Fond love, no more
Will I adore
Thy feigned Deity;
Go throw thy darts
At simple hearts
And prove thy victory.Whilst I do keep
My harmless sheep
Love hath no power on me;
'Tis idle soules
Which he controules,
The busy man is free.(II. i.)
Readers of Suckling will recognize the inspiration of the following lines:
Why so nice and coy, fair Lady,
Prithee why so coy?
If you deny your hand and lip
Can I your heart enjoy?
Prithee why so coy?(IV. iii.)
There is one obvious omission from the above list of plays founded on pastoral romances, but it has been made intentionally. The interest which from our present point of view attaches to As You Like It lies less in the relation of that play to its source in Lodge's romance than to the fact that in it Shakespeare summed up to a great extent, and by implication passed judgement upon, pastoral tradition as a whole. It will therefore be more convenient and more appropriate to postpone consideration of the piece until we have followed out the influence of that tradition, and watched its effect in the wide field of the romantic drama, and come at the end ourselves to face the question of the meaning and the merits of pastoralism as a literary creed.
Looking back for a moment over the plays just passed in review, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that they present in themselves but the slightest traces of pastoral. It is evident that it was not there that lay the dramatists' interest in the romances. This observation is important, for the tendency is not confined to those plays which are directly founded on works of the sort. The idea of pastoral current among the playwrights, and no doubt among the audience too, was largely derived from novels such as the Arcadia, and, as we have seen, the tradition of these works was one rather of polite chivalry and courtly adventure than of pastoralism proper. Had no other forces been at work the tradition of the stage influenced by the romances would have probably shown no trace of pastoral at all. As it was, something of a genuinely pastoral tradition arose out of the mythological plays and the attempts at imitating the Italian drama, and this combined with the more popular but less genuine pastoralism of the romances to produce the peculiar hybrid which we commonly find passing under the name of pastoral in this country.
II
The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with artistic evolution.
A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is unhappily wanting.
In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous Maid's Metamorphosis, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in 1600.[[315]] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be welcome.
Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's Gallathea, in which, it will be remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[[316]] As to the sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, a fact that carries them back towards Peele's Arraignment and the days previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish pages of Lyly.[[317]]