Adam. Victuals! O horrible blasphemy! Hinder me not of my prayer, nor drive me not into a choler. Victuals! why, heardest thou not the sentence, 'Thou shalt take no food, but fast and pray'?
Second S. Truth, so it should be; but methinks I smell meat about thee.
Adam. About me, my friends! these words are actions in the case. About me! No, no! hang those gluttons that cannot fast and pray.
First S. Well, for all your words, we must search you.
Adam. Search me! Take heed what you do: my hose are my castles; 'tis burglary if you break ope a slop; no officer must lift up an iron hatch; take heed, my slops are iron. [They search Adam.]
Second S. O villain!—See how he hath gotten victuals, bread, beef, and beer, where the king commanded upon pain of death none should eat for so many days!
Orlando Furioso, a dramatized version of an incident in Ariosto's poem, need not delay us long. It is the story of Orlando's madness (due to jealousy) and the sufferings of innocent, patient Angelica. In this heroine we have the first of several pictures from the author's hand of a gentle, constant, ill-used maiden, but she is very little seen. Most of the play is taken up with warfare, secret enmities, and Orlando's madness. The evil genius, Sacripant, may be the first, as Iago is the greatest, of that school of villains whose treachery finds expression in the deliberate undermining of true love by forged proofs of infidelity. There is less rodomontade than in the previous plays, but again we have to record an absence of humour. In the following lines Orlando is meditating on his love:
Fair queen of love, thou mistress of delight,
Thou gladsome lamp that wait'st on Phoebe's train,
Spreading thy kindness through the jarring orbs
That, in their union, praise thy lasting powers;
Thou that hast stay'd the fiery Phlegon's course,
And mad'st the coachman of the glorious wain
To droop, in view of Daphne's excellence;
Fair pride of morn, sweet beauty of the even,
Look on Orlando languishing in love.
Sweet solitary groves, whereas the Nymphs
With pleasance laugh to see the Satyrs play,
Witness Orlando's faith unto his love.
Tread she these lawnds, kind Flora, boast thy pride:
Seek she for shade, spread, cedars, for her sake:
Fair Flora, make her couch amidst thy flowers:
Sweet crystal springs,
Wash ye with roses when she longs to drink.
Ah, thought, my heaven! ah, heaven, that knows my thought!
Smile, joy in her that my content hath wrought.
Hitherto Greene had yielded to the popular demand for plays of the Tamburlaine class, full of oriental colour and martial sound, with titanic heroes and a generous supply of kings, queens, and great captains: no less than twenty crowned heads compete for places on the list of dramatis personae in his first three plays. The character of Angelica, however, and stray touches of pastoralism in the last play, hint at an impending change. The author's mind, tired of subservience, was beginning to trace out for itself new paths, leading him from camps to the fresh countryside. To the end Greene retained his kings, possibly for their spectacular effect. But he abandoned warfare as a theme.
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay was written under the new inspiration. We have already referred to the motley nature of this drama. No other of the writer's plays exhibits so many and such rapid changes of scene, some situations actually demanding the presentation of two scenes at the same time. In spite of this the different sections of the story remain tolerably clear as we proceed, and the interest never flags for longer than the brief minutes when prosy Oxford dons talk learnedly. Four groups of characters attract attention in turn; the young noblemen and Margaret, the three kings and the Spanish princess, the country yokels and squires, and the magicians. By careful interweaving all four groups are related to one another and none but the Margaret plot is permitted to develop any complexity. In this way something like unity is attained.