II, IV, 445.
This is in reference to a well-known play, entitled “A Lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of Pleasant Mirth, containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia,” by Thomas Preston, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. The printed play is without date, being written and acted at Court about 1570, and perhaps published the same year. The story is taken from an episode in the life of Cambyses, King of Persia, as related by Herodotus. The play was often parodied and held up to ridicule by Elizabethan dramatists, chiefly on account of the maudlin style of the King when in liquor. The putting to death of the Queen was also made fun of. “Weep not, sweet Queen,” may be an allusion to a scene in this play, where we read as a stage direction, “At this tale let the Queen weep.”
QUEEN.
These words to hear make stilling tears
Issue from crystal eyes.
KING.
What dost thou mean, my spouse, to weep
For loss of any prize.
Shakespeare must have seen or read the play when published. Another allusion will be found in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where there seems to lurk a parody of the title page of Preston’s book, “A Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Pleasant Mirth.”