Appendix II
Did Massinger know Greek? It is perhaps worth while collecting the scanty evidence on the subject. We find a pun on the name Philanax in The Emperor of the East,[510] and Mathias plays on the name of his wife Sophia.[511] The phrase κατ᾽ ἐξοήν is used in The Guardian.[512] We find a Greek construction in The Emperor of the East:[513]
And that before he gives he would consider
The what, to whom, and wherefore.
On the other hand, we notice Theseus scanned as a trisyllable.[514]
There are one or two passages where the unexpected turn [pg 149] of the thought rather suggests a Greek original. Thus, in The Renegado[515] we are reminded of The Acharnians:[516]
Gazet. What places of credit are there?
Carazie. Chief gardener.
Gazet. Out upon't! 'Twill put me in mind my mother was an herb woman.
Another passage of The Renegado[517] reminds us of a famous fragment of Euripides,[518] often mistranslated:
Asambeg. At Aleppo
I durst not press you so far: give me leave
To use my own will and command in Tunis.
In The Virgin Martyr[519] we find a parallel to The Hecuba:[520]
Theophilus. As a curious painter,
When he has made some honourable piece,
Stands off, and with a searching eye examines
Each colour, how 'tis sweeten'd; and then hugs
Himself for his rare workmanship.
In The Emperor of the East[521] occurs a parallel quoted by Dr. Walter Headlam in his notes to Agamemnon:[522]
Theodosius. What an earthquake I feel in me!
And on the sudden my whole fabric totters!
My blood within me turns, and through my veins,
Parting with natural redness, I discern it
Chang'd to a fatal yellow.
It is the general opinion of scholars that our Elizabethan dramatists owed very little to the Greek drama directly, but we cannot forget that Massinger had had a good education at Oxford, and was a widely read man.[523] His forensic skill [pg 150] often reminds us of Euripides; and if he did not know the works of his illustrious predecessor, he would have found in them a congenial spirit.[524]
The speech of Sanazarro to Giovanni in The Great Duke of Florence[525] reminds us of Creon's arguments in Sophocles' Œdipus Tyrannus, line 596 κ.τ.λ.
The scene in The Bondman,[526] when the senators frighten the mutinous slaves by shaking their whips, reminds us of the Scythians in Herodotus,[527] but it is also found in Justin,[528] and Gifford points out that it may really have been borrowed from a contemporary book of travels, Purchas's Pilgrims.[529]
Massinger had a good working knowledge of mythology; thus, references in his plays to Hercules and Alcides abound, as they do in Shakspere. We find several false quantities in proper names: Caesarĕa, in The Virgin Martyr; Archidămus, in The Bondman; Eubŭlus, in The Picture; Nomothētae, in The Old Law[530]; Cybēle, in Believe as You List.[531] We may compare Shakspere's Andronĭcus; Anthrŏpos in Four Plays in One, The Triumph of Time; and Euphānes in The Queen of Corinth.[532]
It seems scarcely worth while to collect the passages which show Massinger's knowledge of Latin; the authors he seems to have known best are Ovid, Juvenal, and Horace. Swinburne and others have commented on his indulgence in “the commonplace tropes and flourishes of the schoolroom or the schools.”[533]