Hier. O, let them be worse, worse: stretch thine art, And let their eyebrows jut over: in any case observe that; Bring me forth in my shirt and my gown under my arm, with my torch in my hand, and my sword rear'd up thus, And with these words; What noise is this? who calls Hier onimo? May it be done? Pain. Yea, sir. Hier. Well, sir, then bring me forth, bring me thro' alley and alley, still with a distracted countenance going along, and let my hair heave up my night-cap. Let the clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells tolling, the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve. And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tott'ring, and tott'ring, as you know the wind will wave a man, and I with a trice to cut him down. be And looking upon him by the advantage of my torch, find it to my son Horatio. There you may shew a passion, there you may shew a passion. Draw me like old Priam of Troy, crying, The house is a fire, the house is a fire; and the torch over my head; make me curse, make me rave, make me cry, make me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate, and in the end leave me in a trance, and so forth. Pain. And is this the end? Hier. O no, there is no end: the end is death and madness; And I am never better than when I am mad; Then methinks I am a brave fellow; Then I do wonders; but reason abuseth me; At last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers; Thus would I tear and drag him up and down. (He beats the Painter in.) [Act iii., Sc. 12a, whole scene.] These scenes, which are the very salt of the old play (which without them is but a caput mortuum, such another piece of flatness as Locrine), Hawkins, in his republication of this tragedy, has thrust out of the text into the notes; as omitted in the Second Edition [1594], "printed for Ed. Allde, amended of such gross blunders as passed in the first: and thinks them to have been foisted in by the players.—A late discovery at Dulwich College has ascertained that two sundry payments were made to Ben Jonson by the Theatre for furnishing additions to Hieronimo. See last edition of Shakspeare by Reed. There is nothing in the undoubted plays of Jonson which would authorise us to suppose that he could have supplied the scenes in ques tion. I should suspect the agency of some "more potent spirit." Webster might have furnished them. They are full of that wild solemn preternatural cast of grief which bewilders us in the Duchess of Malfy. THE LOVE OF KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, WITH THE TRAGEDY OF ABSALOM [FIRST PRINTED IN 1599]. BY GEORGE PEELE [1558 ?-1597?] 1 Bethsabe, with her maid, bathing. She sings: and David sits above, viewing her. The song. Hot sun, cool fire, temper'd with sweet air, Inflame unstaid desire, Nor pierce any bright eye That wandereth lightly. Bethsabe. Come, gentle Zephyr, trick'd with those perfumes That erst in Eden sweetned Adam's love, And stroke my bosom with the silken fan: 2 This shade (sun-proof) is yet no proof for thee, Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes, And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes, To play the wantons with us through the leaves. David. What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce My soul, incensed with a sudden fire! What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise, Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame! [The play is in fifteen Scenes. See Peele's Works, ed. Bullen, 1888, vol. ii.] The sun's rays. Fair Eva, plac'd in perfect happiness, Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens, Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts, That precious fount bear sand of purest gold; Enter CUSAY. See, Cusay, see the flower of Israel, Brighter than inside bark of new-hewn cedar, David. Go now and bring her quickly to the King ; David. Bright Bethsabe shall wash in David's bower In water mix'd with purest almond flower, [Exit [Two lines omitted.] [Twenty-one lines omitted.] Now comes my Lover tripping like the Roe, And with their murmur summon easeful sleep [Sc. 1.] There is more of the same stuff, but I suppose the reader has a surfeit; especially as this Canticle of David has never been suspected to contain any pious sense couched underneath it, whatever his son's may. The kingly bower, "seated in hearing of a hundred streams," is the best of it. LUST'S DOMINION, OR THE LASCIVIOUS QUEEN. A TRAGEDY [PRODUCED ABOUT 1600: NOT BY MARLOWE]. BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE [1564-1593] The Queen Mother of Spain loves an insolent Moor.2 QUEEN. ELEAZAR, the Moor. Queen. Chime out your softest strains of harmony, And on delicious Music's silken wings Send ravishing delight to my love's ears; That he may be enamour'd of your tunes. Eleaz. Away, away. Queen. No, no, says aye; and twice away, says stay. Come, come, I'll have a kiss; but if you'll strive, For one denial you shall forfeit five.3 Eleaz. Be gone, be gone. Queen. What means my love? Burst all those wires; burn all those instruments; For they displease my Moor. Art thou now pleased ? Or wert thou now disturb'd? I'll wage all Spain new device To make me fond and long. O, you men Have tricks to make poor women die for you. Eleaz. What, die for me? Away. Queen. Away, what way? I prithee, speak more kindly. Why dost thou frown? at whom? 1[For other extracts from Peele see pages 437, 440, 453 and 568.] '[Nine and a half lines omitted.] Eleaz. At thee. Queen. At me? O, why at me? for each contracted frown, Bestow one smile, one little little smile, [Act i., Sc. 1.1] Kit Marlowe, as old Isaac Walton assures us, made that smooth song which begins "Come live with me and be my love." The same romantic invitations "in are given by the queen in the play, and the lover in the folly ripe in reason rotten,' ditty. He talks of "beds of roses, buckles of gold: Thy silver dishes for thy meat, As precious as the Gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepared each day for thee and me. The lines in the extract have a luscious smoothness in them, and they were the most temperate which I could pick out of this Play. The rest is in King Cambyses' vein; rape, and murder, and superlatives; "huffing braggart puft" lines 2 such as [Dodsley, Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt, 1874, vol. xiv.] Now Tragedy, thou minion of the night, The volume of all wounds that wound from me; [Act v., Sc. 6.] |