Canutus. It was a signe yee fledd and did not fight.
[turns towards Uskatant.
Ist not a dishonour unto you
To see a foraingne nation fight for mee
Whenas my homebred Cuntrymen doe runne,
Leaving theire king amongest his enimies?
Edricus. Give not such scoope to humerous discontent,
Wee all are partners of your privat greefes.
Kinges are the heads, and yf the head but ache
The little finger is distempered.
Wee greeve to se you greeved, which hurteth us
And yet availes not to asswage your greefe.
You are the Sunne, my lo:, wee Marigolds;
Whenas you shine wee spred our selves abroad
And take our glory from your influence;
And when you hide your face or darken yt
With th'least incounter of a clowdy looke,
Wee close our eies as partners of your woes,
Droopinge our heades as grasse downe waid with due.
Then cheere ye upp, my lord, and cheere upp us,
For now our valours are extinguished
And all our force lyes drownd in brinish teares,
As Jewells in the bottome of the sea.
—I doe beseech your grace to heare mee speake.
[Edricus talks to him.
The next piece (leaves 119-135), which is without a title, is founded on the Charlemagne romances. My friend, Mr. S.L. Lee, editor of Huon of Bordeaux, in answer to my inquiries writes as follows: "Almost all the characters in this play are the traditional heroes of the French Charlemagne romances, and stand in the same relation to one another as in the Lyf of Charles the Grete and the Four Sons of Aymon, both of which were first printed by Caxton, and secured through later editions a wide popularity in England during the XVIth century. I believe, however, that the story of the magic ring is drawn from another source. It is unknown to the Charlemagne romances of France and England, but it appears in several German legends of the Emperor, and is said to be still a living tradition at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the episode is usually localised (cf. Gaston, Paris, Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne, p. 383). Petrarch has given a succinct account of it in a letter written from Cologne, in which he states that he learnt it from the priests of the city, and it is through his narrative that the legend appears to have reached England. John Skelton in his poem 'Why come ye not to court?' quotes the story, and refers to the Italian poet as his authority (cf. Dyce's Skelton, II. 48 and 364, where the letter is printed at length). Southey has also made the tradition the subject of a ballad entitled King Charlemain to which he has prefixed a French translation of the passage of Petrarch. In 1589 George Peele in a Farewell addressed to Morris and Drake on setting out with the English forces for Spain tells them to
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, & mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley and the rest
Adieu.
Dyce, in a note on this passage (Dyce's Peele, II. 88) writes: 'No drama called Charlemagne has come down to us, nor am I acquainted with any old play in which that monarch figures.' But we know from Henslowe's diary that in at least two plays that were dramatised from Charlemagne romances the Emperor must have taken a part." Mr. Lee concludes his most interesting note by suggesting that the present play may be the one to which Peele alludes; but he will at once perceive from my extracts that the date 1589 is much too early. Here is a passage that might have been written by Cyril Tourneur:—
[Ganelon stabs Richard, his dearest friend, suspecting him of treachery.]
Rich. O you've slayne me! tell me, cruell sir,
Why you have doone thys, that myne innocent soule
May teache repentance to you— dies.
Gan. Speake it out,—
What, not a worde? dumbe with a littill blowe?
You are growne statlye, are you? tys even so:
You have the trycke of mightie men in courte
To speake at leasure and pretend imployment.
Well, take your tyme; tys not materyall
Whether you speake the resydue behynde
Now or at doomes day. If thy common sence
Be not yet parted from thee, understand
I doe not misse thee dyinge because once
I loved thee dearlye; and collect by that
There is no Devyll in me nor in hell
That could have flesht me to this violent deathe
Hadst thou beene false to all the world but me.
The concentrated bitterness of those lines is surpassed by nothing in the Revenger's Tragedy. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that the whole play, which is very unskilfully constructed, is by Tourneur, or perhaps by the author[281] of the Second Maiden's Tragedy. All the figures are shrouded in a blank starless gloom; to read the play is to watch the riot of devils. Here is an extract from the scene where Orlando, returning from the wars, hears that Charlemagne, his uncle, has married Ganelon's niece, and that his own hopes of succession have been ruined by the birth of a son:—
Orl[ando.] I am the verye foote-ball of the starres,
Th'anottomye of fortune whom she dyssects
With all the poysons & sharpe corrosyves
Stylld in the lymbecke of damde pollycie.
My starres, my starres!
O that my breath could plucke theym from theire spheares
So with theire ruyns to conclude my feares.