ANTONIO AND MELLIDA.
The History of Antonio and Mellida. The first part. As it hath beene sundry times acted, by the children of Paules. Written by I. M. London Printed for Mathewe Lownes, and Thomas Fisher, and are to be soulde in Saint Dunstans Church-yarde. 1602. 4to.
STORY OF THE PLAY.
Andrugio, Duke of Genoa, being utterly defeated in a sea-fight by Piero Sforza, Duke of Venice, and banished by the Genoways, conceals himself, with Lucio (an old courtier) and a page, among the marshes round Venice. Piero proclaims throughout Italy that whoever brings the head of Andrugio or of Andrugio’s son, Antonio (who is in love with Piero’s daughter, Mellida), shall receive a reward of twenty thousand pistolets. Antonio disguises himself as an Amazon, and, obtaining an interview with Mellida, announces that her lover has been drowned at sea. The pretended Amazon is received as a guest in Piero’s palace, and there quickly discovers himself to Mellida. Arrangements are made by the lovers to escape to England; but Piero gaining intelligence (through a letter that Mellida has dropped) of the intended flight, the plot is frustrated and Mellida escapes to the marshes in the disguise of a page. While Piero is giving orders for Antonio’s arrest, a sailor rushes forward, pretending to be in hot pursuit of Antonio towards the marshes. The pursuer is Antonio himself, who had assumed the disguise of a sailor at the instance of Feliche, a high-minded gentleman of the Venetian court. Piero gives the pretended sailor his signet-ring that he may pass the watch and not be hindered in the pursuit. Arrived at the marshes, Antonio, distracted with grief for the fall of his father and for the loss of Mellida, flings himself prostrate on the ground. Presently Andrugio approaches with Lucio and the page, and a joyful meeting ensues between father and son. Andrugio and Lucio retire to a cave which they had fitted up as a dwelling, and Antonio, promising to quickly rejoin them, stays to hear a song from Andrugio’s page. Meanwhile Mellida, disguised as a page, approaches
unobserved, and hearing her name passionately pronounced, recognises the sailor as Antonio. She discovers herself to her lover, and after a brief colloquy despatches him across the marsh to observe whether any pursuers are in sight. Hardly has Antonio departed when Piero and his followers come up, and Mellida is drawn from a thicket where she had concealed herself. Piero hastens back to the court with his daughter, whom he resolves to marry out of hand to Galeatzo, son of the Duke of Florence. Antonio, returning in company with Andrugio and Lucio to the spot where he had left Mellida, learns from Andrugio’s page that she has been carried away. Andrugio now separates himself from Antonio and Lucio; proceeds, clad in a complete suit of armour, to the court of Piero, and announces that he has come to claim the reward offered for Andrugio’s head. Piero declares his willingness to pay the reward; and then Andrugio, raising his beaver, discovers himself to Piero and the assembled courtiers. Piero affects to be struck with admiration for his adversary’s magnanimity, and professes friendship for the future. A funeral procession now enters, followed by Lucio, who announces that he has brought the body of Antonio. Andrugio mourns for the death of his son and Piero affects to share his grief, protesting that he would give his own life or his daughter’s hand to purchase breath for the dead man. Thereupon Antonio, who had died only in conceit, rises from the bier and claims the hand of Mellida. Piero assents, and the First Part of Antonio and Mellida closes joyfully.
To the only rewarder and most just poiser of virtuous merits, the most honourably renowned Nobody,[32] bounteous Mecænas of poetry and Lord Protector of oppressed innocence, do dedicoque.
Since it hath flowed with the current of my humorous blood to affect (a little too much) to be seriously fantastical, here take (most respected Patron) the worthless present of my slighter idleness. If you vouchsafe not his protection, then, O thou sweetest perfection (Female Beauty), shield me from the stopping of vinegar bottles. Which most wished favour if it fail me, then Si nequeo flectere superos, Acheronta movebo. But yet, honour’s redeemer, virtue’s advancer, religion’s shelter, and piety’s fosterer, yet, yet, I faint not in despair of thy gracious affection and protection; to which I only shall ever rest most servingman-like, obsequiously making legs and standing (after our free-born English garb) bareheaded. Thy only affied slave and admirer,
J. M.
[32] So Day dedicates his Humour out of Breath to “Signior Nobody.”
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.[33]
Piero Sforza, Duke of Venice.
Andrugio, Duke of Genoa.
Antonio, son to Andrugio, in love with Mellida.
Feliche, a high-minded courtier.
Alberto, a Venetian gentleman, in love with Rossaline.
Balurdo, a rich gull.
Matzagente, a modern braggadoch, son to the Duke of Milan.
Galeatzo, son to the Duke of Florence, a suitor to Mellida.
Forobosco, a Parasite.
Castilio Balthazar, a spruce courtier.
Lucio,[34] an old nobleman, friend to Andrugio.
Catzo, page to Castilio.
Dildo, page to Balurdo.
Painter, Andrugio’s page, &c.
Mellida, daughter to Piero, in love with Antonio.
Rossaline, niece to Piero.
Flavia, a waiting-woman.
Scene—Venice and the Neighbourhood.
[33] There is no list of characters in old eds.
[34] Dilke (Old English Plays, 1814, vol. ii.) wrongly describes Lucio as Andrugio’s page.
INDUCTION.[35]
Enter Galeatzo, Piero, Alberto, Antonio, Forobosco, Balurdo, Matzagente, and Feliche, with parts in their hands; having cloaks cast over their apparel.
Gal. Come, sirs, come! the music will sound straight for entrance. Are ye ready, are ye perfect?
Pier. Faith! we can say our parts; but we are ignorant in what mould we must cast our actors.
Alb. Whom do you personate?
Pier. Piero, Duke of Venice.
Alb. O! ho! then thus frame your exterior shape
To haughty form of elate majesty,
As if you held the palsy-shaking head
Of reeling chance under your fortune’s belt 10
In strictest vassalage: grow big in thought,
As swoln with glory of successful arms.
Pier. If that be all, fear not; I’ll suit it right.
Who cannot be proud, stroke up the hair, and strut?
Alb. Truth; such rank custom is grown popular;
And now the vulgar fashion strides as wide,
And stalks as proud upon the weakest stilts
Of the slight’st fortunes, as if Hercules
Or burly Atlas shoulder’d up their state.
Pier. Good: but whom act you? 20
Alb. The necessity[36] of the play forceth me to act two parts: Andrugio, the distressed Duke of Genoa, and Alberto, a Venetian gentleman, enamoured on the Lady Rossaline; whose fortunes being too weak to sustain the port of her, he proved always disastrous in love; his worth being much underpoised by the uneven scale, that currents all things by the outward stamp of opinion.
Gal. Well, and what dost thou play?
Bal. The part of all the world.
Alb. The part of all the world? What’s that? 30
Bal. The fool. Ay, in good deed law now, I play Balurdo, a wealthy mountbanking burgomasco’s heir of Venice.
Alb. Ha! ha! one whose foppish nature might seem great, only for wise men’s recreation; and, like a juiceless bark, to preserve the sap of more strenuous spirits. A servile hound, that loves the scent of forerunning
fashion, like an empty hollow vault, still giving an echo to wit: greedily champing what any other well valued judgment had beforehand chew’d.[37] 40
Foro. Ha! ha! ha! tolerably good, good faith, sweet wag.
Alb. Umph; why tolerably good, good faith, sweet wag? Go, go; you flatter me.
Foro. Right; I but dispose my speech to the habit of my part.
Alb. Why, what plays he?
[To Feliche.
Feli. The wolf that eats into the breasts of princes; that breeds the lethargy and falling sickness in honour; makes justice look asquint; and blinds[38] the eye of merited reward from viewing desertful virtue. 51
Alb. What’s all this periphrasis, ha?
Feli. The substance of a supple-chapt flatterer.
Alb. O! doth he play Forobosco the Parasite? Good, i’faith. Sirrah, you must seem now as glib and straight in outward semblance as a lady’s busk,[39] though inwardly as cross as a pair of tailors’ legs; having a tongue as nimble as his needle, with servile patches of glavering flattery to stitch up the bracks[40] of unworthily honour’d— 60
Foro. I warrant you, I warrant you, you shall see me prove the very periwig to cover the bald pate of brainless
gentility. Ho! I will so tickle the sense of bella gratiosa madonna with the titillation of hyperbolical praise, that I’ll strike it in the nick, in the very nick, chuck.
Feli. Thou promisest more than I hope any spectator gives faith of performance; but why look you so dusky, ha?
[To Antonio.
Ant. I was never worse fitted since the nativity of my actorship; I shall be hiss’d at, on my life now. 70
Feli. Why, what must you play?
Ant. Faith, I know not what; an hermaphrodite, two parts in one; my true person being Antonio, son to the Duke of Genoa; though for the love of Mellida, Piero’s daughter, I take this feigned presence of an Amazon, calling myself Florizell, and I know not what. I a voice to play a lady! I shall ne’er do it.
Alb. O! an Amazon should have such a voice, virago-like. Not play two parts in one? away, away, ’tis common fashion. Nay, if you cannot bear two subtle fronts under one hood, idiot, go by, go by, off this world’s stage! O time’s impurity! 82
Ant. Ay, but when use hath taught me action
To hit the right point of a lady’s part,
I shall grow ignorant, when I must turn
Young prince again, how but to truss[41] my hose.
Feli. Tush, never put them off; for women wear the breeches still.
Mat. By the bright honour of a Milanoise,
And the resplendent fulgor of this steel, 90
I will defend the feminine to death,
And ding[42] his spirit to the verge of hell,
That dares divulge a lady’s prejudice!
[Exeunt Matzagente, Forobosco, and Balurdo.[43]
Feli. Rampum scrampum, mount tufty Tamburlaine!
What rattling thunderclap breaks from his lips?
Alb. O! ’tis native to his part. For acting a modern[44] braggadoch under the person of Matzagente, the Duke of Milan’s son, it may seem to suit with good fashion of coherence. 99
Pier. But methinks he speaks with a spruce Attic accent of adulterate Spanish.
Alb. So ’tis resolv’d. For Milan being half Spanish, half high Dutch, and half Italians, the blood of chiefest houses is corrupt and mongrel’d; so that you shall see a fellow vain-glorious for a Spaniard, gluttonous for a Dutchman, proud for an Italian, and a fantastic idiot for all. Such a one conceit this Matzagente.
Feli. But I have a part allotted me, which I have neither able apprehension to conceit, nor what I conceit gracious ability to utter. 110
Gal. Whoop, in the old cut![45] Good, show us a draught of thy spirit.
Feli. ’Tis steady and must seem so impregnably fortressed with his own content that no envious thought could ever invade his spirit; never surveying any man so unmeasuredly happy, whom I thought not justly hateful for some true impoverishment; never beholding any favour of Madam Felicity gracing another, which his well-bounded content persuaded not to hang in the front of his own fortune; and therefore as far from envying any man, as he valued all men infinitely distant from accomplished beatitude. These native adjuncts appropriate to me the name of Feliche. But last, good, thy humour. 124
[Exeunt Piero, Alberto, and Galeatzo.[46]
Ant. ’Tis to be described by signs and tokens. For unless I were possessed with a legion of spirits, ’tis impossible to be made perspicuous by any utterance: for sometimes he must take austere state, as for the person of Galeatzo, the son of the Duke of Florence, and possess his exterior presence with a formal majesty: keep popularity in distance, and on the sudden fling his honour so prodigally into a common arm, that he may seem to give up his indiscretion to the mercy of vulgar censure. Now as solemn as a traveller,[47] and as
grave as a Puritan’s ruff;[48] with the same breath as slight and scattered in his fashion as a—a—anything; now as sweet and neat as a barber’s casting-bottle;[49] straight as slovenly as the yeasty breast of an ale-knight: now lamenting, then chafing, straight laughing, then—— 140
Feli. What then?
Ant. Faith, I know not what; ’t had been a right part for Proteus or Gew. Ho! blind Gew[50] would ha’ done ’t rarely, rarely.
Feli. I fear it is not possible to limn so many persons in so small a tablet as the compass of our plays afford.
Ant. Right! therefore I have heard that those persons, as he and you, Feliche, that are but slightly drawn in this comedy, should receive more exact accomplishment in a second part; which, if this obtain gracious acceptance, means to try his fortune. 151
Feli. Peace, here comes the Prologue: clear the stage.
[Exeunt.
[35] We have an Induction before What you Will and The Malcontent. Ben Jonson was particularly fond of introducing preliminary dialogues, which are usually so tedious that we are fain to exclaim with Cordatus (in the Induction to Every Man out of his Humour), “I would they would begin once; this protraction is able to sour the best settled patience in the theatre.”
[36] I.e., the poverty of the theatrical company. It was common for an actor to represent two characters (or more) in the same play. For example, William Shurlock personated Maharbal and Prusias in Nabbes’ Hannibal and Scipio, 1635; and in the same play, Hugh Clerke, besides taking the part of Syphax, personated the Nuntius.
[37] Old eds. “shew’d.”
[38] So ed. 1633.—The 4to gives “blinks.”
[39] A piece of whalebone, steel, or wood worn down the front of the stays to keep them straight.
[40] Rents, cracks.
[41] “Truss my hose” = tie the tagged laces of my breeches.
[42] Hurl violently.
[43] Old eds. “Exeunt Ant. and Alb.”
[44] Common, worthless.—The use of “modern” in this sense is frequently found, and was sanctioned by Shakespeare; but it did not escape Ben Jonson’s censure in The Poetaster, v. i.:—
“Alas! that were no modern consequence
To have cothurnal buskins frightened hence.”
[45] “The old cut” = the old fashion. So Nashe in the epistle dedicatory prefixed to Strange News of the Intercepting Certain Letters, 1593:—“You are amongst grave Doctors and men of judgment in both laws every day. I pray ask them the question in my absence whether such a man as I have described this epistler to be ... that hath made many proper rhymes of the old cut in his days,” &c.
[46] Old eds. “Exit Alb.”
[47] “Jaques in As You Like It, describing his own melancholy, says it is extracted from many objects, and that the contemplation of his travels often wraps him in a most humorous sadness: on which Rosalind observes—‘A traveller! by my faith you have great reason to be sad!’”—Dilke.
[48] The Puritans’ short starched ruffs were constantly ridiculed. See Middleton’s Works, viii. 69.
[49] A bottle for sprinkling perfumes.
[50] Probably an actor who had gone blind; but I can find no information about him.