FINIS CORONAT OPUS.
No bounds, but heaven, shall bound his empery,
Whose azured gates, enchased with his name,
Shall make the Morning haste her grey uprise
To feed her eyes with his engraven fame.
—Dido, i.
Methinks ’tis pride enough to be his son.
See how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.
—Third Part of Henry VI, ii, 1.
In 1597 the Privy Council commanded that the playhouses in Finbury Fields be leveled to their foundations, but the command had not been executed. It is one thing to decree, it is another to enforce. The indignant spirit of reform that prevailed upon the administrative body appeared to have exhausted its power with the procurance of the mandate, for even on the Sabbath, the annunciatory trumpets before the Curtain and Theater continued to proclaim the daily stage performance.
The last trumpet for the day had blown before the Curtain on a winter afternoon in 1598, and a packed audience already filled its pit and galleries, when a solitary foot traveler, leaving the Shore-ditch highway, entered the narrow lane leading toward the fields. The air was cold and frosty, and that may have caused the traveler to keep the cape of his cloak raised high around his face. At any rate, on such a day, there was nothing in the fact that the low-drawn hat and high-raised cape left visible only a pair of eyes, to raise suspicion that the man desired to avoid identification.
A heavy snow had fallen during the previous night, but a wide, firmly-beaten path led over it across the fields. As he noted this condition of the way, he calculated that several thousand people had preceded him. Was it to hear Alleyn at the Theater, or Burbage at the Curtain? He thought that it was to hear Burbage, and possibly his knowledge of what that great actor was to perform forced this conclusion. The play of Hamlet had already been performed at White Hall before the Queen, but this was to be its first presentation before the public. The praise bestowed upon it by the titled few who had assembled in the banqueting house at the palace had reached the public ear, and its effect was here demonstrated. It was the prospect of seeing this play that led this man across the fields which he had not entered for several years.
If he had been at all interested in his surroundings, he would have noticed that in the short space of time which had elapsed since the last day he had passed through the break in the field wall, many changes had taken place. The ruins of the old church of Holywell (demolished in the reign of Henry VIII) had been removed, or appropriated for the walls of dwellings arising above the ancient foundations. Much solid ground had been made where the sedge had sprung from shallow marsh water, and houses here and there dotted the white expanse. An assembly house for the worship of Brownists stood within the brick boundary wall of the fields. Although a low structure, it covered a large area and appeared a menace against the playhouses. These theaters, of height equivalent to three stories, were resplendent with lively-colored fronts and painted windows. A single red flag fluttered above the top of each. There had been no changes in their exteriors since the observer last saw them. Hundreds of horses, many richly caparisoned, and others bearing rude saddles only, stood in groups before both houses, while shivering boys and men held them. Only a few of the dismounted riders were standing at the entrances of the theaters.
The late comer passed around one of these groups, and at the entrance of the Curtain presented a letter to the doorkeeper, who, without betraying his inability to read, passed it into a square window, within which was a room with cheerful fire and a man who broke open the letter and read it, saying:
“It is the man for whom a box has been reserved.”
“Who is he?” asked the other.
“The note sayeth not.”
“Strange that a whole box should have been reserved for one person on such a day,” growled the doorkeeper.
“Well, those were Shakespere’s orders, and as he holds much of the stock of the company, his request must be respected. The note is signed by him. Admit him to box 4.”
The man passed in and followed a boy up a winding flight of stairs to the lower gallery. It was a small compartment at one end of, and overlooking, the stage. The boy unlocked it [[note 44]]. Although the round pit, into which one could look from this box, was open to the clear sky, the floor of the upper gallery projected so far over this box that the light was dim within it; and heavy curtains at its front, although drawn apart, augmented its constant dimness. The boy started to light a lamp in a wall bracket, but the man stopped him and directed him as he left to lock the frail door. There was room for ten people in the box, and as the boy turned the key upon his temporary prisoner, and wormed his way through the packed gallery, he wondered how one could be so selfish as to appropriate an entire box for one’s sole use.
Finding himself alone, the man threw off his hat and cloak; but immediately the chill of the winter day penetrated his doublet and he replaced the discarded garments. The interval in which his head, countenance and shoulders were uncovered was scarcely a minute; but it was quite long enough to reveal that his beard and hair were false, and the doublet so arranged as to misrepresent the form beneath it. Having seated himself so as to be out of the view of the audience, he peered through the space between the wall and the edge of one of the curtains. A pleased expression showed on his face as he noticed the immensity of the audience.
There was no standing room in the pit, which was so clamorous for the play to begin that the orchestra, in its box within the center wall above the stage, could scarcely be heard above the tumult. The front row of standing spectators was crowded so close to the stage that their chins rested upon it; and the press was so great that several of the more active groundlings had crawled up and lay upon the rushes at the feet of the favored portion of the audience which occupied every chair upon the ends of the stage. There were black hangings upon all the posts and the lofty canopy above the boards was of like color, indicating that the play to be presented was a tragedy. A sign bearing the word “Denmark” hung close to the canopy, and was an announcement of the place where the scenes of the drama were laid. Neither curtain nor foot-lights graced the stage, but the rude painting of a castle partially concealed the barn-like wall. A raised platform at the back showed that there was to be a play within a play.
The music of the orchestra died away, and the groundlings and scaffolders held breath. Francisco had taken his post, and Bernardo entered. It seemed that the first question, “Who’s there?” was uttered by the man in Box 4, for at that moment the door to the box was burst open with a crash, and several persons pushed in. The gross-looking man, whose broad shoulders had been used to force an entrance, was in the lead. He whispered so that the quiet man against the railing heard him, “Beg your pardon, but it was either this forcible intrusion, or the sweat of the mob for us and these ladies, and no sight of the play. You can’t blame us.”
The man to whom the words were addressed disdained to turn his head, but sunk it lower within his ruff and kept his eyes on the stage, but it is not likely that he saw it any more than he did the intruders. He kept his peace, but his face was white from rage or fright. He had recognized the speaker as Ben Jonson, and the voice of one of the other two men with him had sounded so familiar that even before the ghost stalked across the stage, he knew that one of his companions was Nash. Feminine voices proclaimed that at least two of the fair sex were of the party. Their whispers conveyed no further intelligence to him. He again became absorbed in the play, while the intruders took possession of the chairs behind him. They thought him a dull boor; he either should have shown enough spirit to resent their rude entrance with fierce words or a drawn sword; or, with resignation to the inevitable, have murmured a welcome at least to the ladies. Thus ran their thoughts; but he had forgotten the disturbance and his situation. Even at the close of the act, the ecstasy of his mind continued as his eyes swept over the audience, and from pleased countenances gleaned the opinion of a favorable reception of the play. Why did this please him?
The conversation behind him caught his ears. It was between Jonson and Nash and ran on uninterrupted for an interval. It held his attention.
“Who plays the ghost?”
“Shakespere” [[note 45]].
“’Tis said he wrote the play.”
“I question it.”
“Why so?”
“He knoweth little Latin.”
“We have heard no Latin.”
“True; but the speech of Horatio is descriptive of the events preceding Cæsar’s death as set forth in Lucan’s Pharsalia” [[note 46]].
“Doth no translation of the Pharsalia exist?” [[note 47]]
“Yes, but only in manuscript.”
“Perchance he hath had access to the manuscript.”
“There is but one copy, and that is in my possession.”
“Translated by thyself?”
“No.”
“By whom?”
“Marlowe.”
“And the description of the tenantless graves, the sheeted dead gibbering in the streets of Rome and the stars with trains of fire is like Marlowe’s translation?”
“The one is drawn from the other; for in Marlowe’s translation ‘Sylla’s ghost was seen to walk singing sad oracles:’ ‘Souls quiet and appeased sighed from their graves;’ ‘and ghosts encountered men;’ and ‘sundry fiery meteors blazed in Heaven.’”
“’Tis strange.”
“Most strange!”
“And how do you account for such a coincidence?”
“Wait; the play goes on.”
The second scene of Act I was in progress, and at its close Nash, who appeared to be the better posted, said:
“Didst ever hear Marlowe’s play of Edward II?”
“Yes, years ago at this theater.”
“Dost thou remember the character of Spencer?”
“I do,” answered Jonson.
“Where he says:
‘’Tis not a black coat and a little band,
A velvet caped cloak faced before with serge?’”
“And what of that?” interrupted the other.
“What! why have you not just heard Hamlet say:
‘’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black’?”
“Examine at thy leisure the entire passages.”
“’Tis plagiarism!” ejaculated Jonson, ever ready to decry the works of another.
“Or—” began Nash.
“Hamlet was written by Marlowe,” interrupted Jonson.
“True,” answered Nash, nodding his head excitedly, “And much additional evidence exists confirmatory of your hastily given statement; but this time is all too short to compare the precepts of Polonius with Spencer’s ‘to stab when occasion serves,’ or with the meditations of Barabbas; or to note how Marlowe’s metaphysical musings concerning ‘This frail and transitory flesh,’ ‘the aspiring mind,’ ‘the incorporeal spirit,’ ‘the buzzing fear’ of what comes after death, have been joined and compacted in this play of Hamlet. Note in your study how smoothly the polished lines of Marlowe’s acknowledged works can be run in between the lines of this play without the slightest jar or impairment; note how many of the speeches wind up with the last two lines rhyming; note the tendency in all toward bombast where excess of passion is expressed.”
This conversation, while it pleased and amused the listener, awakened in him a fear of no trifling character. He would have made his exit from the box, but he dared not arise and pass before the eyes of those behind him. They might recognize him, and such recognition was to be avoided. Act III was in progress, and Burbage, as Hamlet, held the audience spell-bound. Ophelia, played by the boy, Thomas Deak, of the children of the Chapel, had awakened the sympathy of every auditor; and in praise and honor of the creative genius of the drama an inexhaustible cup was filling for the lips of all his lovers through the coming centuries.
No sooner had the act closed than the conversation was resumed between the two dramatists who had carried on the former discussion:
“‘The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns,’” whispered Nash, “is much like the expression of Mortimer, who, upon contemplation of death, says, in Edward II:
‘Weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveler,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.’”
“An apt parallelism,” remarked Jonson, and then slyly added, “But what think you of the lines put in the mouths of the players?”
“In Scene II of Act II, of this Hamlet?” inquired Nash.
“Yes, Æneas’ tale to Dido.”
“I know not what to think of them.”
“Did not Marlowe begin the drama of Dido?”
“He did.”
“And you completed it, did you not?” questioned Jonson.
“I did,” answered Nash [[note 37]].
“Now, is not this speech of the players in ridicule of thy work?”
“Possibly,” answered Nash, somewhat nettled by the question. “I had no love for the subject and pushed the work without inspiration; but no one but Marlowe, methinks, would have taken offense at my weak closing of his strong and poetic opening.”
“And the story of Troy was a fond one of his.”
“True, the famous Helen is the subject of conjuration in Faustus and is spoken of in Tamburlaine.”
“And is not the same fondness displayed in Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, King Henry IV, King Henry VI, Troilus and Cressida, and the Tempest?”
“It is.”
“Well, then if thy supposition is correct that Marlowe instead of Shakespere wrote this play of Hamlet, why is not my theory correct that he is holding up thy extravagant lines in Dido to ridicule?” [[note 48]]
“But, how can that be possible?” retorted Nash, “while I may be inclined to believe that Marlowe wrote this play, it could not have been since I completed his unfinished drama of Dido; for did he not die in 1593?”
“Is there not good reason to dispute that death?”
“By what?”
“The internal evidence of this play.”
“And by what else?”
“The contradictory reports of his death.”
“And to what conclusion does all this tend?”
“That Marlowe still lives, an outcast, a fugitive from justice.”
“But why an outcast; why a fugitive?”
“What else would cause him to keep concealed?”
“Thou hast not answered the question.”
“Did he not offend the church? Were not direct charges made against him? Was not the Queen apprised? Was not this but three days before his disappearance? You know the charge?”
“Aye, blasphemy.”
“And see what the play reveals, bitter remembrances, personal griefs and doubts, misanthropy in strongest sort. ‘The suits of woe,’ the ‘weary, stale, flat and unprofitable uses of this world,’ ‘contagious blastments,’ the losing of ‘all mirth,’ ‘we fools of nature,’ ‘the sleep of death,’ ‘the blister on the forehead of the once innocent love,’ These are but the outpourings of one sick of the vanities of life, hopeless of fame, bereft of all joys, and unsolaced by religion.”
“Bah! one in love can write of murder and madness.”
“True, as it may fit the story that he writes; but this is a drama in which the light and dark could well mingle to the interest of the auditors; but no, ’tis heavy with the fruit of gloomy philosophical meditations provoked in a sensitive mind from brooding over some crime more dark than that of blasphemy.”
“So! and possibly what?” asked Nash.
“The slaying of a human being,” answered Jonson.
“Murder by Marlowe?” ejaculated Nash.
A feminine cry arose in the box. It was stifled instantly, but it stopped the conversation. The man at the front of the box shuddered, and covered his face with his hands. He had almost turned his head at this outcry, but he restrained himself for the moment. This inclination to turn had been induced solely by the effect upon his ears, but following it came a force to turn him that was irresistible. The cry had shaken a chord that had been vibrated before, it seemed by the same voice in similar outcry. It did not immediately flash upon him where or under what circumstances he had heard it. No words had risen from the lips of this woman, as yet to him unseen, to give character to the cry she had just uttered, or to explain its occasion. But the one chord that it vibrated within him trembled until the surrounding network of memory became animated, and the tavern duel scene at the point where Anne had thrown herself at the feet of her combative husband arose in the mind of the man at the box’s edge. The woman behind him was Anne! His head turned involuntarily with the thought. He saw her; and she, with gaze centered upon his face, recognized him as Marlowe despite the change he had effected in his natural appearance. He also saw the eyes of Nash and Jonson fastened upon him, and in self preservation he resumed the position which he had been faithfully maintaining until this late moment.
The outcry had been induced by two causes, one was the climax reached in the conversation of the two men which had been running on disjointedly during the progress of the play, and the other was the wounding of Laertes by Hamlet in the duel scene. They had occurred simultaneously. She had caught the name of Marlowe in the conversation near her and knew that the talk was of him; the contest with foils between the two actors on the stage had absorbed her so that again she seemed the helpless spectator of a duel to death. It was the old scene over again in all its vivid reality. Laertes, of kindlier aspect than Burbage, as Hamlet, had awakened her sympathies, and she saw him as an embodied Marlowe. Then came the struggle, the exchange of rapiers and the thrust through the doublet of Laertes that staggered him. At the same time she heard the final words of Nash, and the cry had passed her lips.
It is a wonder that a second cry had not escaped her when, closely following this exhibition, the man in front had fastened his eyes upon her, and she recognized the person whom for five years she had sought, until, with heart fairly eaten out with the changeless subject of her thoughts and the dejection of an apparently fruitless quest, she had numbered him among the voiceless unreturning. But the vision of his face seemed but the natural concomitant of what had just transpired. Why should the Fates drag any other visage within the field either of reality or illusion? If God worketh for a purpose, what else could all the events transpiring within the Curtain on that day lead up to, except the meeting of the lovers?
Controlled by an irresistible impulse, Anne left her chair, and coming forward to where Marlowe was seated, fell on her knees beside him. The closing peal of ordnance had sounded, and amid the prolonged applause of the great house, the play had ended. The enthusiasm continued, despite the recognition of it by the leading actors, who bowed again and again from the stage’s front. It was more than this acknowledgment of its demonstrative praise that the audience wanted. Only a portion of the applause was for the actors, the rest was for the genius who had raised the tremendous tragedy.
“Where is the author?”
“Let him come forth!”
Such were the cries that arose. But no one answered the appeal. From his place behind one wing of the stage, Shakespere looked out upon the tumult, and then his eyes wandered to the box wherein sat the unknown creator of the drama. Was the latter not impelled toward public recognition of the multitude’s applause?
He, Marlowe, was possessed with temporary elation over the enthusiasm of the audience, and with the further knowledge that the one whom he loved was now beside him. In his ecstasy, it seemed that he mingled with the gods. The darkness in which he dwelt, and the mighty world, voiceless as to himself and his merit, were as naught. The same spirit that had filled and fired him in the production of the eternal drama, again possessed him, and for once, but not again, he felt the crown of laurel about his brows.