Tudor Drama
Table of
1.
2.
3.
Contents
Everyman
Second Sheperd's Play
Four PP's
Everyman
Everyman: "a Treatyse how the hye fader of heven sendeth dethe
to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte of theyre lyves
in this worlde"
translated from Dutch play, "Elckerlijk" circa 1520
printed in english by Richard Pynson at the Sign of The George at
Fleet Street. Play probably printed and performed in Dutch and English
a generation before. Mss sources:
Dodsley's Select Collection of Old English Plays vol I 1874
Skot's edition, edited H. Logeman, 1892
Jon Skot edition preserved at Britwell Court
J.S. Farmer "Six Anonymous Plays, " 1905
Set to Music H. Walford Davies, with notes, 1904
Characters
God: Adonai
Death
Messenger
Fellowship
Cousin
Kindred
Goods
Good-deeds
Strength
Discretion
Five Wits
Beauty
Knowledge
Confession
Angel
Doctor
Plot Outline
1. Messenger introduces serious theme to audience, bids them listen:
The Summoning of Everyman called it is,
That of our lives and ending shows
How transitory we be all day
....the story saith, - Man, in the beginning,
Look well, and take good heed to the ending
Be you never so gay! [10-12]
2. Play begins with god recognizing that his creatures to not abide
by his laws [be to me unkind]:
"living without dread in wordly prosperity"
He [Adonai/Christ God] sees that:
"the more that I them forbear
The worse they be from year to year" [pg 4]
So God requires a "Reckoning"; sends Death to bring
3.
Everyman confronted unexpectedly by Death.
"What, sent to me?" [p5]
Death to Everyman:
"Though thou have forget him here
He thinketh on thee in the heavenly
sphere" [5]
4. Everyman given time to gather friends to go with him to God for
the reckoning. Lamenting:
O Death, thou comest when I had thee least in
mind" [p6]
5.
Everyman asks the metempsychosis question of death:
Death, if I should this pilrgrimage take
And my reckoning surely make,
Show me, for saint Charity,
Should I not come again shortly?
Death:
No Everyman; and thou be once there
Thou mayest never more come here,
Trust me verily [p6]
Death further tells Everyman that his lovely life and goods were
but lent him, and that
"...as soon as thou art go
Another awhile shall have it, and then go
therefore" [this is 17th century materialism]
6.
7.
Everyman pleads for time:
"gentle death" pleez...
Fellowship, who vows, but will not go
Kindred, who befrieds, but will not go
Cousin, who vows loyalty, but will not go
Goods, who proves a villain, and will not go:
"My condition is man's soul to kill
If I save one, a thousand do I spill" [p14]
Visits Good Deeds, a female, stricken and prone by
Everyman's
lack of cheer and concern for her. But knows his
task, and wants to help, and sends him to Knowledge.
Visits Knowledge, and Knowledge will go:
Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide
In thy most need to go by thy side [p15]
8.
Visits
Visits
Visits
Visits
On the way, Everyman must visit
"Confession, that cleansing river" [16]
Everyman becomes greatly religious [17]
"O eternal God, O heavenly figure...
Asks Mary to intercede....
Asks Knowledge for a Scourge of penance
│
Good Deeds is able to walk, and join
Everyman on this:
My heart is light, and shall be evermore;
Now I will smite faster than I did before [p18]
9.
Knowledgre brings a pious Everyman a "Garment of Sorrow":
Be no more sad, but ever rejoice
God seeth thy living in his throne above;
Put on this garment to they behove
Which is wet with your tears,
Or else before God you may it miss
When you to your journey's end come shall [p18]
10. Armed with contrition, Everyman told by Knowledge that he should
take with him:
Discretion
Strength
Beauty
His Five Wits, but these will not go into the grave, which
must happen before Reckoning. Beauty first put off.
Good Deeds only goes, loyal as they were always for the wanting.
Knowledge must stop at the graveside. Hears Angels singing as soul
is received.
11. A Doctor [learned man, a scholar big in middyl] calls to audience:
Ye hearers, take it of worth, old and young
.....That all at the last do Everyman forsake
Save his good deeds, there doth he take.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Patterns
Empowering Clergy
Audience turns
Emptiness of words, rhetoric
Humour
Empowering Clergy
Death says to Everyman, that he
Everyman, it may not be by
I set not by gold, silver,
Ne by pope, emperor, king,
may not put off reckoning:
no way;
nor riches
duke, ne princes [p6]
Note that pope mentionted before emperor.
is quite and issue. Henry IV against Gregory VII:
In 1520, this
Roman Law
jus civile: decisions of courts,civil law
jus gentiam: appropriate laws for foreigners, business
jus naturale: high purpose of divine order for human laws.
From Stoics:
1. whole universe as single intelligible unity
2. Pervaded by Reason, Universe ruled by God
3. Desire for one universal society, one state,
laws in keeping with Cosmos.
4. State an equsal brotherhood.
unified
Gelasian Theory insisted however, that sacerdotum and imperium could
never be united.
A.D. 1059 controversy:
Henry IV wrote
Dictatus
Henry IV charged Gregory VII with
attempting to do just this.
│
privelage of Lay Investiture
taken out of Royal hands
Croisus writes Defenseof Henry IV A.D. 1084
contends that right to inheritance of throne
is Roman
York Tracts
[1100]:
controversy between Henry I of England
and Anselm over Lay Investiture. York
tracts attacked tyrrannical powers
of Pope inside Church.
By A.D. 12th, papacy condemned with using office, its spiritual
office,
as
a
means
to
earthly
aggrandizement
rather than as a mission to teach and preach.
For Gregory VII
Summa Gloria A.D. 1123 by Honorius of Augsburg:
As Hebrews had no ruler before priest Samuel
anointed Saul, so
No christian rule before Bishop of Rome
baptized Constantine.
1. Politically putting Pope first
2. Death gives sermon on metemssyuchosis [6]
3. After confessing and doing penance, Everyman's good deeds can
walk - yet they could not have in themselves changed [17]
4. Knowedlge tells Everyman he must go to Priesthood:
"Everyman, hearken what I say;
Go to priesthood, I you advise,
And receive of him in any wise
The holy sacrament and ointment together [p20]
5. Five Wits tells Everyman that:
There is no emperor, king, duke, ne baron
That of God hath commission,
As hath the least priest in the world being;
For of the blessed sacraments pure and benign
He beareth the keys and therof hath cure
For man's redemption, it is ever sure [20]
│
in a way, priests are Knowledge, who, like
6.
boddhisatvas, stay behind and help the fallen
into the grace of god, not going themselves.
Moses figures.
Five Wits tells EM:
For priesthood exceedeth all other thing,
To us Holy Scripture they do teach
And converteth man from sin heaven to reach.
God hath to them more power given
Than to any angel that is in heaven [p21]
│
priest controls sacraments, handles the flesh of
Christ - priests as merlin figures. Knowledge joins
debate only to add that if priest be good, just
think of Christ. [Mentions Church Corruption, which
is the counterargument, which is concluded by Five
Wits:
I trust to God no such may we find
Therefore let us priesthood honour
And follow their doctrine for our soul's succour;p
We be their sheep, and they sheperds be
By whom we all be kept in surety [21]
│
priests only have the power.
Their Doctrine
They Sheperds
issues of corruptioin brought up, rectified pro priesthood
longest tracts of debate here are in defense of praise of priesthood
implicit sense that audience needs to be told to obey priesthood
Martin Luther reacts again corrupt priesthood, 1517.
This is a political tract
Audience Turns
Primary audience turns for didactic purposes, but also, implicitly
in the false arguments I and II, that is, issue of metemphsychosis,
and that of respecting priests, in spite of corruption, which concludes
that only priests and their doctrine can save you - a doctrine attacked
in 1517, just as centuries before.
1. Messenger opens speaking to us
2. All
lesson,
so that
work on
3.
4.
comments to Everyman are comments to us [allows us to take
because given to other. Didacticism works best vicariously,
we can choose the side of right judgement. Mystery plays
this idea.
Everyman talking to himself, could be addressing audience:
How should I be merry or glad?
For fair promises to me make
But whyen I have most need, they me forsake.
I am deceive4d; that maketh me sad [to kindred] [p12]
Stiff, unnatural dialogue, personifications, make whole play
important, better than life. Middle ages chooses universal over the
particular. Platonic forms. Byzantine art rather than realist greek
or later rennaissance
5.
Discreation says "Farewell, Everyone!" [p23]
Us?
6.
Everyman himself becomes didactic:
for I see my time is nigh spent away.
Take example, all ye that this do hear or see,
How they that I loved best do forsake me,
Except my Good Deeds, that bideth truly [p24]
7.
doctor ends with redundant sum up, like an academic paper.
Help the Trinity
a collection pledge please.
sve the children
Emptiness of Words
Late medieval notion that reason could not get you closer to God.
William of Ockam. Saint Bernard. Mystics. See same in Milton, Samson
Agonistes. Irony is corrupt language. Here, words are shown to be
empty, in a scathing way, for all players swear piously that they
will not be loyal to Everyman.
1. rhetoric emplo6yed to show that only god knows, and that words
are misleading, rhetorically, ironically. Death tells everyman he
has come for him, because god has not forgot. sort of grim, black
humour. sort of in keeping with Death's cruel character, yet as a
vicar of God, we know this means good. [page 5]. so, sets stage for
uncertainty in wording.
2. Everyman, needing time, pleads with "gentle death" [p7]
3. Fellowship pledges unto "my life's end." A technical truth which
misleads [p8]
4. Fellowship refers to speech as a pleasure, a trifling thing:
So I said, certainly,
But such pleasures be set aside, thee sooth to say:
And also, if we took such a journey...[p9]
5. Cousin says:
No, by our Lady; I have the cramp in my toe.
Trust not to me, for, so God me speed,
I will deceive you in your most need [p11]
6. In wealth and woe we will with you hold,
For over his kin a man may be bold [11, Kindred]
.....yet further...
But one thing I warn you, by Sainte Anne,
As for me, ye shall go alone [11]
Summation: Words are nothing. Deeds are everything. don't listen
to rumours of corruption. go to your priest to be saved.
thus ends this moral tale
Second Sheperd's Play
Part of the Wakefield Cycle, told on the moors, called
Nativity Play
Certainly a moor animated, lively account, with colloquial
representation of people and place. More human. also more slapstick.
Works with language well. sort of a bob and a wheel. mini bob and
wheel.
1st Sheperd
2nd sheperd
3d Sheperd
Mac, the sheep stealer
Mac's Wife Gill
Mary
The child Christ
An Angel
Characters
Four PP's
Published 1644
Plot
1. Palmer opens with greeting to the house, then relates how many
pilgrimages he has been on. Number is laboriously high, so humorous.
2. Pardoner enters just as Palmer finishes telling us that pilgrimages
are the best route to God:
Who seeketh saintes for Christes sake
And namely such as pain do take
On foot to punish their frail body
Shall thereby merit more highly
Than by anything done by man [59-63]
3. Pardoner contends that it is silly to go on pilgrimages, when
salvation lies right at home, through him and his relics.
For at your door myself doth dwell
Who could have saved your sould as well [97-8]
4. Palmer, finding out that pardoner is a pardoner, questions his
creentials, knowing, as does all of middle ages, that pardoners were
corrupt.
Palmer prefers to get the real thin on pilgrimages.
5. Pardoners last plug, is antithetical to the medievla contention
that gain comes only through pain. Contends Palmer spends too much,
gets too little:
There your labour and pardon is odd,
With small cost and without any pain,
These pardons them to heaven plain.
Give me but a penny or two pence,
And as soon as the sould departeth hence,
In half an hour - or three quarters at most
The soul is in heaven with the holy ghost [144-50]
6. Pothecarie enters, seeking to prove both of these braggarts as
idiots. Brings note of impious disbelief into play, against these
two noddy idiots. His intent, for the beginning:
And, by the leave of this company,
Prove ye false knaves both, ere we go,
In part of your sayings
Then pothecarei introduces sense that he is best, but it seems
to be for the purpose of undoing these two. He is a fast wit. [Seems,
however, that his cynicism gets out of hand, and he takes the game
too seriously, and gets off track. Thus, shows he has good intentions
in this modern age, but needs spiritual guidance]
7. We see lack of spiritual guidance in Pothecarie, when he is accused
of being less than the others:
By the mass, I hold us nought, all three [but two have truly
claimed to be pious and doing the right thing] [202]
8. Pedlar enters and is asked to judge between them who is the most
pious. He denies his ability [humble Christian - we should take hint],
but since he is good at lying [all Christians are so defiled, but
few admit it - see Everyman], he aggrees to have them contest on that
level, to see who is best liar. Since the three will do better if
they have a leader, a head, it is proposed that he who lies best shall
be the leader, the tohers the followers. This comes after intercourse
with the pothecarie on women and pins and fittings.
9. Pothecarie lies first, and others stumble, so new game proposed,
where each is to tell a tale, unbelievable, the most unbelievable
is to win.
Pothecarie hops up and down, then tells how he helped a girl
with epi8lepsy by stuffing a tampon up her bum, until the pressure
blew it out, the tampon then travelling a long way, to then know down
the walls of an old castle, but the girl was cured [fabliaux type
of stuff]
Pardoner tells tale how a girlfrind of his dies, wnet to hell, as
so he went and got her out, promisng the devil that he would sell
more pardons to women, as they were overcorwding hell, 10 to one,
and any two women caused the devils more grief than they could bear.
So, he riased her, and left her thankful on the heath.
Palmer states that he cannot believe that so many women are in hell,
he having travelled the world and found only gentle, sensitive types.
This last is the medieval winner.
10. Palmer wins, and pothecarie gets outrages, as does pardoenr.
Neither will follow, as promised. So, Palmer releases them from
obligation, and then hearing a sermon from the pedlar, stating that
all those doing gods work are evil, and the trouble comes when each
begins to think that one kind of virtue is better than others, as
have the palmer and pardoenr done. The pothecarie reiterates his
claim to use no virtue at all, and it is here that the pedlar brings
him, the cynic who has lost faith, due to corruption perhaps, into
the fold. Pedlar points out that his position is a poor one, because:
For more hard it is, as I have heard say
To begin virtue where none is pretended,
Than, where it is begun, the abust to be mended
[11913]
Further, he points out that poth does have virtue, he in fact has
a sort of emerging protestant virtue. He does not believe everything
that folk, in this case, religious folk, tell him:
For this and all other that ye know feigned
Ye be neither counseled nor constrained
To any such thin in any such case
To give any such reverance in any such place
But where you doubt the truth, not knowing
Believing the best, good may be growing [1210]
Poth has not perhaps believed the best, and it is here where he needs
guidance, and pedlar tell him he should follow the church. So, it
ends like Everyman. Pth says:
Go ye before, and, as I am true man,
I will follow as fast as I can [1220]
Then Palmer gives the same to the audience, closing, as he had opened
the interlude.
Calvin's "Institution of the Christian Religion"
Luther's "Thesis" 1517
Johann Hus burned at Constance 1415
4th Lateran Council 1215
set sacraments at seven
celibacy for priests
witholding of cup from laity
1536
Questions
1.
Whati does play imply about its staging/actor audience
relationship?
Every sense that the play was for small audiences, and
courtly ones, for at least three reasons. First, the Palmer opens
with a question to the audience:
Now God be here! Who keepeth this place? [domiciles are
so kept] [lin1]
Furthermore, he admits his rude wit, and mentiones that courtesy
requires that he continue to tell the tale, or play tyhe role. Yet,
no courtesy binds the peasantry. Only nobles so bound.
Thirdly,
the plays of language are educated. Yet, this could also be played
to the new bourgoisie, with wealth, and a distinct vision of themselves
as separate from the peasantry. Might also see that the Pardoner
has such relics as the audience, as in Chaucer, can see to be
fraudulent, but which give every impression of being somewhat
representative of the types of things which were selling on the
streets.
2. How are women portrayed?
Pertinent:
Women are portrayed as the perpetual Eve who brought sin, and
so is full of it it still. There seem to be a whole host of women
jokes in the middle ages, just like their are polish jokes today.
The pothecarie asks pedlar why women are so long getting
dressed - because so many things to put on, they get into a rush,
and this slows them down. They are always pinning something. Sense
of women as separate from men. As creatures from a different planet.
Still, rather humourous, and not ill intended.
Further, women
currently are cuasing so many problems in hell that 2 of them give
more trouble than the devils want, yet their are 10 women for eveery
man. Pardoner can take one, so long as he promises to seel more bulls
to women, to slow down the overcrowding in hell. Seems like typical
stuff for middle ages. Yet, again, nothing that might be called cruel.
Rather, it is sort of teasing fun in the same vein as that met in
the also prosperous 18th century [Rape of the Lock etc]. Yet it also
seems to indicate a truth - for women have always been more religious
than men, and perhaps have even purchased more relics. We know this
true in beginning. Probably true in middle ages also. Certainly
true in churches today. The ultimate lie that Palmer has never met
any but good women must win. Yet this teasing I think, is linked
to prosperity, to good times. Palmer keeps women, perhaps. So many
do. The pothecarie's wife gives him grief. Yet they all swear my
Mary.
3. Apothecary a vice figure? what's his role
P{othecarie is a sort of absurdist cynic, a diogenese type, who
spoofs, and brings the element of acrid disbelief into the interlude.
He doubts what should be doubted. False relics, etc. He probably
is a widspread fellow in these somewhat dissenting times. Remember,
printed 1544, while Luther, 1517, andPope Leo X ordered all of Luthers
books burnt in 1520, and Cardinal Wolsey complied in england to this
order, 1521, and Henry broke with Rome, 1534, and monasteries
suppressed 1539. But Wolsey fell, 1530, and Henry broke with Rome,
1534, so interestingly enough, the pothecarie may be the new cynic,
tired of all the religious run around and corruption [palmers with
girls, pardoners with turks teeth and pentecostal buttocks], and yet,
who can ans is brought into the fold here, by the pedlar, who shows
him that in fact part of what he does is good [rail against corruption
and fraud] while part of what he does is wrong [hold to no ordained
virtue, for, as pedlar tells him:
For more hard it is, as I have heard say
To begin virtue where none is pretended
Than, where it is begun, the abuse to be mended [1191-94]
Thus, this work brings the ordinary, somewhat dispirited everyman
back into the fold. In fact, link to Everyman, written twenty years
or so earlier, as a play that seeks to bring folloers back into the
church, despite corruption, by specifically addressing the issues
of corruption.
4. Political/social/religious meaning?
This work, attacking fradulence in both people [palmers and
pothecaries] and church officials [friars who only beg, not buy, and
pardoners selling false relics] is a sort of early protestant tract,
or rather, it has the smallest fragrance of dissent, especially evident
since the pedlar so praises the pothecarie for standing strong against
fraud:
For this, and all other 6that ye know feigned,
Ye be neither counseled nor constrained
To any such thin in any such case,
To give any reverance in any such place,
but where ye doubt the truth, not knowing,
Believing the best, good may be growing [1205-1210]
Key on "counseled" Individual responses, even though he later is
told to follow churches model:
But as the Church doth judge or take them,
So do ye receive or forsake them
[Henry broke from Rome 1534]
An attempt to reground the new church of England for the
peasantry, or upper middle class? [case against nobles or court wanes
because they have vested interest in maintenance of status qujo, so
do not need this sort of bringing back into line]
Social value may be found in the way in which we have a sort of spiritual
economy here. Middle ages put prayers in the bank. you buy people
our of purgatory. Buying and selling. In fact, this is a comedy
of prespoerity and social intercourse, as opposed, in some ways, to
the pious palmer, who thinks a quiet man is best. He is attacked
for that, since silence puts no bread and butter on the table. Three
of our P's are sellers. Only the Palmer buys, and when he wins, no
one will follow. Money words, exchanges, throughout. Also too, the
obvious look as religous and secular corruption.
5. Aesthetic value/entertainment value?
Good entertainment value in that it is short and quick, and you
have contrasting personalities and a moral. But the word play might
be a little much for an audience listening only once. It is slapstick
though, and the fact that it plays off the fablieax tradition further
supports the idea that this play was for the upper middle class, or
new bourgeoisie, moneyed, vulgar, but class concious, and moral at
least one day a week, and very much seeing themselves as separate
from the knaves.
6.
Relationship to Mystery, Morality Plays
7. Play's form? Disputatio?
a debat.
8. What kind of audience appeal?
its audience?
what does it assume about
Gammer Gurton's Needle
Characters
Diccon the Bedlam
Hodge, Gammer G's servant
Tib, Gammer's maid
Cock, Gammer's boy
Dame Chat
Dostor Rat
Master Bailey
Doll, Dame Chat's maid
Scapethrift, Master Bailey's servant
Mutes
Five Acts
Stage with two houses and a street, likely
Synopsis
Gammer Gurton loses her needle, and so cannot sew up her servant Hodge's
dirty pants, after he slaves all day in the mire for her, renting
them that way. She is all out of proportion at wits end over this,
and the household goes to great lengths to find the missing needle.
Tib the maid searches the dust, then goes to the dump outside of
town, Hodge is thick in the fire ashes, trying to kindle a candle,
so as to looke further by night. Much of the action in play at night.
Lamenting, Hodge tells all to Diccon the Bedlam at the bar, this
said Disson having already stopped by the house and filched some bacon
on his way to Dame Chat's. Diccon decides to enlarge the issue, probably
to get himself some more food, or some ale, so tells Hodge that Gammers
neighbor Chat has found the needle, and is keeping it. He further
sets up a series of lies which depend on each character not talking
to one another specifically for their success. The goal is ambiguous.
Fights, brawls, and namecalling ensue between the households of Chat
and Gurton. A mediator, Dr Rat is brought in, through Diccon's further
lies, and turned also into a fool who crawls into a hole in Chat's
home and is therefore beaten. Et cetera. A Bailiff is called, and
the cause of all the mischief reduced to Diccon, who is summoned,
and admits all, but puts the blame somewhat on the other's foolishness.
The Bailiff clearly agrees, and sentences the somewhat penitent
Diccon to the penalty of swearing on Hodges soiled breeches that he
will
when the Doctor will pay, never try to do it himself
but if drinking from same pot, doctor gets first
'pull' off of the drink, which must be offered
full.
When Goodwife Chat refuses his money, he must not
insist otherwise.
Further, if he is offered a
drink, he is bound to take it, when free.
For Gammer Gurton, he must help her find her needle, if
he is in anyway able, and to be of good bearing to
Gib her cat.
For Hodge, Diccon must never take him for a gentleman.
Beginning to do so, Diccon slaps Hodge on the arse, causing him to
pain because the needle, afterall, was stuck in his half mended
breeches. Joyous sense of success, of prodigal son come home, and
all go off in good sport to drink ale, making sure the ailing Dr Rat
come also, the ale being good for the spirits.
Critical Analysis
Robinson, J. W
"Art and Meaning in GGN"
Rennaissance Drama, n.s. 14
Edit L Barkan
Northwestern Univ Press, Evanston, 1983 pp 45-77
Robinson uses Malone society Reprint of the text
Thesis:
That unlike what many fold think, GGN is both a clever
excersize in modern english rhetoric and a significant religious
statement. [45]. He notes that playwright a christian Humanist with
a fondness for the Canterbury Tales and the Gospel of Luke.
Notes GGN the first English Comedy, because
adheres to unities of time, place, and action
divided in acts and scenes
has setting of two houses and a street
ends with a 'plaudytie'
│
└───yet play critisized by T Warton in his
Hist of Engl Poetry for its
"lowness of incident"
└───nad by 19 cent critic moralists generally
vulgar and trivial
Standard view of play today:
GGn an attempt to present picture of contemporary rustic
life in form of a regular comedy. A realistic depiction of life in
a Tudor village. Admired for its realization of
miry winter weather
impassable roads
sluttishly kept houses
state of society where needle a coveted possesssion
state of society where one misses a piece of bacon
Games of trump by the fire
Yet thought to be only an entertainment value play
[46-7]
Play First perfomed as Holiday fare for scholarly persons living in
academic celibacy, who had a singular taste for the manners of low
life - thought a nice diversion from their own world of classical
learning.
But Robinson believes play deliberately invites
interpretation [47] Because:
I. Given Cambridge scene at time of play, play unlikely to be
simply frivolous, and is lumped together with others which also have
clear moral messages of a sort, such as:
Misogonus 1560-77
Fulwell's Like Will to Like 1568
Merbury's Marriage of Wit and Wisdom 1579
Porters Two Angry Women of Abington 1585-98
II Through Englishing the Servus and Parasite Bedlam, dramatist
echoes proverbial and biblical folly, and its consequences; thus,
unlike the figure VICE, with which Diccon has been associated, he
has a purpose, a motive, and that is to uncover the true nature of
the village, which is vulgar, and distracted by pettiness away from
godliness [48] pettiness mine
III As an Anglo Roman comedy, it cannot help but be moral.
The English can do no other, and in fact, chose Terence and Plautus
especially because they thought there to be moral goodness in their
ven bawdy plays. [note - by 1560, England universities had staged
Terence, Plautus [beg 1510], Aristophanes, Latin Morality Plays,
Prodigal Son Plays, and Senecan Tragedy]. Plays prized for showing
men's vices.
IV
contemporary Proverbs informing play:
Children and fooles they say can not ly" I.1.185
[Swain, B. Fools and Folly during Midd Ages
NY 1932 pp 27-52
oftentimes a foole maie speak to purpose
fools may sometimes give a wise man counsel [55]
Thus, the Wise Fool Tradition
and
The Bibilica Fruitlessness of Human Wisdom Tradit
thus
wisdom of this worlde is foolishnes with God...who hath
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise [I corinth 1:27 and 3:19] [55]
Given these interwoven traditions, we must, says robinson,
see Diccon as "somewhere between the concept of folly as wisdom and
folly as sin" [56] from P.R. Baumgarten's
Medieval Fool to Rennaissance
Rogue 1963
Finding the Needle at End of play proves both contemporary and biblical
proverbs true.
V Historiclaly, 1557 a time of beggars. National problem.
1557 Poor Relief made feeding vagabonds compulsory. Given this,
the play tells us some less than pretty things about the village:
Dr Rat, a clergyman, avoids his job, is ratlike
D Chat holding a cardgame, which is illegal [33 Henry
VIII c 9 [1541]
Brawling is violent, very ugly
Light Hard to Come by everywhere
Constant groping in dust, flour, holes, and rubbish
Great superstition
Breaking open turds
Swearing on each others breeches
Busy with small issues, thus neglecting bigger ones
Lke the peasants in Breugal's "Peasant Dance" [1569], who all have
their backs to the church and ignore the picture of the Virgin Mary
on a nearby tree [77]
This, Robinson sees, makes GGN a sort of tragedy
Diccon simply comes and enlarges this situation
Robinson notes play purposely constructed out of a trifle, to fully
amuse a classical audience, while giving them structurally a classical
form, while they are getting a bit of English clowning and ineluctable
morality
The Manaechmi
Plautus, from a greek original circa 275 or 270 B.C. Greek was perhaps
Poseidippus, evedence being that only he had slave cooks in his plays.
Cylindrus is a slave cook in Menaechmi.
Characters
Peniculus, a parasite
Menaechmus, a young gentleman living in Epidamnus
Menaichmus [Sosicles], a young gentleman of Syracuse
Erotium, a courtesan
Cylindrus, her cook
Messenio, slave of Menaechmus Sosicles
Wife of Menaechmus
Father in Law of Menaechmus
A Doctor
Synopisis:
A sicilian merchant had twin sons, dies after one of them had
been stolen. To the boy who ws left at home his paternal grandfather
gave the name of the stolen brother, calling him Menaechmus instead
of Sosicles. And this boy, after he grew up, began searching for
his brother in every land. At last he comes to Epidamnus: here it
ws that his stolen brother had been brought up. Everyone takes the
stranger for their own fellow - citizen Menaechmus, and he is so
addressed by his brother's mistress, wife, and father in law. At
last the brothers recognize each other.
Outline of Events
1. Prologue in which a speaker on stage addresses the audience, telling
them that other playwrights like to set their plays in Athens, to
give them the a la Grec feel, but he, representing the play, will
only give the events as they occurred. This statement is contradicted
at the end of the prologue, when speaker draws attention to fact that
the stage, the setting, is a prop, to be used time and time again
for other plays, with other actors:
This city is Epidamnus, during the presentation of the play;
when another play is presented it will become another town. It is
quite like the way in which families, too, are wont to change their
homes: now a pimp lives here, now a young gentleman, now an old one,
now a poor man, a beggar, a king, a parasite, a seer.
Act I opens with Peniculus complaining about a lack of food, and
presents a topsy turvy view of society by suggesting that prisoners
should be well fed, so that they will stay, rather than put them into
chains, which can be filed off. He proposes to go to his master
Menaechmus to get some food. Praises M's ability to feed his parasites.
Small trouble. Peniculu's other masters are deserting him.
1. Encounters M bawling out his wife for not paying attention to
his wants and desires. Calls her a virago for displeasing her husband
by asking too many questions about where he has been. We find out
that he is in fact, cheating on her, and keeps a mistress next door.
Suggests tha she has possessions enough to keep her happy. she ought
not to rock boat.
He has put up this fight to hide the fact that
he has stolen a gown from her for his mistress. encounters Peniculus,
who shares his secret, accompanies him to Erotiums house.
A scene
where they smell the stolen mantle, which has a taint to it, just
like in Gammer Gurtons round of loose bowel jokes, and soiled breeches.
3. At Erotium's, M is greeted because he pays well. she is a harlot,
and has many such men. Parasite gets what he wants, and that is food
and drink. Lots of battle and fighting analogies, when they are in
fact talking about little things. This too can be found in Hodge,
Gammer Gurton. M gives mantle to Erotium, who coyly takes it. Food
is ordered.
4. cyclindrus the cook goes out to fetch food for the dinner. Joke
about how much a parasite can eat.
Act II
1. Half an hour lasped, and we meet M Sosicles and Messenio, a matching
pair, followed at distance with luggage bearing slaves. Talk between
them of how long this search for his brother is to go on. Messenio
tells him that he is
hunting for a know in a bulrush [246-7]
and ought to give it up unless he is going to write a travel
book.
2. Messenio warns about the city, and inturn, MS takes his wallet
from Messenio, about whom he has douts that Messenio will be able
to hang on to the money with all the temptations about.
3. Cylindrus meets them and the first scene of mistaken identiy takes
place.
Messenio blames it on intelligence from the ship which
swindlers have got hold of. MS and Mess anger.
4. Scene 3, Erotium enters into the doorway and orders maids within
to tidy up, stating that it is daintyiness "what lures lovers hearts,"
and that :attractive surroundings mean the lover's loss and our gain.
354-7
5. Erotium sees the "friend I [she] find so usefull." Becomes coy,
but finds out that he plays oddly with her, pretending to not know
her, etc. Second meeting of mistaken identity ends with MS playing
along, agreeing with her, to get what he expects to be both her body
and some money. He wants what is free. He goes into the home saying:
The booty's mine! Such siegeworks as I've begun! [435]
Act III
1. Several hours later, Peniculus enters, complains because he lost
track of M in the public meeting place, so has effectively lost his
meal. Thinks public meetings ought to be for those who have nothing
to do, not for busy people. Social comment, no doubt. Meets MS,
and mistaking him, sees that he has come from Erotium's, and has had
his wining, dining, and carnal pleasures all satisfied, so it is true
that Peniculus has lost his meal. Here we see he angers now becuas
of the truth of the fact. Nothing has changed, but he will put blame
on M because he wants to blame someone for the loss fo the meal.
Vows revenge againt him for abandoning him. Switch from lost to
abandoned done as humans make their minds able to rationalize whatver
they want to think. See same allover Gammer Gurton. Making Tales.
Beliening neer do well tales because one wants to find a solution.
2. Erotium gives mantle to MS to be fixed, but he will keep it, and
the gold bracelet that maid also gives him for repair. It is his
loot. Says greedy MS:
Well well, all the gods do aid, augment and love me [551-2]
Act IV
1. Menaechmus Wife is told truth about husband by vengefull Peniculus.
She rages, but shows him little favour for informing.
2. Menaechmus enters, complaining about old custom of meeting clients
at the meeting place. It has cost him his dinner and time with Erotium.
He does not know that MS was there instead, and that MS has mantle
for repair, etc. Peniculus and Wife wait and watch and listen s he
uncounsciously admits all. He denies when confronted, but finally
goes back to Erotium to get the mantle. concern with money bigger
here than in Gammer. Confusion results over Erotium having given
mantle to other MS. Denials, charges, fight, a shut door. Nobody
wants poor M anymore. Fights with angry, upset wife, with Peniculus
nearby. He shows his motive for revenge, which is just as human as
is wife's tears:
You didn't count on my having a way to get
even with you. By gad, I've told your wife everything
[630ish]
3. Tension created by us knowing the facts about the case of two
M;s makes us have a more critical distance towards the play. It also
keeps us riveted. This is lost in Gammer Gurton, where only criticla
tension comes from a few asides to audience, and the inexplicable
sentence of the Bailiff.
Act V
Menaechmus Sosicles enters, who is accosted by Menaechmus' wife and
then, after insulting her, and pretending not to know her, is met
with her Father In Law too, whome he roughs up, or intimidates. Father
In Law first criticizes his daughter for being to much questioning
her husbands whearabouts, but upon meeting MS, he changes, because
the MS insults him. Gets together citizen posse to attack and arrest
M, but that group comes upon MS and Messenio, who defed themselves
as if from swindlers. First however, there is an interrogation by
the Doctor, who is much more esteemed than in Gammer, whose Doctor
is a Rat, and a theologian or cleric not a physician. Play on clerics
as corrupt in Gammer, and Diccon fancies himself half a cleric, and
in fact a peer of the Doctor Rat. This interview of the Doctor actually
occurs with Menaechmus, and it is Menaechmus they try and arrest,
and Messenio sves Menaechmus, who promises him freedom for his deed,
but alas, it ws the wrong one, and encountering his real master, MS,
Messenius is made bitter for no thanks, for his plight as a slave
2. The brothers meet at Erotiums house, compare pedigrees, and agree
that the lost brother shold sell all and return home. Play ends with
an auction, and a call by the auctioneer to the audience to give a
good round of applause.
Comparison of Gammer Gurton's Needle and Menaechmus
Both:
concerns with smells
with two households
with a moll sort of women
plots move by parasites, fringers
Classical unity of five acts, scenes, hours, etc.
Slightly wretcvhed characters
Concerned with insignificant item- neele/mantel
Depend on suspesnion of disbelief - if right questions
asked..
Both entreat audience to join: prologue/song
Both show fold fixing their opinion to the situation
[PEriculus and Hodge and Gammer]
Both make upside down social comments:
M: only those with nothing to do in meeting place
prisoners whould be kept with good food
Both parasites motivated by food
But;
GG introduces superstition, and thus, religioun
Night scenes in GG
More wretched folk in GG
More of a Class issue [those who tell, those who believe]
More poor gullible folks here
Level of pettiness more wretched
Better look at life [M stark, timeless] needing bacon, pins
Excremental vision Protestant?
Diccon more intelligent, bitter
Characters more dimension:
Doctor as he is, as his flock sees him [bar, houscall]
Doctor less repected here. A Rat climbing in hole
Hodge as man motivated by his own needs [romance]
Gammer and Chat both kind to their own
Diccon makes plot happen. Constructs lies.
Motive one of what the intelligent can do to
the humble masses.
His madness more stressed.
Hodge is weak, even impotent, and has a sort of
complex: his capabilities have been doubted
he wont fight Chat
He is up to the task of kiling a cat
Yet he does work for Gammer/generation gap
More inclusive for audience. Perhaps anti-religion.
Asides to audience are from perspective of character. They
include. Drinking song. Prologue excludes us.
Tensions different. Two M's keeps us at
distant because we know the truth, and the fact that
we have a critical tension created by the impossibility
of event. Only similar tension in Gammer is fact we know
Diccon stole the bacon. Plautus becomes top heavy and
predictable and we stay more objective. Only critical
point in Gammer is when Bailiff gives unusual sentence
to Doccon, making us feel that we have missed something.
Perhaps it is good if we haven't been looking to deeply.
Cambyses
by Thomas Preston
First entered into the Stationer's Register of printer John Allde
in 1569-70, and shortly thereafter first quarto appeared, followed
by a second, better edition which is the basis of all other modern
editions. This second was published by John's son in 1584, and probably
many times thereafter up until Esward Allde's death in 1628. It was
popular enough to be satirized in the 1590's in Midsummer Night's
Dream and in I Henry IV. Thought to be authored by one Thomas Preston,
who was a fellow at King's College, Cambridge, by 1556, and got his
M.A. in 1561, debating before the Queen in 1564, and earning a stipend
keeping him until 1581.
Interesting for the reader is how such an atrocious play could
have been so popular. Probably its mixing of genres, of comedy and
tragedy, or old morality play stunts like debates and pedantic
moralizing and allegorical figures on the state, set in a play that
knowingly or not develops a line of moral ambiguity which leads
directly to the great tragedies of the latter rennaissance. Cambyses
is said to offer "sensational wickendess within a frame of providential
governance [with all the contradictions potential in such a dual
concern]," Fraser/Rabkin intro, 59]."
Cambyses written for a performing troupe typically comprised
of six men and two boys playing all of the parts, and is composed
in a variety of metrical forms, but most of all in the "jog-trot
fourteener couplets that reproduce in two lines the meter of a ballad
stanza [59]." Early Elizabethans took such meter seriously, unlike
us readers today. Even psalms composed in fourteeners. Even though
Blank Verse had been invented, the audience had become accustomed
to metrical conventionality and rhetorical artifice in the theater.
[We might cite this as reason sufficient to ask whether or not the
popularity of Cambyses comes from the fact that it is both conventional
and traditional, more than anything else.] Popularity must also have
come as a result of the intriguing, very human, allegorical Vice
figure, Ambidexter, who talks with us and his pickpocket friends out
in the audience. He comes from Morality Plays but representes the
rapid trend towards secularization in the early Tudor period. Witness
later Falstaffs and Iagos. Earlier Diccons. Cambyses was in fact
son of Cyrus the Great, of Persia, who ruled from 529-521 B.C.;
Herodotus had written about him and Preston probably read about him
in a collection of moralized storied published as The Garden of Wisdom
published by one Richard Taverner in 1539. This hybrid nature in
Cambyses must be the key to its popularity, being as it is perched
not between real history and the personification of the morality play,
so that we are able to witness an "authentic monarch debate[s] with
a character named Common's Cry and see another named Execution employed
[59]." This mix seen everywhere, in Beowulf, for example, where the
pagans swear by what appears to be a Christian God, or pagans elswhere
swear by the Virgin and acknowledge the values and deity of the Anglican
Church, and the implied assumptions - that a theatrical work represents
reality in multiple and complex ways; that anachrnonism suggests
above all the essential synchronicity, contemporaneity, availability,
and relevance of history, which augurs well for a theater about th
emerge into greatness."
Plot Outline
Prologue
Greek Tragic Poet Agathon [401 B.C.] cited as councilling wise to
prince's weal, telling of three things needed:
need for government whereby to rule over men
need to rule with laws, eke, justice
need to realize that he will not always reign
Cites Cicero, who says a prince is as
"himself a plain and speaking law" and notes that
"the law" is a divine schoolmaster
Cites sage and witty Seneca, who says:
The honest excersize of kings, men will ensue the
same;
But contrariwise, if tghat a king abuse his kingly seat
His ignomy and bitter shame in fine shall be more great.
Then Prologue introduces setting of Cyrus in Persia, who did deserve
"the lasting blast of fame" but who was then succeeded by son Cambyses,
who, while trained up in virtue, "did clean forget his perfect race."
Comparison to Icarus does not work so well, because Cambyses is not
fallen from hubris.
scene i
Cambyses etners with his Knight, a Lord, and Council, dicusses his
plans to invade Egypt, so that he might eclipse the fame of his father,
as is right to do. They all vow support. Sisamnes, a man with no
stain on his credentials is given task of ruling in Cambyses stead
while the king is at the wars. Dicussion that Sisamnes is a little
too much of the world, but this alleviated by Cambyses assureances
to council that he will reward well, but also punish harshly, if
Sisamnes misrules:
Great punishment for his offesne against him will I lay [75]
Sisamnes informed of his new job, is honoured, then in private gloats
about the new possibilities available with what will be his new
freedom. After sort of waxing strong with possibility, comes down
to earth at end of scene, and adds that whatever he will do to seek
his own ends, he will not break the kings precepts:
No, truly - yet I do not mean the King's precepts to
break;
To place I mean for to return my duty to fulfill
scene ii
Vice enters, with an old capcase on his head, and an old pail about
his hips for harness, a scummer, and a potlid by his side, and arake
on his shoulder. He is gong to war with the king, but he speaks in
nonsense about being armed against a butterfly, or a person armed
with a blue specked hen, saying he must fight with a fly and a black
pudding. Silliness
Twice, however, mentions that he will play a man in this game:
To be a man my deeds shall declare [8]
and
To conquest these fellows the man I will play
Engages Huf, Ruf, and Snuf in swordplay, as they enter, praising the
war and all of the imagines booty they will gert from it. Ambidexter
insults them, making them attack him. Yet he is himself run off by
the trull who comes along soliciting her body for a price. Her name
is Meretrix, who enters with a staff on her shoulder. Thus, ambidexters
first part in play is at the local level, the level, as Rabkin calls
it, or the everyday subplot, and Ambi fails in his endevors to stir
up strife into tragedy. In fact, Ambi tries to kiss Meretrix, but
she will none of that. The men fight over who will slepp with her
that night. Play gets dangerous, but Meretrix gets angry, fights
them both, while Ambidexter runs off, frightened, saying:
Beginning of scene iii
i durst not abide to see her beat them so.
I may say to you that I was, in such a fright,
Body of me, I see the hair of my head stand upright. [
Sisamnes enters, and Ambidexter, who knows him talks him into becoming
a corrupt King. Sisamnes is musing over what wealth he might accrue,
but pulls back his dreaming for fear of someone telling Cmabyses upon
the real king's return. This is when Amidexter sees his chance, and
talks Sisamnes into being a corrupt king, saying to him:
Ye are unwise if ye take not time while ye may
.....Can you not play with both hands and turn with the
wind? [26-9]
First Allegorical figure enters, Small Ability, begging for the King's
help, complaining now that the king takes away relief that he needs:
You take away from me my due that should my corpse
relieve.
The commons of you do complain from them you
devocate;
With anguish great and grievous words their hearts do
penetrate;
The right you sell unto the wrong, your private gain to
win;
You violate the simple man and count it for not sin [33-41]
scene iv
Second allegorical figure enters, Shame with a black trump.
│
[sense that these allegorical figures enter an empty stage, and act
sort of like a chorus, spekqaing to audience]
scene v
King, Lord, Praxaspes, and Sisamnes enter stage. King, successfully
back from wars, hears bad reports from allegorical Common's Complaint,
then Proof, then Trial. Instantly dicides to punish injustice with
justice, so had Sisamnes executed, with his son present, having been
appointed into what will be his fathers old job. King not only has
him killed, but his skin pulled over his eyes, in fron of a loving
son, Otian. No problem for king. Killing performed by the allegorical
Execution.
In sort of after killing chit chat, Cambyses hears from his counsiler
Praxaspes that perhaps if his people think the king has one fault,
it would only be the small one of drinking a little too much wine.
for this remark, the king decided to call in the son of Praxaspes,
and, having got drunk on wine, prove his prowess by shooting the young
boy through the heart, while his impotent father looks on. He then
has the boys heart cut out and handed to the father, as the mother,
sensing some wrong, comes in to find her boy, and the casual king,
happy in his marksmanship. emotion comes perhaps from the intimacy
of the father and son, a Jacob like scene, then by the lament of the
mother, who reckons that :
Nature enforceth me, alsas, in this wise to deplore
To wring my hands. Oh wellaway, that I should see this
hour [255]
Praxaspes and his wife and the body of their son go home to mourn.
scene vi
Ambidexter enters, talks to audience about being gone, but assures
them that his cousin Cutpurse is surely in the audience. Asks audience:
How like you Sisamnes for using of me? [6]
Condemns Cambyses killing of Praxaspe's son as being "no
good deed"
Promises that we will see Cambyses laid low
Lord Smerdis enters with allegorical figures Attendance and Diligence.
Smerdis is Cambyses brother, who does not like his brother the king's
cruelty, but will bide his time. Ambidexter incites the King to take
care of the brother, lying to him about the Smerdis praying for the
death of Cambyses so that he, Smerdis, can get the throne. For this,
King decides to have him killed, a job done by the allegorical figures
Cruelty and Murder.
scene vii
The murder of Smerdis in this scene.
scene viii
Ambidexter enters, philosophically considering the weeping,
court, while noting that others have made good sport of the
of Smerdis, a popular figure. In what must be seen as a
humourous explication of character, Ambidexter gives in to
ah, good lord, to think on him, how it doth me
grieve!
I canniot forbear weeping, ye may me believe! [7-10]
[stage directions for him to weep]
wailing
killing
sort of
grief:
Ambidexter considers that going on this way, King cannot last long.
But then two bubles, Hob and Lob enter, and Ambidexter engages them
in conversation which is somewhat subversive. He then threatens to
report them to the king, so that they will be drawn and quartered,
or that sort of thing. The two then begin to fight over which one
actually made the subversive comment, but their fighting is broken
up by the wife of Hob, her name being Marian-May-Be-Good. She settled
their fighting, but then Ambidexter insults her for coming a prattling,
and she sets in to him with her broom, gets him down, but in the
fighting, he gets off and runs away.
scene ix
Venus and her blinfolded son Cupid enter, and Venus orders son to
shoot Cambyses with and arrow, making him fll in love with his cousin,
a Lady. He requires marriage. She refuses, on the grounds that:
It is a thing that nature's course doth utterly detest
And high it would the God displease; of all, that is the
worst [66-9]
But we have no doubt that this will not
deter Cambyses.
scene x
Ambidexter enters, and reports of the scene off stage of the royal
wedding, filled with tournament, jousting, etc, as is part of royal
pastime. Muses on marriage, considering he will not want it as soon
as has the king got his planned, then he turns to a girl in the audience
and asks:
How say you maid? To marry
me will ye be glad? [16-17]
we know the answer, but great humour, or uproar.
Mentions that he has heard many people say that marriage is a curse,
and that many a man regrets it. Shrews make this the case, he concludes.
Again, good digression to audience, who can sort of debate this issue
with glances themselves over ale.
Allegorical figure Preparation enters, and the two have a fight over
whetehr or not Amidexter shold be
treated as royalty, as he would
like. Ambidexter wins by stating that the King calls him a gentleman,
so a cowed Preparation does too. Another aside to the audience, and
a talk about his honest cousing cutpurse, again help digress from
stage horror. [Werewolf in London]
King, Queen, and Train enter, Queen weeping. She laments the death
of Smerdis, Cambyses loyal brother, and for this, the king will have
no mercy, despite her entreatments, and the courts. He has her murdered
by the same two, Cruelty and Murder. Ambidexter, on the scene, tells
here he feels sorry for her, but
If that I durst, I would mourn
your case;
But alas, i dare not, for fear of his grace [117-8]
Scene of dramtic plea from Queen, to no avail.
Ambidexter enters weeping, after death of Queen, being upset about
the lamentable state of the court, and of the Queen, lately murdered.
He complains about a king who is so murderous, notes that:
He hath she so mucgh bloos that his will be shed
If it come to pass, in faith, then he is sped [213-14]
King enters with sword stuck in him, and dies, leaving us to wonder
how and why. Did fate do this to him for being evil. If so, why
not before, rather than after. do all of us have as much license
as Cambyses? King ends:
AS just reward for my misdeeds my death doth plain
declare
ambidecter talks to dying king, asks him to buck up, but when he dies,
declares that the devil would take Ambidexter if he were to make a
moan for the kings death. Runs off stage for fear of being charged
with the kings death. Exits, saying "Farewell, my Masters" to the
audience. "Masters?"
Three Lords enter, stating that his death was just, but that he should
have a princely burial.
Epilogue
Right gentle audience, here have you perused
The tragical history of this wicked King.
According to our duty, we have not refused,
But to our best intent expressed everything.
We trust none is offended for this our doing.
Our father craves likewise, if he have squared amiss
By gentle admonition to know where the fault is.
Critical Analysis
Stumbling toward Tragedy
Norman Rabkin
1600 first performance of Hamlet singals first mature season of tragedy
since 5th B.C. Athens and the festival of Dionysius. In fact, consider
Athens and this 80 year period of Renn drama intersected by the year
1600, in London, and considering Marlowe, Chapan, Tourneur, Webster,
Ford, and Shakespeare, we have a large chunk of the worlds great
tragedies.
Rabkin notes that while theaters closed in 1642 by Puritans,
the great impetus for tragedy and for theater had dies long before.
But his concern in this artivcle is with the underside of tragedy,
its birththrows. He asks how, with such rapidity, did great tragedy
begin out or the :umpromising slime of mid 16th centyury tragedy [28]"
We can find answer because, unlike Greeks, who have much lost
work, many texts survive from this early period of English drama,
so we can chronicle the growht of Hamlets out of the such hopeless
works as The Misfortunes of Arthur and The History of Horestes.
Rabkin's Thesis: Early Elizabethan Tragedians misunderstood natue
of the genre in which they self consciously and pedantically worked,
and by one of the wonderful tuns that involve make literary history
so fascinating, the confusions created by thie misunderstanding
provided a framework which needed bvery little adjustment to make
possible
the
plays
of
profound
and
authentically
tragic
intention......The Early Eliz Playwrights attemptes unsuccessfullly
to recreate what they took to be the tragic ambiance of Seneca. The
genre that they created in their failure enabled Shakespear and his
contemporaries to recreate, all unknowingly, a tragic ethos that has
erroneously seemed to mmany to have derived directly from Sophclesd
and Europides. [29]
1561-2
Christmans Festivities at Inner Temple staged Gorbuduc,
written by Norton and Sackville, Considered first English Tragedy,
for tyhe following reasons, and with the following innovations:
1.
Translated native history in classic theater.
A
first
5 Act Division
Interrupting Chorus and Dumb Show
Rhetoric of the Nuntius and Chorus substit
for Action
Use of recently invented Blank Verse for
stately meters instead of the popular
poulter's measure or the fourteeners.
Use of mythological allusions
Speech modelled on Roman oratory
Greek Named Counsillers at old English court
Used Elaborate Strucutre of Symmetry which
stood against the sequentiality of the
medieval drama.
│
└──Symmetry works on many levels:
within unit of end stopped line
symmetry
of
dialogues/scenes
obvious to audience.
2.
Contained
the
English
traditional
"notable
moralitie which it doth delightfully teach" Sidney
But Gorbuduc fails.
I. No symmetry of plot; no clena closing, such as in Lear
II. Norton and Sackville abandon classical Unities
III. Lacks Tragic Hero
Rabkin notes that failues caused by three reasons:
I.
Theyr were not only writing a classical tragedy, but
were also warning Queen about problems of succession.
Thus, more duty than simply that of playwritng.
II. Classical closure might have interefered with attempt
to envision or allow for a series of consequences
resultant from lack of smooth succession.
III. Practically inventing the Chronicle Play
In sum, this failure is important because Gorbuduc, in failing to
pull of classical model, ends up relying on medieval techniques such
as the Debate to pull of its hoimiletic aims, even though it
ostentatiously parades its classical design [31]. The result is a
series of paradoxes.
In fact, Rabkin notes the "Play andthe
Playwright's saturation in Incompatible traditions [Sack a Calvinist,
Norton a Royalist, [31]."
The biggest mixup comes from tension
between:
Senecan Fatalism of Gorbuduc
and
Christian Accountability in world where
"men are free and respnsible for their own actions[31]"
The result is unexpected complexity
Thus, what looks like
simple minded presentation of neoclassical design and clear
political and moral advice turns out to harbour a variety of
contradiction. Witness some of the resultant polarities:
classical regularity versus representation of chaos
strange homiletic intensity versus no right answers
frustration of no hero versus moral need for hero
Like Gorbuduc,, so to the popular tragedy Cambyses.
Cambyses probably deserves Shakespeare's criticisms for its
insufferable fourteeners
episodic structure
simple minded moralism
psychological shallowness
BUT WHY SO POPULAR?
[two editions]
I. appeal of wicked protaganist, first in a line of Barabas
and Macbeth's...creates energizing mixture of fascnation of revulsion
in audience [32]
II. Priggish denunciations of Cambyses by the Prologue and
morality
play
techniques
which
instruct
us unequivocably to abhor him as both a wicked man and abusive king
further bring the energy of the old in the new, becuase contradiction
tenses them. Old morality, simple and didactic, cannot ring tru in
this new form which has wicked protaganists in which we delight [Mac?
okay in Sheperd's play becuase he is forgiven, but Cambyses and
tragedy does not so forgive. change of form]
Rabkin rejects, however, answer that play works because
it "thruills its audience with the magnificence of his villainy
[32]."... while it awaits his equally magnificenbt and deserved fall
or punishment [Senecan] [32]."
Instead, posits that Cambyses measured judgement of
Sisamnes becomes horrific when it reveals its exptreme predjudice,
so therefore turns sypathy and justice toward the sufferer and away
from Cambyses as just man, just as it also shows that at root his
function is ammoral, beyond terms such as good and evil. His is a
world of power alone, in which such terms do not fit. He is thus
not evil. Just nonhuman. Rabkin states that brinking in the rhetorical
figues of Sisamnes oving son does nothing so much as it does to further
create this distance between Cambyses and any ability to judge him
morally, and consequent to this, gives the play, and the didactic
morality forum, its unresolvable conplication. As a result, Cambyses
becomes neither good not bac, but instead, functions as simply an
exemplary of power beyond either. This is his star.
│
this contrasts sharply with momiletic moralisms as
does
Hero's almost uncontrollable eveil strains framework
of morality techniques of homiletic apothegms which
assert the providential governance of the world. This
is true especially because there is no virtuous
character.
Other popular character, Ambidexter, THe VICE.
I. Serves as a simplistic allegory. He is the explanation
of the evil in the play's world [33]. He is thus as
integral to his world as were Homer's gods to that of
the Illiad.
I.
Ambidexter also motivates the Action of play though,
because Preston's theater not sophisticates as is
Marlowe's, where strife and conflict and evil are
internalized.
Preston needs an allegorical figure to
represent this medieval psychomachic unravelling of
plot.
Neither the Playwright, nor, e might suspect,
the audience, could see or want better.
Note, however,
that unlike Homer, however, medieval England has an
abstract theology allowing audience to conceteptualize
visually these moral and psychological forces at work.
In 1560's, only allegory and Psychomachia available
[but Gammer Gurton has insight into character and angst]
Needing Allegory, Cambyses is thus a Hybrid Play, a bridge between
old and new. This hybrid state causes interesting problems which
the Rennaissance resolves as it makes perfect rtreagedy. Witness
role of ambidexter:
Ambidexter serves both the devil and the playwright.
He is the spirit of Evil, but also of Mischief
│
│
corrupts Sisamnes
starts brawl
but he is interetingly vulnerable, human;
│
│
thrown out in end
run off by wife of brawler
This signifacantly shows that evil can
Be Disarmed. As Rabkin states it,
Evil "can be disarmed in the everyday world of the
subplot [34]"
This splitting of roles serves to Neutralize Vice Morally, just
as Cambyses as been made beyond the terms of judgement, and simply
a spectre of power. Ambidexter becomes then, simply a motor for action.
But an interesting motor, and this too, is problematic for the old
morality aspect of the play. That is, because ambidexter
Stands outside of play
Addresses audience [he only one]
telegraphs actions, immoral intentions
jibes audience about his friend pickpocket
sure.
...he becomes too complicated to be seen as simply
a morality play holdover. Thus, like Cambyses,
Ambidexter undermines the moralistic framework of
the play.
The world grows more secular, less
Between the two of them, Cambyses and Ambidexter,
Evil now seen as:
delightful, creative, objective [Amidext]
awesome, total, beyond judgment [Cambyses]
│
together, being interesting, they center
the play's vitality around the bad guys,
not around the moral.
│
THE RESULT
of this failure of both Cambyses and Gorbuduc's ability to pull of
the clear, clean moral message and instruction routine is
│
AMBIGUITY
the causeway of great tragedians
So, in Literary History, we see changes:
As conventions of morality plays changed, so did their meaning;
Vice Figure changes from Allegory to Historical Agency.
Medieval debate encounters characters who need not listen as
debate addresses audience more than characters in play, so
we see a "determinism in character at odds with the freedom
implied in the structure of such a play as "Mankind [37]."
Christian Changes in literary Conventions point to
Growing Calvinism, which becomes itself problematic because
as David Bevington states:
The Christian emphasis on perfection and otherwordly
redress of the Psychomachia [Sheprd's Play, 4PP's, Gammer Gurton's
Needle] gave way to a dram of retribution, not forgiveness, foccussed
on characters so compounded of flaws that they are devoid of grace
[37]." That is, the stage is given over the characters who are born
to damnation [Cambyses, gorbuduc].
PROBLEM?
Cambyses, functioning in a tradition created by Everyman, is one
of us, yet is also on eof the doomed. He is thus both in us, and
paradoxically, we hope he is apart from us. Thus, we may be satisfied
that he gets the dignity of death in the end. The accident comes
to him like it does to Everyman, but here, is is somewhat spared the
sort of Senecan retribution which we might expect in Senecan tragedy,
to witness.
Classical Influcne also has hand in changing Literary convention,
and thus, Dramatic Meaning:
I. Gorbuduc's neoclassical view of his fall has flavour of
Senecan and Virgilian Fatalism
II Classical use of the bad guy as the tragic hero, but in England,
using the Senecan version of tragedy.
The greeks tragic hero [illiad, plays] achieves heroism as do
Shakespear's, by following to their extreme consequences the impulses
that define him as a particular human being and that turn out to be
simultaneously his virtue and his vice [38]
BUT
Senecan version focusses on iniquity and retribution, offering
sensational crime and equally sensational punishment accompanied by
sententious and simple minded moralisms."
AND
Senecan Version compatible with
medieval contemptus mundi
role of fortune
Yet, as early as Boccaccio, though not in Seneca, we see problems
here, for humans can't take the inexplicable for too long, can't stay
in Keatsian Negative Capability forever. Thus, irrational fate, as
represented by lady fate, for example, becomes unacceptable after
too many good folks die, and contradictory impulses get underway.
Thus, we witness the imposition of order and reason on chaotic,
irrational, lady fortune, time and again. The result in literature
is works such as Mirror for Magistrates, wherein amoral fortunes
ability to drive the rich, powerful and corruptr from high places
into dreaded punishment bears witness to a JUST UNIVERSE.
Thus, the floundering amibiguity betwen what ought to, and what does
happen can be found in all tragic plots, and all tragic characters,
in seasoned work. I quote Rabkin:
The tragic hero has been problematic for critics ever since Aristotle;
he must in some way deserve what happens to hom or the play will
become "repellant" to use Leon Golden's translation of Aristotle,
provoking simple outrage or grie rather than the emotions generally
associated with tragfedy; yet he must have good in him to arouse
our pit and fear. To realize the complex and unique status of the
tragic here, simply see:
Aeschylus' Prometheus
Sophocles Antigone
Euripides Pentheus
Shakespeare's Othello and Brutus and Lear
Racin'es Phaedre
Wgner's
Wotan
Ibsen's Hedda Gabbler
O'Neill's
Jame's Tyrone
What must and can be done with tragic theater becomes the early
rennaissance stage and playwrights issue ofr experimentation. Thus,
Gobuduc shows the sort of thrashing ground which was finally controlled
by the UNIVERISITY WITS like Marlowe.
Tamburlaine, for example, is a protaganist who arouses both positive
and negative moral feelings, and an awe that, like attitudes towards
Hercules, that F Weith has shown are suggested by Tamburlaine, begs
judgement of good and evil, allowing Marlowe to balance the 2
predominant historiographical theories of his day in one play. They
are:
The Classical idea that "historical events are not the product
of anything other than human action based on human will in a world
ruled only by fortune, a female and fickle fortune whome the hero
of history can master and bend to his will
and
the typical Tudor conclusion that "everything is directed by God's
providence, but that he works normally through secondary or
intrumental causes.
in such an energized environment, the protaganist Tamburlaine, like
so many others then, draws an he is to the contradictory impulses
of rebellion and order, play out their roles for us critics.
Gorboduc, of Ferrex and Porrex
performed 1561-2 at the Inner Temple, before the Queen.
Written by young lawyers [?], Thomas Norton, a puritan, son in law
of Cranmer, translater of Calvin, and parliamentarian, and Thomas
Sackville, of higher birth, treasurer to both Elizabeth and James,
becomes Lord Buckhurst, royalist, anti- parliamentarian. Thus, play
is political, and divided in its treatment of ideology.
Play is famous for introducing the blank verse form first used
by Surrey a couple of years before. Surrey had adapted it from the
Italian. This medium has just the flexibility for English, and lent
it a classical dignity.
But since blank verse is radically new
in 1561, playwrights took great pains to bring structure to thre play.
Rabkin calls it "hoplessly overstructured, with its ceaseless
endstopping and its symmetries of syntac and sound."
But for
contemporaryies, it was necessary to demonstrate that the verse was
still verse. Thus, an artful use of rhetoric, for ornament, and
elevated diction.
Nevertheless, play was a serious attempt at classical drama,
played with an English theme. Classically, it has a nuntius, a chorus,
with their respective narratives and odes, and it alludes to
mythological material and uses structured orations, five acts, and
an occasional stichomythia. But it is also English. blank verse,
English king, symbolic dumb shows which imitate the main themes working
in the play, acting in fact in the same way as subplot elements of
the mystery plays did. Unity of time and place are also abandoned.
The author'
s refusal to bring the play to a neat end had been a controversial
point which heralds later, more sophisticated tragedies in this way.
More than anything, the play is about politics, and iots
kmaterials, drawn from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories of the Kings
of Britain, are drawn up with a homiletic intensity seen in the morality
plays. Whenther this is more Senecan or English, it is hard to tell,
but certainly Medea was a heavy handed political play. Some critics
specualte that such homilitic intensity comes from the native
tradition influenced by Virgil.
Outline
Argument
Gorbuduc, king of Britain, divided his realm in his lifetime to his
sons, Ferrex and Porrex. The sons fell to dissension. The younger
killed the elder. The mother, that more dearly loved the elder, for
revenge killed the younger. The people, moved with the cruelty of
the fact, rose in rebellion and slew both father and mother. The
nobility assembled and most terribly destroyed rebels.
And
afterwards, for want of issue of the Princes, whereby the succession
of the crown became uncertain, they fell t o civil war, in which both
they and many of their issues were slain, and the land for a long
time almost desolate and miserably wasted.
Dramatis Personae
Gorboduc King of Britain
Videna
Queen and wife of G
Ferrex elder son of G
Porrex younger son of G
Clotyn Duke of Cornwall
Fergus Duke of albany
Mandud Duke of Logris
Gwenard Duke of Camberland
Eubulus Secretary to King
Arostus a Counselor to King
Dordan counselor to Ferrex, by G
Philander, council to Porrex, by G
Hermon, parasite of Ferrex
Tynday, parasite to Porrex
Nuntius, mess of elder brother's death
Nuntius, mesws og Duke Fergus' rising in arms
Marcella, lady of the Queens privy chamber
Chorus,
four ancient and sage men of Britain
Act I
1. Begins with Dumbshow of man coming in bound with stick braid around
his neck, others trying to get it off. One of them finally slips
one of the sticks out, thus allowing the others to readily be plucked
apart. Explicitly stating that Gorboduc does wrong thing to divide
his kingdom between sons, for united we...divided we...
I.i.
Videna and Ferrex
We see that mother loves son, and that son, loves mother. They
talk of the slight that father will do Ferrex by giving half of the
kingdom normally due the eldest to the younger Porrex. An insult
to tradition, and even worse, mother doesn't like younger, he being
rash. Ferrex, for his part, shows signs of being other than ideal
too. Not content with father's choice, he tells Videna:
Such causeless wrong and so unjust despite
May have redress or, at the least, revenge [12-13]
Videna
counts on the gods to right things, making on
of the first allusions to nature. Referring to younger Porrex, she
imagines that :
Methinks I see his envious heart to swell,
Filled with disdain and with ambitious hope.
The end the gods do know, whose altars I
Full oft have made in vain of cattle slain
To send the sacred smoke to Heaven's throne
For thee, my son, if things do so succeed,
As now my jealous mind misdeemeth so [33-38]
Ferrex also alludes to his father's wise counsillors, who have
told him truly and wisely always. Mother counters that if they have
been wise in the past, nevertheless any loss to Ferrex now should
be judged their fault, their blame, and then she prays the gods that
it be so. We must wonder at her perception of the counsillors, who
themselves show wisdom throughout the play, unless they are called
parasites. Here we have mother, herself perhaps a false councillor,
putting forth truths. Interesting. Browning does this, always giving
truths and maximz to his dubious characters, so that we see possessiojn
of truth is not a holy than though thing, but generic to speicies.
Note counsillors role in Cambyses:
When lords and trusted rulers under kings,
To please the present fancy of the prince,
With wrong transpose the course of governance
Murders, mischief, or civil sword and length,
Or mutual treason of a just revenge,
When right succeeding line returns again
By Joves just judgement and deserved wrath
Brings them to cruewl and reproachful death. [60+]
I.ii.
Gorbuduc and consillors discuss issue of G. handing over his
kingdom to his sons. Here are the issues and positions of councillors.
G.: since old and gray, healthy succession
comes from stepping
aside, leting his sons rule, each supporting the other like loving
brothers. This, of course, misses human nature, and certainly misses
royal nature. Interestingly enough, G repeats his wife's warning
that false council will put them at blame, so best for them to speak
up. Perhaps irony comes from knowing that in both instances, both
Gorbuduc and his Wife, as later the others, only hear what they want
to hear, and that is what they mean by being frank when warning
counsillors. [28-32] Note also that Arostus. tells of his sons having
been razed in virtue. We remember from Cambyses that this has little
bearing on how folk or kings will turn out. Nature or nurture.
Arostus:
councils that if G thinks it best, so let it be.
Philander posits that young princes should learn how to rule
by being held incheck by a strong king father. He cites earlier civil
strife caused by just this thing. three noble sons of Brute did go
through same thing to tragic end. Too, divided could be good, he
says, showing a measure of his oppositions point of view.. As Philander
puts it:
the smaller compass thqt the realm doth hold
the easier is the sway therof to wel
But, knowing human nature, he adds:
the nobleness and glory of the one
Doth sharp the courage of the other's mind
With virtuous enby to contend for praise.
And such an egalness hath nature made
Between the brethren of one fther's seed
As an unkindly wrong it seems to be
To throw the brother subject under feet
Of him whose peer he is by course of kind
And nature, that did make this egalness
Oft so repineth at so great a wron
That oft she raiseth up a grudging grief
In younger brethren at the elder's state
Whereby both towns and kingdoms have been razed,
And famous stocks of royal blood destroyed. [178- 191]
Obviously, Philander has read the script. Lots of plays on nature
enter with Philander's speech:
And oft it hath been seen where nature's course
Hath been perverted in disordered wise
When fathers cease to know that they should rule
The children cease to know they should obey [205- 208]
Only I mean to show by certain rules
Which kind hath graft within the mind of man
That nature hath ehr order and her course,
Which, bring broken, doth corrupt the state
Of minds and things, even in the best of all.
Ending with this pedantic maxim for G, Eubolus supports Philander's
position, making it two against, one for G's proposition:
Within one land one single rule is best.
Divided reigns do make divided hearts,
But peace preserves the country and the prince/
Such is in man the greedy mind to reign,
So great is his desire to climb aloft
In wordly stage the stateliest parts to bear
That faith and justice and all kindly love
Do yield unto desire or sovereignty
Where egal state doth raise an egal hope
To win the thing tht either would attain. [260-69]
Gorboduc, listening tall all, decides as he had already decided, and
divides kingdom but appoints counsillors he trusts to stay with each
young kingman. Our moral, perhaps, is that one should heed council
at the right time, not after it is too late.
Chorus closes with maxim that one should not change waht is going
well, and especially divided rule is to be avoided.
Each change of course unjoints the whole estate
And yeilds it thrall to ruin by debate
Act II
Dumb Show opens with music, and a King being offered to cups from
which to drink, one of glass, on of gold. Grave and aged gentleman,
like the chorus, offer the glass one, which cannot contain poison,
being clear by nature. King refuses, preferring the gold cup offered
by a brave and lusty gentleman. It has poison, which, it is explained,
comes in the form of flattery in realy life outside of dumb shows.
This is what happens to both Ferrex and Porrex in Act II.
II.i. Ferrex, Hermon, and Dordan enter.
Hermon the parasite fills Ferrex's ears with paranoid thoughts
about his rash, spiteful younger brother, now armed and ready in a
way he had not been before. He also tells him that it was injust
of the king to have divided the realm, and in effect stolen his parition
from him. ferrex had been too good a son to deserve such treatment.
Ferrex, for his part, announces in beginning that he sees the division
as a crime against both law and nature. Hermon suggests armed action
against brother Porrex for Porrex has chance to do unto Ferrex.
Considers that the king can be appeased, since ther will only be one
son left.
Ferrex is aghast at the idea, but nevertheless arms.
Dordan councils agaisnt such rash thinking. Defends G's decision,
and asks for brothers to work together. Ferrex points to rash, hateful
Porrex, buyt Dordan says that never has he or any one else seen evidence
to support such a statement. Hermon councils that he ought to do
it, to attack. Not only is he his brother's better, but Ferrex's
mother can brin the old king round, and his friends will stick by
him and his father will be dead soon anyway, and what may be criminal
for common folk is normal in the right of kingship:
Murders and violent thefts in private men
Are heinous crimes and full of foul reproach;
Yet none offence, but decked with glorious name
Of noble conquests in the hands of kings. [152-6]
Ferrex arms.
II.ii. Porrex, Tyndar, Philander
Repeat scene, with rasher younder brother more ready for arms,
but nevertheless shows signs of having been maligned in life. That
is, his mother had never loved him.
We have seen this an scene
i, but now his side of it:
Let him entreat that fears; I fear him not.
Or shall I to the King, my father, send?
Yea, and send now, while such a mother lives
That loves my brother and that hateth me? [48-52]
While Philander speaks reason, Porrex will to way. Chorus ends scene
and act by offering a maxim about youth knot having guidance, being
left to random of their own delight, ending up getting in trouble.
A series of "whens":
When youth unbridled
When growing pride doth fill swelling breast
When kings of foreset will neglect the rede
Then trouble. Reference again tot he poison cup. Woe to the
land, etc.
Act III
Dumb Show flutes play and figures clad in black, in mourning, pass
thrice around stage, unhappy over act threes upcoming event, the death
of Ferrex by murder.
III.i. Gorboduc, Eubulus, Arostus
G having just got word via Dordan that sons are arming against
on another. He wants to die, blames cruel fates, and is very upset
that all of this trojan blood is to be spiiled. Big rennaissance
theme, this link with Troy.
Then comes Philander who tells king
that Porrex too is arming. Mor ewailing by King. Counsillors ask
him to stay clam. Perhaps he can intervene.
Nuntius comes and tells king about Ferrex's death. Gorboduc asks
god to take revenge on him for being so foolish. Chorus ends with
maxim about "the lust of kingdom knows no scred fath [170- 1]."
Act IV
Dumb Show with oboe music [hautboys], then furies driving across the
stage, drivign before them the kings and queens who have murdered
their children. Tantalus, Medea, Athamus, Ino, Cambyses, Althea.
Signification of Porrex now slain by his own mother.
Enter Videna, like Lady Macbeth, who no longer wants to live,
quite mad about turn of events, and in a sort of Senecan Medean rage,
she denies that Porrex could be her child, ending with the pledge:
Dost thou not know that Ferrex' mother lives
That loved him more dearly than herself?
And doth she live, and is not venged on thee? [79- 81]
IV.ii. Gorbuduc and Arostus, met by entering Eubulus and Porrex.
Porrex pleads his case before his father, stating that he did
to his brother before his brother could do to him. Shows grief for
the job done. Gorbuduc notes that penitence is no good, that "we
should not offend the law of kind. Thus, he will not immediately
do unto Porrex what Porrex did to Ferrex, thereby stopping the perverse
cycle. But too late. Porrex dismissed.
Marcella enters, with news that Videna has killed a sleeping Porrex.
G again asks the heavens to take his life. What most struck Marcella,
and what should most strike us, was the fact that Videna did not
conmfort the son she had just killed, even though the dying boys call
was for his mother:
When in the fall his eyes, even new unclosed,
Beheld the Queen and cried to her for help.
Wh then, alas, the ladies which that time
Did there attend, seeing that henous deed
And hearing him oft call the wretched name
Of mother and to cry to her for aid
Whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound,
Pitying alas - for nought else could we doHis ruthful end, ran to the woeful bed
Despoiled straight his breast, and all we might
Wiped in bvain with napkins next at hand,
The sudden streams of blood that flushed fast
Out of the gaping wound [208-219]
Marcella also calls Porrex "so worthy a wight [229], further making
ambiguous the idea that there might be a culprit here, a bad brother.
Act V
V.i. Dumb Show with drums and flutes, with armed men who discharged
their firearms, to show the tumult and chaos after the death of G
and everyone else.
Clotyn, Mandud, Gwenard, Fergus enter, and talk of putting down
rebellion, which they do, together, united. But off to the side,
Fergus sees opportunity for himself, so decided to invade Engalnd
and take charge. Note that again we have good council, but these
royal men will not listen. Fergus will seize the opportunity. Shows
that he has read too many romances:
shall I, that am the Duke of albany
Decended from that line of noble blood
Which hath so long flourished in worthy fame
Of valiant hearts, such as in noble breasts,
Of right should rest above the baser sort,
Refuse to venture life to win a crown? 144-9]
or later:
If slain amid the plain this body lie
Mine enemies yet shall not deny me this
But that I died giving the noble charge
To hazard life for conquest of a crown [162-5]
Eubulus enters, and laments that peole have got out of control. Begs
that people take a look at history, so tht they do not repeat certain
mistakes. We learn that people have been put back in their place,
but that the field are heaped with corposes. yet, as nobles are about
to lay down their weapnry, Nuntius comes to tell them that Fergus
has taken the field. They vow to stand together, and the hope is
that they will not foloow him each in their turn. Arostus says:
who seeth not now how many rising minds
Do feed their thoughts with hope to reach a realm?
And who will not by force attempt to win
so great a gain, that hope persuades to have?
A simple color shall for title serve.
Who wins the royal crown will want no right
Nor such as shall display by longh decent
a lineal race to prove him lawful king. [193-200]
Play ends with statement that God will make all aright again. Yet
they have been praying to the gods all along. borth G and Viden invoke
God. ambiguous ending lines:
For right will always live and rise at length
Burt wrong can never take deep root to last
mmm?
Gallathea
Written by John Lyly [1554-1606], probably somehwere between 1583
and 1585, and possibly revised for court performance oin 1588. Entered
into stationers register in 1585, but not printed until 1592. Lyly's
first and most famous work, Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit was published
1578, and it exhibited the style which informs not only all of Euphues,
but much of rennaissance prose and drama. Thesis/antithesis, balanced
phrasing, formal stylistic devices such as alliteration, and word
play, that is, using different difinitions of a word in the same
dialogue. Also see Senecan word play, such as stichomythia.
Gallathea is in the greco roman pastoral tradition, but also introduces
English matter - the floods of lincolnshire, the tidal "bore' of the
Humber, the Danish invasions of the ninth century, etc.. Also clear
usage of Chaucer's Yeoman's Tale for info on alchemy, and mention
or satire of astrology, which was in vogue at eliz court in 1580s,
makes this an interestingly woven narrative. Midsummer's Night Dream
is the most obvious follow on.
Characters
Tityrus, a sheperd
Gallathea, his daughter
Melebeus, a sheperd
Phyllida, his daughter
Venus
Cupid
Neptune
Diana
Telusa
Eurota
Ramia
Larissa
[last four nynmphs of Dian]
Hebe a virgin for sacrifice
Erichthinis
Augur
Rafe
Robin Dick [three neer do wells, rogue types]
Mariner
Alchemist
Peter, alchemists boy
Astronomer
Nymph of Diana
Fairies
Populus, representing the people
Prologue
Ios and Smyrna, two sweet cities, one named for the violet, the other
for the myrrh. Homer born in one, dies in the other.....[offers prqaise
to Queen Eliz, comapring her judgement and favour to the sun and shadow,
the one coming from deep wisdom, the other from grace,,etc..comparing
her power to Caesar, who had such piercing eyes no one could look
him in the facd without wincing,, Eliz said to have such perfect
judgement that whatver written must blush....in Majesties mind,
nothing but virtue harboured....[heavy praisin]
Act I.i.
Tityrus enters with Gallathea dressed as boy, and with time on their
hands, he tells her why she must dress as a boy. Apparently, years
ago, men, specifically the Danes, broke trust with the gods, and a
plague was cast upon the land, with floods resulting, etc. Finallym,
the gods being bored with such tumult, agreed to terms. One virgin
a year, to be put by the tree under which Tityrus and G now sit, to
be devoured by Agar, the monster. Also, she must be the fairest in
the land. Gallathea protests that she, Jacob like, would rather die
than hide:
Do you not know, or doth overcarefulness make you forget, that
an honorable death is to be preferred before an infamous life? I
am but a child and have not lived long, and yet not so childish as
I desire to live ever. [85-88]
Tityrus responds by saying that she is too young, and doesnot know
what she says...
Note Euphuistic style
...but fortune, constant in nothing but inconstancy, did change
her copy as the people their custom, for the land being oppressed
by Danes, who instead of sacrifice committed sacrilege, instead of
religion, rebellion, and made a prey of that in which they sho7uld
have made their prayers, reaing down the temple even with the earth,
being almost equal with the skies, enrages so the god who binds the
winds in the hollows of the earth that he caused the seas to break
their bounds, sith men had broke their vows, and to swell as far above
their reach as men had swerved beying their reason. Then might you
see ships sail where sheep fed, andchors cast where ploughs go,
fishermen throw their scales where fowlds do breed their quills;
then might you father froth where now is dww, rotten weeds for sweet
roses, and take view of monstrous mermaids instead of passing fair
maids [22-39]
I.ii.
Cupid, with Nymph of Diana enter, with Cupid trying to convince
her to try out Love, " a heat full of coldness, a sweet full of
bitterness, a pain full of pleasantness, which maketh thoughts have
eyes and hearts ears, bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by
jealousy, killed by dissembling, buried by ingratitude, and this is
love. 19-23]. Nymph does not buy in, and an agnry Cupid decides
to make all of Dianas train fall in love.
I.iii.
Melebeus and Phylidda go through same scene, for she fair, is
also in mens apparel, to save from being sacrificed in this key time
of year when Agar wants.
She readily agrees, unlike Gallathea.
I.iv.
Mariner, Rafe, Robin, and Dick enter, having just come off of
a bit of shipwreck, and knot wanting more to do with the sea. But
there master presumed dead, they need employment, or something, so
enquire of the mariner how to do his job. They do not envy him his
job, but enquire. Yet, they cannot learn the terms. This business
of terminology plays throughout play. The rogues set off into the
forest, to seek their fortune, to meet again a year hence. Ends with
a song about the shipwreck, and the need now on shore to get drunk
and roar..
Act II
Galathea and Phyllida meet, both dressed as boys, and fall in love,
but keep it secret one from the other, each knowing that they are
frauds, really in fact, girls, but needing to be boys. Yet they seem
to be suspicious of each other's boyness. Diana, Telus, and Eurota
enter , and gnered to have lost the hart in the hunt, blame it on
the two, whome they take in tow to beat bruch for them. both agree
to go, not for the ladies, but because the other lad/maid is going.
II.ii.
enter Cupid, Neptune listening. cupid, dressed a sa silly girl,
will infect Dian's train with the desese of love. Seems to have been
insulted by being called a little god, Wants to prove he is little,
but no baby. Neptune, listening, complains that human beings should
dare to try and fool the gods. This is key issue, the realtionship
of gods and men and deceit. Can you fool a god? Anyway, now Neptune
also is loose in the woods, wait8ing to cathc humans remiss.
II.iii.
Rafe enters, seeking employement, meets Peter, who pawns him
off on his own master, the alchemist, for no other reason than so
he himself can escape, there being no future in alchemy. Good
Elizabethan fun. Rafe promised all sorts of miracles. Alchemist
enters, beggrly, and attests to his trade, which only needs the right
combinations, so hard to put togehter. Rafe too, soon flies, but
not before he is impressed by the dancy terminology.
II.iv
Gallathea alone, in love, laments that it would have been a
better fate to have been sacrificed to Neptune than to have fallen
in into an impossible love with Melebeus [Phyllida].
II.v.
Phylidda enters, also lamenting her love, and witless, not sure
what her course will be.
Act III
I.i.
enter Telusa alone, who laments that she has fallen in love
with Melebeus, and feels guilty about it, being one of Dian's Nymphs.
Eurota enters, feeling the same way, Ramia enters, also in love.
all know it is a sickenss, but ohhhh. The will nevertheless, try
and keep their lust in their hearts.
III.ii.
Enter Gallathea [Tityrus] and Phyllida [Melebeus], who, testing
one another to see what that other might think to find out their frined
was a maid, not a boy, come close to concluding that each is a mad.
Decide to go into the grove to think about it, continue to interrogate
one another.
III.iii.
Rafe leves the Alchemist after comical scene, then ends up with
an Astronomer who can predict everything, but somehow will later not
be able to predict that gazing up at the stars, he will fall into
a pond. Rafe doubts, flees, in later scene. Subplot again, dealing
with superficiality of authority? Scene ends with Rafe:
O fortune, I feel my very brains moralized, and as it were
, a certain contempt of earthly actions is crept into my
mind, by an ethereal contemplation. Come, let us on [97-99]
III.iv
enter Dian, Telusa, Eurota, Ramia, Larissa, all aware now that
they have been duped by Cupid. The boy god being found out, he is
kept hostage to Dian, to do women's tasks, such as knitting, etc.
Dina also berates her girls, "so willing...to follow [72]." Girls
revow. Bully Cupid
Act IV
enter Cupid, Telusa, Eurota, Larissa, singing a song about maids
betrayed by Cupid may come and abuse him...convince Cupid to untie
spell. He needs some coaxing, offers excuses, but does. But Cupid
warns that Love is not so easy to dispel : "You will find me so busyt
in your heads, that yo shall wich I had been idle with your hearts
[95-6]
IV.iii.
Neptune alone, in woods, remembers this is day of sacrifice,
wherein the fairest virgin was to be brought to the tree, "were the
"inhabitants not faithless." Typical god like problem. stiffened
their necks,did the Israelites. Again, brings up the issue of mortals
trying to fool the gods. He claims that :I will be here at the hour
and show as great cruelty as they have done craft, and well shall
they know that Nept8une should have been entreated, not cozened.
Sam, with all professors...if you had only talked to me....issues
of hubris/relationship of man to god.
IV.iv.
Gallathea and Phyllida enter.
theme of mirroring plays here:
Phyll: I pray thee sweet boy, flatter not me. Speak truth of
thyself, for in mine eye of all the world thou art the fairest.
Gallathea: These be fair words, but far from they tru thoughts.
I know mine own face in a true glass, and desire not to see it in
a flattering mouth.
The two feel each otherr out as boys, troubled by their love
and what they are covering up. As boys, they decide to love:
Phyl: let me cal thee mistress
Didguise plays big role in plya too: Neptune, Rafe, Gall/Phyll/Cupid/
all disguised.
Act V.i.
Rafe enters, disclaiming against masters generally, having had bad
experience with alchemists and astronomers. His friend Robin entersd,
tells his own talke about having been apprenticed to a fortune teller
who told him that he would live to see his father hanged, and both
of his brothers beg. Robin thus concludes that the family mill will
one day be his.
A call back to normalcy in play.
Fortune teller mirrors Alchemist/astrologer
Peter enters, wishing he had a master.
Everybody wandering around in the woods in this play:
Venus and auxilliaries
Cupid
Gall/Phyll
Neptune
Alchemists, astrologers
Rafe. Pete. Robin
V.ii. and iii
enter augur and Ericthinis
Hebe, a girl of poor fortune and mien, has been chosesn as the
fairest in the land, to be given to Neptune at the appointed tree.
She having given a very dramatic death speech, yet, as it turns out,
she just isn't fair enough, and so is shunned by the god:
Miserable and accursed Hebe, that, being
neitehr fair nor fortunate, thou shouldst be thought
most happy and beaituful. Curse thy birth, thy
life, they death, being born to live in danger and
having lived, to die by deceit.
Art thou the sacrifice to
appease Neptune and satidfy the custom, the bloody custom,
ordained for the safety of they cvountry?
....Die Hebe...Die...frewell the sweet delights of life
only Hebe biddeth farewell to ll the joys that she
conceived...Farewell life...vain life, wretched
life...Come Agar, thou unsatiable monster of
maiden's
blood
and
devourer
of
beauties'
bowels,
glut
thyself
till
thou
surfeit,
and
let
my
life
end
thine.
Tear
these
tender
joints with thy greedy jaws....I am fair...
I am virgin, I am ready.
Very sexual
Comic
Mirrors Gall/Phyll
But
Aug: The monster is not come....
while Neptune, Gallathea, Phyllida, and others listen from hiding
places in ther woods. Diana and nymphs come to Neptune, while he
laments that humans try to fool the gods. Venus comes, entreats Neptune
to ask Diana to release her boy Cupid. Great dialogue between Dian
and Venus, each scoring points. Cupid goes back to momma, after Neptune
promises to forget the virgin sacrifice. Gall and Phyll and fathe5rs
enter seen, exposed, and Venus turns one of them into a boy so that
they can truly love.
Epilogue by Gallathea
Go all, tis I only that conclude all. You ladies may see that Benus
can make constancy fickleness, courage cowardice, modesty lightness,
working things impossible in your sex, and tempering hardest hearts
like softeset wool. Yield, ladies, yeiled to love, ladies, which
lurketh under you eyelids whilst you slepp and playeth with your
heartstrings whilst you waks, whose sweetness never breedeth satietuy,
labour weariness, nor grief bitterness. Cupid was begotten in a mist,
nursed in clouds, and sucking only upon conceits. confess him a
conqueror, whom ye ought to regard, with it iws unpossible to resist,
for this is infallible, that love conquereth all things but itself,
and ladies all hearts but their own.
Tamburlaine the Great, Part I
printed Richard Jones, 1590 first edition
Gentlemen and courteous readers whosoever, I have here published in
print for your sakes the two tragical discourses of the Scythian
sheperd Tamburlaine, that became so great a conqueror and so might
a monarch. My hope is that they will be now no less acceptable unto
you to read after yor serious affairs and studies than theuy have
been lately delightfuyl for many of you to see when the same were
showed in London upon stages. I have purposely omitt4d and left out
wsome fond and frivolous gestures, digressing and in my poor opinion
far unmeet for the matter, which I thought might seem more tedious
unto the wise than any way else to be regarded, though [haply] they
have been of some vain, conceited fondlings greatly gaped at, what
times they were showed upon the stage in their graced deformities.
Nevertheless now to be mixtured in print with such matter of worth,
it woul prove a great disgrace to so honorable and stately a history.
Great folly were it in me to commend unto your widoms either the
eloquence of the author that writ them or ther worthiness of the matter
itself; I therefore leave unto your learned censured both the one
and the other and myself the poor printer of them unto your most
courteous and favorable protection, which if you vouchsafe to accept,
you shall evermore bind me to employ what travail and service I can
to the advancing and pleasrui9ng of you excellent degree.
Yours, most humble at commandment,
R.J., Printer
[he
worked
as
printer
roughly
from
15641602]
Characters
Mycetes, King of Persia
Cosroe, his brother
ORtygius
┐
Ceneus
│
Meander
│Persian lords
Manaphon
│
Theridamus ┘
King of Argier
Soldan of Egypt
Governor of Damascus
Agydas
┐
Median
Magnetes ┘
lords
Capolin, an Egyptian
Philemus, messenger
Tamburlaine, a Scythian sheperd
Techelles ┐
his followers
Usumcasane ┘
Bajazeth, Emperor of the Turks
King of Arabia
King of Fez
King of Morrocus
Zenocrate/daugt of Soldan
Anippe, her maid
Zabina, wife of Bajazeth
Ebea, her maid
Virgins of Damascus
Bassoes, Lords, Citizens,
Moors, Soldiers, and
Attendants
Act I.i.
Mycetes, Cosroe, MEander, Theridamas, Ortygius, Ceneus, Menaphon
enter, with others.
Mycetes shows himself to be a stupid king, with all of Persia
falling in around him. His borther Cosroe will take power, but the
urgent issue is this sythian Tamburlaine, a name unknown, who
nevertheless must be stopped from further harrassing travellors
through Persia. Theridamus is despatched with a thousand troop to
do just this.
Issue of kingship here.
Unlike Gorbuduc and Cambyses, we
have the wickedness of softy kings.
I.ii.
1. Tamburlaine, leading Zenocrate, followed by Techelles, Usumcasane,
etc. Zenocrate and her party taken while crossing politically safe
territory of Syria, with treasure, to meet her betrothed. Tamburlaine
seiezes, and we see, that against all political norms for behaviour,
he refuses to let them leave. He refuses ransom.
Undermining of political rhetoric
issue of religion; all pray to gods, Tamburlaine has gods
promise of greatness:
which gracious stars have promised at my birth [92]
Tamburlaine's courtly language set in "whitest snow of
Scythian hills [89]. He will take Zenocrate to wife,
Cambyses
like, but with more human passion.
2. Theridamus enters, for a pre war parlay, but is so impressed with
Tamburlain, as Tamburlain is with him, that the two join sidesw against
Cosroe and Mycetes.
3.
Zenocrates and her group capitulate.
"wretched Zenocrate!"
Act Two
Cosroe, Menaphon, Ortygius, and Ceneus, with soldiers.
1. All praise and refer to Tamburlain as superhuman, godlike.
Motif of reputation building a man. Greenblatt self
fashioning,
reversed. Talk of Cosroe being crowned secretly, to rid PErsia of
an ideiot king.
II.ii.
Mycetes and company enter, and consider as a tactic the throwing
of gold, knwoing that the wretched peasant scyethians will stoop for
it on the battle field, being greedy at heart. Bad tactic because
gold is just a consequence of their actionsd and vision, not the driver.
Makes Tamburlaine's crown different.
Nations are born motif here.
Sense of epicurian tactic.
II.iii
1. Cosroe and company side with Tamburlaine, to defeat Mycetes.
Turnign over his job to Tamburlaine. Motif of Tamburlain as Lackey.
Cosroe never fits with others. Tamburlaine cleasrly done in the
Alexandrian image. Motif of ruling alone.
Cosroe seeks it.
Tamburlaine does not. cosroe:
Come, Tamburlaine, now whet thy winged
sword
And lift thy lofty arm into the clouds,
That if may reach the King of Persia's crown,
And set it safe on my victorious head.
motifs of stillness, decay.
II.iv.
Tamburlaine meets Mycetes in battle, burying his crown. Silly
scene where we see idiocy of kingship, strength of merit in
Tamburlaine, who takes crown, then gives it back to king, telling
him he will lend it to him, until such time as he sees him hemmed
in battle. Motife of new men, meritocracy.
II.v. cosroe, Tamburlain, theridamus, Manaphon, Meander, Ortyguis,
Techelles, Usucasane...
1. Celevratin after victory. Cosroe happy, thanks everyone,
acts very lordly. Leaves them, intent to:
"ride in triumph through Persepolis"
but Tamburlaine will not, an muses over cosroes's line:
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles?
.....Is it not pasing brave to be a king,
And ride in triumph through Persepolis? 51-4]
2. All agree to conquer Cosroe before the task becomes less
cost effeicient.
II.vi.
1.
Angry cosroe, his hero now just a "devlish sheperd."
issue of usage, terms. Cosroe like the rest.
issue of aspiring beyond heights - who dares?
II.vii.
1.after battle, Cosroe wounded, curses Tamburlaine. A sure sign
that he will be damned in tragedy. Greenblatt points out that Marlow
always thwarts such signs, after setting them up.
2. Famous Tamburlaine speech on ambition.:
The thirst of reign and sweetness of a crowm
That caused the eldest son of heavenly Ops
To thrust his doting father from his chair,
And place himself in the empyreal heaven
Moved me to manage arms agaisnt they state.
What better precedent than mighty Jove?
Nature that framed us of four elements
Warring within our breasts for regiment,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds;
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
and measure every wandering planet's course
Still climbing after knowlege infinite,
and always moving as the resless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves, and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. [1-29]
motif of religious language subverted to secular usages by
Tamburlaine, and here, that fact is being mocked by him.
3. Followers give crown to Tamburlaine, who gives it to them, who
give it back to him. Motif of political alliances, stillworking in
Tamburalaine, yet also, sense of his friends, and war or state based
on personal loyalty.
Act III