Tiresias makes his exit at an early stage in the play, addressing congratulations to himself:
"Goe, thou hast done, Tyresias; bidd adieu;
Thy part is well plaid and thy wordes are true."
As a last instance of this naïve custom, Florida's words at the end of the short part assigned to herself and Clois may be cited:
"Looke you for maids no more, our parte is done,
Wee come but to be scornd, and so are gone."
Both the songs contained in the play have a considerable amount of vivacity and vigour, though they fall short of actual lyrical beauty. The first and longer of the two is a drinking-song with a refrain of eight lines, written in a lively and irregular, but not ill-handled metre; the second, a hunting-song of five stanzas, with the chorus "Yolp" in imitation of the cry of the dogs. Besides these, which may very possibly have been in existence before the play was written, the effusion of Dorastus on meeting Narcissus ("Cracke eye strings cracke," l. 305) is lyrical in character.
Taken as a whole, it will be seen that the comedy of Narcissus is rather interesting for its quaintness, its humour, and its apparent borrowings from, and undoubted resemblances to, Shakspere, than for any intrinsic literary value. In spite of this, I cannot but hope that those who now study it for the first time, though they may have "seene a farre better play at the theater," will not find reason to condemn it as wholly dull and unprofitable.
Section II.
It only remains to say a few words with regard to the four pieces which I have included in the present volume.
These occur in the same MS. as the Narcissus, and taken with it appear to form a united group, by virtue of their common connection with S. John's College. It is true that the Porter who acts so prominent a part in the admission of the supposed players reveals to us only his Christian name, Frances (see last line of Epilogue), but it is hardly possible to doubt his identity with the Francke (or Francis) Clarke, the porter of S. John's, to whom the remarkable productions above-mentioned are attributed. After several vain attempts to discover the record of this man's tenure of office, I have chanced upon his name in Mr. A. Clark's Register of the University of Oxford, vol. ii. (1571-1622), pt. 1, p. 398, where it occurs in the list of "personæ privilegiatæ," a term including, in its widest sense, all persons who enjoyed the immunities conferred by charter on the corporation of the University, but technically used to describe certain classes to whom these immunities were granted by special favour; as, for example, the college servants, of whom the manciple, cook, and porter or janitor, were amongst the chief.
The entry is as follows: