THE PROLOGUE.
The rawish dank of clumsy[193] winter ramps
The fluent summer’s vein; and drizzling sleet
Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numb’d earth,
Whilst snarling gusts nibble the juiceless leaves
From the nak’d shudd’ring branch; and pills[194] the skin
From off the soft and delicate aspects.
O now, methinks, a sullen tragic scene
Would suit the time with pleasing congruence.
May we be happy in our weak devoir,
And all part pleasèd in most wish’d content! 10
But sweat of Hercules can ne’er beget
So blest an issue. Therefore, we proclaim,
If any spirit breathes within this round,
Uncapable of weighty passion,
(As from his birth being huggèd in the arms,
And nuzzled ’twixt the breasts of happiness)
Who winks, and shuts his apprehension up
From common sense of what men were and are,
Who would not know what men must be—let such
Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows: 20
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast
Nail’d to the earth with grief; if any heart
Pierc’d through with anguish pant within this ring;
If there be any blood whose heat is choked
And stifled with true sense of misery;
If ought of these strains fill this consort up—
Th’ arrive most welcome. O that our power
Could lackey or keep wing with our desires,
That with unusèd paize[195] of style and sense,
We might weigh massy in judicious scale. 30
Yet here’s the prop that doth support our hopes:
When our scenes falter, or invention halts,
Your favour will give crutches to our faults.[196]
[Exit.
[193] Marston’s use of the words clumsy and ramp is ridiculed in The Poetaster (v. 1).
[194] Peels.
[195] An old form of poise.
[196] “This prologue, for its passionate earnestness, and for the tragic note of preparation which it sounds, might have preceded one of those tales of Thebes, or Pelops’ line, which Milton has so highly commended, as free from the common errors in his days, ‘of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, brought in without discretion corruptly to gratify the people.’ It is as solemn a preparative as the ‘warning voice which he who saw th’ Apocalypse heard cry.’”—Charles Lamb.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.[197]
Piero Sforza, Duke of Venice.
Antonio, son to the murdered Andrugio, affianced to Mellida.
Pandulfo, father to the murdered Feliche.
Alberto, a Venetian gentleman.
Balurdo, a rich gull.
Matzagente, a modern braggadoch.
Galeatzo, son to the Duke of Milan.
Forobosco, a Parasite.
Castilio Balthazar, a spruce courtier.
Lucio, an old nobleman, attendant to Maria.
Strotzo, a creature of Piero.
Julio, son to Piero.
Maria, Andrugio’s widow, mother to Antonio.
Mellida, daughter to Piero, affianced to Antonio.
Nutriche, attendant to Maria.
Two Senators, Herald, Waiting-women, Page, &c.
Ghost of Andrugio, Ghost of Feliche.
The Scene—Venice.
[197] There is no list of characters in the old eds.