The supreme quality of Tragedy is in its power to raise feelings of intense emotion, of horror or grief, or of both. Failing in this, it fails altogether. To this end Seneca introduced his Ghost, and his disciples filled their speeches with passionate outcry and lurid pictures of horrible events unfit to be presented in actuality. Gorboduc rained death upon a whole nation, Tancred and Gismunda invoked every awful epithet and gruesome description of dungeon and murder, for the same purpose. But the purpose remained unfulfilled—at least, for an English audience nurtured on more vigorous diet than mere words. The ear cannot comprehend horror in its fullness as can the eye. Even the author of Tancred and Gismunda was conscious of this, for at the end he placed the deaths of both father and daughter, with horrible accompaniments, upon the stage. He gave his audience what it wanted. Nor were the English people slow to demand the same from others. We shall find, in fact, that tragedy continued to borrow the exaggerated violence of the Senecan school, even when it was most emphatically rejecting its dramatic principles. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that the work of Kyd and Marlowe was merely to substitute actions for descriptions, and sights for sounds. The difference between classic and romantic tragedy is not so simple. We shall understand their task more readily if we pause to consider what are the chief elements of Shakespearian tragedy.
Approximately they may be stated thus: an overwhelming catastrophe, clearly drawn characters which appeal to our sympathy or hate, impressive scenes, and a strong, eventful plot. Of these the first had never been lost since Sackville and Norton. The second had been attempted in The Misfortunes of Arthur, not without a measure of success. But both called for improvement, the former particularly having struck too tremendous a pitch. The third and fourth elements were almost unknown, thanks to the exclusion of all action from the stage; and finally, no appeal could be wholly successful which wearied the audience with so stiff and monotonous a diction. Verse, plot, scenes, characters, catastrophe—these are the features which we must watch if we would know what Kyd and Marlowe did for tragedy.
Before we turn to their plays, however, there is one other of the University Wits whose chief dramatic work is tragic and who must therefore be included in this chapter. Since his tragedy stands, in its inferiority, quite apart from the tragedies of the other two, we shall dispose of it first.
Apart from his undefined share in A Looking-Glass for London and England, all that we have of Thomas Lodge's dramatic work is The Wounds of Civil War, or, as its other title ran, The Most Lamentable and True Tragedies of Marius and Sylla (about 1588). The author went to Plutarch for his facts and characters, and shows, in his treatment of the subject, that he caught at least a measure of inspiration from that famous biographer's vivid portraits. Marius and Sylla are clearly, though not impartially, discriminated, the former appearing as the dauntless veteran, ready to die sooner than acknowledge himself too old for command, the latter figuring as the man of resistless force and intense pride. Partiality is seen in the allocation of most of the insolence and cruelty to Sylla, while our sympathy is constantly being evoked on the side of Marius. It is Sylla who first draws his sword against the peace of the state; it is Marius who magnanimously sends Sylla's wife and daughter to him unharmed. Moreover, wooden as they sometimes are, these great antagonists and their fellow-senators show the right Roman nature at need. Marius sleeping quietly under the menace of death; his heroic son, with his little band of soldiers, committing suicide rather than surrender at Praeneste; Octavius scorning to imitate the vacillation and cowardice of his colleagues; Sylla plunging back alone into battle, that his example may reanimate the courage of his fleeing army: these are scenes that recall the best traditions of Rome. They are taken from Plutarch, it is true; but they are presented sympathetically and with stimulating effect. Thus, though the order of events has necessarily to be mainly historical, each is intimately related to the central clash of ambitions, with the result that singleness of interest is never lost until the death of Marius. In carrying history down to Sylla's abdication and death, the author betrays that ignorance of dramatic unity common to most of his contemporaries.
The play is divided into five acts, but though there are obviously more than that number of scenes, the subdivisions are not formally distinguished. By the stiff, rhetorical style of its verse we seem to be taken back to the days of Gorboduc rather than to the year of Marlowe's Edward the Second. Save in two quite uncalled-for humorous episodes, the language used maintains a monotonous level of stateliness or emotion. The plot is eminently suited for indignant and defiant speeches, but Lodge's poetic inspiration has not the wings to bear him much above the 'middle flight'. The following passage fairly illustrates his style.
[Cornelia and Fulvia, expecting close imprisonment, if not death, are set at liberty.]
Marius. Virtue, sweet ladies, is of more regard
In Marius' mind, where honour is enthron'd,
Than Rome or rule of Roman empery.
[Here he puts chains about their necks.]
The bands, that should combine your snow-white wrists,
Are these which shall adorn your milk-white necks.
The private cells, where you shall end your lives,
Is Italy, is Europe—nay, the world.
Th' Euxinian Sea, the fierce Sicilian Gulf,
The river Ganges and Hydaspes' stream
Shall level lie, and smooth as crystal ice,
While Fulvia and Cornelia pass thereon.
The soldiers, that should guard you to your deaths,
Shall be five thousand gallant youths of Rome,
In purple robes cross-barr'd with pales of gold,
Mounted on warlike coursers for the field,
Fet[63] from the mountain-tops of Corsica,
Or bred in hills of bright Sardinia,
Who shall conduct and bring you to your lord.
Ay, unto Sylla, ladies, shall you go,
And tell him Marius holds within his hands
Honour for ladies, for ladies rich reward;
But as for Sylla and for his compeers,
Who dare 'gainst Marius vaunt their golden crests,
Tell him for them old Marius holds revenge,
And in his hands both triumphs life and death.