The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes,
The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes,
And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames,
Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ...
Only love waking rests and sleepe despises,
Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises.
With him the day as night, the night as day,
All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day.
How different from love is lovers guise!
He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.)
Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled The Careless Shepherdess. It was printed many years after its original production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last months of the author's life[[325]]. The question of the date is interesting principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's Sad Shepherd:
This was her wonted place, on these green banks
She sate her down, when first I heard her play
Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be
Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose
I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke
Then court my eye; She must be here, or else
That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd
Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that
Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head
To mourn the absence of her eyes[[326]]. (V. vii.)
The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now ends happily.
In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent enlèvements by the satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story distantly recalls Ingegneri's Danza di Venere. One feature of importance is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the Maid's Metamorphosis we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such slighter compositions as the Converted Robber and Tatham's Love Crowns the End, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular with the audience.[[327]] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the lyrical verse of the play:
Come Shepherds come, impale your brows
With Garlands of the choicest flowers
The time allows.
Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair,
And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers
With hast repair:
Where you shall see chast Turtles play,
And Nightingales make lasting May,
As if old Time his youthfull minde,
To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.)
There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. Of the author of Rhodon and Iris, as the play was called, little is known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one thread is cut short by a dea ex machina of the most mechanical sort, while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace (All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is only referred to in the epilogue.
The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly and Spanish type than to that of works like Menaphon, or even Daphnis and Chloe. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the Queen's Arcadia.[[328]]
This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the Fairy Pastoral in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for example, the lines from Eglantine's lament:
Since that the gods will not my woe redresse,
Since men are altogether pittilesse,
Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare;
Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare,
And listen to my plaints that doe excell
The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel.
Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while,
Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle,
Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone,
Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne,
And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare
The growing liver of the ravisher;
Let these behold my sorrows and confesse
Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.)