(1570?-1637?)
homas Dekker, the genial realist, the Dickens of Jacobean London, has left in his works the impress of a most lovable personality, but the facts with which to surround that personality are of the scantiest. He was born about 1570 in London; at least in 1637 he speaks of himself as over threescore years of age. This is the only clue we have to the date of his birth. He came probably of a tradesman's family, for he describes better than any of his fellows in art the life of the lower middle class, and enters into the thoughts and feelings of that class with a heartiness which is possible only after long and familiar association. He was not a university man, but absorbed his classical knowledge as Shakespeare did, through association with the wits of his time.
He is first mentioned in Henslowe's diary in 1597, and after that his name appears frequently. He was evidently a dramatic hack, working for that manager, adapting and making over old plays and writing new ones. He must have been popular too, for his name appears oftener than that of any of his associates. Yet his industry and popularity could not always keep him above water. Henslowe was not a generous paymaster, and the unlucky dramatist knew the inside of the debtor's prison cell; more than once the manager advanced sums to bail him out. Oldys says he was in prison from 1613 to 1616. After 1637 we find his name no more.
As a dramatist, Dekker was most active between the years 1598 and 1602. In one of those years alone he was engaged on twelve plays. Many of these have been lost; of the few that remain, two of the most characteristic belong to this period. 'The Shoemaker's Holiday,' published in 1599, shows Dekker on his genial, realistic side, with his sense of fun and his hearty sympathy with the life of the people. It bubbles over with the delight in mere living, and is full of kindly feeling toward all the world. It was sure to appeal to its audience, especially to the pit, where the tradesmen and artisans with their wives applauded, and noisiest of all, the 'prentices shouted their satisfaction: here they saw themselves and their masters brought on the stage, somewhat idealized, but still full of frolic and good-nature. It is one of the brightest and pleasantest of Elizabethan comedies. Close on its heels followed 'The Pleasant Comedy of Old Fortunatus.' Here Dekker the idealist, the poet of luxurious fancy and rich yet delicate imagination, is seen at his best. Fortunatus with his wishing-hat and wonderful purse appealed to the romantic spirit of the time, when men still sailed in search of the Hesperides, compounded the elixir of youth, and sought for the philosopher's stone. Dekker worked over an old play of the same name; the subject of both was taken from the old German volksbuch 'Fortunatus' of 1519. Among the collaborators of Dekker at this time was Ben Jonson. Both these men were realists, but Jonson slashed into life with bitter satire, whereas Dekker cloaked over its frailties with a tender humor. Again, Jonson was a conscientious artist, aiming at perfection; Dekker, while capable of much higher poetry, was often careless and slipshod. No wonder that the dictator scorned his somewhat irresponsible co-worker. The precise nature of their quarrel, one of the most famous among authors, is not known; it culminated in 1601, when Jonson produced 'The Poetaster,' a play in which Dekker and Marston were mercilessly ridiculed. Dekker replied shortly in 'Satiromastix, or the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet,' a burlesque full of good-natured mockery of his antagonist.
Dekker wrote, in conjunction with Webster, 'Westward Ho,' Northward Ho,' and 'Sir Thomas Wyatt'; with Middleton, 'The Roaring Girl'; with Massinger, 'The Virgin Martyr'; and with Ford, 'The Sun's Darling' and 'The Witch of Edmonton.' Among the products of Dekker's old age, 'Match Me in London' is ranked among his half-dozen best plays, and 'The Wonder of a Kingdom' is fair journeyman's work.
One of the most versatile of the later Elizabethans,—prolonging their style and ideas into the new world of the Stuarts,—Dekker was also prominent as pamphleteer. He first appeared as such in 1603, with 'The Wonderfull Yeare 1603, wherein is showed the picture of London lying sicke of the Plague,' a vivid description of the pest, which undoubtedly served Defoe as model in his famous book on the same subject. The best known of his many pamphlets, however, is 'The Gul's Horne Booke,' a graphic description of the ways and manners of the gallants of the time. These various tracts are invaluable for the light they throw on the social life of Jacobean London.
Lastly, Dekker as song-writer must not be forgotten. He had the genuine lyric gift, and poured forth his bird-notes, sweet, fresh, and spontaneous, full of the singer's joy in his song. He also wrote some very beautiful prayers.
Varied and unequal as Dekker's work is, he is one of the hardest among the Elizabethans to classify. He at times rises to the very heights of poetic inspiration, soaring above most of his contemporaries, to drop all of a sudden down to a dead level of prose. But he makes up for his shortcomings by his whole-hearted, manly view of life, his compassion for the weak, his sympathy with the lowly, his determination to make the best of everything, and to show the good hidden away under the evil.
"Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail,"—
these he knew from bitter experience, yet never allowed them to overcloud his buoyant spirits, but made them serve his artistic purposes. Joyousness is the prevailing note of his work, mingled with a pathetic undertone of patience.
FROM 'THE GUL'S HORNE BOOKE'
HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN POWLES WALK[49]
Now for your venturing into the Walke: be circumspect and wary what piller you come in at, and take heed in any case (as you love the reputation of your honour) that you avoide the serving-man's dogg; but bend your course directly in the middle line, that the whole body of the Church may appear to be yours; where, in view of all, you may publish your suit in what manner you affect most, either with the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger) suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the least) and so by the meanes your costly lining is betrayed, or else by the pretty advantage of complement. But one note by the way do I especially wooe you to, the neglect of which makes many of our gallants cheape and ordinary; that you by no means be seen above fowre turnes, but in the fifth make your selfe away, either in some of the Sempsters' shops, the new Tobacco-office, or amongst the Bookesellers, where, if you cannot reade, exercise your smoke, and inquire who has writ against this divine weede, &c. For this withdrawing yourselfe a little will much benefite your suit, which else by too long walking would be stale to the whole spectators: but howsoever, if Powles Jacks be up with their elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soone as ever the clock has parted them and ended the fray with his hammer, let not the Duke's gallery conteyne you any longer, but passe away apace in open view. In which departure, if by chance you either encounter, or aloofe off throw your inquisitive eye upon any knight or squire, being your familiar, salute him not by his name of Sir such a one, or so, but call him Ned or Jack, &c. This will set off your estimation with great men: and if (tho there bee a dozen companies betweene you, tis the better) hee call aloud to you (for thats most gentile), to know where he shall find you at two a clock, tell him at such an Ordinary, or such; and bee sure to name those that are deerest; and whither none but your gallants resort. After dinner you may appeare againe, having translated yourselfe out of your English cloth cloak, into a light Turky-grogram (if you have that happiness of shifting) and then be seene (for a turn or two) to correct your teeth with some quill or silver instrument, and to cleanse your gummes with a wrought handkercher: It skilles not whether you dinde or no (thats best knowne to your stomach) or in what place you dinde, though it were with cheese (of your owne mother's making, in your chamber or study).... Suck this humour up especially. Put off to none, unlesse his hatband be of a newer fashion than yours, and three degrees quainter; but for him that wears a trebled cipres about his hatte (though he were an Alderman's sonne), never move to him; for hees suspected to be worse than a gull and not worth the putting off to, that cannot observe the time of his hatband, nor know what fashioned block is most kin to his head: for in my opinion, ye braine that cannot choose his felt well (being the head ornament) must needes powre folly into all the rest of the members, and be an absolute confirmed foule in Summâ Totali.... The great dyal is your last monument; these bestow some half of the threescore minutes, to observe the sawciness of the jaikes that are above the man in the moone there; the strangenesse of the motion will quit your labour. Besides you may heere have fit occasion to discover your watch, by taking it forth and setting the wheeles to the time of Powles, which, I assure you, goes truer by five notes then S. Sepulchers chimes. The benefit that will arise from hence is this, that you publish your charge in maintaining a gilded clocke; and withall the world shall know that you are a time-server. By this I imagine you have walkt your bellyful, and thereupon being weary, or (which rather I believe) being most gentlemanlike hungry, it is fit that I brought you in to the Duke; so (because he follows the fashion of great men, in keeping no house, and that therefore you must go seeke your dinner) suffer me to take you by the hand, and lead you into an Ordinary.
SLEEP
Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is; it is so inestimable a jewel that if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought; yea, so greatly are we indebted to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary half of our life to him; and there is good cause why we should do so; for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of want, of wounds, of cares, of great men's oppressions, of captivity, whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings. Can we therefore surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that, whereof to taste too little tumbles us into a churchyard; and to use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no. Look upon Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept threescore and fifteen years, and was not a hair the worse for it. Can lying abed till noon then, being not the threescore and fifteenth thousand part of his nap, be hurtful?
THE PRAISE OF FORTUNE
From 'Old Fortunatus'
Fortune smiles, cry holiday!
Dimples on her cheek do dwell.
Fortune frowns, cry well-a-day!
Her love is heaven, her hate is hell.
Since heaven and hell obey her power,—
Tremble when her eyes do lower.
Since heaven and hell her power obey,
When she smiles, cry holiday!
Holiday with joy we cry,
And bend and bend, and merrily
Sing hymns to Fortune's deity,
Sing hymns to Fortune's deity.
Chorus
Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily,
With our songs let heaven resound.
Fortune's hands our heads have crowned.
Let us sing merrily, merrily, merrily.
CONTENT
From 'Patient Grissil'
Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet Content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers golden numbers?
O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!
Work apace, apace, apace, apace,
Honest labor bears a lovely face.
Then hey nonny, nonny; hey nonny, nonny.
Canst drink the waters of the crispèd spring?
O sweet Content!
Swim'st thou in wealth, yet sink'st in thine own tears?
O Punishment!
Then he that patiently Want's burden bears
No burden bears, but is a king, a king.
O sweet Content, O sweet, O sweet Content!
RUSTIC SONG
From 'The Sun's Darling'
Haymakers, rakers, reapers, and mowers,
Wait on your Summer Queen!
Dress up with musk-rose her eglantine bowers,
Daffodils strew the green!
Sing, dance, and play,
'Tis holiday!
The sun does bravely shine
On our ears of corn.
Rich as a pearl
Comes every girl.
This is mine, this is mine, this is mine.
Let us die ere away they be borne.
Bow to our Sun, to our Queen, and that fair one
Come to behold our sports:
Each bonny lass here is counted a rare one,
As those in princes' courts.
These and we
With country glee,
Will teach the woods to resound,
And the hills with echoes hollow.
Skipping lambs
Their bleating dams
'Mongst kids shall trip it round;
For joy thus our wenches we follow.
Wind, jolly huntsmen, your neat bugles shrilly,
Hounds, make a lusty cry;
Spring up, you falconers, partridges freely,
Then let your brave hawks fly!
Horses amain,
Over ridge, over plain,
The dogs have the stag in chase:
'Tis a sport to content a king.
So ho! ho! through the skies
How the proud birds flies,
And sousing, kills with a grace!
Now the deer falls; hark! how they ring.
LULLABY
From 'Patient Grissil'
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you.
You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.