"The sweet content of men that live in love
Breeds fretting humours in a restless mind."
Again it is contentment put into better precept:
"a poor man that is true
Is better than an earl, if he be false;"
and
"'tis more credit to men of base degree,
To do great deeds, than men of dignity."
George's words, "Tell me, sweet love, how is thy mind content," "Happy am I to have so sweet a love," and "I have a lovely leman, as bright of blee as is the silver moon," sound like Greene's style matured and softened by experience. Yet that the play is Greene's one would not dare to say. Its present form displays either hasty composition or garbled version, or both, for it is neither consistent nor well integrated. In one breath Cuddy has never seen George, and in the next delivers to King Edward a message which "at their parting George did say to me." The episodes of Jane-a-Barley, Cuddy and Musgrove, George-a-Greene and the horses in the corn, the shoemakers and the "Vail Staff" custom, Robin Hood and his followers, are but fragments thinly and crudely knit together. Perhaps this play is a unique exemplar of a class of hurriedly-sketched popular plays written by Greene for the provinces and printed from a mutilated stage copy.[21]
The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine has been ascribed to Shakespeare, Marlowe, Peele and Greene. The two former ascriptions are clearly uncritical, and the two latter present many difficulties. According to Symonds, "The best passages of the play ... are very much in the manner of Greene." In this opinion joins Brooke, the editor of The Shakespeare Apocrypha. With certain portions of the argument associating Locrine with Greene we are in harmony. The play was issued by that Thomas Creede who had published Greene's Alphonsus of Arragon, A Looking-Glass, and James IV. In flashes of poetry, in classical allusion, in high-sounding phrases, the play is sometimes astoundingly in the temper of Orlando Furioso and Alphonsus of Arragon. We care little for the evidence that is deduced from literal parallels. More often than not these were purposed copyings or imitations, or involuntary reminiscences of lingering refrains. But there is such a thing as an author's peculiar verbal coin, which is stamped with his sign, and can be paid out by him alone. One who knows his author well cannot but be struck with the frequent occurrence of Greene's own turn of phrase, a style that is clearly to be distinguished from the style of any other poet of his time. Brutus' salutation to his followers at the beginning of the play is much after the manner of Marsilius' welcome to the princes who were come to woo Angelica. Trumpart's imprecations by "sticks and stones," "brickbats and bones," "briars and brambles," "cook shops and shambles," remind one of Orlando's equally ludicrous "Woods, trees, leaves; leaves, trees, woods." The lyrical clownery of Strumbo is often strikingly like that of Miles in Friar Bacon. The senile revenge motive of Corineus resembles that of Carinus in Orlando Furioso. The use of the capital founded by Brutus, Troynovant, is repeated in Never too Late.[22] So also Guendoline's pleas for the life of her faithless husband—"his death will more augment my woes"—are quite in the spirit of Dorothea's pity for her sinning husband in James IV. Strumbo's use of his plackets to hide food in while Humber is starving resembles in comic intent Adam's same expedient in starving Nineveh. Certain verse propositions seem to ring with Greene's own timbre:
"The poorest state is farthest from annoy" (ii. 2, 37).[23]
"After we passed the groves of Caledone.
Where murmuring rivers slide with silent streams,
We did behold the straggling Scythians camp," etc. (ii. 3, 23).
"Why this, my lord, experience teaches us:
That resolution is a sole help at need" (iii. 2, 61).
"Oh, that sweet face painted with nature's dye,
Those roseall cheeks mixt with a snowy white,
That decent neck surpassing ivory" (iv. 1, 91).
"Loc. Better to live, than not to live at all.
Estrild. Better to die renowned for chastity
Than live with shame and endless infamy." (iv. 1, 133)[24]
Other minor phrases that are even more characteristic of Greene's note are, "daughters of proud Lebanon," "Aurora, handmaid of the sun," "party coloured flowers," "shady groves" (often repeated), "girt with a corselet of bright shining steel," "rascal runnagates," "overlook with haughty front," "injurious fortune," and "injurious traitor," "watery" (frequently repeated even where unnecessary), "silver streams" (often repeated), "sweet savours," "regiment," "argent streams," "university of bridewell" (to be compared with Miles' jests), "uncouth rock," "Puryflegiton" (often used; Greene uses Phlegethon), "Anthropophagie," "countercheck," "triple world," "beauty's paragon," "those her so pleasing looks," "straggling" (as an adjective expressing contempt; often used, and quite characteristic of Greene).