Chapter I: Part 1

ROSALYNDE OR, EUPHUES' GOLDEN LEGACY

BY

THOMAS LODGE

EDITED

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS

GINN AND COMPANY

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COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY

EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN

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PREFACE

This edition of Lodge's "Rosalynde" has grown out of a need felt by the editor for an example of Elizabethan prose suitable for use in a general survey course in English, designed for college freshmen. "Rosalynde," of all the books that were considered, seemed on the whole best to fulfill the desired conditions. As a pastoral romance it belongs to a class of books which, if not peculiar to the Elizabethan age, is at least thoroughly representative of it. Moreover, the story is entirely unobjectionable, nothing being found in it that could offend any reader. The "Rosalynde," being one of the shortest of the prose romances, is not open to the objections that might be urged against the more famous, but also more discursive, "Arcadia" of Sidney. Its close relations with Shakespeare's "As You Like It," which is also read in the course, and its added interest as one of the precursors of the modern novel, additionally recommend it. Finally, its coherent plot, its freedom from digressions, and its happy ending, make it seem likely to interest students, in spite of the conventionality of the pastoral form.

The annotation has been confined to giving the meanings of obsolete or unusual words. There are many mythological allusions that call for explanation; but this, it is thought, any good dictionary of mythology will supply. The list of questions is not of course exhaustive, and is intended to be merely suggestive of the kind of study the college student in an introductory course in English might well be fitted to undertake. The text is that of the Hunterian Club edition of Lodge's "Works." This reprint is of the first edition, that of 1590, except that (since the only known copy of the first edition of "Rosalynde" is imperfect) a few pages (121-127 of this edition) were reprinted from the second edition of 1592. The spelling and punctuation have to some extent been modernized--the latter having been altered only where changes serve to make the author's meaning more obvious.

The editor acknowledges his indebtedness to the scholarly edition of Lodge's "Rosalynde" by W.W. Greg (London and New York, 1907), particularly to the glossarial index, which has supplied the meanings of some words about which the editor was in considerable doubt. Thanks are due, also, to my colleague Mr. Arthur Tietje for his helpful suggestions in preparing the list of questions.

E.C.B.

URBANA, ILLINOIS

CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION vii

Birth and Education; Early Work; Later Work and Death;
Source of "Rosalynde": "The Tale of Gamelyn"; Form: A
Pastoral Romance; Spanish Influence; Style: Euphuistic; One
of the Last Examples of Euphuism; The Charm of the Book;
Lodge's Skill as a Story-teller; The Lyrical Interludes;
Historical Significance; Shakespeare's Dramatization of
"Rosalynde."

BIBLIOGRAPHY xxi

THE PUBLISHED WORKS OF THOMAS LODGE xxii

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxv

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION xxvii

TEXT 1

QUESTIONS 131

[Transcriber's Note: The Questions section has been omitted from this e-book.]

INTRODUCTION

_Birth and Education._ Of the life of Thomas Lodge comparatively little is definitely known. Yet, though even the year of his birth is uncertain, we are able from the meager facts that have come down to us to see that his life was typically Elizabethan. Like Sidney and like Raleigh, Lodge lived a varied and active life. He was born in either 1557 or 1558 of a rather prominent middle-class London family, both his father and his mother's father having been lord mayors of the city. He was sent to Merchant Taylors' School and afterwards to Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1577. Of his career at the university we know almost nothing except that among his fellow students were John Lyly, destined to exert a powerful influence upon his style, and George Peele, later to become a dramatist of note, to whom Lodge may to some extent have owed his subsequent interest in the drama.

_Early Work._ After leaving Oxford, Lodge returned to London and entered the Society of Lincoln's Inn, in other words took up the study of the law. Legal studies seem not to have absorbed his attention to the total exclusion of literary work. The occasion of his first publication was the death of his mother in 1579. In that year appeared the "Epitaph of the Lady Anne Lodge." This is not extant, but his reply to Stephen Gosson's "School of Abuse" has survived. Gosson's book had been a furious attack upon the contemporary drama. Lodge's reply was a fair sample of the literary billingsgate of that controversial age and deserves the oblivion into which it promptly sank. His next publication was his "Alarum against Usurers" (1584), a book belonging to a class of tracts popular in that day in which the characters and customs of the underworld of London were exposed to popular execration. The impulse to engage in this journalistic kind of work Lodge may have owed to Robert Greene, the dramatist, with whom he at this time became intimate, and whose popular books on cony-catching the "Alarum," in its spirit and purpose, closely resembles. Greene certainly furnished some of the inspiration for the dramatic attempts that followed. Lodge's play, "The Wounds of Civil War," though not printed till 1594, may have been acted in 1587. We know that he collaborated with Greene in "A Looking Glass for London and England," produced in 1592.

_Later Work and Death._ It is not, however, as a dramatist that Lodge is remembered, but as a writer of pastoral romance. Here the discursive and idyllic quality of his genius, both in verse and prose, was to find complete and unhampered expression. Of the pastoral romances that Lodge produced during the next decade "Rosalynde" is by far the most important. The author wrote it, he tells us, while he was on a freebooting expedition to the Azores and the Canaries, "when every line was wet with a surge, and every humorous passion counterchecked with a storm." The immediate success of "Rosalynde" encouraged Lodge to continue the writing of romances. The best known of those that followed, and one of the prettiest of his stories, is "A Margarite [i.e. pearl] of America." This was written while Lodge was engaged in another patriotic raid under Captain Cavendish against the Spanish colonies of South America. The romance is in no sense American, and owes its title solely to the fact that it was written, or, as Lodge claims, translated from the Spanish, while Lodge's ship was cruising off the coast of Patagonia. Lodge certainly knew Spanish; and during the month that the expedition lingered at Santos in Brazil, he spent much of his time in the library of the Jesuit College. Possibly this was the beginning of his leaning toward Catholicism. At all events, he later became a Roman Catholic and wrote in support of that faith at a time when to be other than a Protestant in England was extremely dangerous. Sometime previous to 1600 he took a degree of doctor of medicine at Avignon and wrote among other medical treatises one on the plague. Of this disease, it is said, he died in 1625.

_Source of "Rosalynde": "The Tale of Gamelyn."_ Lodge did not invent the plot of "Rosalynde." The story is based upon "The Tale of Gamelyn." This is a narrative in rough ballad form, written in the fourteenth century and formerly attributed to Chaucer. Indeed all the copies of it that have been preserved occur in the manuscripts of the "Canterbury Tales" under the title "The Coke's Tale of Gamelyn." From the "Tale" Lodge borrowed and adapted the account of the death of old Sir John of Bordeaux, the subsequent quarrel of his sons, the plot of the elder against the younger by which the latter was to be killed in a wrestling bout, the wrestling itself, the flight of the younger accompanied by the faithful Adam to the Forest of Arden, and their falling in with a band of outlaws feasting. Yet from the "Tale" Lodge took hardly more than a suggestion. All the love story was his own. Original also, so far as we know,[1] was the story of the two kings, and the pastoral element--for "Rosalynde" is a pastoral romance.

[Footnote 1: It has been conjectured that Lodge drew upon some Italian novel for the material that he did not find in "The Tale of Gamelyn." There seems, however, no ground for denying to Lodge credit for some originality; for the novel, if it ever existed, has been lost.]

_Form: A Pastoral Romance._ As a pastoral romance it belongs to the class of books of which Sidney's' "Arcadia" is the most famous representative in English. The "Arcadia" was published in 1590--the same year as "Rosalynde"--though it had been written some ten years earlier. The literary genus to which they belong is a very old one. The prose pastoral romance, that kind of prose romance which professes to delineate the scenery, sentiments, and incidents of shepherd life,[1] is, like most other literary forms, Greek in origin. It goes back at least to the "Daphnis and Chloe" of Longus, the Byzantine romancer of the fifth century A.D. Longus represents the romantic spirit in expiring classicism, the longing of a highly artificial society for primitive simplicity, and the endeavor to create a corresponding ideal. Indeed the pastoral has always been a product of a highly artificial age. Naturally, therefore, it has always been written by men of the city rather than by men of the country. It is distinctly an urban product. That it was so accounts in part for the idealized view of life that it presents. Speaking of the pastoral, Doctor Johnson says in his ponderous way:[2]

Our inclination to stillness and tranquillity is seldom much
lessened by long knowledge of the busy and tumultuary part
of the world. In childhood we turn our thoughts to the
country, as to the region of pleasure; we recur to it in old
age as a port of rest, and perhaps with that secondary and
adventitious gladness, which every man feels on reviewing
those places, or recollecting those occurrences, that
contributed to his youthful enjoyments, and bring him back
to the prime of life, when the world was gay with the bloom
of novelty, when mirth wantoned at his side, and hope
sparkled before him.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Johnson defines a pastoral as "the representation of an action or passion by its effects upon a country life." See _The Rambler_, Nos. 36 and 37.]

[Footnote 2: _The Rambler_, No. 36. See also Steele's essays on the pastoral in _The Guardian_, Nos. 22, 23, 28, 30, 32. No. 22 is particularly interesting, because in it Steele assigns three causes for the popularity of the pastoral form,--man's love of ease, his love of simplicity, and his love of the country. Pope's remarks on the pastoral, which may be found in _The Guardian_, No. 40, are also worth referring to in this connection.]

Probably Doctor Johnson was entirely right about the perennial charm of the pastoral and in his theory that its charm is potent in the direct ratio to the square of the distance that separates the writer and reader from rural life itself. It is not strange, therefore, that in the newly awakened interest in the classics that characterized the Renaissance, when literature was so largely a product of city culture, the revival of the pastoral should have been one of the first manifestations of the earlier Renaissance humanism.

_Spanish Influence._ Even when all due credit has been given to the charm of the pastoral romance, it still remains doubtful whether the influence of the Greek and Latin classics alone is sufficient to explain its vogue in the Elizabethan age. Their influence, though undoubtedly great, was scarcely sufficient to account for the naturalization in England of so exotic a form as the pastoral. Indeed the pastoral never was thoroughly naturalized, remaining to the end somewhat alien to its English surroundings. Shepherds with their oaten pipes were never quite at home in the English climate, which is ill suited to life in the open, to loose tunics, and bare limbs.[1] It is doubtful whether the pastoral would have become popular in England without the stimulus furnished by contemporary European literature. Most influential of these contemporary influences was the "Diana Enamorada," published about 1558, a Spanish pastoral romance written by Jorge de Montemayor, a Portuguese by birth, a Spaniard by adoption. Although the English translation of the "Diana" did not appear until 1598[2] it was well known to Sidney, who translated parts of it, and imitated it in his "Arcadia" (1590), and to Greene, whose "Menaphon," also an imitation of the "Diana," had appeared in 1589, the year before "Rosalynde." Though it is entirely possible that Lodge may have imitated Greene, it is probable that he, like Greene, had read the "Diana," for it is certain that he knew Spanish,[3] as well as French and Italian, and the "Diana" was already, it is said,[4] the most popular book in Europe.

[Footnote 1: Steele, speaking of the pastoral (_The Guardian_, No. 30), says, "The difference of the climate is also to be considered, for what is proper in Arcadia, or even in Italy, might be quite absurd in a colder country."]

[Footnote 2: Though not published till 1598, Bartholomew Young's translation of the "Diana" was made in 1583.]

[Footnote 3: In the epistle To the Gentlemen Readers, prefixed to "A Margarite of America," he tells us that he read the original of that story "in the Library of the Jesuits in Sanctum ... in the Spanish tongue."]

[Footnote 4: Jusserand, "The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare," p. 236.]

_Style: Euphuistic._ Nor was Lodge more original in his manner than in his matter. His style is that of the euphuists. John Lyly's "Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit" (1579), and its sequel "Euphues and His England" (1580), had set a fashion that was destined for the next two decades to enjoy a tremendous vogue. Lyly's was the first conspicuous example in English of the attempt to achieve an ornate and rather fantastic style. The result became known as euphuism, and those who employed it as euphuists. In its essential features it consists of three distinct mannerisms: a balance of phrases, an elaborate system of alliteration, and a profusion of similes taken from fabulous natural history. Regarding the euphuistic use of balance, Dr. Landmann says of Lyly's prose:[1] "We have here the most elaborate antithesis not only of well balanced clauses, but also of words, often even of sentences.... Even when he uses a single sentence he opposes the words within the clause to each other."

[Footnote 1: In "Shakspere and Euphuism," _Transactions of the New Shakspere Society_, 1880-1882.]

Of this balance Lodge's "Rosalynde" affords abundant illustration. Such a succession of sentences as that on page 7, where each sentence is composed of balanced clauses, is a striking but by no means unique example. Usually the contrasted words begin with the same letter or sound, as in the sentences just cited, where the alliteration appears to be employed to emphasize the contrast. Often the alliteration serves merely for ornament, as in the sentence: "It is she, O gentle swain, it is she, that saint it is whom I serve, that goddess at whose shrine I do bend all my devotions; the most fairest of all fairs, the phoenix of all that sex, and the purity of all earthly perfection."

The euphuistic similes were of three kinds. First, there were those drawn from familiar natural objects, such as, "Happily she resembleth the rose, that is sweet but full of prickles." Secondly, there are those taken from classical history and mythology, like these: "Is she some nymph that waits upon Diana's train, ... or is she some shepherdess ... whose name thou shadowest in covert under the figure of Rosalynde, as Ovid did Julia under the name of Corinna?" Thirdly, there are those similes most characteristic of euphuism, though less commonly found than the two kinds just mentioned, namely, those drawn from "unnatural natural history." Such are the comparisons to "the serpent Regius that hath scales as glorious as the sun and a breath as infectious as aconitum is deadly," to "the hyena, most guileful when she mourns," to "the colors of a polype which changes at the sight of every object," and to "the Sethin leaf that never wags but with a southeast wind."

_One of the Last Examples of Euphuism._ When Lodge wrote "Rosalynde," euphuism was already on the wane. Even among Lodge's contemporaries the fashion was becoming an object of frequent ridicule. Thus Warner, in his "Albion's England" (1589), complains in the preface, which, by the way, is written wholly in the euphuistic manner: "Onely this error may be thought hatching in our English, that to runne on the letter we often runne from the matter: and being over prodigall in similes we become less profitable in sentences and more prolixious to sense."

By 1627 euphuism had become an obsolete fashion. In that year Drayton wrote of Sidney that he

did first reduce
Our tongue from Lillies writing then in use:
Talking of Stones, Stars, Plants, of Fishes, Flyes,
Playing with words and idle Similies
As th' English Apes and very Zanies be
Of everything that they doe heare and see,
So imitating his ridiculous tricks,
They spake and writ like meere lunatiques.

"Rosalynde" marks the end of the unquestioned supremacy of euphuism as a literary mode. It was the last book of any importance to employ the style that Lyly had made so popular.

_The Charm of the Book._ In spite of the conventionality inseparable from the pastoral form, and the obvious artificiality of the style in which it is written, "Rosalynde" is really charming. Its charm is much like that of Watteau's landscapes. Like them, it is an idyll in court dress, a _fête élégante_, a kind of elegant picnic. Yet, like Watteau's pictures it is of more than merely historic interest, for it is far more than simply a reminder of the fopperies of a vanished time. There is in it, as in the paintings, a lightness and daintiness of coloring, and an indescribable air of freshness that have made the romance appeal to poets as the work of Watteau has appealed to painters. Shakespeare felt its charm so much that he made it the basis of the plot of "As You Like It." That it became one of his "sources" has injured it incalculably in the popular estimation. It has become a commonplace of criticism to declare that "Rosalynde's" chief title to be remembered is its having furnished a hint to Shakespeare. As a matter of fact, however, it had, to use Johnson's phrase, "enough wit to keep it sweet," even without Shakespeare's play "to preserve it from putrefaction." Lodge really had a pretty story to tell, and he tells it, if not with gusto, at least with grace and with some degree of skill. Exquisitely graceful are some of the narrative passages, where the very words seem to possess a clear and pellucid quality like the water of the spring that Rosalynde and Aliena found in Arden, "so crystalline and clear, that it seemed Diana and her Dryades and Hamadryades had that spring, as the secret of all their bathings."[1] Such, for instance, is the account of the night and morning succeeding the first meeting of Rosalynde and Rosader in the Forest of Arden.[2] Graceful, too, are the descriptions of the landscapes in Arden, such as that of the "fair valley" where Rosalynde and Aliena found Montanus and Corydon "seeing their sheep feed, playing on their pipes many pleasant tunes, and from music and melody falling into much amorous chat." So charmingly graceful are these descriptions that, together with Shakespeare, Lodge has made the Forest of Arden almost as much the accepted home of the pastoral as Sicily and Arcadia[3] had been hitherto.

[Footnote 1: P. 31.]

[Footnote 2: Pp. 58 and 60.]

[Footnote 3: Theocritus (283-263 B.C.) localized his "Idyls" in Sicily; Vergil (70-19 B.C.), his "Eclogues" in Arcadia.]

_Lodge's Skill as a Story-teller._ To say that Lodge is a skillful as well as a graceful story-teller is, of course, to make an indefensible assertion. In the sixteenth century English fiction was still in its infancy, and English prose was still undeveloped. Yet we do find in Lodge certain qualities of style that show clearly an advance over the formlessness of some of the stories that had preceded. Though the sentence and paragraph structure is loose and amorphous, the transitions from one subject to another are almost invariably well made, or at least are clearly marked. Phrases such as, "But leaving him so desirous of the journey, to Torismond"[1]; "Leaving her to her new entertained fancies, again to Rosader"[2]; "where we leave them, and return again to Torismond"[3]; show clearly a growing regard for the value of clear arrangement, to which the earlier romancers had been indifferent. In the avoidance of digressions, too, Lodge's style is an improvement upon that of his predecessors, and even upon that of most of his contemporaries.[4] The story moves along, if not rapidly, at least continuously from start to finish. There is a gratifying lack of such preposterous complications and tortuous windings as we meet with in the plot of Greene's "Menaphon," for example, where it sometimes seems doubtful whether the characters ever will emerge from so mazy a labyrinth of plot, and where the reader is bewildered by the almost complete lack of unity in the story.

[Footnote 1: P. 12.]

[Footnote 2: P. 17.]

[Footnote 3: P. 50. See, also, pp. 19, 41, 51, 59, 73, 97, 104.]

[Footnote 4: On page 72 Lodge accuses himself of digressing; but the four lines in which he here anticipates the conclusion of the story seem not to warrant the charge.]

_The Lyrical Interludes._ Lodge's spirit is essentially poetical. One feels that his way of looking at things is that of a true poet; of one, that is, who sees beneath the shows of things. Lodge saw as clearly as Shakespeare did that only love can untie the knot that selfishness has tied. And not only is Lodge a poet in his outlook on life, but also in the narrower sense of the word, for he is one of the sweetest singers of all that band of choristers that filled the spacious times of great Elizabeth with sounds that echo still. The voices of some were more resonant or more impassioned; few, if any, were sweeter. Such a song as _Rosalynde's Madrigal_, beginning,

Love in my bosom, like a bee
Doth suck his sweet:

is as fluent, as graceful, and as mellifluous as anything that appeared in that marvelously productive time. Lodge's poetic interludes impress one not only by their easy grace and sweetness, but by their melody as well. They possess that truly lyric quality that Burns's songs exhibit to such a marked degree. They seem to sing themselves. It is almost impossible to read aloud the best of them, such as,

Like to the clear in highest sphere
Where all imperial glory shines,
Of selfsame color is her hair,
Whether unfolded or in twines:
Heigh ho, fair Rosalynde!

without setting them unconsciously to a kind of tune, so essentially musical are the lines. In their wonderful harmony these lyrics remind one of Burns, but in the radiant and ethereal quality of their phrasing they inevitably recall Shelley. Furthermore, these songs illustrate the fact that the Elizabethan lyric had its origin in culture, not among the people, and that the chief sources of its inspiration were Italian and French. In a series of lyrics inserted into the text of "A Margarite of America,"[1] Lodge avowedly imitates the Italian poets Dolce, Pascale, and Mantelli, while in another passage in the same book[2] he expresses his unbounded admiration for the French poet Desportes, and his belief "that few men are able to second the sweet conceits of Philippe Desportes." His "sweet conceits" are imitated, we are told, in Montanus's song on page 29, and again in _Rosader's Sonnet_, on page 62. In his borrowings Lodge merely followed a prevalent fashion. The early English Elizabethan lyric was wholly experimental and imitative--the product of foreign influences, predominantly Italian and French; and in this respect Lodge's are entirely typical.

[Footnote 1: Hunterian Club reprint, pp. 76 ff.]

[Footnote 2: Hunterian Club reprint, p. 79.]

_Historical Significance._ Historically the book is interesting as one of the predecessors of the modern novel. But we need to keep in mind that it is really a precursor of the novel and not the thing itself. We have no right, therefore, to demand a well-constructed plot or skill in characterization, because these did not appear in English fiction till a much later time. It was two centuries before the novel, in the time of Richardson, came into being; and it would be manifestly absurd to expect to find in "Rosalynde" an anticipation either of Scott's dramatic skill in plot construction or of George Eliot's clairvoyance that divines the interior play of passion. All that we can reasonably ask is that there be a coherent story told with imaginative skill. In this we are not disappointed. The narrative moves rapidly, at least in the earlier part of the story; and, though in the latter part the setting seems from a modern point of view over-emphasized, it is so charmingly idyllic as almost, if not quite, to justify the over-emphasis. But Lodge really gives us more than we have a right to expect, for, as Mr. Gosse has pointed out,[1] we may trace in the book "certain qualities which have always been characteristic of English fiction, a vigorous ideal of conduct, a love of strength and adventure, an almost quixotic reverence for womanhood."

[Footnote 1: "Seventeenth-Century Studies," p. 18.]

_Shakespeare's Dramatization of "Rosalynde."_ When Shakespeare wrote "As You Like It" he did precisely what so many dramatists of to-day are blamed for doing, that is, he dramatized a well-known novel. Lodge's "Rosalynde" was at this time (about 1598) in its third edition, and the fact that the story was so familiar to the reading public imposed upon Shakespeare certain restrictions which he evidently did not feel in dealing with material that he took from sources less well known. In the case of material drawn from foreign sources he freely altered, omitted, or combined different stories as suited the immediate purpose of his art. In the dramatization of Lodge's "Rosalynde" he changed the plot comparatively little, altering it only so far as was absolutely necessary to fit it for stage presentation, contenting himself with shortening the time of the action, omitting such incidents as were essentially nondramatic, and adding only such characters as would, while making the play more interesting, not materially change the already familiar story.

By condensation and omission Shakespeare shortened the time of the action, which is several months in the romance, to about ten days in the play. This he accomplished by omitting all the preliminary narrative of the death of Sir John of Bordeaux, and the old knight's will; and by shortening the time that elapses in the romance between the brother's quarrel and the wrestling, which he makes occur on successive days. A similar shortening occurs in the matter of Rosader's flight from home. In the play the hero, being warned by Adam, leaves immediately after the wrestling, instead of staying to play his part in the rowdyism at Oliver's (Saladyne's) castle. The effect of this compression is to make the love plot more prominent. The meeting of the two brothers in Arden is also managed somewhat differently. Orlando is hurt in rescuing his brother from wild beasts, instead of being wounded, as in the romance, by rescuing Aliena from a band of robbers. The play ends differently from the romance, as befits a comedy, the usurping duke being converted instead of being killed in battle.

It was, however, in the characterization that Shakespeare departed most widely from the romance. The most obvious change was in the names of the characters. Rosader appears as Orlando, Saladyne as Oliver, Torismond as Duke Frederick, Gerismond as the banished Duke, Alinda as Celia, Montanus as Silvius, and Corydon is shortened to Corin. Of much greater significance than the changes in the names of the characters are the additions and changes in the list of _dramatis personae_. Nine characters are added outright--Dennis, Le Beau, Amiens, the First Lord, Sir Oliver Martext, William, Audrey, Touchstone, and Jaques. The latter is most noteworthy. Hazlitt calls him the only purely contemplative character Shakespeare ever drew. From the beginning to the end of the play he does absolutely nothing except to think and moralize. Another critic has said, "Shakespeare designed Jaques to be a maker of fine sentiments, a dresser forth in sweet language of the ordinary commonplaces...." It has been suggested,[1] not without some show of reason, that Shakespeare in adapting Lodge's romance for the stage purposely included in the list of _dramatis personae_ a character bearing a strong resemblance to Euphues, the pretended author of the romance. "Like Euphues, Jaques has made false steps in youth, which have somewhat darkened his views of life; like Euphues, he conceals under a veil of sententious satire a real goodness of heart, shown in his action toward Audrey and Touchstone. A traveler, like Euphues, he has a melancholy of his own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and is prepared, like his prototype, to lecture his contemporaries on every theme."

[Footnote 1: Seccombe and Allen, "The Age of Shakespeare," Vol. I, p. 119.]

Scarcely less significant are the changes that Shakespeare made in the characteristics of the _dramatis personae_. The motive of the elder brother in mistreating the younger he makes envy, not avarice as in the romance, a substitution due to his desire to unify the action by drawing a parallel between the brothers and the dukes. The superiority of Shakespeare's Rosalind to Lodge's delineation of the character has, perhaps, been slightly overestimated. To describe Lodge's Rosalynde as "a colorless being, incapable of entering into the spirit of her part"[1] is really too severe a condemnation. Of course Lodge's heroine does lack the exquisite charm of saucy playfulness coupled with gentle womanliness that makes Shakespeare's Rosalind perhaps the most popular heroine of English comedy. Yet Lodge furnished to Shakespeare far more than a name for his heroine. In the dialogue between Ganymede (Rosalynde) and Aliena there is a good deal of lively banter that must have furnished more than a suggestion for the teasing playfulness of Rosalind in the play. Such, for example, is the conversation between the two girls upon finding a love poem "carved on a pine tree."[2] As in the drama, Rosalynde's wit is always sharpened by the presence of her lover. Often her tone of raillery is noticeably similar to that of Shakespeare's heroine.[3]

[Footnote 1: W.G. Stone, _Transactions of the New Shakspere Society_, 1880-1886, pp. 277-293.]

[Footnote 2: P. 29. Compare the speech of Ganymede (Rosalynde) with Rosalind's speech in "As You Like It," III, ii, 367-381.]

[Footnote 3: Compare "Rosalynde," pp. 63-64, with "As You Like It," IV, i, 80-93.]

Upon a careful study of "Rosalynde" one cannot avoid the conviction that in selecting it as the basis for "As You Like It" Shakespeare displayed a sound judgment. Not only is it a good story of its kind, but it lends itself readily to dramatic adaptation. In adapting it Shakespeare made of it something quite different and incalculably more valuable than the romance. Yet "Rosalynde" is still in its way charming, and an appreciation of its charm may, instead of lessening our reverence for Shakespeare's genius, really increase it by leading us to see as he did the freshness and beauty as well as the dramatic possibilities of the story.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANGLIA. Vol. X, pp. 235-289.

BULLEN. Lyrics from the Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age, London, 1901.

CHAMBERS. English Pastorals, London, 1906.

DUNLOP. History of Prose Fiction (revised edition), London and New York, 1888.

GOSSE. "Seventeenth-Century Studies" (new edition), London, 1895.

GREG. Lodge's "Rosalynde," being the Original of Shakespeare's "As You Like It," London, 1907.

JUSSERAND. The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, London and New York, 1890.

LANG. Idylls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus (Golden Treasury Series), London, 1901.

LODGE. Reprint of Complete Works (excepting the translations of Seneca, Josephus, and Du Bartas), Glasgow, 1875-1882.

MARKS. English Pastoral Drama, London, 1908.

SAINTSBURY. Elizabethan Literature, London and New York, 1902.

WARREN. A History of the Novel, previous to the Seventeenth Century, New York, 1895.

THE PUBLISHED WORKS OF THOMAS LODGE ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER[1]

[Footnote 1: The titles are given in abbreviated form.]

1580 (?) Defence of Plays

1584 An Alarum against Usurers

1589 Scillaes Metamorphysis (reprinted with a new title-page in 1610
as A most pleasant Historie of Glaucus and Scilla)

1590 Rosalynde

1591 Robert, Second Duke of Normandy

1591 Catharos

1592 Euphues Shadow

1593 Phillis

1593 William Longbeard

1594 The Wounds of Civill War

1594 A Looking Glass for London (in collaboration with Greene)

1595 A Fig for Momus

1596 The Divel coniured

1596 A Margarite of America

1596 Wits miserie

1596 Prosopopeia

1602 Paradoxes

1602 Works of Josephus

1603 A Treatise of the Plague

1614 The Workes of Seneca

1625 A Learned Summary of Du Bartas

Rosalynde.

Euphues golden legacie: found after his death _in his Cell at Si_lexedra.

_Bequeathed to Philautus sonnes_ noursed vp with their _father in_ England.

Fetcht from the Canaries.

_By T.L. Gent._

LONDON,

Imprinted by _Thomas Orwin_ for T.G. and _John Busbie_.

1590.

To the Right Honorable and his most esteemed Lord the Lord
of Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain to her Majesty's Household, and
Governor of her Town of Berwick: T.L.G. wisheth increase of
all honorable virtues.

Such Romans, right honorable, as delighted in martial exploits, attempted their actions in the honor of Augustus, because he was a patron of soldiers: and Vergil dignified him with his poems, as a Maecenas of scholars; both jointly advancing his royalty, as a prince warlike and learned. Such as sacrifice to Pallas, present her with bays as she is wise, and with armor as she is valiant; observing herein that excellent [Greek: to prepon], which dedicateth honors according to the perfection of the person. When I entered, right honorable, with a deep insight into the consideration of these premises, seeing your Lordship to be a patron of all martial men, and a Maecenas of such as apply themselves to study, wearing with Pallas both the lance and the bay, and aiming with Augustus at the favor of all, by the honorable virtues of your mind, being myself first a student, and after falling from books to arms, even vowed in all my thoughts dutifully to affect your Lordship. Having with Captain Clarke made a voyage to the island of Terceras and the Canaries, to beguile the time with labor I writ this book; rough, as hatched in the storms of the ocean, and feathered in the surges of many perilous seas. But as it is the work of a soldier and a scholar, I presumed to shroud it under your Honor's patronage, as one that is the fautor and favorer of all virtuous actions; and whose honorable loves, grown from the general applause of the whole commonwealth for your higher deserts, may keep it from the malice of every bitter tongue. Other reasons more particular, right honorable, challenge in me a special affection to your Lordship, as being a scholar with your two noble sons, Master Edmund Carew, and Master Robert Carew, two scions worthy of so honorable a tree, and a tree glorious in such honorable fruit, as also being scholar in the university under that learned and virtuous knight Sir Edward Hoby, when he was Bachelor in Arts, a man as well lettered as well born, and, after the etymology of his name, soaring as high as the wings of knowledge can mount him, happy every way, and the more fortunate, as blessed in the honor of so virtuous a lady. Thus, right honorable, the duty that I owe to the sons, chargeth me that all my affection be placed on the father; for where the branches are so precious, the tree of force must be most excellent. Commanded and emboldened thus with the consideration of these forepassed reasons, to present my book to your Lordship, I humbly entreat your Honor will vouch of my labors, and favor a soldier's and a scholar's pen with your gracious acceptance, who answers in affection what he wants in eloquence; so devoted to your honor, as his only desire is, to end his life under the favor of so martial and learned a patron.

Resting thus in hope of your Lordship's courtesy in deigning the patronage of my work, I cease, wishing you as many honorable fortunes as your Lordship can desire or I imagine.

Your Honor's soldier
humbly affectionate:
Thomas Lodge

TO THE GENTLEMEN READERS

Gentlemen, look not here to find any sprigs of Pallas' bay tree, nor to hear the humor of any amorous laureate, nor the pleasing vein of any eloquent orator: _Nolo altum sapere_, they be matters above my capacity: the cobbler's check shall never light on my head, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_; I will go no further than the latchet, and then all is well. Here you may perhaps find some leaves of Venus' myrtle, but hewn down by a soldier with his curtal-axe, not bought with the allurement of a filed tongue. To be brief, gentlemen, room for a soldier and a sailor, that gives you the fruits of his labors that he wrote in the ocean, when every line was wet with a surge, and every humorous passion counterchecked with a storm. If you like it, so; and yet I will be yours in duty, if you be mine in favor. But if Momus or any squint-eyed ass, that hath mighty ears to conceive with Midas, and yet little reason to judge; if he come aboard our bark to find fault with the tackling, when he knows not the shrouds, I'll down into the hold, and fetch out a rusty pole-axe, that saw no sun this seven year, and either well baste him, or heave the coxcomb overboard to feed cods. But courteous gentlemen, that favor most, backbite none, and pardon what is overslipped, let such come and welcome; I'll into the steward's room, and fetch them a can of our best beverage. Well, gentlemen, you have Euphues' Legacy. I fetched it as far as the island of Terceras, and therefore read it; censure with favor, and farewell

Yours, T.L.

ROSALYNDE

There dwelled adjoining to the city of Bordeaux a knight of most honorable parentage, whom fortune had graced with many favors, and nature honored with sundry exquisite qualities, so beautified with the excellence of both, as it was a question whether fortune or nature were more prodigal in deciphering the riches of their bounties. Wise he was, as holding in his head a supreme conceit of policy, reaching with Nestor into the depth of all civil government; and to make his wisdom more gracious, he had that _salem ingenii_ and pleasant eloquence that was so highly commended in Ulysses: his valor was no less than his wit, nor the stroke of his lance no less forcible than the sweetness of his tongue was persuasive; for he was for his courage chosen the principal of all the Knights of Malta. This hardy knight, thus enriched with virtue and honor, surnamed Sir John of Bordeaux, having passed the prime of his youth in sundry battles against the Turks, at last (as the date of time hath his course) grew aged. His hairs were silver-hued, and the map of age was figured on his forehead: honor sat in the furrows of his face, and many years were portrayed in his wrinkled lineaments, that all men might perceive his glass was run, and that nature of necessity challenged her due. Sir John, that with the Phoenix knew the term of his life was now expired, and could, with the swan, discover his end by her songs, having three sons by his wife Lynida, the very pride of all his forepassed years, thought now, seeing death by constraint would compel him to leave them, to bestow upon them such a legacy as might bewray his love, and increase their ensuing amity. Calling, therefore, these young gentlemen before him, in the presence of all his fellow Knights of Malta, he resolved to leave them a memorial of all his fatherly care in setting down a method of their brotherly duties. Having, therefore, death in his looks to move them to pity, and tears in his eyes to paint out the depth of his passions, taking his eldest son by the hand, he began thus:

SIR JOHN OF BORDEAUX' LEGACY HE GAVE TO HIS SONS

"O my sons, you see that fate hath set a period of my years, and destinies have determined the final end of my days: the palm tree waxeth away-ward, for he stoopeth in his height, and my plumes are full of sick feathers touched with age. I must to my grave that dischargeth all cares, and leave you to the world that increaseth many sorrows: my silver hairs containeth great experience, and in the number of my years are penned down the subtleties of fortune. Therefore, as I leave you some fading pelf to countercheck poverty, so I will bequeath you infallible precepts that shall lead you unto virtue. First, therefore, unto thee Saladyne, the eldest, and therefore the chiefest pillar of my house, wherein should be engraven as well the excellence of thy father's qualities, as the essential form of his proportion, to thee I give fourteen ploughlands, with all my manor houses and richest plate. Next, unto Fernandyne I bequeath twelve ploughlands. But, unto Rosader, the youngest, I give my horse, my armor, and my lance, with sixteen ploughlands; for if the inward thoughts be discovered by outward shadows, Rosader will exceed you all in bounty and honor. Thus, my sons, have I parted in your portions the substance of my wealth, wherein if you be as prodigal to spend as I have been careful to get, your friends will grieve to see you more wasteful than I was bountiful, and your foes smile that my fall did begin in your excess. Let mine honor be the glass of your actions, and the fame of my virtues the lodestar to direct the course of your pilgrimage. Aim your deeds by my honorable endeavors, and show yourselves scions worthy of so flourishing a tree, lest, as the birds Halcyones, which exceed in whiteness, I hatch young ones that surpass in blackness. Climb not, my sons: aspiring pride is a vapor that ascendeth high, but soon turneth to smoke; they which stare at the stars stumble upon stones, and such as gaze at the sun (unless they be eagle-eyed) fall blind. Soar not with the hobby,[1] lest you fall with the lark, nor attempt not with Phaeton, lest you drown with Icarus. Fortune, when she wills you to fly, tempers your plumes with wax; and therefore either sit still and make no wing, or else beware the sun, and hold Daedalus' axiom authentical, _medium tenere tutissimum_. Low shrubs have deep roots, and poor cottages great patience. Fortune looks ever upward, and envy aspireth to nestle with dignity. Take heed, my sons, the mean is sweetest melody; where strings high stretched, either soon crack, or quickly grow out of tune. Let your country's care be your heart's content, and think that you are not born for yourselves, but to level your thoughts to be loyal to your prince, careful for the common weal, and faithful to your friends; so shall France say, 'These men are as excellent in virtues as they be exquisite in features.' O my sons, a friend is a precious jewel, within whose bosom you may unload your sorrows and unfold your secrets, and he either will relieve with counsel, or persuade with reason: but take heed in the choice: the outward show makes not the inward man, nor are the dimples in the face the calendars of truth. When the liquorice leaf looketh most dry, then it is most wet: when the shores of Lepanthus are most quiet, then they forepoint a storm. The Baaran leaf the more fair it looks, the more infectious it is, and in the sweetest words is oft hid the most treachery. Therefore, my sons, choose a friend as the Hyperborei do the metals, sever them from the ore with fire, and let them not bide the stamp before they be current: so try and then trust, let time be touchstone of friendship, and then friends faithful lay them up for jewels. Be valiant, my sons, for cowardice is the enemy to honor; but not too rash, for that is an extreme. Fortitude is the mean, and that is limited within bonds, and prescribed with circumstance. But above all," and with that he fetched a deep sigh, "beware of love, for it is far more perilous than pleasant, and yet, I tell you, it allureth as ill as the Sirens. O my sons, fancy is a fickle thing, and beauty's paintings are tricked up with time's colors, which, being set to dry in the sun, perish with the same. Venus is a wanton, and though her laws pretend liberty, yet there is nothing but loss and glistering misery. Cupid's wings are plumed with the feathers of vanity, and his arrows, where they pierce, enforce nothing but deadly desires: a woman's eye, as it is precious to behold, so is it prejudicial to gaze upon; for as it affordeth delight, so it snareth unto death. Trust not their fawning favors, for their loves are like the breath of a man upon steel, which no sooner lighteth on but it leapeth off, and their passions are as momentary as the colors of a polype, which changeth at the sight of every object. My breath waxeth short, and mine eyes dim: the hour is come, and I must away: therefore let this suffice, women are wantons, and yet men cannot want one: and therefore, if you love, choose her that hath eyes of adamant, that will turn only to one point; her heart of a diamond, that will receive but one form; her tongue of a Sethin leaf, that never wags but with a south-east wind: and yet, my sons, if she have all these qualities, to be chaste, obedient, and silent, yet for that she is a woman, shalt thou find in her sufficient vanities to countervail her virtues. Oh now, my sons, even now take these my last words as my latest legacy, for my thread is spun, and my foot is in the grave. Keep my precepts as memorials of your father's counsels, and let them be lodged in the secret of your hearts; for wisdom is better than wealth, and a golden sentence worth a world of treasure. In my fall see and mark, my sons, the folly of man, that being dust climbeth with Biares to reach at the heavens, and ready every minute to die, yet hopeth for an age of pleasures. Oh, man's life is like lightning that is but a flash, and the longest date of his years but as a bavin's[2] blaze. Seeing then man is so mortal, be careful that thy life be virtuous, that thy death may be full of admirable honors: so shalt thou challenge fame to be thy fautor,[3] and put oblivion to exile with thine honorable actions. But, my sons, lest you should forget your father's axioms, take this scroll, wherein read what your father dying wills you to execute living." At this he shrunk down in his bed, and gave up the ghost.

[Footnote 1: falcon.]

[Footnote 2: faggot's.]

[Footnote 3: patron.]

John of Bordeaux being thus dead was greatly lamented of his sons, and bewailed of his friends, especially of his fellow Knights of Malta, who attended on his funerals, which were performed with great solemnity. His obsequies done, Saladyne caused, next his epitaph, the contents of the scroll to be portrayed out, which were to this effect:

_The Contents of the Schedule which Sir John of Bordeaux gave to his Sons_

My sons, behold what portion I do give:
I leave you goods, but they are quickly lost;
I leave advice, to school you how to live;
I leave you wit, but won with little cost;
But keep it well, for counsel still is one,
When father, friends, and worldly goods are gone.

In choice of thrift let honor be thy gain,
Win it by virtue and by manly might;
In doing good esteem thy toil no pain;
Protect the fatherless and widow's right:
Fight for thy faith, thy country, and thy king,
For why? this thrift will prove a blessèd thing.

In choice of wife, prefer the modest-chaste;
Lilies are fair in show, but foul in smell:
The sweetest looks by age are soon defaced;
Then choose thy wife by wit and living well.
Who brings thee wealth and many faults withal,
Presents thee honey mixed with bitter gall.

In choice of friends, beware of light belief;
A painted tongue may shroud a subtle heart;
The Siren's tears do threaten mickle grief;
Foresee, my son, for fear of sudden smart:
Choose in thy wants, and he that friends thee then,
When richer grown, befriend thou him agen.

Learn with the ant in summer to provide;
Drive with the bee the drone from out thy hive:
Build like the swallow in the summer tide;
Spare not too much, my son, but sparing thrive:
Be poor in folly, rich in all but sin:
So by thy death thy glory shall begin.

Saladyne having thus set up the schedule, and hanged about his father's hearse many passionate poems, that France might suppose him to be passing sorrowful, he clad himself and his brothers all in black, and in such sable suits discoursed his grief: but as the hyena when she mourns is then most guileful, so Saladyne under this show of grief shadowed a heart full of contented thoughts: the tiger, though he hide his claws, will at last discover his rapine: the lion's looks are not the maps of his meaning, nor a man's physnomy is not the display of his secrets. Fire cannot be hid in the straw, nor the nature of man so concealed, but at last it will have his course: nurture and art may do much, but that _natura naturans_, which by propagation is ingrafted in the heart, will be at last perforce predominant according to the old verse:

Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.

So fared it with Saladyne, for after a month's mourning was passed, he fell to consideration of his father's testament; how he had bequeathed more to his younger brothers than himself, that Rosader was his father's darling, but now under his tuition, that as yet they were not come to years, and he being their guardian, might, if not defraud them of their due, yet make such havoc of their legacies and lands, as they should be a great deal the lighter: whereupon he began thus to meditate with himself:

SALADYNE'S MEDITATION WITH HIMSELF