To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of Dialogues and Dramas.[[341]] The only one of these that can really be styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled Amphrissa, or the Forsaken Shepherdess. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs, virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song.
In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards Euphuism. Thus we read of men how
like as the Chamelions change themselves
Into all perfect colours saving white;
So they can to all humors frame their speech,
Save only to prove honest;
or else how
light minds are catcht with little things,
And Phancie smels to Fennell.
Nor are other and more marked traces of Lyly's influence wanting: witness the following passage, which is a mere metrical paraphrase of a speech in the Gallathea already quoted (p. 227):
You have an heate, on which a coldnesse waits,
A paine that is endur'd with pleasantnesse,
And makes those sweets you eat have bitter taste:
It puts eies in your thoughts, eares in your heart:
'Twas by desire first bred, by delight nurst,
And hath of late been wean'd by jelousie.
Certain speeches of a sententious nature, on the other hand, remind us rather of Daniel and the sonneteers:
To wish the best, to thinke upon the worst,
And all contingents brooke with patience,
Is a most soveraigne medicine.
All these characteristics point to an early date, and Mr. Fleay, who regards the piece as forming part of the Five Plays in One, acted at the Rose in April, 1597, may very likely be right. Of the other pieces printed in the same volume, a few only show any trace of pastoral blending with the general mythological colouring. Perhaps the most that can be said is that the nymphs are already familiar to us from the pastoral tradition, and must have been scarcely less so to a contemporary audience, fresh from the work of Peele and Lyly. In Jupiter and Io, which perhaps made part of the same performance as Amphrissa, Mercury disguises himself as a shepherd, in order to cut off the head of Argus. This he did to such good purpose that record of the trunkless member remains unto this day in the inventories of the Lord Admiral's company. Another of these pieces, the character of which can be easily imagined from its title, Apollo and Daphne, ends with a song, which may owe something to the traditions of the mythological pastoral: