary Note to Vol. III. of Dr. Grosart's Complete
Works of Samuel Daniel.

2 Knight mentions in a note on Hamlet that in Braun's Ciwtates
(1575) there is a Latin memoir prefixed to a map of Cambridge, record-
ing that the fables of {Seneca were performed by the students " with
elegance, magnificence, dignity of action, and propriety of voice and
countenance." Gager's Meleager, a Latin tragedy in the form of Seneca
and described by the author as " Paniiiculus Hippolyto Senecae Tra-
gaediae assutus," was acted at Christ Church, Oxford, before Lord
Leicester, Sir Philip Sidney, and others in 1581, according to Mr.
Fleay's Chronicle of the English Drama, I. 236. It was printed at
Oxford in 1592, and the author or publisher apparently fixes the date
of composition at 1591.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 9

- Seneca influenced English tragedy through both
Italian and French literature. Gascoigne's Jocasta
(1566) is an adaptation of the Phoenissae of Euripides,
cast into the form of Seneca, and taken from Ludovico
Dolce, the Italian translator of Seneca. Kyd, the author -
of The Spanish Tragedy, translated Garnier's Cornelia,
a close copy of Seneca's style (pub. 1594); and
Garnier's Antonius was done into English by the Countess '
of Pembroke in 1590 and printed in 1592. But we need
not seek for the influence of Seneca on the English
drama through these indirect channels. The direct
influence was of much greater extent and importance.
Seneca was held in no less esteem in England than on
the Continent, Without going back to Chaucer1 and
Lydgate, it is worthy of note that in the early days of
the English Renascence, in Skelton's Garlande of
Laurell (1523), "Senek full soberly with his tragedies"
is given a place among the most famous classical writers;
and there is an interesting reference to the Octavia in
More's Utopia (1516). Ascham indeed in The Schole-
master says : " Sophocles and Euripides far ouermatch
our Seneca in Lutin, namely in oiKovo^ia et Decoro,
although Senacaes elocution and verse be verie comrnend-

1 See R. Peiper Chaucer und seine Vorbilder im Alterthum in
Jahrbb. filr Class. Philologie (.1868). p. 65. Even before Chaucer's time,
Nicholas Trevet or Trivet, an English Dominican friar, shared with
Al.berto Mussato the honour of reviving the study of Seneca. A
specimen of his annotations on the tragedies is given in the preface to
the edition of his Annales published by the English Historical Society,
and the complete manuscript is in the British Museum. We might go
further back still and establish a connection between Seneca and the
Anglo-Saxon, Aldhelin,

10 The Influence of Seneca

able for his tyme ; " but the way in which he speaks of
" our Seneca" seems to imply that the Roman dramatist
was far more familiar to his readers. Ascham, unlike most
of his contemporaries, was " averie good Grecian "-—a debt
he owed to the teaching of Sir John Cheke, whose dictum
he quotes with approval that a good student should
" dwell " in Cicero only of the'Latin writers ; the rest he
should " passe and iorney through." Ascham himself
boldly asserts the superiority of Greek authors to those of
all other nation's, ancient or modern. "Cicero onelie
excepted, and one or two moe in Latin, they be all
patched cloutes and ragges, in comparison of faire wouen
broade cloathes. And trewelie, if there be any good in
them, it is either lerned, borowed, or stolne, from some
one of those worthie wittes of Athens." But it would be
a mistake to suppose that this was an opinion generally
held ; we shall get much nearer to the ordinary standard
of scholarship and the popular view of classical literature
in William Webbe, a Cambridge graduate and literary
critic, connected with our early drama by an introductory
letter he supplied to the revised edition of Tancred and
Gismund (1592). In his Discourse of English Poetrie
(1586), Webbe confesses that the poets he is best acquain-
ted with are " not all nor the moste part of the auncient
Grecians, of whom I know not how many th'ere were, but
these of the Latinists, which are of the greatest fame
and most obuious among vs." He thinks Virgil at least
equal to Homer, and asks of the Roman poets generally
in Virgil's time, "Wherein were they not comparable
with the Greekes V In his review of the Latin poets he

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 11

makes mention of Seneca, " a most excellent .wryter of „
Tragedies ;" and in his list of translators he has a graceful
reference to-" the laudable Authors of Seneca in English." -*
Even Ascham, in another passage of The Scholemaster, gives

- Seneca a place alongside of Euripides and Sophocles as. J
models of tragedy — an example followed by Puttenham in
hisArte of English Poesie (1589). To Sidney, to Meres, and
to Shakspere1 himself, Seneca was the model of classical

Jragedy; and it was "the famous Corduban" that the
ambitious tragedians of Hall's Satires (1597) strove to
excel. There is every indication that the knowledge of <?»•«?* Traged

J little known.

Greek tragedy was confined to a very small circle ; trans-
lations from the Greek dramatists were unknown in this
century, Gascoigne's Jocasta being, as has already been
remarked , an Italian adaptation . The first genuine transla-
tion of a Greek play was apparently the Electra of Christo-
pher Wase, printed at the Hague in 1649 ; and it was not
until more than a century later that there appeared the first
complete translation of a Greek tragic poet— Francklin's
Sophocles (1759). All the evidence is in favour of -Dr.
Campbell's statement that "English students of the
drama contented themselves with Seneca."2 The trans-
lation of 1581 was ready to hand, and in 1623-4 Thomas
Farnabie published an edition of the original with notes,3
which must have been exceedingly useful. Seneca was a

1 Sidney praises Gorboduc as " clyming to the height of Seneca
his style," Shakspere is compared by Meres to Seneca, and Polonius
says of the players in Hamlet, " Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light" for them.

2 A Guide to Greek Tragedy, p. 309.

3 Of this issue twenty editions were published. Munro,

o\

G IP 1

12 The Influence of Seneca

favom*ite school author, and Professor T. S. Baynes has
come to the conclusion that Shakspere read the tragedies
at Stratford Grammar School.1 The afternoon lessons
of the boys at Kotherham School in Shakspere 's
time were " two days in Horace, and two days in
Seneca's Tragedies; both which they translated into
English/' Hoole, one of the masters at Kotherham
School, setting forth a model curriculum in his New
Discovery, published in 1659, but written 23 years before,
and well-known previous to publication, says, u As for
Lucan, Seneca's Tragedies, Martiall, and the rest of the
finest Latin poets, you may-do well to give them a taste
of each, and show them how and wherein they may
and imitate them, and borrow something out of them." This

borrowed from.

" imitation " and " borrowing " was a lesson well learnt
by the dramatists, as I shall have occasion to show
hereafter. Enough has already been said to show the
esteem in which Seneca was held by the Elizabethans,
and if his connection with the drama be deemed to be as
yet insufficiently established, proof may easily be found
in the Latin quotations from Seneca embodied in the
text of many Elizabethan tragedies.2 The fact of Seneca's
influence upon the English drama being thus proved,
we may proceed to examine the general character of this
influence before we inquire into its exact extent.

1 See What Shakespeare learnt at School in Fraeer's Magazine
for November, 1879.
2 See Appendix L

on Elizabethan Tragedy. IB

In any attempt to estimate the position of Seneca
in the developement of the modern drama, we are met
at the outset by controversies which offer inviting fields
for discussion. Who was the Seneca to whom ths
tragedies are ascribed ? How many >of them are
genuinely his? Who wrote those that are wrongly
ascribed to him ? Were the tragedies intended for repre*
sentation on the stage, or are they to be regarded as mere
rhetorical exercises, meant only for private recitation ?
These are questions which have agitated the minds of
critics and scholars for nearly three hundred years, but
it would be a mistake to pay attention to them when
treating Seneca from the point of view of the Elizabethan
drama. The authors of the tranflTatiW of 158J. were
troubled by no critical doubts or difficulties ; they had
no idea that the very title of their volume, " Seneca his
Tenne Tragedies," was open to objection. In his dedica-
tory letter Newton unhesitatingly identifies the author of
the tragedies with Seneca the philosopher ; he is evi-
dently entirely ignorant of any suggestion that the Thebais
is simply a patchwork of .two fragments ; and he and his
fellow translators are equally blind to the fact that the
Octavia for chronological reasons, and the Hercules Oetaeus
for critical reasons cannot be accepted as the work of
Seneca. Nevyle takes it for granted that the Oedipus was
originally intended for " tragicall and Pompous showe
upon Stage/' and the confidence with which Jasper Hey-
wood dubs Seneca "the flowre of all writers" is almost
amusing in view of the depth of disrepute to which the
tragedies have fallen since. I have thought it best in this

14 The Influence of Seneca

essay to take the tragedies as far as possible from the
Elizabethan point of view. From this point of view it is
correct to speak of the author of the tragedies simply
as Seneca, without any cumbrous qualifications ;
and I shall call the tragedies by the names given
to them by the Elizabethans, though no doubt it
would, be more correct to treat the Thebais as made
up of a fragmentary Oedipus and a fragmentary
Phoenisae. The text quoted is the Aldine of Avantius
(1517), which has been the foundation of most subsequent
editions. Peiper and Eichter say in their preface, " Si
universum spectamus, nullum librurn uel rnanu scriptum
uel inpressum fatendum est tarn prope ad genuinam re-
eensionis uolgaris condicionem accedere quam Aldinam."
As I was not in a position to see a copy of the Aldine
edition, I have restored the readings of Avantius in the
text of Peiper and Bichter published in 1867, and the
figures refer to the numbering of the lines in that edition.

It would be easy to convict Seneca of many and very
serious shortcomings; it would not be difficult to prove
that by the side of obvious defects he possesses some ex-
cellences. Klein praises the scene between Andromache
and Ulysses in the Troas as unsurpassed even by Shakspere;
and Dry den says of the same passage that it " bears the
nearest resemblance of anything in the tragedies of the
ancients to the excellent scenes of passion in Shakespeare
or in Fletcher." Leaving aside all question of .intrinsic
merit, this is the first quality I wish to claim for Seneca

<m Elizabethan Tragedy. 15

— that hei^ the most modern of the ancien|f ; in the
words of Klein, he " stands nearer to Shakspeare and
Calderonthan to Euripides/' Even if Greek tragedy had
stood within as easy reach of the Elizabethans as Seneca,
it may be doubted whether they would have been
able to assimilate it ; its perfectness would not make
it any easier to imitate, and it was as far removed
from modern ideas in spirit as in form.y'The whole of
Greek tragedy is thoroughly Athenian in spirit, its con-
ceptions are all of the ancient Greek world, and its form,
its very conventions were vitally affected by. the circum-
stances that had given it birth and assisted in its develope-
ment.v/^eneca is nearer to the moderns in spirit than in
time. In his case the local conditions which moulded
Greek tragedy were absent. His stoicism, his personal
circumstances, and the spirit of his time all helped to
make him cosmopolitan. " The age of Nero'' (I quote
from my notes of a lecture by Dr. Ward) "may be re-
garded as the climax of a cosmopolitan tendency in litera-
ture, which began under the Eepublic itself, and was no
longer satisfied with what appealed only to Kornan senti-
ment. There was no national life at Borne in the time
of Nero, hardly a national literature, no national drama."
Seneca is peculiarly free from local restrictions, and to
this we may perhaps ascribe the fact that Elizabethan
tragedy, though thrilled through and through with
patriotism, deals with men and ideas of universal interest.
Shakspere glorified some of his^playswith an impassioned
spirit of healthy patriotism, but of his masterpieces it is pe-
culiarly true that they are "not of an age, but for all time,"

16 The Influence of Seneca

5. introspects, jn anotjier way Seneca stands nearer to the modern
drama than to Greek tragedy. " Ancient tragedy"
says Dr. Campbell l " is stamped with a degree of
objectivity and outwardness which, on the whole, differ-
entiates its creations from those of the modern drama,
steeped as this so often is with the introspectiveness or
self-reflectiveness that pervades the modern world/'
We note the beginning of the change in Euripides; but
in Seneca it is very plainly marked. The scene is no
longer in the open air, but within doors. The plots of
Atreus and their bloody execution, the guilty suit of
Phaedra, and the machinations of Deianira and Medea
could not take place before a temple or in the courtyard
of a palace. Seneca's arrangement of the plot in all
these cases implies secresy and concealment ; and
introspectiveness follows as a matter of course upon his
mode of treatment. Sir Walterjjcott^says in his preface
to Dry den's Oedipus l " Though devoid of dramatic effect,
of fancy, and of genius, the Oedipus of Seneca displays
the masculine eloquence and high moral sentiment of
its author ; and if it doas not interest us in the s^ene of
fiction, it often compels us to turn our thoughts inward,
and to study our own hearts." The remark is equally
true of the other plays. In the Thyestes Atreus is intro*
duced brooding over his own supinenes? in not S3eking
revenge ; and when Thyestes enters, he is lost in reflec-
tion on the subject of his own doubts and fears. Oedipus
and Jocasta in the Thtbais are the subjects of the same
morbid self-analysis. The thoughts of Phaedra in love,
* A Guide to Greek Tragedy, p. 38,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 17

of Medea in hatred, of Deianira in jealousy revolve round
one centre — themselves. In the Agamemnon Clytemnestra
shows the same tendency to soliloquy and self-examina-
tion, her first words being

quid segnis anime tuta consilia expetis ?
quid fluctuaris ?

We shall find nothing in Greek tragedy so near as this
to the scruples of Macbeth and the self-analysis of
Hamlet.

Seneca's introspectiveness is chiefly clue to the f sensation*;.
character of his themes and his mode of dealing with
them. The sensationalism which Aristotle and Aristo- ' \/

phaues remark in Euripides is still more marked in
Seneca. His subjects are indeed taken from Greek
tragedy, but they are the most sensational he could)
choose — the horrid banquet of Thyestes, the murder of,
Agamemnon by his faithless wife and her paramour,* the
guilty love of Phaedra, the execution of Astyanax and
Polyxena, the revenge of Medea, the slaughter of Megara
and her children, the fatal jealousy of Deianira, the
incest and parricide of Oedipus and the unnatural strife
of his sons. In the Octavia, the only tragedy whose
subject is not taken from Greek mythology, the theme is
still of lust and blood. Perhaps the example of Seneca
was hardly needed to direct Elizabethan tragedy into the
same channel. Those were stirring and licentious times,
and the nation which kept Spain airl the Inquisition at
bay abroad had memories at home of the lustfulness of

18 The Influence of Seneca

Henry, the cruelty of Mary, and the intrigues of Elizabeth.
The moral atmosphere of the court did not improve in
the following reign, and it was no wonder that English
dramatists continued to treat of lawless love and
prodigious crimes ; by this time the example of Seneca
had been re-inforced by the influence of the Italian and
the Spanish drama, in which the same J£aven had been,
at work.

s, Rhetoric^, , Seneca goes to no trouble to make his sensational
' themes dramatically effective by clever construction of
plot and careful developement of character. He contents
himself with _amplifying the horror of the tragic situa-
tionstill they become disgusting, and exaggerating the
expression of passion till it becomes ridiculous. In
Hercules Furens 1291-1301 we have an example of the
style to which Nick Bottom gave the immortal title of
« Ercles' vein " 1;-

arina nisi dentur mihi,
aut omne Pindi thracis excidam nemus
Bacchique lucos et Cithaeronis iuga
mecum cremabo. tota cum domibus suis
dominisque tecta, cum deis templa omnibus
thebana supra corpus excipiam meum
atque urbe uersa condar et si fortibus
leue pondus umeris moenia inmissa excident
septemque opertus non satis portis premar,
onus omne media parte qua mundus sedet
dirimitque superos in meum uertam caput.

1 In Lingua, a play acted at one of the Universities in the reign
of Elizabeth, Tactus "cannot be otherwise persuaded but he is
Hcrcyles Furens," {Ubd beats Appetitus, who sets himself to "outswagger
him,"

on Elizabethan tragedy. 10

This rhetorical exaggeration is best known to us in
the school of English tragedy headed by Tamburlaine ;
but wo shall find that in the later Elizabethans it is not
absent. Shakspere uses it not infrequently, but always
in a white heat of passion that goes far towards making
hyperbole pardonable. There is a notable example in
the grave scene in Hamkt (V. 1 ad fin.) ; and Munro1
compares ThyesUs 289-292 :—

regna nunc sperat mea.
hac spe minanti fulmen occurret Tovi,
hac spe subibit -gurgitis tumidi minas
dubiumque libycae Syrtis intrabit fretum,

with the words of Hotspur in 1 Henry IV, I. 3 : —

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,

Or dive into the bottom of tho deep

We have other examples in the speech of Juliet*
IV. 1 :—

0, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

From off the battlements of yonder tower. ,

and in The Merchant of Venice, IV. 1 ; —

You may as well go stand upon the beach.

And bid the main flood bate his usual height

Seneca was much given to these exaggerated compari-
sons. See Hercules Furens 876-882 ; Tkyettes 476 482 ';
Hippolyias 576-581 ; Octavia 22V-231 ; .Hercules Oetacus
338-341 and 1586-1590.

1 Journal of Philology, VI. 77,

20

The Influence of Seneca

6. Descriptive,

7. Refactive.

Stichomythia,

Without regular dramatic development by action
and character, the tragedies of Seaeca are filled up with
elaborate descriptions, sententious dialogues, and reflec-
tive diatribes. Of Seneca's descriptive passages little
need be said ; they are the forerunners of similar efforts
by the Elizabethan dramatists, who excel- Seneca as much
iii descriptive power as they show moderation in the use
of it ; particular resemblances will be pointed out here-
after. So far as space goes, narrative plays a great part
in Seneca's tragedies ; but much of it is mere padding ;
far more characteristic of Seneca are the reflective pas-
sages, and the dialogue, which is highly finished in form
and often heavily weighted with philosophic thought.
Stichomythia is very common in Seneca's tragedies, and
sometimes every line is a moral maxim or a commonplace
of philosophy. English playwrights very soon began to
imitate Seneca's brilliant performances in this respect,
and it is interesting to mark the steps of their progress.
Gorboduc (1561) yields us no example, but we have
already an attempt, though not a very successful one, in
Damon and Pythias (printed in 1571, and probably acted
and published a few years before; it was licensed in 1567)
e.g. Hazlitt's Dodsley, IV. p. 56 :—

DION. Take heed for [your] life : wordly men break promise in
many things.

PITH. Though wordly men do so, it never haps amongst friends.

DION. What callest thou friends ? are they not men, is not
this true ?

PITH. Men they be, but such men as love one another only for
virtue.

DION. For what virtue dost thou love this spy, this Damon ?
PITH. For that virtue which yet to you is unknown.

on Elizabethan Tragedy, 21

The Misfortunes of Arthur (1587-8) and the revised
version of Tancred and Gismnnd (pub. 1592) show a con-
siderable advance, both in quality and quantity, many of
the lines'being borrowed directly from Seneca. In The
Spanish Tragedy we have fairly finished stichoinythia with
greater originality. Marlowe's dialogue is not particu-
larly striking, but Peele's Edward I gives us a remark-
able example. Mr. Bullen's edition. Scene XXI.: —

LONGSH. Why what remains for Baliol now to give ?
BALIOL. Allegiance, as becomes a royal king.
LONGSH. What league of faith where league is broken once ?
BALIOL. The greater hope in them that once have fall'n.
LONGSH. But foolish are those monarchs that do yield
A conquered realm upon submissive vows.

Shakspere has many such passages,1 of which it
will be enough to quote ons, and that a short one. The
Merchant of Venice, IV. 1 : —

BASS. This no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.

SHY. I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

BASS. Do all men kill the things they do not love ?

SHY. Hates any man the thing he would not kill ?

BASS. Every offence is not a hate at first.

SHY. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice ?

Seneca is not content with elaborating brilliant dia-
logue in alternate lines ; he balances half, third, and
quarter lines. Thus in the Medea, 168-173 :—

1 See Richard III, passim, especially IV. 4 ; 1 Henry F/,
TV. 5 ; and 3 Henry VI, III. 2.

NVTR.

MED.

NVTR.

MED,

NVTR.
MED.
NVTR.
MED.

NVTR.

MED.

NVTR.

MED.

NVTR.

MED.

The Influence of Seneca

rex est timendus.

rex raeus fuerat pater.

non metuis arma ?

sint licet terra edita.

moriere.

cupio.

profuge.

paenituit fugae.

Medea f ugiam 1

mater es.

cui sim uides.

prbfugere dubitas 1

uindex sequetur.

f ugiam, at ulciscar prius.

f orsan inueniam moras.

Hughes makes obvious efforts to imitate this trick of
style in The Misfortunes of Arthur. (See Hazlitt's Dodsley,
IV. 268, 277, 283, 284, 286, 303.) We have less elabo-
rate but more successful attempts in Tancred and Gismund
(Hazlitt's Dodsley, VII. 70, 73, 88, 92,) In the opening
scenes of Hamlet Shakspere has used a like brevity with
a very different effect. The appearance of artificiality is
removed by occasional irregularity, which has the sem-
blance of carelessness, but is really the outcome of the
highest art ; and to the majesty of verse is added the
naturalness of ordinary conversation.

Seloeb>* philot l\ Seneca's reflective passages are by no means con-
, ined to dialogue. Long speeches give him opportunity
lior rhetorical expansion, and the Chorus occasionally
udevelopes a philosophic theme. For the most part the

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 23

subjects of reflection are familiar commonplaces — the
cares of empire, the fickleness of fortune, the uncertainty
of popular favour, the cruelty of war, the falsehood of
fame, the impetuosity of youth, the modesty of maiden-
hood, the evil consequences of luxury, the fatal gift of
beauty, the dangers of high places and the safety of
humility, the joys of a country life and the advantages of
poverty. Similar reflections are frequent in the Eliza-
bethan dramatists, and I shall point out many instances
in which Seneca's form of expression is reproduced with
more or less exactness. Shakspere deals freely in this
small coin of 'philosophy, but he generally issues it new
from his own mint. A line in Cynibcline, IV. 3 : — •

Some falls are means the happier to arise

suggests a comparison with Troas 896-7 : — •

hie forsitan te casus excelso magis
solio reponet.

But this may be merely a coincidence ; and the same
remark applies to most Shakspef ean parallels with Seneca,

as we shall see later on. So in Julius Caesar, I. 3 :—

/**• ••""

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit ;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

Thebais 151-3 :—

ubique mors est. optume hoc cauit deus.

eripere uitam nemo non homini potest,

at nemo mortem ; mille ad hanc aditus patent.

24 The Influence of Seneca

We have an unacknowledged translation in The Misfor-
tunes of Arthur, I. 3 : —

Each-where is death ! the fates have well ordain'd,
That each man may bereave himself of life,
But none of death : death is so sure a doom,
A thousand ways do guide us to our graves.

Marston also keeps closer to Seneca's form. 1 Anto-
nio and Mellida, III. 2 : —

Each man take[sj hence life, but no man death :
He's a good fellow, and keeps open house :
A thousand thousand ways lead to his gate,
To his wide-mouthed porch, when niggard life
Hath but one little, little wicket through.

Beaumont and Fletcher tell us that to death " a
thousand doors are open." Massinger says in The Duke
of Milan, I. 3 : —

There are so many ways to let out life.

and Shirley, in Loves Cruelty, V. 1: —

A thousand ways there are to let out life.

It is curious how some of Seneca's aphorisms do duty
again and again in the Elizabethan drama with but slight,
changes of form. Seneca had written in the Agamemnon: —

I per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.

This is translated by Studley :—

The safest path to niischiefe is by mischiefe open still.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 25

Thomas Hughes has it in The Misfortunes of Arthur,
4.

The safest passage is from bad to worse.

Marston in The Malcontent, Y. 2 : —

Black deed only through black deed safely flies.

Shakspere in Macbeth, III. 2 : —

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

Jonsoii in Catiline, I. 2 ; —

The ills that I have done cannot be safe
But by attempting greater.

Webster in The White Devil, II. 1 :—

Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.

Lastly, in Massinger's Duke of Milan, II. 1 Francisco
says

All my plots

Turn back upon myself ; but I am in,
And must go on : and, since I have put off
From the shore of innocence, guilt be now my pilot !
Revenge first wrought me ; murder's his twin brother :
One deadly sin, then, help to cure another!

—

In addition to a large stock of brilliant common-
places, there is in the tragedies a considerable body of
-thought which is part of Seneca's philosophic faith.
The leading doctrine is that of fatalism — not the fatalism Fatalism.
of Aeschylus, which. is one with the will of the gods, and
makes for righteousness,1 but the absolute, hopeless

1 See Supplices (Paley) 1031-4 and Prometheus 526-7, ; also **n
article on "Aeschylus as a Religious Teacher" in the Contemporary
Review for 1866, by Mr. (now Bishop) Brooke Foss Westcott, re-
published in his jpac&nt Essays in the History of Religious Thought in
the West,

26 The Influence of Seneca

fatalism of the Stoic school, which includes the gods
themselves in its universal sway.

omnia certo tramite uadunt

primusque dies dedit extreinum.

non ilia deo uertisse licet

quae nexa suis currunt causis. (Oedipus 1008-1011.)

As Nisard points out,1 the fatalism of Greek
is religious; that of Seneca is philosophic. In spite of
his frequent use of the traditional mythology, Seneca is
^> inclined to be sceptical. On returning to his native land, \
Thyestes addresses his ancestral gods with the doubt-
ful addition, " si sunt tamen di." In spite of the ghosts
in the Troas, the Chorus treat existence after death as an
open question, and finally come to the conclusion

Taenara et aspero

regnum sub domino limen et obsidens
custos non facili Cerberus ostio
rumores uacui uerbaque mania
et par sollicito fabula somnio. (413-17.)

Even where Seneca accepts the traditional mythology,
lie attributes to the gods that.envy of human pre-eminence
which Aeschylus disowned.2 Seneca has no faith in the
righteous government of the world. The Chorus in the
Hippolytus sing

res humanas ordine nullo

fortuna regit, spargitque manu

munera caeca, peiora fouens.

uincit sanctos dira libido,

fraus sublimi regnat in aula. (986-90.)

1 In Etudes sur les Poet.es Latins de la Decadence.

« Ci Hippolytus 1132-1152 with Aeschylus Agamemnon 727-737.

oil Elizabethan Tragedy. 27

Mr. Swinburne, in an article on Webster in the
Nineteenth Century for June, 1886, says, " Aeschylus is
above all things the poet of righteousness. ' But in any
-wise, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteous-
ness : ' this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine,
as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atone-
ment of the principle of retribution with the principle of
redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness
with the co -eternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of
the lord of inspiration and of light. The doctrine of
Shakespeare, where it is not vaguer, is darker in its
implication of injustice, in its acceptance of accident,
than the impression of the doctrine of Aeschylus. Fate,
irreversible and inscrutable, is the only force of which
we feel the impact, of which we trace the sign, in the
upshot of Othello or King Lear. The last step into the
darkness remained to be taken by ' the most tragic ' of
all English poets. With Shakespeare — and assuredly
not with Aeschylus — righteousness itself seems subject Vi
and subordinate to the masterdoni of fate: but fate itself, jf
in the tragic world of Webster, seems merely the servant
or the synonym of chance." Seneca's fatalism is not
peculiar to Webster, though he perhaps carried ib further
tlian any of his contemporaries. Fatalism of a more or
less pronounced character runs through Elizabethan]
tragedy from the very beginning. When Heywood added)
to the Troas (pub. 1559) a Chorus of his own composition,
though moulded on Seneca's style, this was one of the
doctrines he chose for presentation. Folio 101 :— *

They sit aboue, that holde our life in line,
And what we suffer downe they fling from hie,

23 The Influence of Seneca

No carke, no care, that euer may vntwine
The thrids, that wouen are aboue the skie.

We have the same note struck in Gorbuduc and The
Misfortunes of Arthur, the latter simply translating the
lines from the Oedipus quoted above : — •

!f XA.11 things are rul'd in constant course : no fate

If But is foreset : the first day leads the last.
f

In Tancred and Gismund we have : —

His doom of death was dated by his stars,
And who is he that may withstand his fate ?

As to Shakspere and the later Elizabethans,
abundant evidence will be given hereafter.

With Seneca's fatalism is closely connected his
Stoical indifference to the accidents of life. Thyestes
615-18 :-

nemo confidat nimium secundis,
nemo desperet meliora lapsis :
iniscet haec illis prohibetque Clotho
stare fortunam, rotat omne fatum.

In its full extent Seneca's Stoicism went further than
this, and taught absolute independence of circumstances.
This is effectively expressed by Medea, when, hopeless
and friendless in a hostile land, she defies despair, ex-
claiming, " Medea superest"

fortuna opes auferre non aninium potest,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 29

Amphitryon expresses the same idea in Hercules
Furens 468: —

quemcumque fortem uideris, miserum neges.

A full exposition of Stoical teaching on this point is
given by the Chorus in the Thijestes (344-403), from which
I will quote one short extract —

rex est qui metuet nihil
rex est qui cupiet nihil.
metis regnum bona possidet
hoc regnum sibi quisque

Along with this indifference. to the accidents of life
comes contempt for the final accident of death, as we note
in the same Chorus : —

rex est qui posuit metus
et diri mala pectoris,

:

qui tuto positus loco
infra se uidet omnia
occurritque suo libens
fato nee queritur mori.

The spirit of the last lines is breathed by all Seneca's
characters ; all show the same invincible resolution in
face of death. Phaedra, Deianira, and Jocasta fall by
their own hands ; Astyanax and Polyxena meet death not
only bravely, but eagerly ; Octavia, Cassandra, Electra,
and Antigone show the same masculine constancy ; death

1 This is Peiper and Richter's reading, their arrangement of the
lines being preferable to that of the Aldine text.

#0 The Influence of Seneca

is the refuge desired by Oedipus and Hercules in shame,
by Theseus and Thyestes in calamity ; even Jason mi
Aegisthus, in all else cowards confessed, showT^eadiness
for death equal to that of the bravest and best. We find
this contempt for death again and again in the Eliza-
bethan drama, and in the villains as well as in the heroes.
We find it, too, often associated, as in Seneca, with
fatalism. Thus Young Mortimer in Marlowe's Edward II,
V. 6, when sentence of death is pronounced upon him for
treason, adultery, and murder, says : —

Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down : that point I touched,
And, seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall 1 —
Farewell, fair queen ; weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.

Shakspere's villains — Richard III, Macbeth, and
G-loster's bastard son — die with desperate fortitude, and
lago receives his condemnation in sullen silence. The
Stoical fortitude of the heroines of Elizabethan tragedy
is equally remarkable. For the present let one instance
suffice. The Winters Tale, III. 2 :-

LEON. Look for no less than death.

HER. Sir, spare your threats :

The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity.

Compare Troas 583-6 :

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 81

ANDR. tuta est perire quae potest debet cupit.
VL. magnifica uerba inors prope admota excutit.
ANDR. si uis Ylixe cogere Andromacham inetu,
uitam minare : nam mori uotum est mihi.

Seneca's women are on a level with his men in cour-
fflLJtrengHLMj?^I >nd mental power, whether in
arguing or planning, in initiation or in execution. But
perhaps it would be going too far to claim for Seneca
that he helped to bring about the different position
held by woman in the Eomantic drama to that she
occupied in Greek tragedy ; the advance is not merely
a literary phenomenon ; it is a change in the spirit
and customs of the age. The same is to be said of
Klein's remark that upon the Phaedra Seneca may
ground a claim to have created the modern tragedy
of love, though the suggestion is not without plausibility.
Nisard says that the love of Phaedra is sensual love, that
of a prostitute ; to which it may be replied that no
presentation of Phaedra's guilty passion would make it
pure or even worthy of sympathy. Euripides overcame
the difficulty by representing her passion as a divine
visitation beyond her own control ; Seneca makes little
of this, and reduces love to its merely humajti^ekments.
Here, again, Seneca comes nearer to the moderns, by
disregarding that very element of fate, which in another
way brings him into close connection with them. Though
he propounds philosophic fatalism in Chorus and dialogue,
Seneca makes little of it in his delineation of character.
His personages may utter fatalistic apothegms, and be at
times the victims of circumstances ; but in moral action

32 The Influence of Seneca

they give every evidence of free will. The repentance of
Thyestes, the remorse of Hercules and of Deianira, the
hesitation of Medea, the uncertainty of Clytemnestra, the
anxiety of Poppaea, and the increased moral sensitiveness
of Agamemnon — -all point to what Klein describes as
" die Uebergangsstellung der romischen Tragodie zwischen
der Schicksalidee der Griechen und der Gewissenstragik
des von der christlichen Bussstimmung angeregten und
von Shakspeare abgescblossenen Siihnespiels." But all
these are ingenious theories supported by very slight evi-
dence ; we must return to the solid ground of fact.

The most obvious way in which Seneca affected the
modern drama was in external form. From Seneca the
European drama in general, and English tragedy in
particular, received the five acts which have become the
rule of the modern stage. In the Greek drama the
number of e-n-eicroSia was variable ; the division into five
acts was apparently established by Varro, and is noted
by Horace in the Ars Poetica as a rule to be strictly
observed ; i but it was the example of Seneca that
governed the practice of the modern stage. Seneca's
^division into five acts separated by choruses is exactly
reproduced iu our earlie.st tragedies—in Gorbodue, in Tlie
Misfortunes of Arthur, and in Tancred and Gismund. The
usage of Seneca with respect to the Chorus is retained
in Gascoigne's Jocasta, in Kyd's Cornelia, in the! Countess

i See Prof. Wilkins' note (line 189), and 0. Ribbeck
Tragodie, p. 642.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 83

of Pembroke's Antony, in Daniel's Cleopatra and Pkilotas,
in Jonson's Catiline, in Lord Brooke's Alaham and
Mustapha, and in Stirling's Monarchicke Tragedies ; but it
was a device foreign to the dramatic genius of the English
people, and did not long keep its place on the popular
stage in its original form and purpose. In The Spanish
Tragedy Andrea and Kevenge

sit down to see the mystery
And serve for Chorus in this Tragedy.

In Soliman and Perseda the same office is performed
by Love, Fortune, and Death. There are three choruses
in Fcwstus, two (three acts) in Peele's David and Bethsabe>
one in Romeo and Juliet. Shakspere's use of the Chorus
in Henry V is Very different to the manner of Seneca;
whose choruses eould' be cutout without any injury to/
the plot, and in some cases might even be transferred
from one tragedy to another without any loss of appro-
priateness. Indeed the choruses of Seneca have often no
more relation to the conduct of the plot than the lyrics with
which the Eliztbethans adorned their plays.. In Henry V
the Chorus becomes a necessary part of the action, and
at the same time gives the dramatist the opportunity of
calling upon the spectators - to eke out the historic
scenic illusion by the aid of imagination : —

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth ;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass : for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history.

34 The Influence of Seneca

This Shaksperean usage is a notable advance on
classical authority, and was peculiar to the Elizabethan
stage. The Chorus was used in this way at a later date
by Fletcher and Massinger in The Prophetess] and Thomas
Heywood by this means eked out the imperfect action of
If you know not me, you know no Bodie, or The Troubles of
Qiwen Elizabith.1 Bajnulph Higden in Middleton's Mayor
of Queenborough, and Gower in Pericles are also much less
satisfactory figures than the Chorus in Henry V with its
soul-stirring patriotism and magnificent verse; and while we
cannot but be thankful for a form of art of which we have
immortal examples like the choruses of Henry F, on the
whole we can hardly regret that the Chorus took the path
. Barked out for it by the developement of the drama, and
disappeared from the modern stage. Seneca's use of the
Chorus was a plain forewarning of its ultimate fate. In
the early plays of Aeschylus supreme importance is
attached to the Chorus, which was the kernel from which
the drama had sprung. In Sophocles the Chorus has
become subordinate to the dialogue. In Euripides its;
connection with the action is often slight; in Seneca this
connection disappears altogether ; the Chorus is already
on i(s way to exclusion from the play and final disuse.

Agath©n had introduced independent e^oXt/ma into
Greek tragedy ; but the important step was taken when
the Chorus was excluded from the orchestra in the Roman

1 The Chorus is first found in the edition of 1632 ; it is not in the
editions of 1605-6,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 35

theatre, and given a place on the stage. When this
change was once effected, the presence of the Chorus was
no longer necessary to the conduct of the action. An
examination of the fragments of early Roman tragedy
shows that the Chorus sometimes stayed on the stage
throughout the action, sometimes went on and off accord-
ing to the exigencies of the plot.1 Seneca's Chorus
seems to have been invariably absent during the progress
of the action. He completely set at defiance the admoni-
tion of Horace : —

actoris partis chorus officiumque uirile
defcndat, neu quid medios iutercinat actus
quod ndn proposito conducat et liaereat apte.

-r

The wording of Hercules Fiirens 831,

dcnsa sed laeto uenit
clamore turba frontibus laurum gerens
magnique meritas Herculis laudes caiiit,

shows that the Chorus only came on the stage to fill the
pauses between the acts ; and it took no other part in
the pluy. Even where, as in the Thyestes, the Chorus is
one of the interlocutors, immediately after it is assumed ^^
to be ignorant of the dialogue that has just taken place ;
and to make the passage at all reasonable, we must
suppose that where the Chorus takes part in the action,
its office is performed by the Coryphaeus alone, and that
the other members of the Chorus are not present. Thus
it comes about that, in answer to the questions of the

1 See article by Otto Jahn in Hernies II., p. 226,

36 The Influence of Seneca

Chorus (or the Coryphaeus) the Messenger describes the
murder of the children of Thyestes, and expresses his
horror at the deed, ending his speech with the words : —

uerterit cursus licet
sibi ipse Titan obtiium ducens iter
tenebrisque facinus obruat tetrum nouis
nox missa ab ortu tempord alieno grauis :
tamen uidendum est, tola patefient mala.

But immediately after the Chorus want to know the
reason of the darkness, and come to the conclusion that
it must be the end of the world. Another suggestion to
overcome this difficulty is the division of the Chorus;
and still another explanation of Seneca's apparent care-
lessness on this point is to be found in the theory that
the tragedies were not intended to be acted, but to be
read. But, seeing that Seneca, in the plays now regarded
as genuine, has taken the trouble to observe the rule
of the three actors, it seems rash to assume that he
committed such a glaring absurdity in the management
of the Chorus. However that may be, it is clear that the
Chorus was not supposed to be on the stage during the
progress of the action. This is proved by Hippolytus
607-9 :—

PHAE. commodes paulum precor

secretus aures. si quis est abeat comes.
HIPP, en locus ab omni liber arbitrio uacat.

even though 832-6 might lead us to an opposite conclu-
sion, for this is one of the few passages in Seneca which
seem to presume that the Chorus has some knowledge of

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 37

the course of the action. But it would be ridiculous to
suppose that Phaedra preferred her shameful suit before
the faces of a band of Athenian citizens, and that they
afterwards allowed Hippolytus to be falsely accused in
their presence when they could give direct evidence of his
innocence. Medea cannot have unfolded her deep-laid
scheme of vengeance in the ears of an unfriendly band of
Corinthians, and Atreus could not' have revealed the trap
he was laying for his brother to the Chorus which sang

immediately after : —

•

tandem regia nobilis
antiqui genus Inachi,
f rat rum conposuit minas.

A similar conclusion may be drawn from Troas
369-379 ; in the Agamemnon, the Hercules Oetaeus, and
the Octavia there are two choruses, and the same argu-
ment holds good.

The absence of the Chorus during the progress of
the action lessened Seneca's hold on the so-called
" unities" of time and place, which were not arbitrary
rules of the Greek drama, but natural consequences of
the continuous presence of the Chorus. It used to be the
. fashion to base the unities on the authority of the
Greek tragic poets and of Aristotle, but more recent
criticism has discovered that the unities of time and place
are by no means regularly observed in Greek tragedy,

38 The Influence, of Seneca

and Seneca has been made responsible for the cumbrous
system of artificialities which was foisted upon the French
classical drama. Asa matter of fact, Seneca has no more-
respect for the unities than the Greeks. Aeschylus was
apparently ignorant of any necessity for continuity of
action ; and the observance of Sophocles and Euripides
is not without exceptions. Seneca makes some effort to
conform to the precept of Aristotle, but he is not bound
by any hard and fast line. As Lessing has shown,1 no
reasonable assumption will bring the action of the
Thyestes within the limits of a single clay ; and the Thebais
has a change of s'cene, even apart from its fragmentary
composition. The action of the Octavia extends over at
least three days. In line 604 Nero says

quid deefcinamus proximam thalamis diem ?

On the day after the marriage Poppaea recounts a
dream she has had during the past night, an insurrection
caused by the divorce of Octavia is crushed, and Octavia
sent into exile. The action of the Hercules Octaeus begins in
Oechalia, then changes to Trachis, and ends on Mount
Oeta ; and there are journeys to and from Oechalia and
Trachis, which must have taken several days. Probably
the most obvious offences against the unities of time and
place are to be found in the plays wrongly ascribed to
Seneca ; but I have already pointed out that, for the
Elizabethans, this distinction did not exist. The first

Theatralische Bibliothek, Erstes Stuck (Lachmann) S. 321 3,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 39

English tragedy, Gorloduc, begiifs, as in Seneca,1 by rnark-
J ing the fact that the action opens at daybreak : —

The silent night that bringes the quiet pawse,
From painef ull trauailes of the wearie daie,
Prolonges my carefull thoughtes, and makes me blame
The slowe Aurore that so, for lone or shame,
Doth longe delaye to shewe her blushing face ;
And nowe the daie renewes my griefull plainte.

These lines are quite in Seneca's style, and might
almost be a patchwork from the openings of the Octavia
and the Oedipus. But, as in the Hercules Oetaeus, no
attempt is made to bring the action within the limits of
a single day ; armies are raised, and considerable
journeys made in the course of the tragedy. The miracle
j^laysjiad accustomed English audiences to absence of
continuity^ changes of scene, and a large number of
jLctors^ features wEiclT~were exceptional or altogether
lacking in ancient tragedy. The Elizabethans were
probably not aware that Seneca observed the rule of three nree Acton.
actors, for only a careful examination has revealed the
fact that the genuine plays of Seneca are arranged for
three actors, the pseudo-Senecan for four.

Another maxim of the Ars Poetiea, sta^

ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,

Seneca flagrantly violated. Medea kills both her children
on the stage, and as she flies through the air in a winged

1 See Hercules Furens 123-138; Thyestes 120-1; Oedipus 1-5;
Agamemnon 53-6, Octavia 1-6,

40 The Influence of Stneta

car flings the bodies down at their father's feet. Phaedra
and Jocasta stab themselves corampopulo. In the Thyestes
the precept of Horace is, from the necessitie3 of the case,
observed in the letter, but the Messenger's account of the
sacrifice is drawn out in such sickening detail that the
repellent effect is but slightly decreased ; the same may
be said of the death of Hippolytus. Commentators have
generally assumed that Megara and her children are slain
in view of the spectators, but Lessing and Pierrot contend
that this is a mistake. Lessing's interpretation of the
scene runs thus : " Hercules draws hisTJoW and pierces
one of his children with the arrow ; the second, who
clasps his father's knees wibh his little hands and begs
for mercy in a piteous voice, is seized in that powerful
grasp, swung round in the air, and dashed to pieces on
the ground. While Hercules is pursuing the third, who
flies for refuge to his mother, the latter is caught sight
of, and taken for Juno. Hercules slays first his, child,
and then his wife.— All this, the reader will say, must make
a very horrible and bloody spectacle. But in this place,
the help of the Roman stage, which was constructed on
a very different plan to ours, the poet has introduced
a very fine scene. As Hercules pursues his children and
his wife, and from time to time goes out of sight of the
spectators, all the murders take place behind the scenes,
where they can only be seen by the other characters ou
the stage, above all by Amphitryon, who each moment
describes all he sees, and thus informs the spectators of
it in as lively a fashion as if they had seen it themselves."
Heinsius is of opinion that the murders took place in view

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 41

of the spectators, and suggests that in this tragedy Nero
satisfied his lust for blood in the same way as in the case
of the Icarus who was clashed to pieces on the stage and
bespattered the tyrant with his gore. The text seems to
bear out the view of Lessing and Pierrot, but we may be
sure that the Elizabethans were unaware of this ingenious
explanation, which is by no means obvious to a critical
reader, much less to the unlearned.

The early Elizabethans show much diversity in their Dip™^ce of
observance of stage decencies. In Gorboduc and The
Misfortunes of Arthur the deaths are reported by a Mes-
senger ; but in contemporary tragedies intended for the
popular stage there is no such reserve. In King

(c. 1561) Execution smites Sisamnes in the neck with a
sword " to signify his death," and " flays him with a
false skin" upon the command of the King, " Pull his
skiii over his ears." Cruelty and Murder enter "with
bloody hands " to slay Smirdis, and after they have
stabbed him, " a little bladder of vinegar is pricked " to
represent his blood, f^jppim find Virqitfitf (pr 1575,
acted 1563) we have the stage direction, " Here tie a
handkercher about her eyes, and then strike off her head;"
but there is no suggestion as to the means whereby this
feat was accomplished without injury to the actor of the *
part ; afterwards Virginias brings in Virginia's head— a
precedent in stage effect which had illustrious followers.
Appiits and Virginia and Camli/ses are both closely con-
nectec] with the moralities^ and it is probable that the

42 The Influence of Seneca

plavs ha(l considerable influence

upon the English stage in this respect.1 In the York,
Chester, Coventry, and Towneley Mystery Plays the
murder of Abel and the Crucifixion take place on the
stageTTn the Digby Mysteries the children of Bethlehem
are slain on the stage, and Herod dies 'there. Though
The authors of our first regular tragedies did not imitate
the directness of the miracle plays in the action proper,
they did not hesitate to represent deeds of violence and
murder on the stage in dumb-show. In Gorboduc and The
Misfortunes of Arthur the dumb -show is allegorical ; but
in Tancred and Oismund it is sometimes realistic enough.
Guiscard's death was represented thus: — " After Guiscard
had kindly taken leave of them all, a strangling-cord
was fastened about his neck, and he haled forth
by them. Renuchio bewaileth it, and then, enter-
ing in, bringeth forth a standing cup of gold,
with a bloody heart reeking hot in it, and then saith,
ut sequitur." The speech that follows is moulded on
that of the Messenger in the Thyest.es. Gismunda dies
A Noteworthy on the stage, but in this point there is a marked difference
between the manuscript of 1568 and the revised edition
of 1591. In the first version Gismunda is disposed of
very quietly, the stage direction being merely "Gisrnonda

1 To the influence of the miracle plays ,we should perhaps also
ascribe thejaiixture of comedy an33^^3^which is found in Cambyses
and Appius and Virginia^&nd which afterwards became a distinctive
mark of the romantic drama. Seneoa has not the slightest hint of
^p^mAfjyr Tint. even such an approach to it as the Watchman Tn the
Agamemnon of Aeschylus arid the Antigone of Sophocles, or the
humours of Hercules in the Alcestis of Euripides.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 43

dieth " ; her father then makes a speech foreshadowing
his own death, and goes off the stage; the epilogue in-
forms us parenthetically that he " now himself hath
slain." In the revised edition Gismunda's death scene
is considerably enlarged, and Tancred puts out his eyes
and kills himself on the stage. The change is a remark-
able one, and is probably to be ascribed to the horrors of
TJie Spanish Tragedy and the authority of Majlowe, which
made it the rule of the English stage to follow the practice
oTSeneca, Sometimes the murders are presented on the
ISage, sometimes they are reported by the Messenger, a T
figure appearing with decreasing importance in Greek,
Eoman, and English tragedy. Shakespere represents all
kinds of horrors coram populo ; but he ^does not disdain
the use of the traditional machinery, and sometimes his
Messengers remind us of those of Seneca. Compare, for
instance, Romeo and Juliet, V.I :-r-

0, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

with Hippolytus 1000-1 :—

o sors acerba et dura famiilatus grauis,
cur aie ad iiefandos nimtium casus uocas ?

And Macbeth, IV. 3 :-

Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

with Troas 533*5:—

durae minister sortis hoc primum peto,
ut ore quamis uerba dicantur meo
non esse credas nostra.

44 The Influence of Seneca

In addition to the Messenger, Seneca bestowed upon
English tragedy other stock characters — the confidential
Nurse, full of counsel and consolation ; her male counter-
part, the faithful Servant ; and the cruel Tyrant, with
/his ambitious schemes and maxims of rule. But the
I most important inheritance of English tragedy in this
The Ghost. 1 respect was the Ghost. As Mr. J. A. Symonds says in
SkaksytrelTTTe^^ Ghost, imported from

Seneca into English tragedy, had a long and brilliant
career." Much could be added to what Mr. Symonds
" has said on this point, but nothing could be said better.
Attention may, however, be called to the important part
played in Seneca's tragedies by supernaturaLagencies of
all kinds. In the main, the use of the supernatural was
a tradition received by Seneca from the Greeks ; but te
considerably enlarged the inheritance before he handed
it on to English tragedy. If all the dramas of Aeschylus
were extant, we might find that the author of the
Psychagogoi equalled or surpass Seneca in this respect;
but there is an appearance of probability in the suggestion
of Dr. Campbell that in the EumenidesA.each.jlus carried the
staging of the supernatural too far for the temper of his age.
Sophocles-and Euripides rely less than Aechylus upon
the use of the supernatural, and it was left for Seneca
to develop^ the impressive effects of supernatural
appearances and 'devices, and bequeath them to the
modem stage. It is seldom the gods of the upper air
whom he brings on the scene ; the atmosphere he loves
to breathe is that of the world below. In the Hercules
Furens we have a full description of all the horrors of

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 45

Tartarus, and again and again in other plays the same
picture is drawn on a smaller canvas. Lethe, Cocytus,
Styx, Acheron, and Phlegethon are Seneca's best-loved
streams ; Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus his favourite
characters. The Ghost of Tantalus, driven by a Fury,
opens the T%0ste£7~1fcFtjto Agamem-

non; m the Dctavia the Ghost of Agrippina appears. Laius
is called up from the shades in the Oedipus ; the Ghosts
of Achilles and Hector are seen in visions in the Troas;
and we have another ghostly dr«5am-_-Jhat of Poppaea — in
the Octavia. Oedipus is terrified in the Thebais by the vision
of the murdered Laius, and Octavia's dreams are haunted
by the Ghost of Brittanictig. Atreusjind Medea invoke the/
Furies to aid them in their revenge ; and when Medea is
relenting, she is spurred on by the appearance of her'
murdered brother's spirit. It would take too long to
examine the various ways in which these suggestions of
Seneca were worked out by the Elizabethan dramatists ;
a well-read student could easily call to mind a score of
parallels, I will only stay to draw attention to two less
obvious comparisons. Juliets inspired with strength to
take the sleeping-potion by a like vision to that which
appeared to Medea in her moment of weakness : —

0, look ! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point : stay, Tybalt, stay !
Romeo, I come ! this do I drink. to thee.1

1 As to the form of the vision see also Octavia 123-7.

46 The Influence of Seneca

With the invocations of Medea and Atreus compare
that of Lady Macbeth :— <

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it I1

Besides ghosts and the Furies here invoked, two
other supernatural devices used in Macbeth had been
previously employed by Seneca — witchcraft and oracles.
The latter we have in the Oedipus and the Hercules Oetaeus]
the former in the Hercules Oetaeus and the Medea. Klein
remarks that the ingredients contained in Medea's
u Hexenkessel " vie in strange variety with the hotchpotch
that Macbeth 's witches throw into their caldron; and a
passage in The Tempest, V. 1 (lines 41-50) may be com-
pared with Hercules Octaeus 457-466 SiudMedea 755-772.

When we remember thatsehsational horrors presented
on the stage, the Ghost, and the Chorus are among the
/ most striking features of Seneca, it seems not a little re-
_jnarkable that these very points should be selected by a con-
temporary critic as the most noteworthy characteristics of
Elizabethan tragedy. In the Induction to A Warning for

249-264; Medea 13-17 and 9734,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 47

Fam Women (1599) we have the following description of
contemporary tragedy : —

How some damn'd tyrant to obtain a crown

Stabs, hangs, impoisons, smothers, cutteth throats :

And then a Chorus, too, comes howling in

And tells us of the worrying of a cat :

Then, too, a filthy whining ghost,

Lapt in some foul sheet, or a leather pilch,

Comes screaming like a pig half stiok'd,

And cries, Vindicta !— Revenge, Revenge !

With that a little rosin flasheth forth,

Like smoke out of a tobacco pipe, or a boy's squib.

Then comes in two or three [more] like to drovers,

With tailors' bodkins, stabbing one another —

The Warning fw Faire Women, although it professess
to be only a " true and home-born tragedy," is not
altogether free from the faults criticised in the Induction.
At the opening of Act II, Tragedy enters " with a bowl of
blood in her hand," and speaks the following Hues : —

This deadly banquet is prepar'd at hand,
Where Ebon tapers are brought up from hell
To lead black Murther to this damned deed.
The ugly Screech-owl and the night-Raven,
With flaggy wings, and hideous croaking noise,
Do beat the casements of this fatal house,
Whilst I do bring my dreadful furies forth
To spread the table to this bloody feast.

The height of sensational horror is finally reached
in an execution on the stage.

48 The Influence of Seneca

The authors of Gorboduc, the first English tragedy,
as has been already pointed out, were guilty of no such
offence against the decencies of the stage; and the
connection of Gorboduc with Seneca as to external form ,
and the observance of the unities has also been noticed.1'
Though we miss Seneca's brilliant dialogue, the resem-
blance in style is clear throughout. The long speeches
and " grave sententious precepts " are umnistakeably in
Seneca's manner,2 and sometimes Seneca seems to be
also responsible for the thought expressed. In Act II. 1
we have : —

Knowe ye that lust of kingdomes hath no lawe ;
The Goddes do beare and well allowe in kinges
The thinges that they .abhorre in rascall routes.
When kinges on sclender quarrels ron to warres,
And than in cruell and vnkindely wise,
Commaunde theftes, rapes, murder of innocentes,
To spoile of townes <fe reignes of mightie realmes,
Thinke you such princes do suppose them selues
Subiect to lawes of kinde and feare of Gods.
Murders and violent theftes in priuate men
Are heynous crymes and full of foule reproche,
Yet none, offence, but decked with glorious name
Of noble conquestes in the handes of kinges.3

^ See pp. 32, 39, 41.

2 Gorboduc is praised by Sidney in the Apologiefor Poetrie "as it
is full of stately speeches, and well sounding Phrases, clyming to the
height of Seneca his stile." Sidney's entire criticism of Gorboduc is
interesting, but it is too long for quotation.

3 The last four lines are differently arranged in the various
editions, but this seems to be the right order. It is the reading of the
2nd edition (the first authorised edition), which is generally the best,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 49

This passage appears to be an expansion of Agamem-
non 265 and 270-3:-

lex alia solio est alia priuato toro.

ignota tibi sunt iura regnorum haud uoua.
nobis maligni iudices aequi sibi
id esse regni maximum pignus putant,
si quicquid aliis non licet, solis licet.

Compare also V. I :—

So giddie are the common peoples mindes,

So glad of change, more wauerynge than the sea,

with the " fluctuque magis mobile uulgus " of Hercules
Fwrens 171 ; and in the same scene,

And though they shuld match me with power of men,
Yet doubtfull is the chaunce of battailes ioyned,

with Thebais 627-9 :-

licet omne tecum Graeciae robur trahas
licet arma longe miles ac late explicet
fortuna belli semper ancipiti in loco est.

It would perhaps be going too far to connect the lines
in Act I. 2 :-

— Shall bridle so their force of youthfull heates,
And so restreine the rage of insolence,
Whiche most assailes the yonge and noble minds

with Twos 259 :-

iuuenile uitium est regere non posse impetum.

50

The Influence of Seneca

But it is at any rate an instance of the digaifie J
expression of commonplace thought, which is one of
Seneca's chief characteristics. In Gorboduc, as in Seneca,
we have moralisings on the impetuosity of youth, the
danger of pride, the fixity of fate, the fickleness of fortune,
the certainty of death. The mythological allusions in
the tragedy are to the infernal company of which Seneca
is so fond — Tantalus, Ixion, and the snake-clad furies.
The Chorus at the end of Act III is entirely in Seneca's
style, and to the same source may be ascribed the rhetor^
ical exaggeration of the speech ofVidena which follows.
We have also Seneca's over-elaboration and formal pre-
ciseness, of which an example may be noted in the
psdantic division of the " sortes " of the rebels in the
the speech of Eubulus, V. 2.1

Tancred » and

In the Epistle Dedicatory to Tancred and Gismund
(acted by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple in 1568)
William Webbe says, " The tragedy was by them most
pithily framed, and no less curiously acted in view of her
Majesty, by whom it was then as princely accepted, as
of the whole honourable audience notably applauded :
yea, and of all men generally desired, as a work either
in stateliness of show, depth of conceit, or true ornaments
of poetical art, inferior to none of the best in that kind :
no, were the Koman Seneca the censurer." He therefore
commends it " to most men's appetites, who upon our

Of. Troas 1088-1097,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 51

experience we know' highly to esteem such lofty measures
of eententiously composed tragedies." We have here,
again, therefore, a tragedy composed in Seneca's style,
and built on his model. The dialogue especially reminds
us of Seneca by its occasional brilliance, and throughout
we have echoes of his thoughts or mode of expression.
Eenuchio's part in Act V. 1 is evidently modelled on
that of the Messenger in the Thyestes. Compare the
following : —

Renuchio, is this Salerne I see ?

Doth here King Tancred hold the awful crown ?

Is this the place where civil people be 1

Or do the savage Scythians here abound ?

quaenam ista regio est ? Argos et Sparte inpios
sortita f ratres et maris gemini premens
fauces Corinthos, an feris Hister f ugam
praebens Alanis, an sub aeterna niue
Hyrcana tellus, an uagi passim Scythae ?

(Thyestes 627-31).

Then follows in each case a long and elaborate des-
cription of the scene and the horrible details of the crime.
Compare especially : —

CHO. O damned deed !

BEN. What, deem you this to be

All the sad news that I have to unfold ?

Is here, think you, end of the cruelty

That I have seen !
CHO. Could any heavier woe

Be wrought to him, than co destroy him so ?

62 The Influence of Seneca

REN. What, think you this outrage did end so well 1

The horror of the fact, the greatest grief,

The massacre, the terror is to tell.
CHO. Alack ! what could be more ? they threw percase

The dead body to be devour'd and torn

Of the wild beasts.
REN. Would God it had been cast a savage prey

To beasts and birds.

o saeuum scelus.

exhorruistis 1 hactenus non stat ncfas,

plus est.
CHO. an ultra maius aut atrocius

natura recipit 1
NVN. sceleris hunc finem putas 1

gradus est.
CHO. quid ultra potuit ? obiecit feris

lanianda forsan corpora atque igne arcuit.
NVN. utinam arcuisset. ne tegat functos humus,

ne soluat ignis, auibus epulandos licet

ferisque triste pabulum saeuis trahat.

(Thyestes 743-751).

The Misfortunes The subject of The Misfortunes of Arthur, as of
Gorboduc, is taken from early British history or legend ;
but the treatment is entirely after Seneca's manner.
Hughes has borrowed not lines merely (these he has
borrowed wholesale), but scenes and entire speeches.
The first act is little more than a mosaic of extracts
from Seneca, pieced together with lines of Hughes's own
invention, cast in the style of his model. Gorlois is a
ghost after Seneca's own heart, and quotes a number of

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 53

lines from the opening speech of the Ghost of Tantalus
in the Thyestes. The influence of the same play is
strongly marked in the following scenes, but the model
chiefly followed is now rather the Agamemnon, Guenevra
being moulded on Clytemiiestra, and Mordred on
Aegisthus. Other plays of Seneca are also laid under
contribution, and Guenevra borrows sentiments from
almost all Seneca's guilty heroes and heroines. Fronia
in Scene ii, and Conan in Scene iv repeat the lines of
the Nurse in the Agamemnon, Hippolytus, Medea, and
Hercules Oetaeus, and the Servant in the Thyestes ; and
Conan also plays the part of Seneca in the Octavia. The
speech of the Nuntius, which opens Act II, might be
suggested by the Agamemnon, though in Seneca a storm
described, and here it is a battle. The dialogue
between Mordred and Conan in Scene ii on kingly
rights and duties is borrowed partly from that between
Seneca and Nero in the Octavia, partly from that between
Agamemnon and Pyrrhus in the Troas, with a few lines
from the Thyestes, the Hippolytus, and the Thebais. In
Scene iii there are considerable extracts from the Hercules
\ Fur ens, Oedipus, Thyestes, Thebais, and Hippolytus. In
'^Scene iv Hughes breaks away at last from his model,
but not entirely, and the Chorus which follows is
altogether in Seneca's vein. Arthur's speeches in
III. 1 are considerably indebted to the reflections
of Agamemnon in Troas 267-283, and it is not
until Scene iii that the author trusts entirely to his
own powers. Arthur's speech is full of pathos and force,
and the speeches that follow are also vigorous, though

54 The Influence of Smeca

suffering from Seneca's fault of rhetorical exaggeration.
The last scene lias a few excerpts from Seneca, and so
has the Chorus, but the latter is in the main original.
The rest of the play contains a number of borrowed lines,
but nothing like the proportion of the first two acts. The
best idea of the extent of the author's indebtedness to
Seneca will be gained from Appendix II, where it is set
out at length.

ciM*icai T™. The above tragedies were all performed before

(ifdy in Eny-

restricted audiences, though they were afterwards given
to the world through the printing-press. Gorbodyz-fonned.
part of the Christmas Festivities of the Gentlemen of the
Inner Temple in 1561, and was acted by them on Janu-
ary 18th before the Queen at Whitehall; a piratical issue
appeared in 1565, and an authorised edition in 1571.
£an£mlj2njL_Jl^^ was acted before the Queen at the
Inner Temple injj>68, and printed in 1591. The Mis-
fortunes^j)£_Aj'tliur was " presented to her Majestie by
the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne, at her Highnesse Court
in Greenewich, the twenty eighth day of Februarie in
the thirtieth yeare of her Majesties most happy
Eaigne ;" it was printed in the same year ^1587^3).
These three plays, together with Gascoigne's Jocasta,
are the earliest known examples of classical tragedy
in the English language. As such, they have an
interest of their own ; but they are chiefly of im-
portance because of the influence they exercised upon
/plays intended for the popular stage, Later examples

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 65

of classical tragedy did not exercise this influence,
and may be dealt with very briefly. Mr. Symonds has
shown1 that the example of^ Seneca moulded the Alaliam
and Mustapha of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, printed in
1633, but written much earlier. It would be easy to
enlarge on the indebtedness of these tragedies to Seneca;
but they may be dismissed with the remark of Mr.
Symonds that " they had no influence over the develope-
ment of the English drama, and must be regarded in the
light of ponderous literary studies/' This is also true of
the ioiiY^Mcnarchicke Tragedies of William Alexander, Earl
of Stirling (printeTT603-5)~. In tho plays of both these
noblemen we have long passages of meditation varied by
philosophic choruses and dialogues of stichomythia.
Seneca's influence is also paramount in the Cleopatra
(1594) aocTPftaotos (1605) of {Samuel Daniel— works of
much greater literary value than the preceding, for Daniel
has, to use the words of Mr. Saintsbury,2 an " almost
unsurpassed faculty of ethical verse/' But Cleopatra
and Philotas " stand practically alone"3 in the English
drama as studies after the manner of the French
school of Seneca, and though interesting as a literary
curiosity, they are of no great importance either on the
ground of their intrinsic literary merits, or the influence
they exercised.

1 Shakspere's Predecessors, p. 222.

2 In a Preliminary Note on the Position of Daniel's Tragedies in
English Literature, in Vol. III. of Grosart's Edition of Daniel.

3 Kyd's Cornelia (as Mr. Saintsbury points out) and the Countess
of Pembroke's Antony were merely translations,

56 The Influence of Seneca

The main stream of English tragedy was flowing in
quite other channels, Seneca's influence was felt, but
the chief motive was to please a popular audience, which
made complete submission to Seneca's authority imposs-
ible. The combination of the two impulses was difficult,
and at first the connection between the classical and the
popular drama was very slight. The ' ' lamentable tragedy"
ca-mjby**. of Cambyses,1 probably contemporary with Gorboduc, shews
few marks of classical influence; it is " mixed full of
pleasant mirth," and has much in common with the
moralities ; but there is a curious prologue appealing
to the authority of Agathon and Seneca : —

The sage and witty Seneca

His words thereto did frame ;
The honest exercise of kings

Men will ensue. the same.
But contrary- wise, if that a king

Abuse his kingly seat,
His ignomy and bitter shame

In fine shall be more great.

The reference seems to be to Thyestes 213-7 : —

rex uelit honesta : nemo non eadem uolet.

ubi non est pudor,

nee cura iuris, sanctitas pietas fides .
instabile regnum est.

1 One cannot say positively that Cambyses was written for the
popular stage; but in spite of the fact that the author, Thomas Preston,
was a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and acted at the University
before Queen Elizabeth, I am inclined to believe that, like Appius
and Virginia, it was performed on the " scaffold" of the miracle plays ;
on the title page there is no mention of its being acted on any special
occasion, as in the case of the early tragedies mentioned above.

on Elizabethan Tragedy.

57

Damon and Pithias (pr. 1571) also contains much that is
alien to Seneca; it is a "tragical comedy "and the humours
of Grim the Collier are neither tragic nor classical ; but in
the serious part of the drama there is an attempt — not a
very successful one — to imitate the manner of Seneca.
The scene between Dionysius and Eubulus is pretty
closely modelled on that between Nero and Seneca in the
Octav ia, e.g. : —

DION. A mild prince the people despiseth.

EUB. A cruel king the people hateth.

DION. Let them hate me, so they fear me.

EUB. That is not the way to live in safety.

DION. My sword and my power shall purchase my quietness.

EUB. That is sooner procured by mercy and gentleness.

DION. Dionysius ought to be feared.

EUB. Better for him to be well beloved.

NERO, calcat iacentem uulgus.

SEN. inuisum opprimit.

NERO, ferrum tuetur principem.

SEN. melius fides.

NERO, decet timeri Caesarem.

SEN. at plus diligi.

(Octavia 467-9.)

And again :—

DION. Fortune maketh all things subject to my power.
EUB. Believe her not, she is a light goddess ; she can
laugh and low'r.

ttnd

NERO.

SEN.

fortuna nostra cuncta pernuttit mihi.
crede obsequenti parcius. leuis est dea.

(Octavia 4634.)

58 The Influence of Seneca

The Spanish Tragedy (pr. 1599, acted probably about
1588) is important from its popularity and its typical
character. Some of the points of contact with Seneca
have been noticed already ; we have also quotations and
translations from Seneca of no great moment.1 The
chief significance of the play lies in its devclopement of the
bloody horrors detailed by the Ghost at the end of the
action : —

Ay, now my hopes have end in their effects,
When blood and sorrow finish my desires :
Horatio murder'd in his father's bower ;
Vild Serberine by Pedringano slain;
False Pedringano hang'd by quaint device ;
Fair Isabella by herself misdone ;
Prince Balthazar by Bell'-Imperia s tabb'd ;
The Duke of Castile and his wicked son
Both done to death by iold Hieronimo.
My Bell'-Imperia fall'n, as Dido fell :
And good Hieronimo slain by himself.

But, in spite of all this bloodshed, the distinctive
features of Seneca's mode of treatment are wanting.

It was MARLOWE'S* self-appointed task to win the
popular ear

From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay

to the " high astounding terms " of the stately classical
drama. In making the change — one of tremendous

1 See Appendix I.

on Elizabethan Tragedy* 59

importance for the English drama — he would naturally
select those features of classical tragedy which would
appeal most readily to popular favour. S_en©ca's bombast
and violence the multitude could understand ; but they
would not submit to his philosophical disquisitions.
Accordingly we find -m- Marlowe few of the sage
reflections with which Seneca adorned his plays \
but we have all Seneca's horror of incident and ex-

<^M

aggeration of expression. What Ulrici says of
Marlowe accurately describes Seneca's tragic style :
"In his hand, the forcible becomes the forced,
the uncommon the unnatural, whereas the grand and
sublime degenerate into the grotesque and monstrous.

I .Ihe tragic element almost invariably degenerates

jpnto the horrible ; with him the essence of tragedy does
not consist in the fall of the truly noble, great and lovely,
as occasioned by their own weakness, one-sideness and
want of freedom, but in the annihilating conflict of the
primary elements of human nature, the blind struggle
between the most vehement emotions and passions."1
Ulrici may be deemed a prejudiced critic.; but Mr. J. A.
Symondswill assuredly not be accused of any lack of
appreciation. He says of Tamburlaim : " Blood flows iu
Drivers. Shrieks and groans and curses mingle with
heaven-defying menaces and ranting vaunts. The
action is one tissue of violence and horror." Mr.
Symonds modifies this unfavourable judgement with the
remark that "Marlowe has succeeded in saving his hero,

1 Shakspeare's Dramatic Art, translated by L. Dora Schmitz
(1876), I. 152.

60 The Influence of Seneca

amid all Ins 'tones,' from caricature, by the inbreathed
spirituality with which he sustains His madness at
its height ; " and what is true to some extent of Marlowe's
.bombast is still more true of his use of the horrible.
Where Seneca would be simply disgusting, Marlowe
reaches the topmost height of tragic power ; in Edward II,
V. 5, for instance, as Dr. Ward remarks, "the unutterable j
horror of the situation is depicted without our sense of!
the loathsome being aroused." Marlowe, indeed,
was immeasureably superior to Seneca, both as a poet
and a dramatist, and in his hands the very crudities and
faults of the tragic model of his age were transformed by
the transcendant power of genius till they often become
sublime and beautiful. Even where, as in the bombast
of Tamburlaind, the defect is only hidden, not removed,
by the genuine poetic spirit inbreathed into the whole,
the error was of such a character as rather to commend
itself than otherwise to the audience *of that day, with its
lust for violence and horror ; and Seneca may fairly claim
some portion of the fame which TamburlainehsiS won as
" a dramatic poem which intoxicated the audience of the
London play-houses with indescribable delight, and which
inaugurated a new epoch"1 in the history of the English
drama.

PEELK Dr. Ward observes that PEELE'S Battle of Alcazar

" naturally suggests a comparison with Tamburlaine, which
it resembles in the extravagance of expression — indeed

1 Shaksperjs Predecessors, p. 628.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 61

the rant — with which it abounds ; " and it is perhaps
rather to the influence of Marlowe than of Seneca that
we should ascribe the resemblances to the style of the
Koman tragedies to be found in Peele. It should be
noted, however, that in the prologue to The Arraignment
of Paris (pr. 1684), we have already a specimen of that
grandiloquent blank verse with which Tamburlaine (pr.
1590, acted before 1587) caught the popular ear : —

Condemned soul, Ate, from lowest hell,
And deadly rivers of th' infernal Jove,
Where bloodless ghosts in pains of endless date
Fill ruthless ears with never-ceasing cries,
Behold, I comev

Peele is excessively fond of the infernal machinery
which Seneca so often brought into play, and in The
Battle of Alcazar he uses it again and again, without any
regard to its appropiateness. Take for instance the last
speech of the Moor : —

Mount me I will :

But may I never pass the river, till I be
Reveng d upon thy soul, accursed Abdelmelec !
If not 011 earth, yet when we meet in hell, V
Before grim Minos, Rhadamanth, and Aeacus,
The combat will I crave upon thy ghost,
And drag thee thorough the loathsome pools
Of Lethes, Styx, and fiery Phlegethon.

In this play Peele carried Marlowe's bombast beyond
incoherence into positive nonsense, as in Act I. 2: —

62 The Influence of Seneca

THE Moon. Away, and let me hear no more of this.
Why, boy,

Are we successors to the great Abdallas
Descended from th' Arabian Muly Xarif,
And shall we be afraid of Bassas and of bugs,
Rawhead and Bloodybone ? *

Peele has Seneca's gruesomeness without Marlowe's
delicacy of treatment. In David and Bethsabe Joab thus
delivers himself as to the dead Absalom: —

Night-ravens and owls shall ring his fatal knell,
And sit exclaiming on his damned soul ;
There shall they heap their preys of carrion,
Till all his grave be clad with stinking bones,
That it may loathe the sense of every man.

Peele 's imitation of Seneca's dialogue has been
already noted. 2

GREENES imitated Marlowe's bombastic style, not
very successfully, in Alphonsw, King of Arragon ; but
violence and extravagance of diction were alien to the
spirit of his muse, for of all the predecessors of Shakspere
he had the lightest touch and the freshest fancy, bringing
out with ease and naturalness the humour and pathos
that lie in simple folk and ordinary situations. What he

1 In this and the preceding quotation I have adopted the reading
of Mr. A. H. Bullen's edition.

2 See p. 21.

3 Greene took the title and the text of his prose tract, Never too
) from Agamemnon 244 : —

Nam sera nunquam est a<i bonos mores uia.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 63

did borrow of Seneca was not to his advantage. The
unseasonable employment of Latin mythology, which
Mr. Symonds notes as Greene's main stylistic defect,
should probably be laid to the joint account of Seneca
and Ovid ; Hercules especially is introduced with painful
frequency. The same fault is to be seen in The First
Part of the Tragicall Raigne of King Selimus fpr. 1594),
which Dr. Grosart includes in his edition of Greene's
Works. If this play is rightly ascribed to Greene, it has
an interest apart from its intrinsic merits. It bears too
plainly the stamp of Tamburlaine not to have been written
after that epoch-making drama, but the frequency of
rhymed lines and other marks of style would fix it as one
of Greene's earlier plays. It contains some of the curious
similes after Lyly's manner which form one of the most
striking characteristics of Greene's earlier prose style., and
are also to be found, though to a very much less extent, in
his tragedies.1 In Selimus we have the " subtill "Crocodile,
the Phoenix, the Echinaeis, the " craftie " Polypus, the
Ibis, the Basilisk, and the Cockatrice. All these curious
creatures are to be found in Greene's prose works or
tragedies, the Echinaeis being identified by Grosart with
the Echinus of Alphonsus. If we may take it as estab-
lished that this is an early play of Greene's, we have the
interesting fact that Seneca exerted considerable influence
upon his style in the early part of his career. An exami-
nation of Selimus shows that the author was greatly
influenced by Seneca. The play opens with reflections

1 e. g. Alphonsus (Grosart) Vol. xiii., p. 343. lines 308-19 : p. 355,
11. 618-20.

64 The Influence of Seneca

on the cares and uncertainty of empire quite in the style
of the Eoman dramatist and philosopher. The descrip-
tion of the golden age may be -paralleled by Hippolytus
533-557; and the sceptical reasoning that follows by
Troas 380-417. Then we have Sisyphus, Ixion, and
11 the cave of damned gkoasts" with which Seneca has
made us familiar, and later on we are confronted by " all,
the damned monsters of black hell." Seneca's dialogue
is successfully imitated, and sometimes not only the
style, but the matter also is borrowed :—

AGA. Do you not feare the people's aduerse fame ?
Aco. It is the greatest glorie of a king

When, though his subjects hate his wicked deeds,

Yet are they forst to beare them all with praise.
AGA. Whom feare constraines to praise their princes deeds,

That feare, eternall hatred in them feeds.
Aco. He knowes not how to sway the kingly mace,

That loues to be groat in his peoples grace :

The surest ground for kings to build vpon,

Is to be fear'd and curst of euery one.

What, though the world of nations me hate '?

Hate is peculiar to a princes state.
AGA. Where ther's no shame, no care of holy law,

No faith, no iustice, no integritie,

That state is full of mutabilitie.
Aco. Bare faith, pure vertue, poore integritie,

Are ornaments fit for a priuate man ;

Beseemes a prince for to do all he can.

Compare with this Thyest-es 204-218 : —

SAT. fama te populi nihil

aduersa terret ?

on Elizabethan Tragedy, 65

ATE. maximum hoc regni bonum ost,

quod facta domini cogitur populus sui

quam ferre tarn laudare.
SAT. quos cogit metus

laudare, eosdem reddit inimicos metus.

at qui fauoris gloriam ueri petit,

animo magis quam uoce laudari uolet.
ATR. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,

non nisi potenti falsa, quod nolunt, uelint,
SAT. rex uelit honcsta : nemo non eadem uolet.
ATR. vbicumque tanturn honesta dominant! licent,

precario regnatur.
SAT. ubi non eat pudor,

nee cura iuris, sanctitas pietas fides :

instabile regnum est.
ATR. sanctitas pietas fides

priuata bona sunt, qua iuuat reges eant.

Lines 1165-8 (p. 239) may be compared with Her-
cules Oetaem 143-6, and 1354-5 (p. 246) with Hercules
Furens 517. The praises of a country life on p. 270 may
have been suggested by Hercules Furens 160-4. .Some of
the situations may also have been suggested by Seneca,
but this is more doubtful. The young Mahomet, like
Astyanax in the Troas, is cast down from an " ayrie
toure," but with this additional horror, that a " groue of
steele-head speares " is prepared for his reception. In
spite of this refinement of cruelty, the youth meets death
with no less hardihood than the son of Hector : —

Thou shalt not fear me, Acomat, with death,
Nor will I beg my pardon at thy hands.
But as thou giu'st me such a monstrous death,
(So do I freely leaue to tljee my curse.

66 The Influence of Seneca

The princess Solyina is equally brave ; she prays to
be slain before her husband Mustaffa, that she may not
see his death ; Amphitryon in the Hercules Furens asks a
like boon from Lycus with respect to Megara and her
children.

SHAKSPERE. SHAKSPERE undoubtedly fell under the influence
fboth of the rhetorical dram^of which MarlowjMvas the
j father and master, and of the " tragedy of blood " which
is perhaps better represented by Kyd's Spanish Tragedy ;
but whether Shakspere was directly indebted to Seneca
is a question as difficult as it is interesting. As English
tragedy advances, there grows up an accumulation of
Seneca influence within the English drama in addition
to the original source, and it becomes increasingly difficult
to distinguish between the direct and the indirect in-
fluence of Seneca. In no case is the difficulty greater
than in that of Shakspere. Of Marlowe, Jonson, Chap-
, Marston, and Massinger we can say with certainty
that they read Seneca, and reproduced their reading in
their tragedies ; of Middleton and Heywood we can say
with almost equal certainty that they give no sign of
direct indebtedness to Seneca, and that they probably
came only under the indirect influence through the imita-
tions of their predecessors and contemporaries. In the
case of Shakspere we cannot be absolutely certain
either way. Professor Baynes thinks that it is probable
that Shakspere read Seneca at school ; and even if he
did not, we may be sure that at some period of his

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 67

career he would turn to the generally accepted model
of classical tragedy, either in the original or in the
translation. The decision must, however, rest upon the
internal evidence contained in the plays themselves, and
while I look upon this as pointing very plainly to an
almost certain conclusion, it can hardly be said to amount
to absolute proof. A number of instances have be^n
already quoted in which Shakspere might have been
influenced by the example of Seneca ; and others will be
given ; but it cannot be said that in auy one case the
resemblance is absolutely convincing. The evidence
must be taken in its cumulative force, and that must be
my excuse if I have quoted some parallels that are not
very obvious. Another scrap of evidence is to be found
in Shakspere's mythology. It might seem absurd to
attach any importance to the fact that Hercules, Seneca's
favourite hero, is mentioned by Shakspere about fifty
times ; but it is at any rate not without significance when
an obscure character such as Lichas is referred to at the
same time, as in Ths Merchant of Venice, II. 1 and Antony
and Cleopatra, IV. 12. The latter passage is perhaps
worth quoting : — •

The shirt of Nessus is upon me : Teach me,
Alcides, -thou mine ancestor, thy rage :
Lot me lodge Lichas on the horns o' the moon ;
And with those hands, that grasp'd the heaviest club,
Subdue my worthiest self.

At first sight it seems more than likely that this is
from Seneca ; but it might also come from Ovid,

63 The Influence of Seneca

Whether Shakspere used the translation of 1581 is
a further problem, depending on the solution of the first
A passage in King John} III. 4 : —

A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
Must be as boisterously maintain'd as gain'd ;
And he that stands upon a slippery place
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.

is not unlike Hercules Furens 345-9 : —

ra'pta sed trepida manu
sceptra optinentur. omnis in ferro est salus.
quod ciuibus tenere te inuitis scias,
strictus tuetur ensis. alieno in loco
haut stabile regnum est.

If the reader decides that the resemblance is so close
as to imply direct connection, the conclusion may be drawn
that Shakspere usecUhe original, and not the translation,
which gives quite a different rendering of the text : —

— but got with fearful hand

My sceptors are obtaynd : in sword doth all my safety stand.
What thee thou wotst agaynst the will of cytesyns to get,
The bright drawne sword must it defend : in forrayne countrey s$t
No stable kingdome is.

. The Shaksperean " maintain " is more correct than
the professed translation ; Pierrot shows that optinentur =s
retinentur, seruantur. The Shaksperean version of trepida
manu is more doubtful, but it is supported by some
authorities* Pierrot quotes a paraphrase which runs,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 69

" Qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat ; at qni sceptrum
rapuit, ei laborandurn et nigilanduni est, ut ui partum ui
retineat."

The problem of Shakspere's relation to Seneca is
further complicated by questions of authorship. If we
could accept Titus Andronicus as written wholly
by Shakspere, all difficulty would be at an end,
for the Latin quotations from Seneca1 *set every
doubt at rest. Even without this direct testimony,
the internal evidence is sufficiently striking. The sutg'ect
and style of the tragedy are thoroughly Senecan. It is
made up of

murders, rapes, and massacres,
Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
Complots of mischief, treason, villanies. (V. 1)

No detail of physical horror is spared ; from begin-
ning to end the stage reeks with blood, and the characters
vie with one another in barbarity. Even the gentle
Lavinia helps to prepare the Thyestean banquet; and
Titus and his sons are no less eager for revenge, and no
less cruel in its execution, than Tamora and Aaron. The
style exaggerates even these beaped-up horrors, and the
passions are often strained to artificiality. The descrip-
tions of rural life and scenery, which relieve the sanguinary
picture to some extent, are not strange to Seneca. The

1 See Appendix I.

70

The Influence of Seneca

hunting scene (II. 2) might be suggested by the opening1
of the Hippolijtus, and the lines in II. 3 : —

The birds chant melody on every bush ;

The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun ;

The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,

may be compared with Hippolytus 61tj-8: —

hie aues querulac f remunt
ramique uentis lene percussi tremunt
ueteresque fagi.

The description of the " barren detested vale/' the
scene of the murder of Bassianus and the rape of Lavinia,
reminds us of the place where Atreus sacrificed his
nephews. Thyestes 650-5 : —

arcana in imo regia recessu patet,
alta uetustum ualle conpescens nemus,
penetrale regni, nulla qua lactos solet
praebere ramos arbos aut ferro coli,
sed taxus et cupressus et nigra ilice
obscura nutat silua.

The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe :
Here never shines the sun ; here nothing breeds,
Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.

For the last touch in this dark picture see Hercules
Furens 690-2 :—

palus inertis foeda Cocyti iacet.
hie uultur illic luctifer bubo gemit
omenque tristis resonat infaustae strigis.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 71

They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body hearing it
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.

So Thyestes 668-673 :—

hie nocte tota gemere feralis deos
fama est, catenis lucus excussis sonat
ululantque manes, quicquid audire est metus,
illic uidetur : errat antiquis uetus
emissa bustis turba et insultant loco
maiora notis monstra.

Among minor dramatic devices used by Seneca we
"may note Lavinia's plea for death, and Quintus and
Martius's presentiment of coming destruction (II. 3),
Seneca's reflective tendency is strongly marked in this
play, and we have a number of " brief sententious pre-
cepts" like those with which Seneca adorned his
gruesome themes. Tamora's plea (I. 1) :—

Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ?
Draw near them then in being merciful :
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

may be compared with the considerations urged by
Agamemnon on a like occasion, when Pyrrhus sought
to appease his father's ghost by the sacrifice of Polyxena,
Compare also the passage (I. 1) ;—

72 The Influence of Seneca

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons ;

Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,

Secure from wordly chances and mishaps !

Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,

Here grow no damned drugs ; l here are no storms,

No noise, but silence and eternal sleep :

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons !

with the Chorus in the Troas 151-6, 166-8 :—

FELIX PRIAMUS dicite cunctae,
liber manes uadit ad imos
nee feret umquam
uincta Graium ceruice iugum.
non ille duos uidit Atridas
nee fallacem cernit Vlixem.

nunc elysii nemoris tutus
errat in umbris
interque pias felix animas
Hcctora quaerit. FELIX PRIAMUS.

It is remarkable that the passages which challenge
comparison with Seneca are the very ones in which we
should be readiest to recognize the hand of Sbakspere.

Critical difficulties again confront us in the consider-
ation of the three parts of Henry VI, and Richard III; but
the opinions of competent critics differ so widely that it
would be useless for me to enter into the discussion as to
the authorship of Henry VI, and the relation thereto of the

1 I adhere, as elsewhere, to the text of The Cambridge Shakes,
peare ; " grudges " seems to me the better reading.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 78

two parts of The Contention between the tivo Famous Houses
of York and Lancaster. It would be equally unwise for rne
to attempt to set at rest (he doubts recently raised by James
Rnssell Lowell1 as to the authorship of Richard III ; I
have nothing of importance to add to the evidence of
genuinenesss, and what I have to say as to the connection
with Seneca would probably lead critics of different views
to different inferences. I am, however, concerned, not
with the conclusions that may be drawn, but with the fact
that Henry VI (especially Part iii) and Richard III have
much in common with Seneca. They are pervaded by
the ruthless spirit of violence and bloodshed, and abound
in the crude horrors of physical repulsiveness, such as
the bringing of Suffolk's mu tilated body on to the stage
(2 Henry VI, IV. 1), and the subsequent introduction of
Queen Margaret with the head in her hands (IV. 4). Iden
brings on the stage Cade's head (2 Henry VI, V. 1), and
Richard that of Somerset (3. 1. 1). Ail through The Third
Part of Henry VI, and Richard III, the slaughter is con-
tinuous, and accompanied by circumstances of great in-
humanity, as witness the mock crowning of York before
his death, and the murders of Rutland and the young
Prince of Wales. The murder of the young princes in
Richard III is only narrated, and the executions in this
play generally take place off the stage, only Clarence
and Richard himself dying in sight of the audience ;
but the personages of the drama move in the same

atmosphere of blood, and Richard above all sustains

v

1 In an article in the Atlantic Monthly for December, 1891.

74 The Influence of Seneca

to the full his character of fiendish cruelty. He has the
vindictiveness, the intellectual force, the undaunted spirit,
the ruthless cruelty, the absolute lack of moral feeling of
Seneca's Medea, coupled with the haughtiness of Eteocles,
and the bloody hypocrisy of Atreus ; as with Seneca's
heroic criminals, his passions know no bounds — he is not
human, but praeternatural. And what is true, in its
fullest sense, of the " eacodaeinon," Richard, is true in a
less degree of the minor characters. Queen Margaret
and Clifford vie with Richard himself in merciless cruelty.
Edward, then Earl of March, says in 3 Henry VI, I. 2 :— ~

But for a kingdom any oath may be broken :

I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.

just as Polynices, under similar circumstances, says in
Thebais 664 :-

imperia pretio quolibet constant bene.

The same exaggeration of expression is to be noted
in the next scene, where Clifford says to Rutland :—

Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine

Were not revenge sufficient for me ;

No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves,

And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,

It could not slake mine ire, nor case my heart.

The sight of any of the house of York

Is as a fury to torment my soul ;

And till I root out their accursed line

And leave not one alive, I live in hell.

Even the quiet Henry gives way to the prevailing

m Elizabethan Tragedy. 75

exaggeration of tone when he falls ID love, and expresses
his passion with' the ardour of a Phaedra. 1 Henry VI,
V. 5 :—

Your wondrous rare description, noble earl,
Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me :
Her virtues graced with external gifts
DO breed love's settled passions in my heirt :
And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts
Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,
So am I driven by breath of her renown,
Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive
Where I may have fruition of her love.

fJhis " wind and tide" metaphor is a favourite one
with both Seneca and Shakspere. In the two following
passages it is substantially the same. 3 Henry VI, H. 5 :

This battle fares like to the morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,

Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind ;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind :
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind ;
Now one the better, then another best j
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.

fluctibus uariis agor,

ut, cum hinc profundum uentus hinc aestus rapit,
incerta dubitat unda cui cedat malo.

139-141.)

76 The Influence of Seneca

In this case it seems worth while to subjoin Studley's
translation (pub. 1566) : —

As when here wynd, and their the streame when both their force

wil try,

From sandes alow doth hoyst and reare the seas with surges hye.
The waltring waue doth staggeryng stand not weting what to do,
But (houeryng) doubtes, whose furious force he best may yeld

him to.

Compare also 3 Henry VI, II. 6 : —

As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,
Command an argosy to stem the waves.

with Hippolytus 186-9, and Thyestes 438-9.

Some of Seneca's leading ideas are repeatedly re-
produced in these plays. All the more important cha-
^xacters are tinged with Seneca's Stoical fatalism. His
" fatis agimur, cedite fatis" is expressed by King Edward
in 3 Henry VI, IV. 3, with the metaphor just spoken of:

What fates impose, that men must needs abide ;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide.

So too Queen Margaret in 3 Henry VI, V. 4 : —

What cannot be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.

and Eichard, in the course of a dialogue containing many
examples of Senecan stichomythia (Eichard III, IV. 4),
"says with all the impressive conciseness of the Eoman
dramatist and philosopher —

All unavoided is the doom of destiny*

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 77

The cares anil risks of high places and the benefits
of obscurity are urged as frequently in these plays as in
the tragedies of Seneca, -and in much the same strain.
Queen Margaret's words in Eichard III, I. 3 : —

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them.

may be compared with Hippolytus 1136-1140, Agamemnon
57-9, and Oedipus 6-11. Henry resigns the crown, as he
says (3. IV. 6)—

that I may conquer fortune's spite
By living low, where fortune cannot hurt me.

Compare Hercules Furens 201-4, and Hercules Oetaeus
701-3. A much longer and more important passage —
too long for quotation — in 3 Henry VI, II, 5, describing
the advantages of a shepherd's life over a king's, may be
compared with Hippolytus 516-533, Thyestes 450-3, and
Hercules Oetaeus 647-661; and Henry's words on true
kingship (3. III. 1) remind us of Thyestes 388-390.

Another idea frequently put forward by Seneca and
by Shakspere is that__of the presentiment of evil.1 We
have a fairly close parallel in Richard III, II. 3 : —

By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
Ensuing dangers ; as, by proof, we see
The waters swell before a boisterous storm.

iSee Thyestes 417490 and 946^973; Hercules Oetaeus 720-5.
We have the same idea in Romeo and Juliet I. 4, ad Jin. and III. 5 ;
and Richard 77, II 2»

78 The Influence of Seneca

and Thyestes 961-4 :-

mibtit luctus signa f atari
mens ante sui presaga mali,
instat nautis fera tempestas,
cum sine uento tranquilla tument.

To this may be added another commonplace of
morality which occurs more than once in each poet.
BichardIII,TV. 2 : —

Uncertain way of gain I But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.

Agamemnon 116 : — •

per seel era semper sceleribus tutuni est iter.

Theodor Vatke l has suggested a comparison between
the wooing of Lady Anne by Gloucester and that of
Megara by Lvcus. In the same way we might seek a
parallel for the -conjuration of the Spirit in 2 Henry F/,
I. 4 in the raising of the shade of Laius ; and in the
same passage from the Oedipus we might endeavour to
discover a suggestion of the appearance of the ghosts in
Clarence's dream. But how wide is the gulf between
the mythical figures of Seneca and the living spirits of
Shakspere ; instead ot Zetlms and Amphion, Niobe and
Agave, we have the ghosts of those whom Clarence had
wronged, among them

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood ; and he squeak'd out aloud,

1 Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare Gesellsckafy IV. p. 64.

m Elizabethan Tragedy, 79

" Clarence is come ; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury :
Seize on him, Euries, take him to your torments ! "

The diflfereoce is so great — it is the world-wide
difference between art and artifice — that any slight
resemblance is quite overshadowed by our sense of the
iinmeasureable superiority of Shakspere's picture. With
more justice, perhaps, we might compare the lament of
the Duchess of York (Richard 111, II. 2) :-

Alas, I am the mother of these moans !
Their woes are parcell'd, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I....

with that of Hecuba in Troas 1070-2 :—

quoscumque luctus fleueris, ftebis meos.

sua quemque tantum, me omnium olades premit,

mihi cuncta pereunt, quisquis est Hecubae est miser.

Hamlet marks the climax of the reflective tendency
in Shakspere and in the English drama, though coupled,
€s in Seneca, with a full complement

Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts. (V. 2.)

Knight has observed that in the latter characteristic
Hamlet is connected with the school of Titus Andronicus ;
but whether this is due to an old Hamlet which was not
Shakspere's, or the earlier Hamlet which is referred to by
Nash was written by Shakspere at a time when he was
still under the influence of Senecan tragedy, is too large
a question to be discussed hero. In its ultimate form

80 The Influence of Seneca

the play still contains some slight reminiscences of Seneca,
though we shall look in vain for the " whole handfulls "
of tragical speeches sneered at by Nash as borrowed from
the English translation, In Klein's opinion the appear-
ance of the Ghost of Laius in the Oedipus forms " no
unworthy study " for the famous scene " on the platform
before the castle ; " but of Shakspere's ghost-scene there
is nothing to be found in Seneca beyond the very baldest
suggestion. With greater justice Mr, H. A. J. Munro l
says that

the dread of something after death.
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns

has not a little in common with Hercules Fwens 8G8-870
m& Hercules Oetaeus 1529-1531:-

sera nos illo referat senectus.

nemo ad id sero uenit unde numquam,

cum semel uenit, potuit reuerti.

die ad aeternos properare manes
Herculem et regnum canis inquieti
unde non unquani rcmeauit ullus.

Indeed the whole of Hamlet's famous soliloquy may
be said to arise out of the question in Troas 380-1 : —

verum est, an timidos fabula decipit,
umbras corporibus uiuere conditis.

1 Journal of Philology, VI. p. 70,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 81

%

Compare also IV. 3

Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.

with Agamemnon 153-5 : —

CLYT. et ferrufn et ignis saepo madicinae loco e&t.
NVTR. extrema primo nemo temptauit loco.
CLYT. capienda robus in malis prasseps uia est.

We have Seneca's notion of presentiment and his
Stoical fatalism in V. 2 : — "if it be now, 'tis not to come ;
if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not now, yet
it will come : the rea liness is all ; since no man has aught
of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes ? "

It is again the hand of fate, or rather the hand of
(chance, that brings about the catastrophe, with its " acci-
dental judgements, casual slaughters" and "purposes
(mistook fall'n on the inventors' heads."

As in Hamlet, the reflective element in Macbeth arises
from no lack of desperate deeds. From the Murder
of Duncan, which is described with every detail of
horror, there is a continuous outpour of blood
until in the last scene the head of Macbeth is brought
oix the stage. But in Macbeth, as in Seneca, we hav
a horrible theme treated in such a way as
give frequent occasion for deep reflection* It should be
noted further that in Macbeth Shakspere's reflective

82 The Influence of Seneca

tendency is displayed more after the manner of Seneca
than in Hamlet, Hamlet's fondness for reflection is part
— a very important part — of his character. In Macbeth
the reflections are uttered not hy one character alone,
but by almost all ; and not in long soliloquies, but in
brief, pregnant sentences, quite after Seneca's manner.
In some instances the ideas expressed bear considerable
similarity to those of Seneca. Thus I. 7 : —

We but teach

Bloody instructions, which being taught return
To plague the inventor : this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.

quod quisque fecit, patitur. auctorem scelus
repetit suoque premitur exemplo nocens.

(Hercules Furens 739-740.)

IV. 3. :— Give sorrow words : the grief that does not speak

Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.

curae leues loquuntur ingentos stupent.

\ (Hippolytus 615.)

V. 3 :— I have lived long enough : my way of life

Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have.

cur animam in ista luce detineam amplius
morerque nihil est. cuncta iam amisi bona :
inentem anna famam coniugem gnatos manus
etiam furorem. (Hercules Furens 1265-8.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 83

Compare further the lines that follow

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased...

with the continuation of the passage in Hercules Furens : —

nemo polluto queat
animo mederi.1

IV. 2 : — Things at the worst will cease> or else climb upward
To what they were before

mih-Thebais 198-9:-

cuius haud ultra mala
exire possunt in loco tuto est situs.

and Oedipus 855 : —

tuto inouetur quicquid extremo in loco est.

II. 4 : — Thou see'st, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage : by the clock 'tis day
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp ;
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
Whon living light should kiss it I

We have the same idea in Agamemnon 763-4 : —

fugit lux alma et obscurat genas
nox alta et aether obditus tenebris latet.

and in the fourth Chorus of the Thyestes.

Compare also the apostrophe to sleep in II. 2 with

i The Doctor in Two Noble Kinsmen, IV. 3, says "I think she has
a perturbed minde, which I cannot minister to,"

84 The Influence of Seneca

Hercules Furens 1071-1081, and note the splendid develope-
ment of the eulogy of the rest of the grave, already
remarked in Titus Androniciis :—

Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well ;
Treason has done his worst : nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.

Then we have II. 1 :—

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand ?

quis eluet me Tanais ? aut quae barbaria
<* maeotis undis pontico incumbens mari f
non ipse toto magnus oceano pater
tantum expiarit sceleris. (Itippolytus 723-6).

S'"
quis Tanais aut quis Nilus aut quis persica

uiolentus unda Tigris aut Rhenus ferox

Tagus'ie hibera turbidus gaza fluens,

abluere dextram poterit \ arctoum licet

Maeotis in me gelida transfundat mare

e*i tota Tethys per meas currat manus :

haerebit altum facinus. (Hercule$ Furens 1330-6.)

The last is a parallel which has attracted the attention
of many readers of Seneca and Shakspere, and was appar-
ently first placed on record by Lessing in the Theatralische
Bibliothek (1754). It may be, too, that in this passage of
Seneca Shakspere found the suggestion of that blood-

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 85

stained little hand which forms so impressive a feature
in the famous sleep-walking scene.1

King Lear is further removed than Macbeth from the sing
spirit of Senecan tragedy ; but, in addition to wholesale
slaughter aiid physical horrors such as the putting out of
Gloster's eyes, it contains some resemblances worth
noting. We have Seneca's hopeless f atalisn^ not only in
the catastrophe, but repeatedly brought forward in the
course of the play. Gloster in his blindness says
(IV. I):-

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods ;
They kill us for their sport.

Kent in IV. 3 :—

4ft

It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions-.

!Thc idea was probably suggested to Seneca by Aeschylus Choejihoroe
63-5, which is so corrupt in the sole authoritative MS. now extant that
only the general drift of the passage can be determined. Plumptre's
translation runs : —

and water streams,
Though all in common course
Should flow to cleanse the guilt
Of murder that the sin-stained hand defiles,

Would yet flow all in vain

That guilt to purify.

Paley in a note says " there can be no doubt... that water is

'meant, the usual purification in murder." See also Sophocles Ajax
654-6, and the Scholiast's Note thereon, stating that it was the custom
of the ancients to cleanse the pollution of murder by washing the
hands. Of. Ovid Fasti II. 45-6 :—

Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina caedis
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.

86 The Influence of Seneca

and Edgar in V. 2 :—

Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither :
Ripeness is all.

Compare also III. 6 : —

When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i' the mind ;
Leaving free things, and happy shows, behind :
But then the mind much suffering doth o'er-skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.

with Troas 1019-1035 ; and IV. 1 :-•

To be worst,

The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear :
The lamentable change is from the best,
The worst returns to laughter.

with Thebais 198-9 and Oedipus 855 already quoted.1 Also
IV. 6 :-

Better I were distract :

80 should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs ;
And woes, by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.

uel sit potius

mens uaesano concita motu.

solus te iam praestare potest

furor insontem. proxima puris

sors est manibus nescire nefas. (Hercules Furens 1100-5.)

* See p. 83,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 87

We tread again on doubtful ground in Edward III, Edward m
although this fine play has been ascribed to Shakspere by
very good authorities.1 In any case, the following com-
parision is interesting. Act IV.4 : —

To die is all as common as to live ;

The one in choice, the other holds in chaee :

For, from the instant we begin te live,

We do pursue and hunt the time to die :

First bud we, then we blow, and after seed ;

Then, presently, we fall ; and, as a shade

Follows the body, so we follow death.

If then we hunt for death, why do we fear it?

If we do fear it, why do we follow it ?

If we do fear, with fear we do but aid

The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner :

If we fear not, then no resolved proffer

Can overthrow the limit of our fate :

For, whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall,

As we do draw the lottery of our doom.

omnia certo tramite uadunt

primusque dies dedit extremum.

non ilia deo uertisse licet

quae nexa suis currunt causis.

it cuique ratus prece non ulla

mobilis ordo.

multis ipsum timuisse nocet.

multi ad fatum uenere suum

dum fata timent. (Oedipus 1008-1016.)

Compare also V. 1 : —

For what the sword cuts down, or fire hath spoiled,
Is held in rep-itation none of ours.

1 See Dr. Ward's History of Dramatic Literature. I. 456.

88 The Influence of Seneca

with 'Thebais 559-562 :-

quin tuae causae nocet
ipsum hoc quod arrnis uertis infestis solum
segetesque adustas sternis et totos f ugam
edis per agros : nemo sic uastat sua.

^u Ai'den of Feversham, another pseudo-Shaksperean
tragedy, the following may be noted. Act III. 5 : —

Well fares the man, howe'er his cates do taste,
That tables not with foul suspicion ;
And he but pines amongst his delicates,
Whose troubled mind is stuff d with discontent.
My golden time was when I had no gold ;
Though then I wanted, then I slept secure ;
My daily toil begat me night's repose,
My night's repose made daylight fresh to me :
. But since I climb'd the top bough of the tree,
And sought to build my nest among the clouds,
Each gentle stirry gale doth shake my bed,
And makes ma dread my downfall to the earth.

Compare Hippolytus 1135-1140 : —

seruat placidos obscura quies
praebetque somnos casa securos,
admota aetheriis culmina sedibus
duros excipiunt notos
insani boreae minas
imbriferumque corum.

Of other plays ascribed to Shakspere, Locrine con-
tains many traces of Seneca, both in style and sentiment ;
but it is a play demanding no special attention, either on
account of its date (pr. 1595) or literary merits.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 89

BEN JONSON is said by Theodor Vatke1 to have
specially studied Seneca ; but no authority is given for
the statement. A comparison between Jonson and Seneca
naturally suggests itself from (he character of Jonson's
genius, and the comparison was made by his contempor-
aries, both in the commendatory verses prefixed to his
works, and in the elegies published after his death under
the title of Jonsonius Virbius* Seneca finds a place in
Jouson's famous lines "to the memory of my beloved
master, William Shakspeare," and his name is included
in Sir John Daw's miscellaneous list of classical poets
(Epicoene, II. 2); Jonson gives a number of references to
Seneca as notes to The Masque of Queens, and in any case
he might be safely assumed to have had a close acquaint-
ance with Seneca, for Jonson was thoroughly versed in
classical literature, in which, at that period, Seneca held
a prominent place. I have been unable, however, to
any statement by Jonson himself that he " specially
studied Senoca ; " indeed, to judge from the praises of
Sophocles and Euripides in the Discoveries, and the. fact
that in the enumeration of Greek and Roman dramatists
in the lines to Shakspere the last place is given to " him
of Cordova dead" without any special mark of distinction,
Jonson was not eager to admit that he followed in the
ordinary track by accepting as his model the Eoman
tragedies which were within easy reach even of those who
had " small Latin and less Greek." If this be so, Jonson

1 Jahrbuoh der Deutschtn Shakespeare GesellscJiaft, Vol. IV. p. 64.

2 See Latin lines " In Benjaminum Jonsonum, poetam laureatum,
et dramaticorum sui seculi facile principem," and Owen Felthaiu " To
the Memory of Imniorta.1 Ben,"

90 The Influence of Seneca

owed more to Seneca than he cared to acknowledge, for
it was upon Seneca, and not upon the Greek masters,
that Jonson modelled his tragic style. In the preface
toJZejamis he sums up " the offices of a tragic writer "
in the phrases " truth of argument, dignity of persons,
gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of
sentence " — the characteristics, not of Greek tragedy, but
of Seneca. He apologises, moreover, for " the want of a
proper chorus "—a want which he supplied in Catiline,
and also in the sketch of The Fall of Mortimer, which re-
mained a fragment at his death. Jonson employed the
Chorus not after the manner of the Greek, hut of the Ro-
man stage, a chorus closing each of the five acts, It is evi-
dent, too, that in Jonson's Catiline, as in Seneca's tragedies,
the Chorus left the stage during the performance of the
play, and were supposed to he ignorant of the course of
the action, for at the end of Act IV the Chorus profess
to be in doubt as to Catiline's designs, which could not
have been the .case if they had been present when the
conspiracy was formed, as would be required by the rules
of Greek tragedy. Whalley says in a note to Catiline:
"Jonson, I think, does not appear to any great advantage
in the choruses to this play. My friend Mr. Sympson
is also of the same opinion : he sajs, the sentiments in
them are not sufficiently great, nor his measures at all
imitative of the ancients; that variety of numbers which
runs through all the Greek tragic poets, seems never once
to have been his aim. But I imagine Seneca, not
Sophocles or Aeschylus, was what he copied after, and
'tis then no wonder that he succeeded no better/'

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 91

Jonson owed to Seneca something more than the ex-
ternal form of his tragedies ; their style and spirit are
Bornan, not Greek. In striving to attain the " height of
elocution" at which he aimed, Jonson is sometimes guilty
of Seneca's rhetorical exaggeration of expression ; and to
this fault he occasionally adds Seneca's physical
crudities. The dismemberment of Sejanus is
described with a fulness of detail which can only
be compared with Seneca's account of the death of Hip-
polytns; and the speeches of Cethegus in Catiline offend
in both the ways mentioned, though in this case Jonson>'
justified himself to some extent by making exaggeration
and a lust for blood distinctive of the character. Be this
as it may, there is an echo of Seneca's style to be discerned
in passages like .this : —

It likes me better, that you are not consul.

I would not go through open doors, but break 'em ;

Swim to my ends through blood ; or build a bridge

Of carcasses ; make on upon the heads

Of men, struck down like piles, to reach the lives

Of those remain and stand : then is't a prey,

When danger stops, and ruin makes the way. (III. 1).

In " fulness and frequency of sentence " Joason
assuredly did not fail ; but he missed the perfect art of )
Shakspere, who made his reflections arise naturally from
the situation or the character of the speaker. In Jonson, ^
as in Seneca, the " sentences " are introduced with only l
too obvious design,, It should further be remarked that
Jonson's indebtedness to Seneca can be traced much
more clearly and convincingly than that of Shakspere,

92 The Influence of Seneca

When Shakspere takes a thought suggested by Seneca, it
is crystallized in the alembic of his wonder- working
imagination, and conies out so changed in form as to bear
but slight traces of its origin, so that we are often in
doubt whether the thought is not entirely Shakspere's
own, and the resemblance to Seneca merely accidental ;
when Jonson borrows, he takes Seneca's crude ore, and
rarely troubles to melt it down and recast it. The fol-
lowing parallels froiiL&^w«* may serve as examples : —

1.2 : . Wrath cover'd carries fate :

.Revenge is lost, if I profess my bate.

ira quae tegitur noeet,
professa perdunt odia uindictae locum. (Medea 153-4.)

II. 2 — Thy follies now shall taste what kind of man

They have provoked, and this thy father's house
Crack in the flame of my incensed rage.
Whose fury shall admit no shame or mean.
Adultery! it is the lightest ill
I will commit. A race of wicked acts
Shall flow out of my anger, and o'erspread
The world's wide face, which no posterity
Shall e'er approve, nor yet keep silent : things
That for their cunning, close, and cruel mark,
Thy father would wish his.

certetur omni scelere eb alterna uice
stringantur eiises. nee sit irarum modus
pudorue.

effusus omnis inriget terras cruor
supraque magnos gentium exultet duces

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 93

libido uictrix. impia stuprum in domo
leuissimum sit.

age anime fac quod nulia posteritas probet,

sed nulla taceat. aliquod audenduin est nefas

atrox cruentum tale quod frater meus

suum esse malit. (Thyestes 25-7, 44-7, 192-5.)

The dialogue which follows reproduces more or less
closely the tyrant's maxims given by Seneca in the
Thyestes, the Tkebais, and the Octavia. One example will
suffice: —

Whom hatred frights,
Let him not dream of sovereignty.

regnare non unit esse qui inuisus timet. (Thebais 654.)

And again in the same scene (II. 2) : —

All modesty is fond : and chiefly where
The subject is no less compelled to bear
Than praise his sovereign's acts.

maximum hoc regni bonum est,
quod facta domini cogitur populus sui
quam ferre tarn Inudare. (Thyestes 205-7.)

IV. 5 : — How easily

Do wretched men believe, what they would have !

quod nimis miseri uolunt,
hoc facile credunt. (Hercules Furem 317-8.)

Ill V. 1 Sejanus says : —

My roof receives me not ; 'tis air I tread ;
And, at each step, I feel my advanced head
Knock out a star in heaven.

94 The Influence, of Seneca

l

So Atreus in Thyestcs 888-9 :—

aequalis astris gradior et cunctos super
altum superbo uertice attingens polum.

V. 10 : — For, whom the morning saw so great and high,
Thus low and little 'fore the even doth lie.

quern dies uidit ueniens superbum,

hunc dies uidit fugiens iacentem. (Thyestes 613 4.)

It will be noticed above that the Thyestes is mor6
frequently laid under contribution than any other play ;
from the same tragedy Jonson borrowed the opening of
\ Catiline, in which the Ghost of Sylla plays the same part
as the Ghost of Tantalus in the. Thyestcs ; and when the
oath of conspiracy is taken, " the day goes back" and
murmurings are heard from unseen speakers, " as at
Atreus' feast." Further parallel passages are as under :

I.I : — Behold, I come, sent from the Stygian sound,
As a dire vapoilr that had cleft the ground,
To ingender with the night and blast the day ;
Or like a pestilence that should display
Infection through the world.

mittor ut dirus uapor
tellure rupta uel grauern populis luem
sp.irsura pcstis. (Thyestes 87-9.)

Nor let thy thought find any vacant time
To hate an old, but still a fresher crime
Drown the remembrance ; let not mischief cease,
But while it is in punishing, increase :
Conscience ^and care die in thee ; and be free
Not heaven itself from thy impiety ;

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 95

Let night grow blacker with thy plots, and day,

At shewing but thy head forth, start away

From this half -sphere ; and leave Rome's blinded walls

To embrace lusts, hatreds, slaughters, funerals.

nee uacet cuiqu'am uetus
odisse crimen : semper oriatur nouum
nee unum in urio, dumque punitur scelus,
crescat.

fratris et fas et fides

iusque omne pereat. non sit a nestris malls
immune caelum. cum micant stellae polo
seruantque flammae debitum mundo decus,
nox atra fiat, excidat caelo dies,
misce ponates odia caedes funera
arcesse et irnple scelere tantaleam domum.

(Thyestes 29-32, 47-52.)

III. 1 ; — Who would not fall with all the world about him ?

uitae est avidus quisquis nonuult

mundo secum pereunte mori. (Tkyestes 886-7.)

III. 2 : — Is there a heaven and gods ? and can it be
They should so slowly hear, so slowly see !
Hath Jove no thunder?

magne regiiator deum,
tarn lentus audis scelera ? tarn lentus uides f
ecquando saeua fulmen emittes manu
si nunc serenum est 1 (ffippolytus, 679-682.)

III. 2 : — • He that is void of fear, may soon be just.

iustum .esse facile est cui uacat pectus metu.

(Octama 453.)

96 Tlu Influence of Seneca

III. 3 :— He shall die.

Shall, was too slowly said ; he's dying : that
Is yet too slow ; he's dead.

si noui Herculem,

Lycus Creonti debitas poenas dabit.
lentura est dabit : dat. hoc quoque est lentum : dedit.1

(Hercules Furens 655-7.)

CHAPMAN. CHAPMAN, like Jonson, seems to have taken Senecan

tragedy as his model. In the dedicatory letter prefixed
to The Revenge of Bussij D'Amlois, he says that " material
instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue
and deflection from her contrary" are " the soul, limbs,
and limits of an authentical tragedy." He is excessively
rhetorical, sometimes to the extent of bomhast ; lie
has also Seneca's fault of prolixity ; and he has
many elaborate similes such as Seneca occasionally
indulged in. Some of these characteristics are no doubt
largely accounted for by Chapman's extensive reading in
other classical authors, and it mnqt be confessed thaLbis
indebtedness to Seneca cannot be clearly proved to any

considerable number of passages

suggesting a comparison with Seneca ; but only the fol-
lowing seem to me sufficiently convincing to be worthy
of record : —

Byron s Conspiracy III. 1 : —

LA B. You bid me speak what fear bids me conceal.
BYB. You have no cause to fear, and therefore speak.

1 These lines have been parodied by Moliere in a famous passage
of L'Avare, IV, 7 ;— " Je me meurs, je suis mort, je suis enterre*."

on Elizabethan Tragedy, 97

LA B. You'll rather wish you had been ignorant,
Than be instructed in a thing so ill.

BYR. Ignorance is an idle salve for ill ;

And therefore do not urge me to enforce
What I would freely know, for by the skill
Shown in thy aged hairs, I'll lay thy brain
Here scatter'd at my feet, and seek in that
What safely thou may'st utter with thy tongue
If thou deny it.

LA B. Will you not allow me

To hold my peace ? What less can I desire ?
If not be pleased with my constrained speech.

BYR. Was ever man yet punished for expressing

What he was charged 1 Be free, and speak the worst.

It will bo found that all this is taken from Oedipus
524-542, except the passage beginning " I'll lay thy

brain .," which is a piece of crude bombast worthy

of Seneca himself ; the same may be said of the speeches
of Byron which follow the above extract.

Byron s Conspiracy V. 1 : —

D'AUV. O my lord,

This is too large a licence given you** fury ;
Give time to it ; what reason suddenly
Cannot extend, respite doth oft supply.

da tempus ac spatium tibi.
quod ratio nequit, saepe sanauit mora.

(Agamemnon 130-1.)

Byron's Tragedy IV. 1 :-

Where medicines loathe, it irks men to be heal'd.

ubi turpis est medicina, sanari piget. (Oedipus 530.)

98 The Influence of Seneca

Byron's Tragedy V. 1 :—

Why should I keep my soul in this dark light,
Whose black beams lighted me to lose myself 1
When I have lost my arms, my fame, my mind, \

Friends, brother, hopes, fortunes, and even my fury. '

cur animam in ista luce detinoam ainplius

morerque nihil est. cuncta iani amisi bona :

mentem arma famam coniugem gnatos manus

etiarn furoreni. (Hercules Furens 1265-8.)

To the above evidence may be added Chapman's
liberal use of sanguinary horrors and ghosts (in Bussy
D'Ambois, The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, Alphonsm
Emperor of Germany, and Revenge for Honour), which must
be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the example of
Seneca,

HARSTOK Of all the Elizabethan dramatists, MARSTON owed
the most to Seneca, and was the readiest to acknowledge
his indebtedness. He quotes Seneca, both in the
Latin1 and in translation, and from the prose works
as well as the tragedies. A quotation from the Thyestes
finds its way into the preface to The Fawn, and
in the same comedy we have a line from the Oedipus
TJ* ^content. (Mr. Bullen's edition, II. p. 191). In The Malcontent,
which the author also calls a comedy, Bilioso, essaying
to give comfort to Pietro, says, " Marry, I remember one
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca — " and Pietro replies,

1 See Appendix L

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 99

" Out upon him ! he writ of temperance and fortitude,
yet lived like a voluptuous epicure, and died like an
effeminate coward; " again, in Act V. 2, Mendoza says

Black deed only through black deed safely flies.

and Malevole retorts

Pooh ! per scelera semper soeleribus tutum est iter.

the quotation being from Agamemnon 116. Notwith-
standing these sneers, we have other quotations from
Seneca in the same play, both in Latin and English.

He that can bear with must, he cannot die

in IV. 1 is a translation of Megara's vaunt in Hercules
Farens 481, " cogi qui potest, nescit mori." From the
same source is taken much of Maria's opposition to the
suit of Mendoza. Megara says in Hercules Furens
423-5 :—

grauent catenae corpus et longa fame
mors protrahatur lenta. non uincet fidem
uis ulla nostram. moriar Alcide tua.

So Maria in V. 2 :-

0 my dear'st Altofront ! where'er thou breathe,
Let my soul sink into the shades beneath,
Before I stain thine honour ! 'tis thou has't,
And long as I can die, I will live chaste*

and again in Y. 3:—

Do, Urge all torments, all afflictions try ;
I'll die my lords as lonsr as I can die.

100 The Influence of Seneca

In Hercules Fnrcns 255-6:—

prosperum ac felix scelus
uirtus uocatur.

we have the original of Y.2:—

Mischief that prospers, men do virtue call.

and the lines that follow,

Who cannot bear with spite, he cannot rule.

The chief est secret for a man of state

Is, to live senseless of a strengthless hate,

come from Thebais 654-6:—

regnare non uult esse qui inuisus timet.
simul ista mundi conditor posuit deus
odium atque regnum.

Antonio and Ifc is, however, in Marston's earlier tragedies, the two

Mdlida.

^parts of Antonio and Mettida, that we find the influence
'of Seneca most plainly manifested, as the following par-
iallels will show.1 In Part I:—

I. 1 : — 'Tis horselike not for man to know his force.

inertis est nescire quid liceat sibi. (Octavia -465.)

MELL. How^etivetous thou art of novelties !
>h ! 'tis our nature to desire things
That are thought strangers to the common cut.

quisquis secundis rebus exultat nimis
fluitque luxu semper insolita appetit.2

(Hippolytus 209^210.)

1 One noteworthy passage has already been given. See p. 24.

2 A slight variation from the Aldine reading*

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 101

III. 1 : — Fortune my fortunes, not my mind, shall shake.

fortuna opes auferre non ariimum potest. (Medea 176.)

Alas, survey your fortunes, look what's left
Of all your forces, and your utmost hopes :
A weak old man, a page, and your poor self.

en intuere turba quae siinus super :

famulus1 puer captiua. (froas 516-7.)

No matter whither, but from whence we fall.

inagis unde cadas quani quo refert. (Thyestes 929.)

IV. 1 : — Give me water, boy.

There is no poison in:t, I hope; they say
That lurks in massy plate.

uenenum in auro bibitur. (Thyestes 453.)

AND. Fortune fears valour, presseth cowardice.
Luc. Then valour gets applause, when it hath place,

And means to blaze it.
AND. Nunquam potest non esse.

MED. fortuna fortes metuit, ignauos premit.

NVTR. tune est probanda si locum uirtus habet.

MED. numquam potest non esse uirtuti locus. (Medea 159-161.)

In Part II the borrowing from Seneca is not quite
BO frequent, but it is still considerable in amount. Mr.
Bullen detects "an Attic flavour" in a passage of
stichomythia in II. 1, and is momentarily reminded of
Creon's altercation with his son in the Antigone; as a

1 The Aldine reading is tumulus*

102 The Influence of Seneca

matter of fact, the dialogue is borrowed directly anct
almost entirely^ from Seneca: —

PIER. 'Tis just that subjects act commands of kings. %

PAND» Command then just and honourable things.

NERO iussisque nostris pareant.

gEN. iusta impera. (Octama 471 )

PIER. Where only honest deeds to kings are free,
It is no empire, but a beggary.

ubicumque tantum honesta dominantilicent,

precario regnatur. (Thye&tes 214-5.)

PIER. Tush, juiceless graybeard, 'tis immunity,

Proper to princes, that our state exacts ;

Our subjects not alone to bear, but praise our acts.
PAND. O, but that prince, that worthful praise aspires,

From hearts, and nob from lips, applause desires.
PIER, Pish!

True praise the boon of common men doth ring,

False only girts the temple of a king.

ATR. maximum hoc regni bonum est,

quod facta domini cogitur populus sui.
quam ferre tarn laudare.

SAT. at qui fauoris gloriam ueri petit,

aninio magis quam uoce laudari uolet.
ATR. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,

non nisi potenti falsa. (Thyestes 205-7, and 209-212.)

Pandulfo's reply,

'Tis praise to do, not what we can, but should.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 103

is from Octavia 466 :—

id facere laus est quod decet, non quod licet.

The act closes with a quotation from the Agamemnon,
and the Thyestes is laid under contribution once more in
the next scene, which is thoroughly Senecan ia conception
and execution. When the Ghost of Andrea appears
again at the opening of A.ct V, he introduces himself
very appropriately by quoting two lines spoken by the
shade of Agrippina in the Octavia ; and the final scene is
taken from the Thyestes y not only in its main idea, but in
the very words of the taunts addressed by Pandulfo to the
sinful father who has feasted on his own son, V. 2 : —

He weeps ; now do I glorify my hands ;
I had no vengeance, if I had no tears.

nunc meas laudo manus,
riunc parta uera est palma. perdideram scelus
nisi sic dolores. ( Thyestes 1 1 00-2. )

Thy son? true; and which is my most joy,
I hope no bastard, but thy very blood,
Thy true-begotten, most legitimate
And loved issue — there's the comfort on't.

THY, gnatos parenti.

ATR. fateor et quod me iuuat,

certos. (Thyestes 1105-6.)

The rhetorical and reflective style as well as the crude
horrors of the two parts of Antonio and MelMa, must be
ascribed to the influence of Seneca. To Seneca's
account, too, we must set down what Mr. Bullen describes

104

The Influence of Seneca

as Marston's " besetting fault of straining his style a
too high ; of seeking to be impressive by the use of
exaggerated and unnatural imagery." The description of
a storm in The, First Part oj Antonio and Mellich, I. 1,
which in Mr. Bullen's opinion exhibits this besetting
sin of Marston's " to perfection," is modelled on a
similar description in Seneca's Agamemnon. Compare
the opening in each case :—

The sea grew mad,

His bowels rumbling with wind-passion ;
Straight swarthy darkness popp'd out Phoebus' eye,
And blurr'd the jocund face of bright-cheek 'd day ;
Whilst crudled fogs masked even darkness' brow :
Heaven bad's good night, and the rocks groan 'd
At the intestine uproar of the main.

exigua nubes sordido crescens globo
nitidum cadentis inquinat Phoebi iubar.

tractuque lorigo litus ac petrae gemunt.

agitata uentis unda uenturis tumet.

cum luna subito conditur, stellae cadurit,

in astra pontus tollitur, caelum perit.

nee una nox est : densa tenebras obruit

caligo et omni luce subducta fretum

caelumque miscet. (Agamemnon 483-4 and 489-495.)

and again

Straight chops a wave, and in in his slif trod paunch
Down falls our ship, and there he breaks his neck ;
Which in an instant up was belkt again.

illam dehiscens pontus in praeceps rapit
hauritque et alto redditam reuomit mare.

(Af/amemnvn 520-1.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 105

But Marston gained something besides unnatural
exaggeration from his study of Seneca. Mr. Bullen
gives unqualified praise to the " dignified reflections
which Marston puts into the month of the discrowned
Andrugio in the noble speech beginning, ' Why, man, I
never was a prince till now.' " This, too, was suggested
by Seneca, as will be seen on comparison with Thyestcs
314-390.

It may be doubted whether Marston ever broke
away from the influence of Seneca, though it is certainly
less marked in his later plays. Mr. Bullen remarks an
improvement in The Malcontent, which followed next to
Antonio and Melllda. «• The moralising/' he says, " is
less tedious, and the satire more pungent than in -the
earlier plays. There is less of declamation and more of
action. The atmosphere is not so stifling, and one can^J
breathe with something of freedom. There are no ghosts
to shout > Vindicia ! ' and no boys to be butchered at
midnight in damp cloisters ; nobody has his tongue cut
out prior to being hacked to pieces." While one may
admit the justice of these observations, it should not be
forgotten that The Malcontent is debcribed by Marston
himself as a comedy. When he returns to tragedy in
Sophonisba — a tragedy which, he promises, " shall boldh
abide the most curious perusal "l — he faUs back upor
Seneca's ghosts and witches, his blood-curdling descrip-
tions of crude horrors decked out with unnatural

See the note To lite Reader prefixed to the second quarto of The Fawn,

106 The Influence of Seneca

imagery, his rhetorical artificialities and reflective
commonplaces. Much less, however, is borrowed direct
from Seneca than in the earlier plays. The description
of the hahits and abode of the witch Erichtho is
taken from Lncan — a writer allied to Seneca not only
by close ties of relationship, but by likeness of character,
for his genius is essentially philosophic and rhetoiical.
In the reflective passages, too, of Sophonisba, Marston
borrowed far less from Seneca than in the earlier plays.
The dialogue between Asdrubal and Carthalon at the end
of Act II. 3 is quite in Seneca's style, but I have only
detected two ideas taken directly from Seneca : —

He that forbids not offence, he does it.

qui non uetat peccare, cum possit, iubet. (Troas 300.)

and

He for whom mischief's done,
He does it.

cui prodest seel us,
is fecit. (Medea 503-4.)

The Insatiate Countess is, in Mr. Bullen's opinion, not
Marston's, or, at any rate, not all of it. One of the reasons
that incline him to this conclusion is the number of pas-
sages imitated from Shakspere, among which he includes
the following (V. 1) :—

What Tanais, Nilus, or what Tigris swift,

What Rhenus ferier than the cataract,

Although Neptolis cold, the waves of all the Northern Sea,
Should flow for ever through these guilty hands,
Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be |

on J&tizabethan Tragedy. 107

Mr. Bullen compares this with a well known passage
in Macbeth, already quoted in this essay.1 The original of
both passages is, I think, to be found in Hercules Furena
1330-6 :-

quis Tanais aut quis Nilus aut quis persica
uiolentus unda Tigris aut Rhenus f erox
Tagusue hibara turbidus gaza fluons,
abluere dextram poterit ? arctoum licet
Maeotis in me gelid a transfundat mare
et tota Tethys per meas currat manus :
haerebit altum facinus.

From the closeness of the translation in The Insatiate
Countess, it is evident that the author borrowed from Seneca
direct ; and it seems to me that- the reading " Neptolis,"
for which Mr. Bullen suggests the emendation " Neptune/'
might safely be altered to the " Maeotis " of the original.
Moreover, this passage, imitated not from Shakspere but
from Seneca, testifies in favour of Marston's authorship,
and not, as Mr. Bullen thinks, against it.

In the same school as Marston's Antonio and Mellida CBETTLES

Hoffman.

must be included CHETTLE'S Hoffman ; or a Revenge for a
Father, which was not printed till 1631, but (as we learn
from Henslowe's Diary) was written in 1602. The tragedy
opens before a cave at the entrance of which there is " a
skeleton hanging on a tree in chains, with an iron crown
on its head/' Amid thunder and lightning Hoffman
addresses his murdered father's skeleton, " which rattles

i See p. 84,

108 The Influence a/ Seneca

from the wind in its chains/' Then -appears the first
victim of Hoffman's revenge, Prince Otho, who is bound
to the rock and tortured to death (on the stage) with
the iron crown, which has been taken from the head of
the skeleton, and made red hot. Hoffman, having
stripped the flesh off the bones, hangs the skeleton in
chains, by the side of that of his father, upon the tree,
and speaks thus :*—

Come, image of bare death, join side to side
With my long-injur'd father's naked bones !
He was the prologue to a tragedy,
That, if my destinies deny me not,
Shall pass those of Thyestes, Tereus,
Jocasta, or Duke Jason's jealous wife.

The •" dismal accidents and bloody deeds, poisonings \
and treasons " which follow bid fair to fulfil the promise
that Seneca's gruesome themes shall be outdone. In
the end, Hoffman is bound to the rock, and tortured with
the iron cro\vn, made red hot; this alone prevents him
from adding rape to a succession of murders, and he dies
regretting that he has

slack t revenge
Through fickle beauty and a woman's fraud.

There are occasional reflective passages .in Seneca's
style, and some reminiscences of his ideas, but they are
neither striking nor important. There is a close resem*
Wance throughout to Seneca's mode of treating his bloody /
themes, Act IV. 3 giving a noteworthy example of the V

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 109

rhetorical and amplified horror which we have remarked
as one of Seneca's most striking characteristics. Take
for instance the passage :—

Thou wert as good, and 'better, (note my words)
Run unto the top of [some] dreadful scar
And thence fall headlong on the under rocks ;
Or set thy breast against a cannon fir'd,
When iron death flies thence on flaming wings ;
Or with thy shoulders, Atlas-like, attempt
To bear the ruins of a falling tower ;
Or swim the ocean, or run quick to hell,
(As dead assure thyself no better place)
Than once look frowning on this angel's face.

Seneca's fondness for these exaggerated comparisons
has been already noted.1

Lusts Dominion (pr. 1657), a tragedy of similar

1 j • 1. f ' ' i DEKKER?

character to the preceding, but ot more inept workman-
ship, is only of importance on account of its supposed
identity with DEKKER'S Spanish Moor's Tragedy, acted in
January, 1599-1600. It contains bombast in abundance,
and sententious reflections in Seneca's, manner, some-
times with an echo of his ideas.

WEBSTER and TOURNEUR further developed the
Tragedy of Blood (as Mr. Synionds calls it), which
by their time had been long familiar to English

WEBSTER and

110 The Influence of Seneca

/audiences and readers; and the indirect influence of
Seneca acting through their predecessors in English
tragedy had probably more effect upon them than any
first-hand study of the Roman dramatist, of which we
have little evidence. In The Bcvcnger's Tragedy Tourneur
misquotes a single line from Seneca — the familiar

curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent.1

The same thought is reproduced by Webster in The
White Devil, II. 1 : -

TJnkindness, do thy office ; poor heart, break :
Those are the killing griefs which dare not speak.

bat it seems likely that this was a reminiscence of
Shakspere, and was not taken directly from Seneca,
The same may be said of another line in the same
scene : —

Small mischiefs are by greater made secure.

Another idea common to Shakspere and Seneca is
reproduced by Tourneur in The Rewiujers Tragedy, V. 3: —

He that climbs highest has the greatest fall.

A passage in the same play II. 4 : —

It well becomes that judge to nod at crimes
That does commit greater himself, and lives,

may be compared with Agamemnon 268 : —

det ille ueniam facile cui uenia est opus,

1 See Appendix I.

on Elizabethan Tragedy. Ill

Tourneur lias also effectively developed an idea
suggested in Hippolytus 679-682 :—

magne regnator deum

tarn lentus audis scelera 1 tara lentus uides 1
ccquando saeua f ulmen emittes manu
si nunc serenum est ?

In The- Revenger9* Tragedy, IV. 2 "Vendice says :—

O thou almighty patience ! 'tis my wonder

That such a fellow, impudent and wicked,

Should not be cloven as he stood :

Or with a secret wind burst open !

Is there no thunder left ; or is't kept up

In stock for heavier vengeance ? [Thunder] there it goes!

The same device is employed once more in the last

scene.

•

More striking, however, than the resemblance of
isolated passages is the resemblance in theme and mode
of treatment. Webster and Tourneur, like Seneca, ^
choose themes of lust, murder, incest, and unnatural
crime ; they employ the same devices of ghosts and the
ghastly relics of mortality ; their tragedies breathe the
same atmosphere of blood. By the side of these heaped
up horrors, which Webster depicted with unique dramatic
power and psychological insight, we have something of
Seneca's reflective tendency, and occasionally a likeness
in the thoughts expressed, as may be remarked in the/
the passages quoted above. We have Seneca's fatalism
in The Duchess of Malfi, V. 4 :—

We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied
Which way please them.

FORD.

112 The Influence of Seneca

and Seneca's Stoicism in V. 3 of the same play '!— •

Though in our miseries Fortune have a part,
Yet in our noble sufferings she hath none :
Contempt of pain, that we may call our own.

Tourneur amplifies the same idea in The Atheist's
Tragedy, III. 3, in Charlemont's defiance of Sebastian and
his father. To the same source we may ascribe the
Stoical calmness with which the characters of both
dramatists meet death. See, for instance, the last speech
of the Duchess of Malfi ; Vittoria Corrombona welcomes
death " as princes do some great ambassador ; " she
meets the weapon half-way, and sheds "not one base
tear." Flanrineo, her villainous brother, ends his life
with a laugh, and the reflection,

We cease to grieve, cease to be fortune's slaves,
Kay, cease to die, by dying.

Bosola, the villain of Th'i Duchess of Malfi, dies with
hardly less constancy, Charlemout and Castabella in
The. Atheists Tragedy seek death with equal hardihood ;
and in The Revengers Tragedy Vendice accepts death for
himself as calmly as he dealt it out to others.

FORD abounds in his own kind of tragic horrors, and
/he is not altogether free from crude sensationalism ; in
I'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Giovanni enters with his
'sister's heart upon his dagger, and Ford's plays
generally treat of such " strong " themes as incest,
adultery, and murderous revenge. But the atmosphere

on Elizabethan Tragedy.

of his tragedies does not overpower us with the smell
of blood, as in the case of Webster and Tournenr ; there
is often a fresher, purer air of quiet thought and natural
passion. Ford makes little use of the supernatural ; in
all probability Mother Sawyer and her familiars in The
Witch of Edmonton are the creations of Dekker, and the
only spirit to be set down to Ford's account is the quiet
and inoffensive ghost of Susan, which comes to the bed-
side of her husband and murderer, and stands there
without saying a word. Ford's genius was of too refined
a character to seek the strong and coarse effects which
were achieved by some of his contemporaries and
predecessors. Occasionally he is guilty of rhetorical
exaggeration, as in The Broken Heart, IV. 1 :—

In anger !

In anger let him part ; for could his breath,
Like whirlwinds, toss such servile slaves as lick
The dust his footsteps print into a vapour,
It durst not stir a hair of mine, it should not ;
I'd rend it up by the roots first.

And again in Loves Sacrifice, IV. 2 :—

I have a sword — 'tis here — should make my way
Through fire, through darkness, death, and hell, and all,
To hew your lust-engendered flesh to shreds,
Pound you to mortar, cut your throats, and mince
Your flesh to mites : I will, — start not,-— I will.

But extravagance is pardonable in the mouths of
characters like Ithocles and the Duke in their respective
situations.

114

Vie Influence of Seneca

In Ford the reflective tendency is strongly marked,
but his manner is all his own. He had a marvellous gift
for expressing deep and yet simple thought, far removed
from Seneca's artificial and strained dialectic, which was
probably its far-back ancestor. Nothing could show the
contrast better than the comparison of Seneca's well-worn
maxim,

curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent,

with the magnificent passage in which Ford enlarges on
the same idea. The Broken Heart, V. 3 :—

0, my lords,

I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture,
When one news straight came huddling on another
Of death ! and death ! and death ! still I danced forward ;
But it struck home, and here, and in an instant.
Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries
Can vow a present end to all their sorrows,
Yet live to court new pleasures, and outlive them :
They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings ;
Let me die smiling.

Probably the points in which Ford drew nearest to

Seneca and in which he owes most to him (if indeed he

owes anything at all) are those previously remarked in

the case of his contemporaries. Ford, like Seneca, was

a fatalist. Thus Orgilus in The Broken Heart, I. 3 :—

Ingenious Fate has leapt into mine arms,
Beyond the compass of my brain. Mortality
Creeps on the dung of earth, and cannot reach
The riddles which are purposed by the gods,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 115

The same thought closes Act IV of Love's Sacrifice,
and occurs again and again in the domestic tragedy of
The Witch of Edmonton, the only part of that drama we
should ascribe to Ford. With this fatalism is allied the
idea of Stoical submission. Thus Lady Katherine in
Perkin Waited, III. 2 :-

What our destinies

Have ruled out in their books we must not search,
But kneel to.

So, too, Ithocles in The Broken Heart, IV. 1: —

Leave to the powers
Above us the effects of their decrees ;
My burthen lies within me : servile fears
Prevent no great effects.

To the influence of Seneca, direct or indirect, we
[should probably ascribe the calmness with which Ford's
characters meet death. Perkin Warbeck closes his life
with the words,

Death? pish ! 'tis but a sound; a name of air.

The innocent Susan in The Witch of Edmonton; the
guilty brother and sister in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore;
Ithocles, Orgilus, and Calantha in The Broken Heart;
Bianca, Fernando, and the Duke in Loves Sacrifice— &\\
are alike in their contempt for death ; they rather seek
it than fear it.

116 The Influence of Seneca

MBAUMOST BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, in The Knight of the Burning

FLETCHER. p^,? ma(je ftm of the. philosophical commonplaces,1 the
bombast, and the supernatural horrors which dramatists
like Marston borrowed from Seneca; but Beaumont and
Fletcher are themselves not free from occasional exag-
geration of expression f ghosts or spirits appear in several
of the plays in which Fletcher had a hand,3
and in one or two the tragic effect is of a some-
what gruesome character. Thus in The Triumph
of Death (probably by Fletcher alone), amid the whole-
sale slaughter which closes the play, Gabriella tears out
her husband's heart, and throws it at his uncle's feet ;
and in The Bloody Brother (by Fletcher and Massinger),
the heads of Gisbert and Hamond are brought on the
stage after their execution. Still, it must be acknow-
ledged that Fletcher and his chief co-adjutors, Beaumont
--and Massinger, owe little to Seneca. Their most impor-
tant debt was probably the Stoical fortitude with which
their characters are inspired in face of death. Fletcher
has sometimes been credited with weakness in this
respect ;4 but, so far as I can see, it is little less remark-
able in the plays which Fletcher wrote alone than in

1 Kalph's reflection, (V. 2), " To a resolved mind his home is
everywhere," is evidently a parody of Antonio and Mellida, 2nd Part,
II. 1, "A wise man's home is wheresoe'er he is wise" — a maxim which
Marston borrowed from Seneca.

2 See Philaster, III.l."Set hills on hills..." and IV. 4. "Place

me, some god, upon a pyramis ;" speeches of Arbaces in A King

and no King ; and Fletcher's A Wife for a Month, IV A.

3 In The Lover's Progress and The Prophetess, by Fletcher and
Massinger, and in T/ie Humorous Lieutenant and The Triumph of
Death, by Fletcher alone.

* See Mr. R. Boyle's note on

on Elizabethan tragedy. 117

those written in conjunction with others. In Fletcher's
Vakntinian, IV. 4, Aecius says : —

We must all die,

All leave ourselves ; it matters not where, when,
Nor how, so we die well.

So too Young Archas in I. 4 of The Loyal Subject,
another play written by Fletcher alone : —

'Tis but dying,
And, madam, we must do it ; the manner's all.

and his father in IV. 5 : —

I am the same, the same man, living, dying ;
The same mind to 'em both, I poize thus equal.

See also the deaths of Bonduca and her daughters
in Fletcher's tragedy, for, as in Seneca, the women are
no less brave than the men. We note this as well in the
work which Fletcher did in co-operation with Beaumont
as in the later tragedies in which he had the assistance
of Massinger. When Philaster (III. 1) says to the dis-
guised Euphrasia,

Oh, but thou dost not know
What 'tis to die.

she replies

Yes, I do know, my lord :
'Tis less than to be born ; a lasting sleep j
A quiet resting from all jealousy,
A thing we all pursue ; I know, besides,
It is but giving over of a game
That must be lost.

118 The Influence of Seneect

and Ordella in Fletcher and Massinger's Thierry and
Thcodoret says,

'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest :
Children begin it to us, strong men seek it,
And kings from height of all their painted glories
Fall like spent exhalations to this centre :
And those are fools that fear it.

Ill The Double Marriage, another play by Fletcher
and Massinger, Juliana is as heroic in her contempt for
death as her husband, and Martia as unflinching as her
valiant father.

Eeflective passages in the plays passing under the
names of Beaumont and Fletcher are not numerous, and
though in some cases the thought expressed may be
interpreted as a reminiscence of Seneca, there are few
instances in which the resemblance is not just as likely
to be merely accidental Thus, Philaster's exclamation
(III. 1. ad fin.)

Oh, where shall I

Go bathe this body ? Nature too unkind,
That made no medicine for a troubled mind !

may be compared with Hercules Furens 1330-6, "Quis

Tanais " and 1268-9, " Nemo polluto queat animo

inederi ;" but it seems useless to multiply parallels of this
kind. The only example I have found of direct imitation
is in the scene between Sophia and her two sons in The

Brother.

Bloody Brother (I. 1), which is largely borrowed from
Seneca, as the following extracts will show :—

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 119

SOPH. And join your hands while they are inaoreat !

You have heat of blood, and youth apt to ambition,
To plead an easy pardon for what's past ;
But all the ills beyond this hour committed,
From gods or men must hope for no excuse.

dexteras matri date.

date dum piae sunt. error inuitos adhuc
fecit nocentes, omne fortunae fuit
peccantis in uos crimen : hoc primum nefas
inter scientes geritur. (Tkcbai* 450-4.)

and again

Why dost thou tremble,
And with a fearful eye, fix'd on thy brother,
Observ'st his ready sword, as bent against thee ?
I am thy armour, and will be pierc'd through
Ten thousand times, before I will give way
To any peril may arrive at thee ;
And therefore fear not.

quo uultus refers

acieque pauida f ratris .obseruas manum?
adfusa totum corpus amplexu tegam
tuo cruori per meum net uia.
quid dubius haeres ? an times niatris fidem 1

(Thelais 473-7.)

SOPH, (returning the sword)

Take it again, and stand upon your guard,
And, while your brother is, continue arm'd.

redde iam capulo manum,
adstringe galeam, laeua se clipeo ingerat,

frater est armatus, armatus mane. (Thebais 480-2.)

120 The Influence of Seneca

You doubt him ; he fears you ; I doubt and fear

Both, for [the] others safety, not my own.

Know yet, my sons, when of necessity

You must deceive or be deceiv'd, ''tis better

To suffer treason than to act the traitor ;

And in a war like this, in which the glory

Is his that's overcome. Consider, then,

What 'tis for which you strive : is it the dukedom ?

Or the command of these so ready subjects 1

Desire of wealth ? or whatsoever else

Fires your ambition ? 'tis still desperate madness,

To kill the people which you would be lords of :

With fire and sword to lay that country waste

Whose rule you seek for ; to consume the treasures.

Which are the sinews of your government,

In cherishing the factions that destroy it :

Far, far be this from you ! make it not questioned

Whether you can have interest in that dukedom

Whose ruin both contend for.

ille to tu ilium times,

ego utrumque, sed pro utroque

id gerere bellum cupitis in quo esfc optimum
vinci. uereris f ratris iiifesti dolos ?
quotiens necesse est fallereaut falli a suis,
patiare potius ipse quam facias seel us.

quis tenet mentem furor ?
petendo patriam perdis 1 ut fiat tua,
uis esse nullam 1 quin tuae causae nocet
ipsum hoc quod armis uertis infestis solum
segetesque adustas sternis et totos fugam
edis per agros; nemo sic uastat sua.
quae corripi igne quae meti gladio iubes
aliena credis ? rex sit e uobis uter
manente regno quaerite. (Thebais 488-494, 557-565.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 121

It should be noted that Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Boyle, MASSINOJSR.
and Mr. Bullen agree in ascribing the above passage to
MASSINGER, who is more nearly allied to Seneca than
Beaumont and Fletcher, his genius being, as Dr. Ward
remarks, " essentially rhetorical/' He is not entirely
free from bombast,1 and in some of his plays he relies
or dramatic effect upon the physical horrors which
e have remarked as the chief characteristic of the
nglish school of Seneca. Nothing could be more
repulsive than the outrage done to the dead body of
Marcelia in The Diike of Milan ; and the theme of
Tlie Unnatural Combat is bloody and horrible enough.
The conclusion of the latter drama is brought about in a
manner worthy of the most devoted imitator of Seneca's
ghosts and crude horrors, the stage direction reading : —
" Eater the Ghost of young Malefort, naked from the
waist, full of wounds, leading in the Shadow of a Lady,
her face leprous/' Seneca is mentioned two or three
times in different plays,2 and I have noted one or two .
parallels in addition to the extract from The Bloody Brother
quoted above; but they are not very striking. The
following passages express ideas derived from Seneca,
but by Massinger's time long familiar to the English
drama. The Duke of Milan, I. 3 :-

The only blessing that
Heaven hath bestowed on us, more than on beasts,

1 e. g. Sforza in The Duke of Milan, V. 2 ; Slave in TJie Virgin
Martyr, IV. 1.

2 The Maid of Honour, IV. 3 ; The Roman Actor, III. 2,

122 The Influence of Seneca

Is, that 'tis in our pleasure when to die.
Besides, were I now in another's power,
There are so many ways to let out life,
I would not live, for one short minute, his ;
I was born only yours, and I will die so,

The Bashful Lover, IV. 1 :-

HORT. Virtue's but a word ;

Fortune rules all.
MAT. We are her tennis balls.

Massinger is not, however, a thorough-going fatalist
like Ford, Webster, and Tourneur. His general attitude
is more correctly represented by the concluding speech
of Lorenzo in the pipy just quoted :—

Fortune here hath shown
Her various power ; but virtue, in the end,
Is crown'd with laurel.

Another mark of the influence of Seneca is to be
found less clearly in Massinger than in some of his con-
temporaries— the steadfastness with which the characters
meet death. This is not so characteristic of Massinger
as of the Seneca school proper ; but instances of it are
not wanting. The converts in The Christian Martyr of
course meet death with Christian fortitude ; and the
calmness of Antiochus in Believe as you List is nothing
more than we should expect from his royal character and
Stoical training. It is more to the point to note that
Francisco, the villain in The Duke of Milan, meets death

on Elizabethan Tragedy.. 123

undaunted ; and see also the beautiful song with which
Eudocia in The Emperor oftJw East, V. 3 welcomes " the
long and quiet sleep of death."

SHIRLEY, the last of the giant race, marks the SHIRLEY.
emancipation of English tragedy from the authority of
Seneca, except so far as regards the character of his
themes. The subjects of his tragedies are still themes of
I lust and blood, and it would be hard to find a more
\ striking example of heaped-up horrors than the con-
'elusion of The Traitor. Still, as Mr. Dyce remarks, " in
only one of his plays, St. Patrick for Ireland, is super-
natural agency employed; and in not one of them does
a ghost make its appearance/' Again, Seneca's phil-
gophy had little or no effect upon Shirley. He was fiot^
a fatalist, and his characters are far from Stoical. His
most determined hero, Sciarrha, says, in Tfa Traitor,
IV. 2 :-

Although I never fear'd to suffer, I
Ara not so foolish to despise a life.

— a very different sentiment to the eagerness for death
represented by the followers of Seneca. The Cardinal,
again, ends his wicked life with the despairing cry :--

If you but waft me with a little prayer ;

My wings that flag might catch the wind ; but 'tis

In vain, the mist is risen, and there's none

To steer my wandering bark.

—a striking contrast to the fearlessness in face of death

The Influence of Seneca

shown by the desperate villains of Webster, whose style
Shirley is thought to have imitated in The Cardinal.

With Shirley our survey of the drama closes. We
might go further, and inquire into the influence Seneca
had, at first or second hand, upon Milton's conception of
tragedy ; we might attempt to estimate Dry den's indebted-
ness to Seneca, and examine the imitations or adaptations
of Seneca by Crowne, Thomson, and Glover. The
influence of Seneca was paramount in English tragedy till
far into the eighteenth century. It is little more than a
hundred years since Greek literature began to exert a
broad and steady influence on our poetry. Professor J.
W. Hales observes in an article on " The Last Decade
of the Last Century " in the current1 number of the
Contemporary Review that " the critics and authors of the
eighteenth century are for ever talking about the classics ;
but, if we observe their remarks, we shall find for
the most part that they mean ths Latin classics — that
they have little or no real acquaintance with the Greek.

If we take a glance at the classical tragedies

that were in esteem, we find they belong to the
school of Seneca rather than that of Sophocles." But
it does not seem worth while to prove this by detailed
examination. The importance of Seneca's influence on
the drama is at an end, and it only remains for us to sum
up its abiding results, which we find chiefly in the stage
traditions which have come down to our own day.

September, 1892,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 125

Seneca's five acts are still with us, and we have a \
curious survival from the classical drama in the ogeraiic.
chorus. Our conception of tragedy still leads us to
expect deeds of violence and blood, vividly presented in
highly wrought scenes, and weighted with well-expressed
thought. Mr. Symonds seems to me to undervalue the
reflective element which the authority of Seneca induced in
Elizabethan tragedy. He is inclined to lay it down as a
principle that " in proportion as a dramatist lends himself
to the compilation of ethical anthologies, in that very
measure he is an inferior master of his craft/' Seeing
that an industrious compiler has found no less than 2,700
"mottoes and aphorisms" in Shakspere, Mr. Symonds1
standard, if rigidly applied, would ssem to endanger the
fame of the greatest of the Elizabethans ; and such a
result is enough to call for a revision of the standard of
judgement. In his Guide to Greek Tragedy, Dr. Campbell
has some admirable remarks showing that the element
of ethical reflection " euteis almost necessarily into
all tragedy ;" he says further that all great tragedy is at
once individual and universal. /Seneca often loses sight
of the individual in the universal/; but the tendency of
the popular drama in England "would have been in the
opposite direction, and in correcting this tendency Seneca
seein&to me to have done good service to the Elizabethan
drama, giving it permanent value,, foj the study as well
, a$ for the stage. That Seneca misled English dramatists
vant^ violence and exaggeration cannot be denied ; but
these are faults which have their favourable side. If
Elizabethan tragedy is sometimes too sensational,

126 The Influence of Seneca

t

it is Very seldom dull; and if its diction is sometimes
extravagant, it is rarely inadequate to the needs of
Uie situation, however tremendous the tragic crisis
may be. What English tragedy would have been
without the example of Seneca, it is hard to imagine ;
its developement from the miracle plays and moralities
must have been exceedingly slow ; and if the impulse
had come from other European nations, it would only
have been the influence of Seneca at second hand, in the
case of France with exaggerated artificiality, in the case
of Italy with exaggerated horrors. Even the direct
imitation of Greek tragedy, in all the perfection of
Sophocles, might not have been an unmixed blessing ;
but, after all, literary criticism is concerned, not with
what might have been, but with what was ; and that the
^influence of Seneca was paramount in the origin and
develop/ment of Elizabethan tragedy has been proved by
the testimony of contemporary critics, and by the still
more convincing evidence of the tragedies themselves*

o?i Elizabethan Tragedy. 127

APPENDIX I.

Latin Quotations from Seneca
in Elizabethan Tragedies.

SIS THOMAS MORE.

Ubi turpis est medicina, sanari piget. (Oedynia 530.)

Humida vallis raros patitur fulminis ictus. (Hippolytus 1141-2.)

Curae leues loquuntur, ingentes stupent. (Hippolytus 615.)

The last quotation also occurs in The Return from
Parnassus, and in TOURNEUB'S Revenger's Tragedy, majores
being inserted in the latter cass instead of the correct
reading ingentes,

THE TRUE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III.

Quisquam regna gaudit, 6 fallex bonum.

[quisquamne regno gaudet ? o f allax bonum. (Oedipus 6.)]

KYD'S SPANISH TRAGEDY.
Per scelus semper tutum est sceleribus iter.
[per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter. (Agamemnon 116.)]

Fata si iniseros juvant, habes salutem ;

Fata si vitam negant, habes sepulchrum. (Troas 518-520.)

128 The Influence of Seneca

MARLOWE'S EDWARD II.

Quern dies vidit veniens superbum,

Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem. (Thyestes 613-4.)

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

Sit fas aut nefas. . .

Per Styga, per manes vehor.

[et te per undas perque tartareos lacus

per Styga per amnes igneos amens sequar. (Hippolytus 1188-9.)]

Magni Pominator poli,

Tarn lentus audis scelera ? tarn lentus vides ?

[magne regnator deum,
tarn lentus audis scelera? tain lentus uidos 1 (Hippolytus 679-80.)]

MARSTON'S ANTONIO AND MELLIDA.

Dimitto superos, summa votorum attigi. (Thyestes 891.)
Capienda rebus in malis praecepi via est. (Agamemnon 155.)
Scelera non ulcisceris, nisi vin3is. (Thyestes 195-6.)

0 quisquis nova

Supplicia functis dirus umbrarum arbiter
Disponis, quisquis exeso jaces
Pavidus sub antro, quisquis venturi times
Montis ruinam, quisquis avidorum feros
Rictus leonum, et dira furiarum agmina
Implicitus horres, Antonii vocem excipe
Properantis ad vos.

[Thyestes 13-15 and 75-81 run together, with Antonii put
instead of Tantali.]

<m Elizabethan Tragedy* 129

Venit in nostras manus
Taudem vindicta, venit et tota quidem. (Thyestes 494-5.)

[Vindicta.... tota — Thyestes.... totus in Seneca.]

Venit dies, tempusque, quo reddat suis
Animam squalentem sceleribus. (Octavia 641-2.)

[Venit = veniet, squalentem •= nocentem.]

THE MALCONTENT.

Unde cadis, non quo, refert.

[magis unde cadas quam quo refert. (Thyestes 929.)]

Praemium incertum petit certuin scelus. (Thebais 632-3.)

Per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter. (Agamemnon 11C.)

THE FA WN.

Qui jiimis notus omnibus

Ignotus moritur sibi. (Thyestes 402-3.)

Fatis agimur, cedite fatis. (Oedipus 1001.)

180 The Influence of Seneca

APPENDIX II.

Imitations of Seneca

IN

THE MISFORTUNES OF ARTHUR.

The pages refer to Vol. IV of Hazlitt's Dodsley.
There are 37 lines in a full page, which will give the
reader some idea of the proportion of borrowed lines.
In some cases half or more than half the page is
borrowed.1 Besides the passages given, there are many
which seem to have been suggested by Seneca ; but I
have only thought those worthy of record in which the
imitation is obvious.

Page 264. Let mischiefs know no mean, nor plagues an end !
Let th' offspring's sin exceed the former stock !
Let none have time to hate his former fault,
But still with fresh supply let punish'd crime
Increase, till time it make a complete sin.

nee sit irarum modus
pudorue : mentes caecus instiget furor,
rabies parentum duret et longum nefas
eat in nepotes. nee uacet cuiquam uetus
odisse crimen : semper oriatur nouum
nee unum in uno, dumque punitur scelus,
crescat. (Thyestes 26-32.)

1 On page 266 there are not half a dozen original lines,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 131

Page 264 Go to : some fact, which no age shall allow

(continued). ^ conceal_

age anime fac quod nulla posteritas probet,

sed nulla taceat. (Thyestes 192-3.)

Page 265. Attempt sonic bloody, dreadful, irksome fact,
And such as Mordred would were rather his.

aliquod audendum cst nefas
atrox cruentuin tale quod f rater meus
suum esse rnalit. (Thyestts 193-5.)

Page 2G6. Frame out some trap beyond all vulgar guile,
Beyond Medea's wiles : attempt some fact,
That any wight unwieldy of herself,
That any spouse unfaithful to her pheer,
Durst e'er attempt in most despair of weal.
Spare no revenge, b' it poison, knife, or fire !

tecum ipsa nunc euolue femineos dolos,

quod ulla coniunx perfida atque impos sui

amore caeco, quod nouercales manus

ausae, quod ardens impia uirgo face

phasiaca f ugiens regna thessalica trabe :

ferrum uenena. (Agamemnon 117-122.)

„ The wrath that breatheth blood doth loathe to lurk.

cum spirat ira sanguinem nescit tegi. (Thyestea 504.)

„ I am disdain?d : so will I not be long.

That very hour that he shall first arrive,
Shall be the last that shall afford him life*

iam displicemus, capta praelata est mihi.
non praeferetur : qui dies thalami ultimus
nostri est fu turns, hie erit uitae tuae.

(Hercules Oetaeus 307-9.)

132 The Influence of Seneca

Page 266 Though neither seas, nor lands, nor wars abroad

(continued). Sufficed for thy £0i], yet shalt thoU find

Far worse at home— thy deep-displeased spouse.
Whate'er thou hast subdued in all thy stay
This hand shall now subdue.

gesseris caclum licet
totusque pacem debeat mundus tibi :
est attquid hydra peius iratae dolor
nuptae. quis ignis tantus in caelum furit
ardentis Aetnae 1 quicquid est uictum tibi
hie uincet animus. (Hercules Oetaeus 285-290.)

„ What's this ? my mind recoils and irks these threats :

Anger delays, my grief gins to assuage,
My fury faints, and sacred wedlock's faith
Presents itself. Why shunn'st thou fearful wrath?
Add coals afresh : preserve me to this venge.

quid hoc 1 recedit animus et ponit minas,
iam cessit ira. quid miser langues dolor 1
perdis furorem, coniugis sanctae fidem
mihi reddis iterum. quid uetas flammas ali 1
quid f rangis ignes 1 hunc mih.i serua impetum.

(Hercules Oetaeus 310-314.)

„ At least exile thyself to realms unknown,

And steal his wealth to help thy banish'd state ;
For flight is best. 0 base and heartless fear !
Theft ? Exile ? Flight ? all these may fortune send
Unsought ; but thee beseems more high revenge.

uel mycenaea domo
coniuncta socio profuge furtiua rate,
quid timida loqueris f urta et exilium et f ugas 1
sors ista fecit, te decet maius nefas.

(Agowwmnon 122-5.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 133

Page 266 Come, spiteful fiends, come, heaps of furies fell,

(continued).

Page 267. Eaves not enough : it likes me to be fill'd
With greater monsters yet.

dira furiarum cohors

discorsque Erinnys ueniat et geminas faces
Megaera quatiens. non satis magno meum
ardet furore pectus, impleri iuuat
maiore monstro. (Thyestes 25Q-254.)

„ My heart doth throb,

My liver boils : somewhat my mind portends,
Uncertain what ; but whatsoever, it's huge.

nescio quid animus maius et solito amplius

supraque fines moris humani tumet

instatque pigris manibus. haud quid sit scio,

sed grande quiddam est. (Thyestes 267-270.)

„ Omit no plague, and none will be enough.

nullum relinquam f acinus et null urn est satis.

(Thyestes 256.)

„ Wrong cannot be reveng'd but by excess.

scelera non ulcisceris
nisi uincis. (Thyestes 195-6.)

„ .FRON. Is there no mean in wrong 1

GUEN. Wrong claims a mean, when first you offer wrong
The mean is vain when wrong is in revenge.

THY. sceleris est aliquis modus.

ATR. sceleri modus debetur, -ubi facias scelus,

non ubi reponas, (Thyestes 1055-7*)

134 The Influence of Seneca

Page 267 Great harms cannot be hid : the grief is small,
(continued). Thftt can receive advice, or rule itself.

leuis est dolor qui capere consiliuin potest

et clepere sese, rnagna non latitant mala. (Medea 155-6.)

„ Hatred conceal'd doth often lap to hurt,

But once profess'd, it oft'ner fails revenge.

ir'a quae tegitur nocet,
professa perduiit odia uindictae locum. (Medea 153-4.)

„ Unlawful love doth like, when lawful loathes.

inlicita amantur, excidit quicquid licet.

(Hercules Oetaeus 360.)

Page 268. FROX. How can you then attempt a fresh offence ?
GUEN. Who can appoint a stint to her offence ?

NVT. piget prioris et nouum crimeii struis 1
CLY. res est profecto stulta nequitiae modus.

(Agamemnon 150-151.)

,, Whom Gods do press, they bend ; whom man annoys,

He breaks.

caelestis ira quos premit, miseros facit,

humana nullos. (Hercules Oetaeus 444-5.)

„ Your grief is more than his deserts.

Each fault requires an equal hate : be not severe.
Where crimes be light. As you have felt, so grieve*

maior admisso tuus

alumna dolor est : culpa par odium exigat*
cur saeua modice statuis 1 ut passa es dole.

(Hercules Oetaeus 447-9.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 135

Page 269. Well, shame is not so quite exil'd, but that
I can and will respect your sage advice.

non omnis animo cescit ingenuo pudor :

paremus altrix. (Hippolytus 255-6.)

The love, that for his rage will not be rul'd,
Must be restrained : fame shall receive no foil.

qui regi non uult amor
uincatur. haud te fama maculari sinam.

(Hippolytus 256-7.)

„ Her breast, not yet appeas'd from former rage,

Hath chang'd her wrath which, wanting means to work
Another's woe (for such is fury's wont),
Seeks out his own, and raves upon itself.

nOndum tumultu pectus attonitum caret

mutauit iras quodque habet proprium furor,

in se ipse saeuit. (Hercules Furens 1226-8.)

,, Thereby the rather you deserve to live

For seeming worthy in yourself to die.

dignam ob hoc uita reor
quod esse temet autumas dignam nece. (Hippolytus 261-2.)

„ Death is decreed, what kind of death, I doubt :

Page 270. Whether to drown or stifle up this breath,
Or forcing blood to die with dint of knife.

decreta mors est : quaeritur fati genus*
laqueone uitam finiam an f erro incubem 1

2634.)

136 The Influence of Seneca

Page 270 All hope of prosperous hap is gone.- My fame,
(continued). My-£aith) my Spouse— no good is left unlost !

cuncta iam amisi bona :
mcntem arma famam coniugem. (Hercules Farens 1266-7.)

9, Myself am left : there's left both seas and lands,

And sword, and fire and chains, and choice of harms.

Medea superest, hie mare et terras uides

ferrumque et ignes et deos et fulmina. (Medea 166-7.)

Who now can heal
My maimed mind ? It must be heal'd by death.

nemo polluto queat
animo mederi. morte sanandum est scelus.

(Hercules Furens 1268-9.)

Alone you may not die, with me you may.

perire sine me non potes, mecum potes. (Thebais 66.)

They that will drive th' unwilling to their death,
Or frustrate death in those that fain would die,
Offend alike.

qui cogit rnori
nolentem in aequo est quique properantem inpedit.

(Thebais 98-99.)

ANG. But will my tears and mournings move you nought?
GUEN. Then is it best to die when friends do mourn.

THES. lacrimae nonne te nostrae mouent ?

PHAE. mors optima est perire lacrimant dum sui.

(Hippolytus 888-9,}

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 137

Page 270 Each-where is death ! the fates have well ordain'd,
m That each man may bereave himself of life,
But none of death : death is so sure a doom,
A thousand ways do guide us to our graves.

ubique mors est. optume hoc cauit deus.

eripere uitam nemo non homini potest,

at nemo mortem : mille ad hanc aditus patent.

(Thebais 151-3.)

„ Who then can ever come too late to that,

Whence, when he is come, he never can return?

Or what avails to hasten on our ends,

And long for that which destinies have sworn !

nemo ad id sero uenit unde numquam,
cum semel uenit, potuit reuerti.
quid iuuat dirum properare fa turn ?

(Hercules Furens 869-871.)

Page 271. Death is an end of pain, no pain itself.

de fine poenae loquoris, ego poenam uolo. (Thytstes 246.)

„ Is 't meet a plague for such excessive wrcng

Should be* so short ? Should one stroke answer all ?
[Soliloquizes] And would'st thou die ? well, that contents

the laws :

What, then, for Arthur's ire? What for thy fame,
Which thou hast stain'd? What for thy stock thou

sham'st ?

Not death nor life can alone give a full
Revenge : join both in one — die and yet live.
Where pain may not be oft, let it be long.
Seek out some lingering death, whereby thy corpse
May neither touch the dead nor joy the quick.
Pie, bijt no common death : pass nature's bounds,

188 The Influence of Seneca

itane ? tarn magnis breues
poenas sceleribus soluis atque uno omnia
pensabis ictu ? moreris : hoc patri sat est.
quid deinde matri, quid male in lucem editis
gnatis, quid ipsi quae tuum magna luit
seel us ruina flebilis patri ae dabis 1
soluenda non est ilia quae leges ratas
natura in uno uertit Oedipode nouos
commenta part us, supplicis cadem meis
nouetur. iterum uiuere atque iterum inori
lieeat renasci semper, ut totiens rioua
supplicia peiidas. utere ingenio miser.
quod saepe fieri non potest fiat diu.
mors eligatur longa. quaeratur uia
qua nee sepultis mixtus et uiuis tamen
exemptus erres. inorere sed citra patrem.

(Oedipus 957-972.)

Page 271 The mind and not the chance doth make th' unchaste.
(continued).

mens inpudicam facere non casus solet. (Ilippolyius 743.)

Then is your fault from fate ; you rest excus'd,
None can be deemed faulty for her fate.

fati ista culpa est. nemo fit fato nocens. (Oedipus 1041.)

Impute mishaps to fates, to manners faults.

nam monstra fato, moribus scelera inputes.

(Hippolytus 149.)

A mighty error oft hath seem'd a sin.

saepe error ingens sceleris optinuit locum.

(Hercules Furens 1245.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 139

Page 272. The hour, which erst I always feared most
The certain ruin of my desperate state,
Is happened now ! why turn'st thou (mind) thy back ?
Why at the first assault dost thou recoil 1
Trust to 't, the angry heavens contrive some spite,
And dreadful doom t' augment thy cursed hap.
Oppose to each revenge thy guilty head.

quod tempus animo semper ac mente horrui,
adest profecto rebus extremum ineis.
quid terga uertis anime ? quid primo impetu
deponis arma ? crede perniciem tibi
et dira saeuos fata moliri deos.
oppone cunctis uile suppliciis caput. (Agamemnon 227-232.)

Page 273. What shouldst thou fear, that see'st not what to hope ?
qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil. (Medea 163.)

cui ultima est f ortuna, quid dubium tlmet ?

(Agamemnon 147.)

H He safely stands, that stands beyond his harms.

cuius haud ultra mala
exire possunt in loco tuto est situs, (Thebais 198-9.)

„ Thine (death) is all that east and west can see !

For thee we live, our coming is not long i
Spare us but whiles we may prepare our graves,
Though thou wert slow, we hasten of ourselves,
The hour that gave did also take our lives.

tibi crescit ornne,

et quod occasus uidet et quod ortus.
parce uenturis. tibi mors paramun
sis licet aegiiis, properamus ipsi,
prima quae uitam dedit hora> carpit

(Hercules t\lrens 874-6.)

140 The Influence of Seneca

Page 273 My fear is past, and wedlock love hath won.

(continued). Retire we thither yet, whence first we ought

Not to have stirr'd. Call back chaste faith again.
The way that leads to good is ne'er too late :
Who so repents is guiltless of his crimes.

amor iugalis uincit ac flectit retro,
remeemus illuc, unde non decuit prius
abire. sed nunc c&sta repetatur fides,
nam sera numquam est ad bonos mores uia.
quern paemtet pecasse, poenae est innocens..

(Agamemnon 240-244.)

Page 274, Nor love nor sovereignly can bear a peer.

nee regna socium ferre nee taedae sciunt.

(Agamemnon 260.)

Why dost thou still stir up my flames delay'd 1
His strays and errors must not move my mind :
A law for private men binds not the king.
What, that I ought not to condemn my liege,
Nor can, thus guilty to mine own offence !
Where both have done amiss, both will relent :
He will forgive that needs must be forgiven.

Aegisthe quid me rursus in praeceps rapis
iramque flammis iam residentem excitas ?
permisit aliquid uictor in captam sibi :
nee coniugem hoc respicere nee dominam decet.
lex alia solio est alia priuato toro.
quid quod seueras ferre me leges uiro
non patitur animus turpis admissi memor.
det ille ueniam facile cui uenia est opus,

(Agamemnon 261-8.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 141

Page 274 A judge severe to us, mild to himself.

(continued).

nobis maligni iudices aequi sibi. (Agamemnon 271.)

His is the crime, whom crime stands most in stead.

cui prodest scelus,
is fecit. (Medea 503-4.)

Well should she seem most guiltless unto thee,
Whate'er she be, that's guilty for thy sake.

ttibi innocens sit quisquis est pro te nocens. (Medea 506.)

Page 275. His ways be blind that maketh chance his guide.

caeca est temeritas quae petit casum ducem.

(Agamemnon 146.)

The safest passage is from bad to worse.

per scelera semper sceleribus tutum est iter.

(Agamemnon 116.)

He is a fool that puts a mean in crimes.

res est profecto stulta nequitiae modus. (Agamemnon\5\.)

So sword and fire will often sear the sore.

et ferrum et ignis saepe medicinae loco est.

(Agamemnon 163.)

Extremest cures must not be used first.

extrema primo nemo temptauit loco. (Agamemnon 154.)

14'2 jChe Influence of Seneeq

Page 275 In desperate times the headlong way is best.

(continued).

capienda rebus in malis praeceps uia est.

(Agamemnon 155.)

Page 276. Mischief is sometimes safe, but ne'er secure,

scelus aliqua tutum, nulla securum tulit. (Hippolytus 169.)

Cox. The wrongful sceptre's held with trembling hand,
Moil. Whose rule wants right, his safety's in his sword.

rapta sed trepida manu
sceptra optinentur. omnis in ferro est salus,

(Hercules Furens 34&-6.)

„ CON. The kingliest point is to aftect but right.

MOR, Weak is the sceptre's hold that seeks but right,

SAT. rex uelit honesta : nemo non eadem uolet.
ATR, ubicumque tantuai honesta dominant! licent,

precario regnatur. (Tkyestes 213-5.)

Page 277. MOR. She is both light and vain.

CON. She noteth though.

MOR. She feareth states.

CON. Sho carpeth, ne'ertheless.

MOR. She's soon suppress'd.

SEN. leuis atque uana.

NERO, sit licet, multos notat.

SEN. excelsa metuit.

NERO. non minus carpit tamen.

SEN. facile opprimetm% (Qctavia 596-8.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy* 143

Page 282. CON. Nought should be rashly vow'd against your sire.

MOR. Whose breast is free f rpin rage may soon b' advised.

CON. The best redress from rage is to relent.

MOR. "Tis better for a king to kill his foes.

SEN. in nihil propinquos temere constitui decet.
NERO, iustum esse facile est cui uacat pectus metu.
SEN. magnum timoris remedium dementia est.
NERO, extinguere hostem maxima est uirtus ducis.

(Octavia 452-5.)

Page 283. CON. The subjects' force is great.

MOP Greater the king's.

NVTR. uis magna populi est.

OCT. principis maior tamen.

(Octavia 190.)

The more you may, the more you ought to fear.

hoc plus uerere quod licet tantum tibi. (Octavia 462.)

MOR. He is a fool that feareth what he may.

CON. Not what you may, but what you ought is just.

NERO, inertis est nescire quid liceat sibi.

SEX. id facere laus est quod decet, non quod licet.

(Octavia 465-6.)

MOR. The laws do licence as the sovereign lists.
CON. Least ought he list, whom laws do licence most.

PYR; quodeumque libuit facere uictori, licet.
. minimum decet libere cui multum licet.

(Troas 344-5.)

144 The Influence of Seneca

Page 283 MOR. The fates have heav'd and rais'd my force on high,
(continued). CQN The gentier should you press those that are low.

quoque te celsum altius
superi leuarunt, mitius lapsos preme. (Trow 704-5.)

Page 284. MOR. My will must go for right.

CON. If they assent.

MOR. My sword shall force assent.

No, gods forbid !

NERO, statuam ipse.

SEN. quae consensus effieiat rata.

NERO, despectus ensis faciet.

hoc absit nefas. (Octavia 472-3.)

„ Whom fates constrain, let him forego his bliss ;

But he that needless yields unto his bane,
When he may shun, doth well deserve to lose
The good he cannot use.

quern fata cogunt hie quidem uiuat miser,

at si quis ultro se malis offert uolens

seque ipse torquet, perdere est dignus bona

quis nescit uti. (Hippolytus 448-451.)

Page 285. Nor to destroy the realm you seek to rule.
Your father rear'd it up, you pluck it down.
You lose your country, whiles you win it thus :
To make it yours, you strive to make it none.

ne precor ferro erue

patriam ac penates neue, quas regere expetis
euerte Thebas. quis tenet mentem furor ?
petendo patriam perdis ? ut fiat tua,
uis esse nullam ? (Thebais 555-9.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 145

Page 285 Must I to gain renown incur my plague,
(continued). Or hoping praise sustain an exile's life ? l

ut profugus errem semper ? ut patria arcear

opemque gentis hospes externae sequar ? (Thebais 586-7.)

No. 'Tis my hap that Britain serves my turn ;
That fear of me doth make the subjects crouch ;
That what they grudge they do constrained yield.

munus deorum est ipsa quod seruit mihi

Roma ct senatus quodque ab inuitis preces

humilesque uoces exprimit nosiri metus. (Octavia 504-6.)

Then is a kingdom at a wished stay,

When whatsoever the sovereign wills or nills,

Men be compelled as well to praise as bear.

maximum hoc regni bonum est,
quod facta domini cogitur populus sui
quam ferre tarn laudare. (Thytstes 205-7.)

These lines have the following pasted over them : —

The first art in a kingdom is to scorn
The envy of the realm.

ars prima regni est posse te inuidiam pati.

(Hercules Furens 357.)

He cannot rule

That fears to be envi'd. What can divorce
Envy from sovereignty ?

regnare non uult esse qui inuisus timet.

simul ista mundi cohditcr posuit deus

pdium atque regnum. (Thebais 651-6.)

146 The Influence of Seneca

Page 285. CON. But whoso seeks true praise and just renown,
Page 286. Would rather seek their praising hearts than tongues.

MOB. True praise may happen to the basest groom ;

A forced praise to none but to a prince.

I wish that most, that subjects most repine.

SAT. at qui fauoris gloriam ueri petit,

animo magis quam uoce laudari uolet.

ATR. laus uera et humili saepe contingit uiro,

non nisi potenti falsa, quod nolunt, uelint.

(Thycstes 209-212.)

„ And better were an exile's life, than thus

Disloyally to wrong your sire and liege.

melius exilium est tibi
quam reditus iste. (Thebais 617-8.)

,, But cease at length ; your speech molests me much.

My mind is fix'd : give Mordred leave to do
What Conan neither can allow nor like.

desiste tandem iain grauis nimiuin mihi
instare. liceat f acere quod Seneca improbat.

(Octavia 600-601.)

Page 288. No danger can be thought both safe and oft.

nemo se tuto diu
periculis offerre tarn crebris potest.

(Hercules Furens 330-331.)

,, Whom chance hath often miss'd, chance hits at length.

quern saepe transit casus aliquando inuenit.

(Hercules Furens 332.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 147

Page 289. If conquerors ought

To seek for peace, the conquered must perforce.

pacem reduci uelle uictori expedit,

uicto necesse est. (Hercules Furens 372-3.)

„ What cursed wars (alas) were those, wherein

Both son and sire should so oppose themselves !
Him whom you now, unhappy man, pursue,
If you should win, yourself would first bewail.

quale tu id bellum putas,
in quo execra-ndum uictor admittit nefas
si gaudef? hunc quern uincere infelix cupis
cum uiceris, lugebis. (Thebais 638-641.)

Page 290. Trust me, a huge and mighty kingdom 'tis

To bear the want of kingdom, realm, and crown,

immane regnum est posse sine regno pati. (Thyesles 470.)

„ Wherefore think on the doubtful state of wars.

Where war hath sway, he keeps no certain course :
Sometimes he lets the weaker to prevail,
Sometimes the stronger troops : hope, fear, and rage
With eyeless lot rules all uncertain good,
Most certain harms be his assured haps.

fortuna belli semper ancipiti in loco est,
. quodcumque Mars decernit : exaequat duos
licet inpares sint gladius et spes et metus
sors caeca uersat. praemiuni incertum petit,
certum scelus. (Thebais 629-633.)

„ GAW. And fear you not so strange and uncouth wars ?

MOR. No, were they wars that grew from out the ground !

NVTR. non metuis arma ?

MED. sint licet terra edita. (Medea 169.)

148 The Influence of Seneca

Page 290 He falleth well, that falling fells his foe.

(continued).

felix iacet, quicumque, quos odit, prerait.

(Hercules Oetaew 353.)

Page "291. Small manhood were to turn my back to chance.

baud est uirile terga fortunae dare. (Oedipus 86.)

., I bear no breast so unprepar'd for harms.

non inparatum pectus aerumnis gero. (Hippolytus 1003.)

„ Even that I hold the kingliest point .of all,

To brook afflictions well : and by how much
The more his state and tottering empire sags,
To fix so much the faster foot on ground.

regium hoc ipsum reor
aduersa capere quoque sit dubius niagis
status et cadentis imperi moles labat
hoc stare certo pressius fortem gradu. (Oedipus 82-85.)

„ No fear but doth forejudge, and many fall

Into their fate, whiles they do fear their fate,

multis ipsum timuisse nocet.

multi ad fatum uenere suum,

dum fata timent. (Oedipus 1014-16.)

,, Yea, worse than war itself is fear of war.

peior est bello timor ipse belli. (Thyestes 572.)

,, All things are ruPd in constant course : no fate

But is foreset : the first day leads the last.

oinnia certo tramite uadunt

priinusque dies dedit extremum. (Oedipus 1008-9*)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 149

Page 292. He either must destroy, or be destroy'd :

The mischiefs in the midst ; catch he that can.

aut perdet, aut peribit, in medio est scelus

positum occupanti. (Thyestes 203-4.)

„ Like as the craggy rock

Resists the streams and flings the waltering waves
Aloof, so he rejects and scorns my words.

ut dura cautes undique intractabilis
resistit undis et lacessentes aquas
longe remittit, uerba sic spernit mea.

(Hippolytu* 588-590.)

Page 295. A troubled head : my mind revolts to fear,
And bears my body back.

nunc contra in metus
reuoluor, animus haeret ac retro cupit
corpus refer re. (Thyestes 418420.)

Page 298. 0 false and guileful life. 0 crafty world !
Page 299. How cunningly convey'st thou fraud unseen !

TJi; ambitious seemeth meek, the wanton chaste :

Disguised vice for virtue vaunts itself.

o uita fallax. obditos sensus geris

animisque pulcram turbidis faciem induis.

pudor inpudentem celat audacem quies,

pietas nefandum. {Hippolytus 926-9.)

„ No place is left for prosperous plight : mishaps

Have room and ways to run and walk at will.

prosperis rebus locus
ereptus omnis, dira qua ueniant habent. (Troas 432-3.)

150 The Influence of Seneca

Page 302. Death only frees the guiltless from annoys.

mors innocentem sola fortunae eripit. (Oedipus 955.)

„ Who so hath felt the force of greedy fates,

And 'dur'd the last decree of grisly death,
Shall never yield his captive arms to chains,
Nor drawn in triumph deck the victor's pomp.

quisquis sub pedibus fata rapacia
et puppein posuit lirninis ultimi,
non captiua dabit bracchia uinculis
nee poinpae ueniet nobile ferculum.

(Hercules Oetaeus 107-110.)

,, My youth (I gwnt) and prime of budding years,

Puff'd up with pride and fond desire of praise,
Foreweening nought what perils might ensue,
'Adventured all and raught to will the reins :
But now this age requires a sager course,
And will, advLs'd by harms, to wisdom yields.
Those swelling spirits, the self-same cause which first
Set them on gog, even fortune's favours quail'd.

fateor aliquando inpotens
regno ac superbus altius memet tuli,
sed fregit illos spiritus haec quae dare
potuisset alii causa fortunae fauor. (Troas 275-8.)

Page 303. Tis safest then to da.re, when most you fear.

tutissimum est inferre cum timeas gradum.

(Hi/ppolytus 730.

„ CADOR. Then may you rule.

ARTHUR. When I may die.
CADOR. To rule is much.
ARTHUR. Small, if we covet nought.

OB Elizabethan Tragedy. 151

TANT. pater, potes regnare.

THY. cum possim mori,

TANT. summa est potestas.

THY. nulla si cupias nihil.' ,

(Thyestes 442-3.)

Page 304. Trust me, bad things have often glorious names.

mihi crede, falsis magna nominibus placent.

(Thyestes 446.)

Page 305. Rome puffs us up, and makes us too — too fierce.

There, Britons, there we stand, whence Rome did fall.

Troia iios tumidos facit
nimium ac feroces ? stamus hoc Danai loco
unde ilia cecidit. (Troas 273-5.)

„ Thou, Lucius, mak'st me proud, thou heav'st my mind :

But what? Shall I esteem a crown ought else
Than as a gorgeous crest of easeless helm,
Or as some brittle mould of glorious pomp,
Or glittering glass which, while it shines, it breaks 1
All this a sudden chance may dash, and not
Perhaps with thirteen kings, or in nine years :
All may not find so slow and lingering fates.

tu me superbuni Priame tu tumidum facis,
ego esse quicquain sceptra nisi uano putem
f ulgore tectum nomcn et falso comam
uinclo decentem 1 casus haec rapiet breuis
nee mille forsan ratibus aut annis decem.
non omnibus fortuna tarn lenta inminet.

(Troas 279-284.)

Page 311. A hopeless fear forbids a happy fate.

miserrimum est timers cum speres nihil. (Troas 434.)

152

The Influence of Seneca

Page 311 All truth, all trust, all blood, all bands be broke !

(continued),

fratris et fas et fides

iusque omne pereat.

(Tkyestes 47-48.)

Page 312. For were it light, that ev'n by birth myself
Was bad, I made my sister bad : nay, were
That also light, I have begot as bad.

hoc leue est quod sum nocens,
feci nocentes. hoc quoque etiamnunc leuo est,
peperi nocentes. (Thdbais 367-9.)

Page 313. Care upon care, and every day a new

Fresh rising tempest tires the tossed minds.

alia ex aliis cura fatigat
uexatque animos noua tcinpestas.

Agamemnon 62-6-/.)

Who strives to stand in pomp of princely port.
On giddy top and culm of slippery court,
Finds oft a heavy fate ; whiles too much known
To all he falls unknown unto himself.

stet quicumque uolet potens
aulae culmine lubrico :

illi mors grauis incubat,
qui notus minis omnibus,
ignotus moritur sibi.

(Thyestes 391-2, 401-3.)

„ My slender bark shall creep anenst the shore,

And shun the winds that sweep the waltering waves.
Proud fortune overslips the safest roads,
Page 314. And seeks amidst the surging seas those keels,

Whose lofty tops and tacklings touch the clouds,

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 153

stringat tenuis litora puppis
nee raagna meos aura phaselos
iubeat medium scindere pontum.
transit tutos fortuna sinus
medioque rates quaerit in alto
quarum feriunt suppara nubes.

(Hercules Oetaeus 698-703.)

Page 314 With endless cark in glorious courts and towns,
The troubled hopes and trembling fears do dwell.

turbine niagno spes sollicitae

urbibus errant trepidique metus. (Hercules Fur ens 163-4.)

Page 315. Who forbiddeth not offence,

If well he may, is cause of such offence.

qui non uetat peccare, cum possit, iubet. (Troas 300.)

Page 317. Declare ! we joy to handle all our harms.

prosequere : gaudet aerumnas meus dolor

tractare totas. (Troas 1076-7.)

„ Small griefs can speak, the great astoiiish'd stand.

curae leues loquuntur ingentes stupent. (Eippolytus 615.)

,, GIL. What greater sin could hap, than what be pass'd 1

What mischiefs could be meant, more than were

wrought 1
NUN. And think you there's to be an end to sins ?

No j crime proceeds : those made but. one degree.

CHOR. an ultra mains aut atrocius

natura recipit 1

NVNT. sc^leris hunc finem putas ?

gradus est. (Thyestes 745 7.)

154 The Influence of Seneca

Page 325. He was the joy and hope, and hap, of all,

The realm's defence, the sole delay of fates ;
He was our wall and fort : twice thirteen years
His shoulders did the Briton state support.

columen patriae mora fatorum

tu praesidium Phrygibus fessis

tu murus eras umerisque tuis

stetit ilia decem fulta per annos. (Troas 128-131.)

Page 332. Where each man else hath felt his several fate,
I only pine, oppressed with all their fates !

sua quemque tantuin, me omnium clades premit.

(Troas 1071.)

Page 333. The hot-spurr'd youth, that forc'd the forward steeds,
Whiles needs he would his father's chariot guide,
Neglecting what his sire had said in charge :
The fires which first he flung about the poles,
Himself at last, most wof ul wretch, inflam'd.

ausus aeternos agitare currus

immeinor metae iuuenis paternae

quos polo sparsit f uriosus ignes

ipse recepit. (Medea 602-605.)

Page 334. We could not join our minds — our fates we join'd.

non licuit animos iungere, at certe licet

iunxibse fata. (Hippolytus 1192-3 )

„ They lov'd to live that, seeing all their realm

Thus topsy-turvy turn, would grudge to die*

uitae est auidus quisquis non uult

mundo secuni pereunte mori. (Thyestee 886-7.)

on Elizabethan Tragedy. 155

Page 339. Whoe'er received such favour from above,
That could assure one day unto himself ?

nemo tarn diuos habuit fauentes,

crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri. (Thyestes 619-620.)

„ Him whom the morning found both stout and strong,

The evening left all grovelling on the ground.

quern dies uidit ueniens superbum,

hunc dies uidit fugiens iacentem. (Thyestes 6134.)

GUARDIAN STEAM PRINTING WORKS, OXFORD STREET, BOLTOK.

443

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