have something of Ida's incorruptible purity of principle when she asks Ateukin "can his warrant keep my soul from hell?" Ida's scorn of the man who would
"be a king of men and worldly pelf
Yet hath no power to rule and guide himself,"
is like King Edward's—
"Shall the large limit of fair Britanny
By me be overthrown, and shall I not
Master this little mansion of myself?
Give me an armour of eternal steel!
I go to conquer kings; and shall I not then
Subdue myself?"[15]
In no pre-Shakespearean drama outside of Greene's own work is the simple beauty of chaste womanhood presented with the passion and sympathy that are to be found in Edward III. Certainly Ida of James IV., the Countess of Salisbury of Edward III., and Imogen of Shakespeare's Cymbeline are a trio of womanly beauty and purity. In respect of poetry, the Countess of Salisbury scenes of Edward III., in spite of their somewhat cloying sweetness, transcend any sustained passages in Greene's works. Yet the poetry of James IV. is of the same order. If Greene could but have prolonged his vagrant notes of beauty he would have equalled the best in this play. In respect of dramaturgy and human psychology James IV. is far in advance of Edward III. The simple and undeveloped story of love is in the hands of the more skilled plotter of plays complicated to a fit representation of the social implications of an act, and the passion of Edward is in James developed to the awful inward struggle of a sinning soul. In the absence of facts as to the authorship of Edward III., and as to the date of its composition, it is impossible to draw any conclusions as to influence or inter-relationship. It is clear, however, that Greene's play is written in the spirit of Edward III., in that it is an adaptation of the romantic motive that Greene knew so well how to compass to the purposes of the popular chronicle play.
James IV., which is the last undoubted play of Greene's composition, is also the best. Dramatically it is far in advance of any other of his plays, and there is almost no trace of the affected classical and mythological allusion that had marked his earlier writing. Considerations of style and structure indicate that it was written soon after Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Allusions to contemporary events, such as Dorothea's mention of the Irish uprisings, the idea of a union of England and Scotland, that run through the play, and the brave words spoken by Dorothea, who is not herself a maid, as a delicate compliment to Elizabeth in her French wars,
"Shall never Frenchman say an English maid
Of threats of foreign force will be afraid,"
indicate that the play was produced about 1590. Gayley suggests that it was presented by Greene's company at court on 26th December 1590, or as one of their five performances in 1591. A pretty point is also made by the same scholar based upon a resemblance between lines in this play and certain lines of Peele's. Though the matter is too confused to serve well as chronological data it seems worthy of review if only for the reason that slightly different results may be reached than those indicated by Gayley. In the first scene of the first act of James IV. Ida has the following lines:
"And weel I wot, I heard a shepherd sing,
That, like a bee, love hath a little sting."