Chapter V.
The Three Masterpieces
I
Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The first of these is, of course, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. In the case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's Sad Shepherd has prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism be classed Thomas Randolph's Amyntas, which, however inferior to the others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English examples of the kind.
These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the absence of any influence of subsidiary or semi-pastoral tradition, of the mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence.
When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it proved a complete failure.[[264]] An edition appeared without date, but before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no reason to believe that the Sad Shepherd was taken in hand for another quarter of a century almost. The Faithful Shepherdess was revived long after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by comparison with Montagu's Shepherds Paradise acted the year before. It was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it met with some measure of success.
The Faithful Shepherdess was the earliest, and long remained the only, deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure.
In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, that the Faithful Shepherdess may more properly be regarded as written in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the Aminta and Pastor fido, the Faithful Shepherdess would never have come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly superfluous seer in the dénoûment make up the whole sum so far as the Pastor fido is concerned, while the Aminta cannot even show as much as this. In the Faithful Shepherdess we find not only the potent herbs, holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot[[265]]. Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known it, that of Contarini's Fida ninfa[[266]].
A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers--so Fletcher gives us to understand--in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae.
The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night.
The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece.
It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory illustrative of certain aspects of love[[267]]. So regarded much of the absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the Faithful Shepherdess was among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent.
What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the piece will be necessary.
The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: 'The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for certaine sometimes are[[268]]. In his preface to the Faithful Shepherdess the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the Queen's Arcadia, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an often-quoted passage writes: 'Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such improper [i.e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such like.' His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in the history of criticism: 'A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.' One would hardly have supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in 1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a very satisfactory definition. The audience, 'having ever had a singular gift in defining,' as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a pastoral tragi-comedy 'to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and sometimes killing one another'; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's Pastor fido, it is perhaps not fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same author's Compendio della poesia tragicomica. What is important to note is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory.
Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many changes of garment--
Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso.
Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of the present play he had to fashion characters in vacuo and then weave them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea.
So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition of the middle age. Again comparing the Faithful Shepherdess with Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he comes to create in vacuo he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most sacred in woman.
In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or, non sai tu com' è fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the close of the Orfeo. In English poetry we find Daniel writing:
Light are their waving vailes, light their attires,
Light are their heads, and lighter their desires;
(Queen's Arcadia, II. iii.)
while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed
that such virtue can
Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,)
or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of caprice
And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.)
Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn:
Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity
Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.)
The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret:
Thou wert not meant,
Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.)
and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words:
Women love only opportunity
And not the man. (ib. 127.)
So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age exclaimed:
ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake!
But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have been considering to be justly chargeable against the Faithful Shepherdess, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for an instant on the gaze of the rider[[269]].
Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his critics. It is in truth no lame one[[270]].
In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin:
By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods, for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold
And live. Therefore on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee
In worship of thy deity.[[271]] (I. i. 58.)
The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the assembled people and purging them with holy water[[272]], after which they disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her:
Oh you are fairer far
Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star
That guides the wandering seaman through the deep,
Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep
Head of an agèd mountain, and more white
Than the new milk we strip before day-light
From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks,
Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks
Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.)
They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where
to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither envy nor old time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness.
By this fresh fountain many a blushing maid
Hath crown'd the head of her long-lovèd shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity. (I. ii. 99.)
Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol:
Come, shepherds, come!
Come away
Without delay,
Whilst the gentle time doth stay.
Green woods are dumb,
And will never tell to any
Those dear kisses, and those many
Sweet embraces, that are given;
Dainty pleasures, that would even
Raise in coldest age a fire
And give virgin blood desireThen if ever,
Now or never,
Come and have it;
Think not I
Dare deny
If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.)
Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty:
lend me all thy red,
Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed
Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.)
The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest:
Shepherds all and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground,
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps and vapours fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.)
In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain:
'Tis not the white or red
Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed
My mind to adoration, nor your eye,
Though it be full and fair, your forehead high
And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile
Lies watching in those dimples to beguile
The easy soul, your hands and fingers long
With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue,
Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp;
Your hair woven in many a curious warp,
Able in endless error to enfold
The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould
Of all your body, which as pure doth shew
In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow:
All these, were but your constancy away,
Would please me less than the black stormy day
The wretched seaman toiling through the deep.
But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep,
Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were
In the great womb of air were settled here,
In opposition, I would, like the tree,
Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free
Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.)
The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of Chapman's outburst:
Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water and her keel plows air.
(Byron's Conspiracy, III. i.)
Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly reminiscent of the Midsummer Night's Dream. The wild-wood minister thus describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a characteristic of the play:
Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky,
And the stars, whose feeble light
Give a pale shadow to the night,
Are up, great Pan commanded me
To walk this grove about, whilst he,
In a corner of the wood
Where never mortal foot hath stood,
Keeps dancing, music and a feast
To entertain a lovely guest;
Where he gives her many a rose
Sweeter than the breath that blows
The leaves, grapes, berries of the best;
I never saw so great a feast.
But to my charge. Here must I stay
To see what mortals lose their way,
And by a false fire, seeming-bright,
Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.)
Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her:
What art thou dare
Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care
Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.)
while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had
lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that
Which we esteem our honour, virgin state;
Dearer than swallows love the early morn,
Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn;
Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast
Another, and far dearer than the last;
Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all
The self-love were within thee that did fall
With that coy swain that now is made a flower,
For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!...
Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head,
And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.)
Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn:
See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold
Whilst the morning doth unfold.
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst was mute,
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.)
The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in itself unsurpassed:
If there be
Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree,
Receive my body, close me up from lust
That follows at my heels! Be ever just,
Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake
That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake
In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit;
Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute,
Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast
Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste!
(V. iii. 79.)
Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin:
Thou divinest, fairest, brightest,
Thou most powerful maid and whitest,
Thou most virtuous and most blessèd,
Eyes of stars, and golden-tressèd
Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest,
What new service now is meetest
For the satyr? Shall I stray
In the middle air, and stay
The sailing rack, or nimbly take
Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night
For a beam to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea
And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves that fall
In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall
I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies
Whose woven wings the summer dyes
Of many colours? get thee fruit,
Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute?
All these I'll venture for, and more,
To do her service all these woods adore.
So I take my leave and pray
All the comforts of the day,
Such as Phoebus' heat doth send
On the earth, may still befriend
Thee and this arbour!
Clorin. And to thee,
All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.)
Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for the scene's sake[[273]].'
II
Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's poems edited by his brother in 1638.
Like Fletcher's play, the Amyntas is a conscious attempt at so altering the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and intended by the author for performance on the public boards[[274]]. Yet the two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the Faithful Shepherdess lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of plot which we find in the Pastor fido. Randolph, on the other hand, chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English melodrama.
Like the Pastor fido[[275]], Randolph's Amyntas is weighted with a preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand. Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse:
Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide
To every bridegroome, and to every bride:
No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire,
Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire.
The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit
Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.)
Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[[276]]' replied:
That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have
Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave:
Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine
To give Urania this, and she is thine.
Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis.
This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis' love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself. In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon, fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius' blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self. Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband.
This plot is a mingling of comedy in the scenes of Laurinda's 'wavering'[[277]] and the 'humours' of Amyntas' madness, and of tragi-comedy in the catastrophe. But besides this there is what may best be described as an antiplot of pure farce, in which the main character is the roguish page Dorylas, who in the guise of Oberon robs Jocastus' orchard, tricks Thestylis into marrying the foolish augur, and gulls everybody all round. The humour of this portion of the piece may be occasionally a trifle broad and at the same time childish, but there is nevertheless no denying the genuineness of the quality, while the verse is as a rule sparkling, and the dialogue both racy and pointed, occasionally displaying qualities hardly to be described as other than brilliant.
This comic subplot obviously owes nothing to Guarini, but is introduced in accordance with the usage of the English popular drama, and is grafted somewhat boldly on to the conventional stock. Dorylas is one of the most inimitable and successful of the descendants of Lyly's pages; while the characters of Mopsus and Jocastus, although the former no doubt owes his conception to a hint in the Aminta, belong essentially to the English romantic farce. The scenes in which the page appears as Oberon surrounded by his court recall the introduction of the 'mortal fairies' of the Merry Wives, and that in which Amyntas' 'deluded fancy' takes the augur for a hound of Actaeon's breed may owe something to a passage in King Lear. But even apart from the elements of farce and comedy there are important aspects in which the Amyntas severs itself from the stricter tradition of the Italian pastoral. Randolph, while adopting the machinery and much of the scenic environment of Guarini's play, made certain not unimportant alterations in the dramatic construction, tending towards greater variety and complicity. In the Pastor fido the four main characters, though they ultimately resolve themselves into two pairs, are throughout interdependent, and their story forms but a single plot. That the play should have needed a double solution, the events that bring two couples together having no connexion with one another, was a dramatic blunder but imperfectly concealed by the fact that Silvio and Dorinda are purely secondary, the whole interest being concentrated on the fortunes of Mirtillo and Amarilli. In Randolph's play, on the other hand, there are no less than six important characters. These are divided into two groups, each with an independent plot, one of which contains a telling though somewhat conventional περιπέτεια, while the other, though possessing originality and pathos, is lacking in dramatic possibilities. Thus each supplies the elements wanting in the other, and if woven together harmoniously, should have been capable of forming the basis of a well-constructed play. The first of these groups consists of Laurinda, Alexis, Damon, and Amarillis, the last two being really the dramatically important ones, though their fortunes are connected throughout. It is Laurinda's choice of Alexis that leads to the union of Damon and Amarillis, and it is not till Damon has unconsciously fulfilled the oracle and been freed by its interpretation, that the loves of Laurinda and Alexis can hope for a happy event. Thus Randolph has at least not fallen into the error by which Guarini introduced a double catastrophe into a single plot, though he has not altogether avoided a somewhat similar danger. This is due to the other group above mentioned, consisting of Amyntas and Urania, who, so far as the plot is concerned, are absolutely independent of the other characters. Their own story is essentially undramatic, although it possesses qualities which would make it effective in narrative; and it is, moreover, wholly unaffected by the solution of the other plot. This is obviously a weak place in the construction of the play, but the author has shown great resource in meeting the difficulty. First, by placing the interpretation of the oracle in the mouth of Amyntas, who must yet himself remain hopeless amid the general rejoicing, he has produced a figure of considerable dramatic effect, and so kept the attention of the audience braced, and stayed the relaxing effect of the anti-climax. Secondly, he has amused the spectators with some excellent fooling until, while Io and Paean are yet resounding, it is possible to crown the whole by the solution of the second oracle, and send the hero and his love to join the others in the festive throng. The imperfection of plot is there, but the author has been skilful in concealing it, and it may well be that his success would appear all the greater were his play to be put to the real test of dramatic composition by being actually placed on the boards.
But there is yet another point in which the Amyntas differs not only from its Italian model but from its English predecessors likewise. This is a certain genially humorous conception of the whole, quite apart from and beyond the mere introduction of comedy and farce, which we have never found so marked before, and which has indeed been painfully absent from the pastoral since Tasso penned the final chorus of the Aminta. This humorous tone is never harshly forced upon the attention, and consists, in a measure, merely in the fact of the comic business constantly elbowing the serious action, and thus saving the latter from the danger of becoming stilted and pretentions--a fault not less commonly and quite as justly charged against pastoral literature as that of artificiality. A leaven of humour is the great safeguard against an author taking either himself or his creations too seriously. Randolph's Amyntas, it is true, renounces the high ideality of its predecessors, of the Aminta and the Pastor fido, of Hymen's Triumph and the Faithful Shepherdess; but it makes up for it by human sanity of feeling and expression, by good humour and by wit. It is, moreover, genuinely diverting. Here at least we find no endeavour to attain to the importance and solemnity of a classical tragedy as with Guarini, nor a striving after an utterly unreal, unsympathetic and impossible ideal as with Fletcher. It is, moreover, noticeable and eminently to the credit of the author that the comic scenes, even when somewhat extravagant alike in tone and proportion, seldom clash unpleasantly with the more serious passages, nor derogate from the interest and dignity of the whole.
The play has generally met with a far from deserved neglect, owing in part no doubt to the singular failure on the part of most critics to apprehend correctly the nature and conditions of pastoral poetry.[[278]] Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, who edited Randolph's works in 1875, does not so much as mention the play in the perfunctory introduction, in which he chiefly follows the extravagant, pedantic, and utterly worthless article in the sixth volume of the Retrospective Review.[[279]] The merits of the piece have been somewhat more fully recognized by Dr. Ward and Mr. Homer Smith, but the treatment accorded the play by the former is necessarily scanty, while that of the latter is inaccurate. Throughout a tendency is manifest to find fault with the artificiality of the piece, and to blame the author for not representing the true 'simplicity' of pastoral life. That the pastoral tradition was a wholly impossible, not to say an absurd one, bearing no true relation to nature at all, may be admitted; and it may be lamented by such as love to shed bitter tears because the sandy shore is not a well-swept parquet, or because anything you please is not something else to which it bears not the smallest resemblance. It may or may not be unfortunate that Randolph should have elected to write more pastorali, but to censure the individual work because it is not of a type to which its author never had the remotest intention of making it conform, and to which except for something like a miracle it was impossible that it should even approach, is the acme of critical fatuity. Judged in accordance with the intention of the author the Amyntas is no inconsiderable achievement for a young writer, and compared with other works belonging to the same tradition it occupies a highly respectable place. With Tasso's Aminta and Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess it cannot, in point of poetic merit, for one moment compare, falling as far below them in this as it surpasses them in complexity and general suitability of dramatic construction. A fairer comparison may be made between it and the Pastor fido in Italian or Hymen's Triumph in English, and here again, though certainly with regard to the former and probably with regard to the latter it stands second as poetry, as a play it is decidedly better suited than either for representation on the stage--at least on a stage with the traditions and conventions which prevailed in this country in the author's day.
It is then in the matter of the poetical quality of the verse that Randolph's play appears to least advantage. Living in a polished and cultured literary circle at Cambridge, and enjoying after his remove to London the congenial fellowship of the tribe of Ben, he naturally attained the ease and skill necessary to maintain a respectable level of composition, but he was sparing of the higher flights. He seldom strikes the attention by those purple patches which make many of his contemporaries so quotable, yet, while by no means monotonously correct, it is equally seldom that he sinks much below his general level. The dialogue is on the whole natural and easy, and at the same time crisp and pointed. A few of the more distinctively poetic and imaginative passages may be quoted, in order to give some idea of the style. Laurinda thus appoints a choice to her brace of lovers:
I have protested never to disclose
Which 'tis that best I love: But the first Nymph,
As soone as Titan guilds the Easterne hills,
And chirping birds, the Saints-bell of the day,
Ring in our eares a warning to devotion--
That lucky damsell what so e're she be
[That first shall meet you from the temple gate][[280]]
Shall be the Goddesse to appoint my love,
To say, 'Laurinda this shall be your choice':
And both shall sweare to stand to her award! (III. i.)
Another passage of deliberate poetic elaboration is the monologue of Claius on once again treading his native soil:
I see the smoake steame from the Cottage tops,
The fearfull huswife rakes the embers up,
All hush to bed. Sure, no man will disturbe mee.
O blessed vally! I the wretched Claius
Salute thy happy soyle, I that have liv'd
Pelted with angry curses in a place
As horrid as my griefes, the Lylibaean mountaines,
These sixteene frozen winters; there have I
Beene with rude out-lawes, living by such sinnes
As runne o' th' score with justice 'gainst my prayers and wishes:
And when I would have tumbled down a rock,
Some secret powre restrain'd me. (III. ii.)
By far the greater part of the play is in blank verse, but in a few passages, particularly in certain dialogues tending to stichomythia, the verse is pointed, so to speak, with rime. The following is a graceful example in a somewhat conceited vein; the transition, moreover, from blank to rimed measure has an appearance of natural ease. The rivals are awaiting the arbitrement of their love:
Alexis. How early, Damon,
Doe lovers rise!...Damon. No Larkes so soon, Alexis.
Al. He that of us shall have Laurinda, Damon,
Will not be up so soone: ha! would you Damon?Da. Alexis, no; but if I misse Laurinda,
My sleepe shall be eternall.Al. I much wonder the Sunne so soone can rise!
Da. Did he lay his head in faire Laurinda's lap,
We should have but short daies.Al. No summer, Damon.
Da. Thetis[[281]] to her is browne.
Al. And he doth rise
From her to gaze on faire Laurinda's eyes....Da. I heare no noise of any yet that move.
Al. Devotion's not so early up as love.
Da. See how Aurora blushes! we suppose
Where Tithon lay to night.Al. That modest rose
He grafted there.Da. O heaven, 'tis all I seeke,
To make that colour in Laurinda's cheeke. (IV. iv.)
A more tragic note is struck in the speech in which Claius retorts on Pilumnus after his discovery:
I, glut your hate, Pilumnus; let your soule
That has so long thirsted to drinke my blood,
Swill till my veines are empty;... I have stood
Long like a fatall oake, at which great Jove
Levels his thunder; all my boughes long since
Blasted and wither'd; now the trunke falls too.
Heaven end thy wrath in mee! (IV. viii.)
In some of these 'high tragical endeavours,' and notably in Damon's confession, we do indeed find a certain stiltedness, but even here there rings a true note of pathos in the farewell:
Amarillis,
I goe to write my story of repentance
With the same inke, wherewith thou wrotes before
The legend of thy love. (IV. ix.)
These passages will serve to give a fair and not unfavourable impression of the style, but I have reserved for separate consideration what I consider to be the most striking portions of the play. The first of these is the string of Latin songs in which the would-be elves comment on their nefarious proceedings in Jocastus' orchard. I quote certain stanzas only:
Nos beata Fauni Proles,
Quibus non est magna moles,
Quamvis Lunam incolamus,
Hortos saepe frequentamus.Furto cuncta magis bella,
Furto dulcior Puella,
Furto omnia decora,
Furto poma dulciora.Cum mortales lecto jacent,
Nobis poma noctu placent;
Illa tamen sunt ingrata,
Nisi furto sint parata.
Oberon, descende citus,
Ne cogaris hinc invitus;
Canes audio latrantes,
Et mortales vigilantes.
I domum, Oberon, ad illas
Quae nos manent nunc ancillas,
Quarum osculemur sinum,
Inter poma, lac et vinum. (III. iv.)
To discuss verses such as these seriously is impossible. The dog-Latin of the fellow of Trinity is inimitable, while there is a peculiarly roguish delicacy about his humour. In the admirable ease with which the words are adapted to the sense, the songs are unsurpassed except by the very best of the carmina vagorum. Lastly, as undoubtedly the finest passage of the play, and as one that must give us pause when we would deny to 'prince Randolph' the gifts requisite for the higher imaginative drama, I must quote the scene in which the distracted Amyntas fancies that in his endless search for the 'impossible dowry' he has arrived on the shores of Styx and boarded Charon's bark.
Amyntas. Row me to hell!--no faster? I will have thee
Chain'd unto Pluto's gallies!Urania. Why to hell,
My deere Amyntas?Amyntas. Why? to borrow mony!
Amarillis. Borrow there?
Amy. I, there! they say there be more Usurers there
Then all the world besides.--See how the windes
Rise! Puffe, puffe Boreas.--What a cloud comes yonder!
Take heed of that wave, Charon! ha? give mee
The oares!--So, so: the boat is overthrown;
Now Charons drown'd, but I will swim to shore....
My armes are weary;--now I sinke, I sinke!
Farewell Urania ... Styx, I thank thee! That curld wave
Hath tos'd mee on the shore.--Come Sysiphus,
I'll rowle thy stone a while: mee thinkes this labour
Doth looke like Love! does it not so, Tysiphone?Ama. Mine is that restlesse toile.
Amy. Is't so, Erynnis?
You are an idle huswife, goe and spin
At poore Ixions wheele!Ura. Amyntas!
Amy. Ha? Am I known here?
Ura. Amyntas, deere Amyntas--
Amy. Who calls Amyntas? beauteous Proserpine?
'Tis shee.--Fair Empresse of th' Elysian shades,
Ceres bright daughter intercede for mee,
To thy incensed mother: prithee bid her
Leave talking riddles, wilt thou?... Queene of darknesse,
Thou supreme Lady of eternall night,
Grant my petitions! wilt thou beg of Ceres
That I may have Urania?Ura. Tis my praier,
And shall be ever, I will promise thee
Shee shall have none but him.Amy. Thankes Proserpine!
Ura. Come sweet Amyntas, rest thy troubled head
Here in my lap.--Now here I hold at once
My sorrow and my comfort.--Nay, ly still.Amy. I will, but Proserpine--
Ura. Nay, good Amyntas--
Amy. Should Pluto chance to spy me, would not hee
Be jealous of me?Ura. No.
Amy. Tysiphone,
Tell not Urania of it, least she feare
I am in love with Proserpine: doe not Fury!Ama. I will not.
Ura. Pray ly still!
Amy. You Proserpine,
There is in Sicilie the fairest Virgin
That ever blest the land, that ever breath'd
Sweeter than Zephyrus! didst thou never heare
Of one Urania?Ura. Yes.
Amy. This poore Urania
Loves an unfortunate sheapheard, one that's mad, Tysiphone,
Canst thou believe it? Elegant Urania--
I cannot speak it without tears--still loves
Amyntas, the distracted mad Amyntas.
Is't not a constant Nymph?--But I will goe
And carry all Elysium on my back,
And that shall be her joynture.Ura. Good Amyntas,
Rest here a while!Amy. Why weepe you Proserpine?
Ura. Because Urania weepes to see Amyntas
So restlesse and unquiet.Amy. Does shee so?
Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea,
When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle;
I will not move a haire, not let a nerve
Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! Hush,--
Shee sleepes!Ura. And so doe you.
Amy. You talk too loud,
You'l waken my Urania.Ura. If Amyntas,
Her deere Amyntas would but take his rest,
Urania could not want it.Amy. Not so loud! (II. iv.)
It was no ordinary imagination that conceived this example of the grotesque in the service of the pathetic.
I have endeavoured in the above account to do a somewhat tardy justice to the considerable and rather remarkably sustained qualities of Randolph's play. I do not claim that as poetry it can be compared with the work of Tasso, Fletcher, or Jonson, or that it even rivals that of Guarini or Daniel, though had Randolph lived he might easily have surpassed the latter. But I do claim that the Amyntas is one of the most interesting and important of the experiments which English writers made in the pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works--the Jealous Lovers, a Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the Muses' Looking Glass, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than occasionally improper--will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature.[[282]]
III
In Jonson's Sad Shepherd we find ourselves once again considering a work which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, but which at the same time raises important questions of literary criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to consider--Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, Randolph's Amyntas--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. Except for such comparatively unimportant works as Gallathea and the Converted Robber,[[283]] the spectators found themselves, for the first time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,' the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which had been variously present since Tasso styled his play favola boschereccia, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something fresh and original and new.
Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of 1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost May Lord has little to recommend it.[[284]] Seeing that the play is far from being as generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place.[[285]]
After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is supposed to have been drowned in the Trent.
Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here!
Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow:
The world may find the Spring by following her;
For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.)
He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical pretensions of the puritan reformers--a passage which yields, in biting satire, neither to his own presentation in the Alchemist nor to Quarles' scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks to himself like a madman.
It will be rare, rare, rare!
An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words!
Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock:
If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing!
Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe,
On every greene sworth, and in every path,
Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent;
There will I knock the story in the ground,
In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round,
Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd;
And with the plenty of salt teares there shed,
Quite alter the complexion of the Spring.
Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither,
Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water,
Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout,
As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs,
Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine;
Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice;
And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice.
Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest,
And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles,
And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle;
To fling a fellow with a Fever in,
To set it all on fire, till it burne,
Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy,
When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.)
Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his distracted fancy breaks out afresh:
A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes?
Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks?
Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe?
These may grow still; but what can spring betide?
Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died?
As if there since did fall one drop of dew,
But what was wept for her! or any stalke
Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome,
After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith,
You doe not faire, to put these things upon me,
Which can in no sort be: Earine,
Who had her very being, and her name,
With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring,
Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet,
Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd,
And Venus led the Graces out to dance,
And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap,
Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration,
To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know,
How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since,
No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre
Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke,
As it were hung so for her Exequies!
And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell,
But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle,
And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule
Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings!
Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.)
To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer.
Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this,
This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse;
[Forces Amie to kiss Karolin.
Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty,
For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem
From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her:
Now I am poore as you. (ib.)
There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.'
Robin. I! what was that, sweet Marian? [Kisses her.
Marian. You'll not heare?
Rob. I love these interruptions in a Story; [Kisses her again
They make it sweeter.Mar. You doe know, as soone
As the Assay is taken-- [Kisses her again.Rob. On, my Marian.
I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.)
To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there
sate a Raven On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse!
crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of his nymphs and swains.[[286]] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the naïveté of Daphnis and Chloe.
How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth,
Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth,
Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by
A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie,
Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree,
Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee?
Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost,
The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost,
My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence,
Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence.
But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove,
Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove;
It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe
All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.)
To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its delicate comedy and pathos.
Amie [asleep]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ...
O', ô.Marian. How is't Amie?
Melifleur. Wherefore start you?
Amie. O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet.
Maud. What then?
Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men?
The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet!Amie. I', so!
Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe:
Karol is only faire to mee!Mar. And why?
Amie. Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die.
Karol he singeth sweetly too!Maud. What then?
Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men?Amie. I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing,
But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring,
The Nightingale.Maud. Then why? then why, alone,
Should his notes please you? ...Amie. This verie morning, but--I did bestow--
It was a little 'gainst my will, I know--
A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine,
And now I wish that verie kisse againe.
His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose,
His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes;
The relish of it was a pleasing thing.Maud. Yet like the Bees it had a little sting.
Amie. And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe
And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.)
After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade! The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire! Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood, o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent charmes. (II. viii.)
In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a 'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas.
But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine,
Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers,
Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste
To get up to the Moone, and Mercury;
And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring
Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars,
Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe
Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all
The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World
Againe, his first and tunefull planetting!
O' what an age will here be of new concords!
Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages,
Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation,
And throw a silence upon all the creatures!...
The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes
Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse;
Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme
Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht,
To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.)
After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch:
Gang thy gait, and try
Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel';
the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers.
Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford, who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought, and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the Faithful Shepherdess as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen, however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the Sad Shepherd to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel, Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian, and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque, was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit; the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise, but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he denounces the heresy
That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall,
as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In The Sad Shepherd [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel bound to record my dissent.
Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr. Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry' in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[[287]] That Jonson did not fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only, however, I believe, because he faiîed to carry it to completion. Had he lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted.
Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne, it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads, pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the Maid's Metamorphosis in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their essence and history indistinguishable.[[288]] Probably, however, what the writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return.
Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element, the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals, Hymen's Triumph and Rutter's Shepherds' Holiday; while in the detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse, have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the imbroglio can do more than restore the harmony which had been before, and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the Faithful Shepherdess. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr. Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind, Phoebe, and Audrey in As You Like It? But that is a question to which we shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the Sad Shepherd we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage.
The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as exhibited in the Sad Shepherd, would not be worth defending. But it is not so.
It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions. It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine; of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had the play undergone revision.
Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft and fairy lore[[289]]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,' they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically something of an anachronism.
Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect.
Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition.
There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his English Grammar shows, was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have escaped his critical eye.
Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it remained unfinished at the death of its author.
In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment. This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course, introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth quoting[[290]]:
The chase is o'er, the hart is slain!
The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain;
With breath of bugles sound his knell,
Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide,
Nor branchy head will long abide;
Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath,
Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death.The hart is slain! his faithful deer,
In spite of hounds or huntsman near,
Despising Death, and all his train,
Laments her hart untimely slain!The chase is o'er, the hart is slain!
The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain;
Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell,
Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!(Act IV.)