The plot of Mother Bombie must be briefly sketched because it is the only one in which Lyly dispenses with the aid of classical tradition and mythology and attempts a Comedy of Intrigue. As such it has a certain historical interest.—The scene is Rochester, Kent. Memphio and Stellio, the fathers respectively of son Accius and daughter Silena, separately and craftily resolve to bring about by fraud the wedding of these two young people, for the reason that each knows his child to be weak-minded, and, believing his neighbour's child to be sound-witted and of good heritage, perceives that only deceit can accomplish the union. In this attempt to overreach each other they employ their servants, Dromio and Riscio, as principal agents. Not far away live two young people, Livia and Candius, whose mutual love is made unhappy by the opposition of their fathers, Prisius and Sperantius, since these latter covet rather their children's marriage with Accius and Silena. In pursuit of this other object these two countrymen send their servants, Lucio and Halfpenny, to spy out the land. By the ordinary chance of good comradeship the four servants meet and make known to each other their errands, when the opportunity of a mischievous entangling of the threads at once becomes apparent. Disguises are used, with the result that the loving couple, Livia and Candius, marry under the unconscious benisons of their parents. The trick being discovered, there is general trouble, especially at the exposure of the hitherto concealed imbecility of Accius and Silena; but a certain woman, Vicina, now comes forward, with her two children, Maestius and Serena, to explain that the imbeciles are really her own offspring and that the son and daughter of Memphio and Stellio are Maestius and Serena. The willing alliance of these two brings the original plans to a happy conclusion. Mother Bombie herself is a fortune-teller to whom recourse is had at various times by the young folk, and whose oracular statements provide mysterious clues to the final events.
As a consequence of the meaner nature of its characters this play is less tainted with euphuism than the rest, while its dialogue is as lively as ever, the four servants finding in their masters excellent foils to practise their wit upon. Deception and cross purposes are conducted with much skill to their conclusion, though the elaborate balance of households rather oppresses one by its artificiality. As one of the earliest Comedies of Intrigue, if not actually the first, it presents possibilities in that direction which were eagerly developed by later writers. Thus again we observe the originality of the author preparing the way for his successors.
In summing up the contributions of Lyly to drama we naturally lay stress upon three points, namely, his creation of lively prose dialogue, his uplifting of comedy from the level of coarse humour and buffoonery to the region of high comedy and wit, and his painting of pure romantic love. We attach value, also, to his discovery of the dramatic possibilities of sex disguises, to his introduction of fairies upon the stage, to his persistence in the good fashion of interspersing songs amongst the scenes, and to his use of pastoralism as a background for romance. Nor may his efforts in Comedy of Intrigue be overlooked. On the other hand, we lament as a grievous failing his inability to draw real men and women, or indeed to differentiate his characters at all except by gross caricature or the copying of traditional eccentricities. Sir Tophas and Diogenes we remember as distinct personalities only for their peculiar and very obvious traits: the rest of his characters either stay in our memory solely through the charm of particular scenes in which they take part, or fade from it altogether. As less regrettable faults, because hardly avoidable if euphuism was to bring its benefits, may be remembered the weakness of his plots (notably in Campaspe, Sapho and Phao and Mydas), the stilted, flowery talk that does duty for so many conversations, and the unreality brought in the train of his dearly-loved Greek mythology. Not unfittingly we may conclude our criticism of his plays with his own description of his art, given in the first prologue to Sapho and Phao.
Our intent was at this time to move inward delight, not outward lightness, and to breed (if it might be) soft smiling, not loud laughing; knowing it to the wise to be as great pleasure to hear counsel mixed with wit, as to the foolish to have sport mingled with rudeness. They were banished the theatre of Athens, and from Rome hissed, that brought parasites on the stage with apish actions, or fools with uncivil habits, or courtesans with immodest words. We have endeavoured to be as far from unseemly speeches, to make your ears glow, as we hope you will be free from unkind reports, to make our cheeks blush.
Unlike Lyly, Robert Greene is the dramatizer of actions rather than speeches. Primarily a writer of romances, he carries the same principle with him to the stage, providing a throng of characters and an abundance of incident, with rapid transition from place to place, regardless of time and the technicalities of acts and scenes. The result is a continuous flow of pictures, in subject darting about from one set of characters to another lest any section of the narrative drag behind the rest, hardly ever dull yet rarely impressive, bearing the complexity of many issues to its appointed end in general content. This is plot-structure in its elementary yet ambitious form: an abounding wealth of material is condensed within the limits of a play, but its arrangement reveals no attempt at a gradual and subtle evolution of events to a climax. It succeeds in maintaining interest by its variety, leaving the pleased spectator with the sense of having looked on at a number of very entertaining scenes. Unfortunately the bustle of action invites superficiality of treatment: the end is attained by the use of bold splashes of colour rather than by accurate drawing. Spaniards, Italians, Turks, Moors fill the stage like a pageant; in the best known play, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, magicians perform wonders, country squires kill each other for love, prince and fool exchange places, simple folk go a-fairing, kings pay state visits, devils fly off with people, all to hold the eye by their rapidly interchanging diversity; but few of them pause to be painted in detail as individuals. Only the women steal from the author's gift-box a few qualities not hackneyed by other writers, and, decked in these, make rich return by bestowing upon their master a reputation which no other part of his work could have won for him.
Probably we have not all the plays that Greene wrote. Evidence points to the loss of his earlier ones. Those preserved are (the order is approximately that in which they were written)—Alphonsus, King of Arragon, A Looking-Glass for London and England, Orlando Furioso, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, James the Fourth, and George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield. The authorship of the last is not certain, and that of the second was shared with Lodge. With regard to the dates it is hardly safe to be more definite than to allot them to the period 1587-92. In all we see a preference for ready-made stories. The writer rarely invents a plot, choosing instead to dramatize the history, romance, epic or ballad of another. Where he does invent, as in the love plot in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, the result is notable. Blank verse is his medium, but in all except the first prose is freely used for the speech of the uncultured persons. Most of the verse is quite good, modelled on the form of Marlowe's; it is commonly least satisfactory where the imitation is most deliberate. The prose, adopted from Lyly's 'servants' and 'pages', not from his courtly 'goddesses', is clear and vigorous. Euphuism asserts itself occasionally in the verse, and the affectation of scholarship, customary in that day, is responsible for a superabundance of classical allusions in unexpected places.
Since Greene was at first much under the influence of Marlowe it is necessary to say something here of that dramatist's work. For a full consideration of the essential qualities of Marlowe the reader must be asked to wait. Perhaps he has already discovered them in the ordinary course of his reading, for Marlowe is too widely known to need introduction through any text-book. Briefly, Tamburlaine—the play which made the greatest impression on the playwrights of its time—may be described as a magniloquent account of the career of a world-conqueror whose resistless triumph over kingdoms and potentates, signalized by acts of monstrous insolence, provides excuse for outbursts of extravagant vainglory. Such a description is intended to indicate the traditional Marlowesque qualities: it is a very inadequate criticism of the play as a whole. This kind of loud, richly coloured drama leapt into instant popularity, and it was in direct imitation of it that Greene wrote the first of the plays credited to him.
Alphonsus, King of Arragon, shares with James the Fourth the distinction of a division into five acts, and adheres throughout to blank verse. Alphonsus, the conqueror, begins his career as an exiled claimant to the throne of Arragon. Fighting as a common soldier, under an agreement that he shall hold all he wins, he slays the Spanish usurper in battle and at once demands the crown. On this being granted him he as promptly turns upon the donor to claim from him feudal homage. This, however, can only be insisted upon by force, and war ensues, with complete overthrow of his enemies. Grandly bestowing upon his three chief supporters all his present conquests, namely, the thrones of Arragon, Naples and Milan, as too trifling for himself, Alphonsus follows his opponents to their refuge at the court of Amurack, the great Turk. Through a misleading oracle of Mahomet they rashly engage in battle without their ally and are slain. With their heads impaled at the corners of his canopy Alphonsus now confronts Amurack, just such another bold and arrogant conqueror as himself. In the conflict that follows he is temporarily put to flight by Amurack's daughter, Iphigena, and her band of Amazons; but, smitten with sudden love, he turns to offer his hand and heart on the battlefield. She spurns his overtures, and a very ungallant hand-to-hand combat follows, in which he proves victor and drives his lovely foe to flight in her turn. The conquest is complete, and with all his enemies captives Alphonsus carries things with a high hand, threatening to add Amurack's head to those on his canopy unless that monarch consent to his marriage with Iphigena. Fortunately Alphonsus's old father, who has gained entrance in a pilgrim's garb, intervenes with parental remonstrance and by the exercise of a little tact brings about both the marriage and general happiness.
A noticeable feature, which shows the closeness of the imitation, is the absence of all intentionally humorous scenes, in spite of Greene's very considerable natural aptitude for comic by-play. Everywhere the influence of Tamburlaine is markedly visible, in the subject, in particular scenes, in such staging as the gruesome canopy, and above all in the incessant bombast. Euphuism also is more pronounced than in his other plays: Venus recites the prologues to the acts. All the male characters are drawn on the same pattern, in differing degrees according to their condition, and the two women, Iphigena and her mother, Fausta, are without attractive qualities. Marlowe, as we know, rarely expended any care on his female characters; Greene, however, proved capable in his later, independent plays, of very different work. Utter disregard of normal conceptions of time and distance produces occasional confusion in the reader's mind as to his supposed imaginary whereabouts. From almost every point of view, then, the play is a poor production. A redeeming trait is the occasional vigour of the verse. For an illustrative passage one may turn to the meeting of Alphonsus and Amurack: