Part 33

=Lyly's Development as a Dramatist.=--That Lyly worked, however, steadily toward more genuine drama becomes clear if one reads his plays in order. In all he shows classical influence by his choice of subject, or by constant allusion, but he is not a scholar in the sense of Jonson or Chapman. He is well read in certain authors--Ovid, particularly the _Metamorphoses_, Plutarch, Pliny, perhaps Lucian; he has at his tongue's end many stock Latin quotations, and delights in misquoting or paraphrasing for the sake of a pun, sure that the quick-witted courtiers will recognize the originals. Classical in construction he certainly is not. His interest is to find a pretty love story which gives opportunities for dramatic surprises and complications, effective groupings, graceful dances, and dainty lyrics. He is fertile in finding interesting figures to bring upon the stage--the fairies of _Endimion_, the fiddlers of _Mother Bombie_, the shepherds of _Love's Metamorphosis_. If one examines the only two plays of his which lack the contrasting comic under-plot,--_Love's Metamorphosis_, and _The Woman in the Moone_,--it becomes clear that they are pastorals or masques. Even the other plays owe to their sub-plots the right to be called comedies. By choice of topics and by temperament, then, Lyly is a writer of masques.

At first he developed his two plots side by side, as in _Endimion_. One is used simply to relieve the other, or to fill time-spaces necessary between incidents of the main plot. Later, he joins the two slightly by letting figures in the sub-plot refer to incidents of the main story. In _Mother Bombie_ he brings the groups together formally two or three times, and closes the play with nearly all the characters on the stage. In his last comedy, _The Woman in the Moone_, he discards contrasted plots, and tries to get his effects from one large group of figures. Even if his success in meeting his problem is not great, the mere recognition of it is significant. Yet it cannot be said that he ever becomes a good plotter, for he is always willing to bring in anywhere new people, new interests, or even, as in _Mydas_, to shift to a new plot midway. In _Mother Bombie_, when the climax of complication is reached in the meeting of the disguised Accius and Silena and their fathers, Lyly is unable to master the difficulties of the situation. He lets the two reveal themselves tamely, confusingly, before he has had anything like the potential fun out of the scene. Usually the plays ramble gently on till Lyly thinks the audience must have enough; then the _deus ex machina_ appears, and all ends. Climax in closing he seems not to try for, but is content to end with a telling phrase.

In characterization his work varies. In the allegories he wishes merely to suggest well-known figures; distinct, final characterization would be out of place, even dangerous. In the pastoral-masques, the land of fantasy, the lines of characterization need not be sharply drawn. But even if one looks at _Mother Bombie_ and the sub-plots of the plays, one sees that though there is perhaps a slight gain in portraying the figures, the people are too often significant for the way in which they talk rather than for action or characterizing speech. When Lyly attempts strong presentation of crucial moments or pathos, he stammers, or is particularly conventional.

As he develops, he modifies the eccentricities of his style. Nor is it probable that the passing of the popular enthusiasm for Euphuism is wholly responsible for this. He had the good sense to see the superiority of prose to verse as the expression of comedy, and he must have felt how much his rigidly artificial style cramped him. In _Mother Bombie_, 1589-91, Euphuism is well-nigh gone. In its place we have a style in which characterized dialogue is more possible and more evident. In _The Woman in the Moone_ the exigencies of verse are too much for Euphuism, and it practically disappears.

Very slowly, then, Lyly was working toward a drama of simple characterizing dialogue, more unified, and at the same time more complex. Even as he worked, however, Kyd, Greene, and Marlowe swept by to accomplishment impossible for him under any conditions.

=His Place in English Comedy.=--John Lyly is not merely, then, as has been too often suggested, a scholar "picking fancies out of books (with) little else to marvel at." He was keenly alive to foreign and domestic influences at work about him. His use of what other men offer foreshadows the marvellous assimilative power of Shakespeare. He seems to retain and apply with freedom all the similes and illustrations that come in his way; many are not to be hunted down except in out-of-the-way corners of the books best known to him. Only a man of poetic feeling would have cared to work in these allegories and pastorals. Humorous he is in the scenes of the pages. Here and there, as in some of the replies of Apelles to Alexander, and in the words of Parmenio on the rising sun (Act I, scene 1), there is caustic irony. Lyly is a thinker, too, and a critic, as his frequent satire of existing social customs or follies shows. Now and then he is fearless; for instance, in his portrayal before the Queen of the artist's contempt for royal assumption of knowledge (Act III, scene 4), and in his comment on the impossibility of happy love between a subject and a monarch (Act IV, scene 4). His allegories show best his ingenuity and inventiveness. His mastery of involved phrasing is indubitable.

Without doubt, however, his attitude toward his work is more that of the scholar than the poet or dramatist. His work is imitation of others who seem to him models, with the main attention on style. He has the inventiveness of the dramatist, but not his instinct for technique or recognition of the possibilities of a story and care in working them out. He never says a thing for himself if he can find it anywhere in a recognized author. In this, however, he shared in the mood of Spenser and his group. Indeed, a little comparison of Lyly with Spenser will show that, though in accomplishment he is far below the poet, he expresses in his comedies the historical influences, the existing intellectual conditions, and the literary aspirations which Spenser phrases in his early work. It is in poetic power, in imaginative sweep, that the two separate widely.

Yet Lyly, drawing on what preceded and what surrounded him, did more than express the literary mood and desires of his day. Through him the lyric in the drama came to Dekker, Jonson, and Shakespeare, more dainty and more varied. He broke the way for later men to use prose as the means of expression for comedy. He gave them suggestions for clever dialogue. At a time of loose and hurried dramatic writing he showed that literary finish might well accompany such composition. His pages are the prototypes of the boys and servants in Peele, Chapman, Jonson, and Shakespeare. In a small way he foreshadowed the comedy of manners. For as close a relationship between the drama and politics as we find in his allegories, we must look to the declining days of the Jacobean drama--to Middleton's _Game of Chess_. The romantic spirit found expression in him, not in a drama of blood, but in pastorals and masques which look forward to the masques of Jonson, to _Love's Labour's Lost_, _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and _As You Like It_. His influence on the highly sensitized mind of Shakespeare may be traced in many lines and scenes.

His vogue as a dramatist was short. By 1590 the boisterous, romantic drama, the often inchoate chronicle history, both frequently accompanied by scenes of would-be comic horse-play, engrossed public attention. The great period of experimentation with both old and crude forms was beginning. It is not surprising that when Lyly's plays were revived by the Chapel Children in 1597-1600, they could not stand comparison with the work of Jonson, Dekker, Heywood, and other dramatists of the day, but were called "musty fopperies of antiquity." Their work, in bridging from the classic to romantic comedy, as the Drama of Blood bridged from Seneca to real tragedy, was done. Thereafter their main interest must be historical.

=Previous Editions and the Present Text.=--The title of the first quarto (1584) is, "A moste excellent Comedie of Alexander, Campaspe, and Diogenes, played before the Queene's Maiestie on twelfe day at night, by her Maiestie's Children, and the Children of Paules. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Cadman, 1584." In the second edition, issued the same year by the same publisher, the title is changed to _Campaspe_, and the play is said to have been given "on new yeares day at night." The title, _Campaspe_, was retained in the third quarto, 1591, for William Broome, and in Edward Blount's duodecimo collective edition, 1632. (Manly.) Both, too, state that the play was given "on twelfe-day at night." The headlines of all the quartos read _Alexander and Campaspe_; of Blount, _A tragicall Comedie of Alexander and Campaspe_. Besides the quartos and Blount's _Sixe Court Comedies_ there are these reprints: in Vol. II., Dodsley's _Select Collection of Old Plays_, 1825; in Vol. I., _John Lilly's Dramatic Works_, F. W. Fairholt, 1858; in Vol. II., _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, J. M. Manly, 1897. In the footnotes of the present edition the quartos are indicated by A. B. and C., the other editions by Bl. Do. F. and M. respectively. Blount's text, mainly, is followed. The variant readings of the quartos are given on the authority of Fairholt.

GEORGE P. BAKER.

FOOTNOTES:

[751] The Introduction to _Endimion_, Holt & Co., carefully considers the evidence for all these statements.

CAMPASPE

_Played before the Queenes Maiestie_ on _Twelfe_ day at Night:

_By her_ MAIESTIES Children, and the Children of _Paules_.

_Vignette with motto:

Mollia cum duris_

LONDON,

Printed by _William Stansby_, for _Edward Blount_.

1632.

The Persons of the Play[752]

ALEXANDER, _King of Macedon_. HEPHESTION, _his General_. CLYTUS, } PARMENIO, } MILECTUS, } _Warriors_. PHRYGIUS, } MELIPPUS, _Chamberlain to Alexander_. ARISTOTLE, } DIOGENES, } CRISIPPUS, } CRATES, } _Philosophers_. CLEANTHES, } ANAXARCHUS, } CRYSUS, } APELLES, _a Painter_. SOLINUS, } SYLVIUS, } _Citizens of Athens_. PERIM, } MILO, } _Sons of Sylvius_. TRICO, } GRANICUS, _Servant to Plato_. MANES, _Servant to Diogenes_. PSYLLUS, _Servant to Appelles_. Page _to Alexander_. Citizens of Athens. Soldiers. CAMPASPE, } _Theban Captives_. TIMOCLEA, } LAIS, _a Courtezan_.

_SCENE_: ATHENS]

FOOTNOTES:

[752] Do. first gives the list. The two companies were probably united for the Court performance. Thus the doubling of parts, common in the days of Elizabeth, was avoided.

THE PROLOGUE AT _the blacke Friers_[753]

THEY that feare the stinging of waspes make fannes of peacocks tailes, whose spots are like eyes; and Lepidus, which could not sleepe for the chattering of birds, set up a beast whose head was like a dragon;[754] and wee, which stand in awe of report, are compelled to set before our owle Pallas shield,[755] thinking by her vertue to cover the others deformity. It was a signe of 5 famine to Ægypt when Nylus flowed lesse than twelve cubites or more than eighteene: and it may threaten despaire unto us if wee be lesse courteous than you looke for or more cumbersome. But, as Theseus, being promised to be brought to an eagles nest, and, travailing all the day, found but a wren in a hedge, yet said, 10 "This is a bird," so, we hope, if the shower[756] of our swelling mountaine seeme[757] to bring forth some elephant, performe but a mouse, you will gently say, "This is a beast." Basill softly touched yieldeth a sweete sent, but chafed in the hand, a ranke savour: we feare, even so, that our labours slily[758] glanced 15 on will breed some content, but examined to the proofe, small commendation. The haste in performing shall be our excuse. There went two nights to the begetting of Hercules; feathers appeare not on the Phœnix under seven moneths; and the mulberie is twelve in budding: but our travailes are like the hares, who at one time 20 bringeth forth, nourisheth, and engendreth againe,[759] or like the brood of Trochilus,[760] whose egges in the same moment that they are laid become birds. But, howsoever we finish our worke, we crave pardon if we offend in matter, and patience if wee transgresse in manners. Wee have mixed mirth with councell, and discipline 25 with delight, thinking it not amisse in the same garden to sow pot-hearbes that wee set flowers. But wee hope, as harts that cast their hornes, snakes their skins, eagles their bils, become more fresh for any other labour, so, our charge being shaken off, we shall be fit for greater matters. But least, like the Myndians, 30 wee make our gates greater than our towne,[761] and that our play runs out at the preface, we here conclude,--wishing that although there be in your precise judgements an universall mislike, yet we may enjoy by your wonted courtesies a generall silence.

FOOTNOTES:

[753] Before 1584 the Chapel Children acted publicly in a Blackfriars' inn-yard. See pp. cxi-cxxxv, Lyly's _Endimion_, Holt & Co.

[754] "It hapned during the time of his Triumvirat (Lepidus's), that in a certain place where he was, the magistrates attended him to his lodging environed as it were with woods on everie side: the next morrow Lepidus ... in bitter tearmes and minatorie words chid them for that they had laid him where he could not sleep a wink all night long, for the noise and singing that the birds made about him. They being thus checked and rebuked, devised against the next night to paint in a piece of parchment of great length a long Dragon or serpent, wherewith they compassed the place where Lepidus should take his repose; the sight of which serpent thus painted so terrified the birds, that they ... were altogether silent."--Pliny, _Hist. of World_, Holland, 1635, xxxv. 11.

[755] The favor of the Queen. Elizabeth, like Minerva, was called Pallas because of her celibacy. These words, with ll. 12, 13, p. 331, show that the Court performance came first.

[756] The author, who presents the play.

[757] 'Seeming'?

[758] 'Slightly'? M.

[759] Holland, IX. 55; Topsell, _Hist. of Four-footed Beasts_, 1607, p. 267.

[760] A small, plover-like Nile bird.

[761] "Coming once to Myndos (Dorian colony on Carian coast), and seeing their Gates very large, and their City but small, [Diogenes] said, 'You Men of Myndos, I advise you to shut up your Gates for fear your town should run out.'"--Diogenes Laertius, _Lives of Philosophers_, 1606, VI. 425.

The Prologue at the Court.

WE are ashamed that our bird, which fluttereth by twilight, seeming a swan, should[762] bee proved a bat, set against the sun. But, as Jupiter placed Silenus asse among the starres, and Alcibiades covered his pictures, being owles and apes, with a curtaine imbroidered with lions and eagles, so are we enforced upon a rough discourse to draw on a smooth excuse, resembling lapidaries who 5 thinke to hide the cracke in a stone by setting it deepe in gold. The gods supped once with poore Baucis;[763] the Persian kings sometimes shaved stickes; our hope is Your Highnesse wil at this time lend an eare to an idle pastime. Appion, raising Homer from hell, demanded only who was his father;[764] and we, calling 10 Alexander from his grave, seeke only who was his love. Whatsoever wee present, we wish it may be thought the dancing of Agrippa[765] his shadowes, who, in the moment they were seene, were of any shape one would conceive; or Lynces,[766] who, having a quicke sight to discerne, have a short memory to forget. With us it is like to 15 fare as with these torches, which giving light to others consume themselves; and we shewing delight to others shame ourselves.

FOOTNOTES:

[762] 'Which, fluttering by twilight, seemeth a swan, should'?

[763] Ovid, _Meta._ III. 631.

[764] Holland, XXX. 2.

[765] Henry Cornelius Agrippa (von Nettesheim), knight, doctor, and, by common reputation, magician. Died 1535. On request he raised spirits--of the dead, Tully delivering his oration on Roscius; of the living, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting.--Godwin, _Lives of Necromancers_, 1834, 324-25.

[766] Lynxes. "It is thought that of all beastes they seeme most brightly, for the poets faine that their eie-sight pierceth through every solid body, although it be as thicke as a wall.... Although they be long afflicted with hunger, yet when they eate their meate, if they heare any noise, or any other chaunce cause them to turne aboute from their meate, oute of the sight of it, they forgette their prey, notwithstanding their hunger, and go to seeke another booty."--Topsell, 489-492.

[Alexander and Campaspe]

Actus primus. Scæna prima[767]

_Enter_ CLITUS _and_ PARMENIO[768]

_CLYTUS._ Parmenio, I cannot tell whether I should more commend in Alexanders victories courage, or courtesie, in the one being a resolution without feare, in the other a liberalitie above custome. Thebes is razed, the people not racked; towers throwne downe, bodies not thrust aside; a conquest without conflict, and a 5 cruell warre in a milde peace.[769]

_Par._ Clytus, it becommeth the sonne of Philip to bee none other than Alexander is; therefore, seeing in the father a full perfection, who could have doubted in the sonne an excellency? For, as the moone can borrow nothing else of the sunne but light,[770] so of a sire in whom nothing but vertue was what could the 10 childe receive but singular?[771] It is for turkies to staine each other, not for diamonds; in the one to bee made a difference in goodnesse, in the other no comparison.[772]

_Clytus._ You mistake mee, Parmenio, if, whilest I commend Alexander, you imagine I call Philip into question; unlesse, 15 happily, you conjecture (which none of judgement will conceive) that because I like the fruit, therefore I heave at the tree, or, coveting to kisse the childe, I therefore goe about to poyson the teat.

_Par._ I, but, Clytus, I perceive you are borne in the east, and 20 never laugh but at the sunne rising;[773] which argueth, though a dutie where you ought, yet no great devotion where you might.

_Clytus._ We will make no controversie of that [of][774] which there ought to be no question; onely this shall be the opinion of us both, that none was worthy to be the father of Alexander but Philip, nor 25 any meete to be the sonne of Philip but Alexander.

[_Enter Soldiers with_ TIMOCLEA, CAMPASPE, _other captives, and spoils_.]

_Par._ Soft, Clytus, behold the spoiles and prisoners! A pleasant sight to us, because profit is joyned with honour; not much painfull to them, because their captivitie is eased by mercie.

_Timo._ [_aside_]. Fortune, thou didst never yet deceive vertue, 30 because vertue never yet did trust fortune! Sword and fire will never get spoyle where wisdome and fortitude beares sway. O Thebes, thy wals were raised by the sweetnesse of the harpe,[775] but rased by the shrilnes of the trumpet! Alexander had never come so neer the wals, had Epaminondas walkt about the wals; and yet might 35 the Thebanes have beene merry in their streets, if hee had beene to watch their towers. But destinie is seldome forseene, never prevented. We are here now captives, whose neckes are voaked by force, but whose hearts cannot yeeld by death.--Come Campaspe and the rest, let us not be ashamed to cast our eyes on him on whom 40 we feared not to cast our darts.

_Par._ Madame, you need not doubt;[776] it is Alexander that is the conquerour.

_Timo._ Alexander hath overcome, not conquered.

_Par._ To bring all under his subjection is to conquer. 45

_Timo._ He cannot subdue that which is divine.

_Par._ Thebes was not.

_Timo._ Vertue is.

_Clytus._ Alexander, as hee tendreth[777] vertue, so hee will you. Hee drinketh not bloud, but thirsteth after honour; hee is greedie of victorie, but never satisfied with mercie; in fight terrible, 50 as becommeth a captaine; in conquest milde, as beseemeth a king; in all things[778] than which nothing can be greater, hee is Alexander.

_Camp._ Then, if it be such a thing to be Alexander, I hope it shall be no miserable thing to be a virgin. For, if hee save our 55 honours, it is more than to restore our goods; and rather doe I wish he preserve our fame than our lives: which if he doe, we will confesse there can be no greater thing than to be Alexander.

[_Enter_ ALEXANDER _and_ HEPHESTION.[779]]

_Alex._ Clytus, are these prisoners? Of whence these spoiles?

_Clytus._ Like your Majestie,[780] they are prisoners, and of Thebes. 60

_Alex._ Of what calling or reputation?

_Clytus._ I know not, but they seeme to be ladies of honour.

_Alex._ I will know. Madam, of whence you are I know, but who, I cannot tell.

_Timo._ Alexander, I am the sister of Theagines, who fought a 65 battell with thy father, before the citie of Chieronie,[781] where he died, I say--which none can gainsay--valiantly.[782]

_Alex._ Lady, there seeme in your words sparkes of your brothers deedes, but worser fortune in your life than his death; but feare not, for you shall live without violence, enemies, or necessitie. But what are you, faire ladie, another sister to Theagines? 70

_Camp._ No sister to Theagines, but an humble hand-maid to Alexander, born of a meane parentage, but to extreme[783] fortune.

_Alex._ Well, ladies, for so your vertues shew you, whatsoever your births be, you shall be honorably entreated. Athens shall be 75 your Thebes; and you shall not be as abjects of warre, but as subjects to Alexander. Parmenio, conduct these honourable ladies into the citie; charge the souldiers not so much as in words to offer them any offence; and let all wants bee supplied so farre forth as shall be necessarie for such persons and my prisoners. 80

_Exeunt_ PARME.[NIO] & _captivi._

Hephestion,[784] it resteth now that wee have as great care to governe in peace as conquer in warre, that, whilest armes cease, arts may flourish, and, joyning letters with launces, wee endevour to bee as good philosophers as souldiers, knowing it no lesse prayse to bee wise than commendable to be valiant. 85

_Hep._ Your Majestie therein sheweth that you have as great desire to rule as to subdue: and needs must that commonwealth be fortunate whose captaine is a philosopher, and whose philosopher a captaine. _Exeunt._

Actus primus. Scæna secunda[785]

[_Enter_] MANES,[786] GRANICHUS, PSYLLUS

_Manes._ I serve in stead of a master a mouse,[787] whose house is a tub, whose dinner is a crust, and whose bed is a boord.

_Psyllus._ Then art thou in a state of life which philosophers commend: a crum for thy supper, an hand for thy cup, and thy clothes for thy sheets; for _Natura paucis contenta._ 5