Untamed, adventurous, but still innocent,
exposed him to the clutches of the underworld. One woman, in particular,
Used all her London tricks
To coney-catch the country greenhorn.
Won by her pathetic account of her virtues and trials Marlowe tried to help her to escape from London-then, because he was utterly unused to the wiles of women, and was
Simple as all great, elemental things,
when she expressed an infatuation for him, then
In her treacherous eyes,
As in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,
Here did he see his own eternal skies.
* * * * *
And all that God had meant to wake one day
Under the Sun of Love, suddenly woke
By candle-light, and cried, "The Sun, the Sun."
At last, holding him wrapped in her hair, the woman attempted to tantalize him by revealing her promiscuous amours. In a horror of agony and loathing, Marlowe broke away from her. The next day, as Nash was loitering in a group including this woman and her lover, Archer, someone ran in to warn Archer that a man was on his way to kill him. As Marlowe strode into the place, Nash was struck afresh by his beauty:
I saw his face,
Pale, innocent, just the clear face of that boy
Who walked to Cambridge, with a bundle and stick,
The little cobbler's son. Yet—there I caught
My only glimpse of how the sun-god looked—
Mourning for his death, the great dramatists agree that