Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul,
Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina
But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so;
To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[[333]] (II. iii.)
But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. Verbal reminiscences of the Aminta also are scattered through the play, for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. Her father not unreasonably retorts:
Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is,
Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth
To follow you with lies and flatteries.
Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades,
Which will not always last, and you go crooked,
As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground,
Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.)
With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our attention.
Cowley's Love's Riddle, published in 1638, but written two or three years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin.
Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, who fills at once the rôles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs is secured.
There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, fall apart of themselves, without any dénoûment, strictly speaking, at all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction.
The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora:
How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples
Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.)
or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her brother's sword: