To the said Charles the Fift.
Compare the original reading in the play,[560] “His nose! his German lippe!” Over German “very” has been written, and underneath is traceable the “A” of Austrian.
These passages leave no doubt as to the derivation of the earlier part of the story which Massinger dramatised.
On p. 45 of The Strangest Adventure we read that Dom Sebastian comes to Venice “very poorely, and robbed by five of his own servants, which he entertained in Cicilie.” This incident occurs in Believe as You List, Act I. At Venice he was persecuted by the “embassadour of Castile,” whose name is not given, but whose place in the play is taken by Flaminius. On p. 49 he is said to have been beaten by the Moors in Africa in 1578, and to be now (1600) a prisoner at Venice. In Believe as You List the period of twenty-two years is referred to as the interval during which Antiochus has been travelling about the world.[561] On p. 50 Dom Sebastian arrives at Venice with “but one poor gazete.” In the play Antiochus, after being robbed by his servants, finds “a waste paper” lying near him, and speaks as follows:
There is something writ more.
Why this small piece of silver? What I read may
Reveal the mystery: “Forget thou wert ever
Called King Antiochus. With this charity
I enter thee a beggar.”[562]
On p. 67 Sebastian is set free, and on p. 86 he goes to Florence, on his way to Marseilles, with some talk of trying to establish his identity in Holland. But the narrative closes abruptly, and we know no more of the claimant to the Portuguese throne from The Strangest Adventure.