Chapter VI (3)

Nor is this pride of sovereignty lost even in defeat. We see it still as strong, though forced by circumstances and coaxed to give way, in the pathetic scene where he is compelled to surrender his crown to Mortimer's delegate. Nevertheless the weakness that brings and justifies his downfall is placed prominently before us from the first. King Edward prefers his own pleasure before the unity of his kingdom and the strength of his rule. There is even something a little ignoble in his love for Gaveston, something unmanly and contemptible, if the reports of such prejudiced persons as the queen and Mortimer are to be believed. But the fault is not a criminal or unnatural one. One can sympathize with a heart that yearns for the presence of a single friend in a world of cold-blooded critics or harsh counsellors. The not unattractive character of Gaveston, too, affectionate, gay, proud, quick-tempered, brave--with faults also, of deceit, vanity and vindictiveness--preserves the royal friendship from the sink of blind dotage upon an unworthy creature. The tragedy follows, then, from the king's preferment of private above public good, or, we may say, from the conflict between the king's wishes as a man and his duty as a monarch. It is to Marlowe's perception of this vital struggle underlying the hostility between King Edward and his nobles that the play owes its greatness. We pity the king, we can hate those who beat him down to the mire, because his fault appeals to us in its personal aspect as almost a virtue; he is willing to sacrifice so much to keep his friends. At the same time we perceive the justice of his dethronement, for we recognize that the duty of a king must take precedence over everything else. He has brought his punishment upon himself. Yet, inasmuch as Mortimer, serviceable to the state as an instrument, offends our sense of what is due from a subject to his sovereign, we applaud the justice of his downfall; we, perhaps, secretly rejoice that this bullying young baron is humbled beneath a king's displeasure at last. As a final touch Marlowe rescues the sovereignty of the throne from the taint of weakness by the little prince's vigorous assertion of his authority at the end.

Queen Isabella presents certain difficulties. The king's treatment of her reflects little credit upon him, although one can hardly demand the same affection in a political as in a voluntary union. Apparently she really loves the king until his continued coldness chills her feelings and drives them to seek return in the more responsive heart of Mortimer. After that she even sinks so low as to wish the king dead. Yet to the end she cherishes a warm love for her son. Probably the author intended that her degeneracy should be attributed to the baneful influence of Mortimer and so strengthen the need for his death.

Mortimer, as the great antagonist, has a very strong character. Imperious, fiery, he is the real leader of the barons. From the first it is apparent that he is actuated by personal malice as much as by righteous indignation on behalf of his misgoverned country. He confides to his uncle that it is Gaveston's and the king's mocking jests at the plainness of his train and attire which make him impatient. But the unwisdom of the king serves him for a stalking-horse while secretly he pursues the goal of his private ambition. In adversity he is uncrushed. When he returns victorious he ruthlessly sweeps aside all likely obstacles to his supremacy, the Spensers, Kent, and even the king being hurried to their death. Then, just as he thinks to stand at the summit, he falls--and falls grandly.

Base Fortune, now I see that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire,
They tumble headlong down: that point I touched;
And seeing there was no place to mount up higher,
Why should I grieve at my declining fall?--
Farewell, fair queen: weep not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and, as a traveller,
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.

Marlowe wisely--for him--departs from the growing custom of diversifying the hard facts of history with homely fiction of a more or less comic nature. He declines to mingle clowns and courtiers. Variety is secured by a slightly fuller delineation of the secondary characters than is usual with him, with its consequent effect on the dialogue, and by abrupt changes in the political situation. Two great scenes, King Edward's abdication and his death, remain as memories with us long after we have laid the book down; but while we are reading it there are many others that touch the chords of indignation and sorrow. The verse throughout is admirable: it has shaken itself free of rant and extravagance; no longer are adjectives and nouns of splendour heaped recklessly one upon another. Yet there is nothing prosy or commonplace. The spirit of poetry and strength is everywhere.

Our last extract is from the famous abdication scene (Act V, Scene 1).

_Leicester._ Call them again, my lord, and speak them fair;
For, if they go, the prince shall lose his right.

_K. Edward._ Call thou them back; I have no power to speak.

_Leicester._ My lord, the king is willing to resign.

_Bishop of Winchester._ If he be not, let him choose.

_K. Edward._ O, would I might! but heavens and earth conspire
To make me miserable. Here, receive my crown.
Receive it? no, these innocent hands of mine
Shall not be guilty of so foul a crime:
He of you all that most desires my blood,
And will be called the murderer of a king,
Take it. What, are you moved? pity you me?
Then send for unrelenting Mortimer,
And Isabel, whose eyes, being turned to steel,
Will sooner sparkle fire than shed a tear.
Yet stay; for, rather than I'll look on them,
Here, here! [_Gives the crown._]--Now, sweet God of heaven,
Make me despise this transitory pomp,
And sit for aye enthronised in heaven!
Come, death, and with thy fingers close my eyes,
Or, if I live, let me forget myself.

In the writing of _Dido, Queen of Carthage_ Nash had a share. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say how much was his or to what portion of the play his work belongs. The supposition that Nash finished the play does not necessarily imply that he wrote the last part. It may have been that Marlowe originally conceived of a three act play--like _The Massacre at Paris_--and that Nash filled it out to five acts by the addition of scenes here and there. The unusual shortness of the play rather supports this theory. But it is best to let it stand uncertain. At least this much is clear, that the genius of Marlowe is strongly present both in the character of the queen and in the splendid passages of poetry.

Again we have a well-constructed tragedy based on the loss of a dear friend and ending in death. But here the friendship is elevated to the passionate affection of a woman for her lover, and the conclusion moves our pity with double force by its picture of suffering and by the fact that the queen is the unhappy victim of a cruel fate. It is the old story of love ending in desertion and a broken heart, only the faithless lover would be true if the gods had not ordered otherwise; his regret at parting is not the simulated grief of a hollow deceiver, but the sincere emotion of a lover acting under compulsion. Constructively the play is well balanced, although the incidents of the first two acts form, perhaps, a rather too elaborate introduction to the main plot. Some initial reference to the gods is necessary to set Aeneas's action in the right light. The writer is inclined, however, to turn the occasion into an opportunity for fine picture painting when he should be pressing forward to the essential theme. The long story of the destruction of Troy, also, has no proper place in this drama, inasmuch as Aeneas's piety and prowess at that time are not even converted to use as an incentive to Dido's love. Nevertheless it must be admitted that some of the most charming passages are to be found in these first two acts. The commencement of the third act at once sets the real business of the tragedy in motion: by a delicate piece of deception Queen Dido is persuaded to clasp young Cupid, instead of little Ascanius, to her bosom--with fatal results. Before the act is over Dido and Aeneas have plighted troth, romantically, in a cave where they are sheltering together from a storm. With the fourth act comes the first warning of impending shipwreck to their loves. Aeneas has a dream, and prepares to sail for Italy. On this occasion, however, the queen is able to overcome his doubts by bestowing upon him her crown and sceptre, thus providing him with a kingdom powerful enough to content his ambitions. Yet the gods are not to be satisfied so; Hermes himself is sent to command the Trojan's instant departure for another shore. In vain now does Dido plead. Aeneas departs, and there is nothing left for her in her anguish but to fling herself upon the sacrificial fire raised on the pretence of curing her love. A grim pretence, verily.

Besides the two principal characters there are Dido's sister Anna, and a visiting king, Iarbas, several friends of Aeneas, Ascanius (as himself and as impersonated by Cupid), and various gods and goddesses. None of these are developed beyond a secondary pitch; but Ascanius (or Cupid) is quite invaluable for the lightness and freedom which his presence conveys to the atmosphere about him; while the unrequited loves of Anna and Iarbas soften for us the severity of the blow that crushes the Carthaginian queen. Aeneas himself is presented in a subdued light, his soldier's heart being fairly divided between his mistress and empire. Thus we have the figure of Dido set out in high relief. Marlowe was fond of experiments in characterization, but he never diverged more completely from the path marked out by his previous steps than when he decided to give the first place in a tragedy to a woman. Hitherto his women have not impressed us: Abigail is probably the best of a shadowy group. Suddenly, in the Queen of Carthage, womankind towers up in majesty, to hold our attention fixed in wonder and pity as she walks with strong, unsuspecting tread the steep descent to death. She is sister to Shakespeare's Cleopatra, yet with marked individual differences. Her feelings startle us with their fierce heat and swift transitions. The fire of love flames up abruptly, driving her speech immediately into wild contradictions. She herself is amazed at the change within her. Burning to tell Aeneas her secret, yet withheld by womanly modesty, she endeavours to betray it indirectly by heaping extravagant gifts upon him. She counts over the list of her former suitors before him that he may see from the shrug of her shoulders that her affections are not placed elsewhere. Like Portia to Bassanio before he chooses the casket, she throws out hints, calls them back hastily, half lets fall the word, then breaks off the sentence, laying bare her heart to the most ordinary observer, yet despairing of his understanding her. When at last, from the tempest of desire and uncertainty, she passes into the harbour of his assured love, a rapture of content, such as the divinest music brings, fills her soul. Then the shadows begin to fall. At first the sincerity of Aeneas's love unites with her startled and clinging constancy to dispel the gathering gloom. With splendid gifts she dims the alluring brightness that draws him from her. A little longer Jove holds his hand; Aeneas's promise is till death.

_Aeneas._ O Dido, patroness of all our lives,
When I leave thee, death be my punishment!
Swell, raging seas! frown, wayward Destinies!
Blow, winds! threaten, ye rocks and sandy shelves!
This is the harbour that Aeneas seeks:
Let's see what tempests can annoy me now.

_Dido._ Not all the world can take thee from mine arms.

But the second call is imperative. With constraining pathos Dido implores him not to go. When that cannot melt his resolution the resentment of thwarted love breaks out in passionate reproach. This again changes to the wailing of sorrow as he turns and leaves her. Anna is sent after him to beseech his stay.

_Dido._ Call him not wicked, sister: speak him fair,
And look upon him with a mermaid's eye....
Request him gently, Anna, to return:
I crave but this--he stay a tide or two,
That I may learn to bear it patiently;
If he depart thus suddenly, I die.
Run, Anna, run; stay not to answer me.

Anna returns alone. Frantic schemes of pursuit, dangerously near to madness, at length crystallize into the last fatal resolve. The pile is made ready. Her attendants are all dismissed. One by one the articles left behind by Aeneas are devoted to the flames.

Here lie the sword that in the darksome cave
He drew, and swore by, to be true to me:
Thou shalt burn first; thy crime is worse than his.
Here lie the garment which I clothed him in
When first he came on shore: perish thou too.
These letters, lines, and perjured papers, all
Shall burn to cinders in this precious flame.

When all have been consumed she leaps into the fire and so perishes.

The character of the Queen of Carthage sufficiently demonstrates that Marlowe could paint a faithful and impressive likeness of a woman when he chose. Possibly his fiery spirit would have proved less sympathetic to a gentler type. Yet there are touches in the slighter portraits of Abigail and Queen Isabella which reveal flashes of true insight into the tender emotions of a woman's heart. Had Marlowe died before writing _Edward the Second_ we should have said that he was incapable of portraying any type of man but the abnormal and Napoleonic. He showed himself to be a daring and brilliantly successful voyager into untried seas. In the face of what he has left behind him it would be a bold critic indeed who named with confidence any aspect of tragedy as outside the empire of his genius.

The verse of _Dido, Queen of Carthage_ shows no signs of retrogression from the steady advance to a more natural and perfect style which we have traced in the progress from _Tamburlaine_ to _Edward the Second_. An exception to this improvement will be found in certain portions of Aeneas's long speech in the second act, of which it is probably not unjust to surmise that Nash was the author. There are in Dido's own speeches elements of wild extravagance, but they are natural to the intensity of her passion. Does not Shakespeare's Cleopatra rave in a manner no less fervid and hyperbolic? and in Enobarbus's description of her magnificence when she met Antony is there not a reminiscence of the oriental splendour of Dido's proposed fleet?

We quote part of the farewell scene between Dido and Aeneas.

_Dido._ But yet Aeneas will not leave his love.

_Aeneas._ I am commanded by immortal Jove
To leave this town and pass to Italy:
And therefore must of force.

_Dido._ These words proceed not from Aeneas' heart.

_Aeneas._ Not from my heart, for I can hardly go;
And yet I may not stay. Dido, farewell.

_Dido._ Farewell! is this the 'mends for Dido's love?
Do Trojans use to quit their lovers thus?
Fare well may Dido, so Aeneas stay;
I die, if my Aeneas say farewell.

_Aeneas._ Then let me go, and never say farewell;
Let me go: farewell: I must from hence.

_Dido._ These words are poison to poor Dido's soul:
O, speak like my Aeneas, like my love!
Why look'st thou toward the sea? the time hath been
When Dido's beauty chained thine eyes to her.
Am I less fair than when thou saw'st me first?
O, then, Aeneas, 'tis for grief of thee!
Say thou wilt stay in Carthage with thy queen,
And Dido's beauty will return again.
Aeneas, say, how canst thou take thy leave?
Wilt thou kiss Dido? O, thy lips have sworn
To stay with Dido! Canst thou take her hand?
Thy hand and mine have plighted mutual faith.
Therefore, unkind Aeneas, must thou say,
'Then let me go, and never say farewell'?

_Aeneas._ O queen of Carthage, wert thou ugly-black,
Aeneas could not choose but hold thee dear!
Yet must he not gainsay the gods' behest.

_Dido._ The gods! what gods be those that seek my death?
Wherein have I offended Jupiter,
That he should take Aeneas from mine arms?
O, no! the gods weigh not what lovers do:
It is Aeneas calls Aeneas hence.

Summarizing, in one short paragraph, the advance in tragedy inaugurated by Kyd and Marlowe, we record the progress made in characterization, plot structure, and verse, and in the treatment of history. A play has now become interesting for its delineation of character, not merely for its events or 'story'. One or two figures monopolize the attention by their lofty passions, their sufferings, and their fate. We look on at a tremendous conflict waged between will and circumstance, between right and wrong, or we watch the gradual decay of goodness by the action of a poisonous thought introduced into the mind. The plot has undergone a similar intensification. With resistless evolution it bears the chief characters along to the fatal hour of decision or action, then drags them down the descent which the wrong choice or the unwise deed suddenly places at their feet. Our sympathies are drawn out, we take sides in the cause, and demand that at least justice shall prevail at the end. There is an art, too, in this evolution, a close interweaving of events, a chain of cause and effect; a certain harmony and balance are maintained, so that our feelings are neither jerked to extremes nor worn out by strain. Even the history play has freed itself to some extent from the leading strings of chronology, claiming the right to make the same appeal to our common instincts as any other play. Verse has taken a mighty bound from formalism to the free intoxicating air of poetry and nature. Men and women no longer exchange dull speeches; they converse with easy spontaneity and delight us by the beauty of their language. A poet may be a dramatist at last without feeling that his imagination must be held back like a restive horse lest the decorum of human speech be violated.

* * * * *

_Arden of Feversham_ (? 1590-2), by its persistent but almost certainly mistaken association with Shakespeare's name, has received a wider fame than some better plays. Into the question of its authorship, however, we need not enter. Of itself it has qualities that call for reference in this place. Its early date, also, brings it within the sphere of our discussion of the growth of English drama.

Far more than any play of Kyd's, this drama, though it has no ghost and slays but one man on the stage, merits the title of a Tragedy of Blood. Murder is the theme, murder and adulterous love, and it is 'kill! kill! kill!' all the time. From the pages of Holinshed the writer carefully gathered up every horrible detail, every dreadful revelation concerning a brutal crime which had horrified England forty years before; and while the red and reeking abomination was still hot in his mind, sat down to the awful task of re-enacting it. The victim was summoned from his grave, the murderers from the gallows, the woman from the charred stake at Canterbury, to glut the appetite of a shuddering audience. Too revolting to be described in detail, the plot sets forth the story of Alice Arden's illicit love for Mosbie, her determination to win liberty by the murder of her husband, the many unsuccessful attempts to bring about that end, and the final act which brought death upon them all.

The art of sensationalism in drama, as in anything else, is not a great one; it is not to be measured by its effect upon the mind, for the crudest appeal to our instinctive dread of death will often suffice to hold our attention spellbound. It deals in uncertainty, darkness, unsuspecting innocence, hair-breadth escapes, and an ever-impending but still delayed ruin. None of these are wanting to this play; in this respect the dramatist was fortunate in his subject. No less than seven times the spectator--for the effect upon the reader is naturally much less--feels his nerves tingle, his pulse beat faster, as he waits in instant expectation of seeing murder committed. The realism of everyday scenery, the street, the high road, the ferry, the inn, the breakfast room, cry out with telling emphasis that it is fact, hard deadly fact, which is being shown, not the idle invention of an overheated brain. But while these features impress the action upon our memory, they do not raise it to the level of great drama. For this the supreme requirement is truth to human nature. It is not enough that the actors arrest our attention by their appearance, their speeches and their deeds. Freaks and lunatics might do that. They must be human as we are, moved by impulses common, in some degree, to us all. Generally speaking, abnormality is weakness. It needs to be strongly built upon a foundation of natural qualities to achieve success. Especially is this so when the surrounding conditions are such as belong to ordinary existence. The application of this principle reveals the essential weakness of _Arden of Feversham_. Carefully, almost minutely, the details of everyday life are gathered together. The merchant sees to the unloading of his goods at the quay, the boatman urges his ferry to and fro, the apprentice takes down his shutters, the groom makes love to the serving-maid, travellers meeting on the road halt for a chat and part with no more serious word spoken than a hearty invitation to dine; on all sides life is seen flowing in the ordinary current, with nothing worse than a piece of malicious tittle-tattle to disturb the calmness of the surface. Into this setting the author places as monstrous a group of villains as ever walked the earth. Black Will and Shakbag belong to the darkest cesspool of London iniquity. Clarke the Painter has no individuality beyond a readiness to poison all and sundry for a reward. Michael would be a murderer were he not a coward. Greene is a revengeful sleuth-hound, tracking his victim down relentlessly from place to place. Arden is a miser in business, and a weak, gullible fool at home, alternately raging with jealous suspicion, and fawning with fatuous trustfulness upon the man who is wronging him. Mosbie is a cold-blooded, underhand villain whose pious resolutions and protestations of love could only deceive those blinded by fate, and whose preference for crooked, left-handed methods is in tune with his vile intention of murdering the woman who loves him. Alice, the representative of womankind among these beast-men, the wife, the passionately loving mistress, is an arch-deceiver, an absolutely brazen liar and murderess, unblushing and tireless in soliciting the affection of a man who hardly cares for her, desperately enamoured. Alone in the group Franklin is endowed with the ordinary human revulsion from folly and wickedness, but his character is sketched too lightly to relieve the darkness. Such creatures may fascinate us by their defiance of the laws that bind us. Alice, particularly, does so. She possesses--as Michael does, to a less degree--at least a few natural traits; her conscience is not quite dead, and her love is strong, although even this is represented as a huge deformity, driving her to the negation of that womanhood to which it should belong. Single scenes, too, if seen or read in isolation from the main body of the play, have a certain individual strength, giving us glimpses of the workings of a human heart. But the play as a whole offers no inspiration, presents no aspects of beauty, holds up no mirror to ourselves. One lesson it teaches, that happiness cannot be won by crime. Alice and Mosbie are never permitted to escape from the consequences of their sin, in the form of anxiety, suspicion, remorse, fear, mutual recrimination, and death. But, throughout, the dramatist's purpose is not art. He is the apostle of realism, coarsened by a love of the horrible and unclean. The power of his realism is undeniable. His two protagonists are line for line portraits of the beings they are intended to represent. The silhouettes of Black Will and Shakbag are almost as perfect. It is when we compare _Arden of Feversham_ with _Macbeth_ that we realize how the meanness of the action and the comparative absence of morality outweigh any accuracy of detail, degrading the dramatist to the level of a mere purveyor of excitement. The truth is, even the interest palls, for there is no skill displayed in the evolution of the plot. The story is merely unrolled in a series of murderous attempts which agitate us less and less as they are repeated, until, at the end, we are in danger of not caring whether Arden is killed or not.

Among the eccentricities of this anonymous author's misdirected ability is the disregard of appropriateness in the allocation of speeches to the various characters. He is a poet; we can hardly believe that his work would otherwise have survived the acting of it. Yet, as has been frequently pointed out, one of the most delicate passages in the play is spoken by the detestable ruffian, Shakbag, while Mosbie and even Michael soliloquize in language of poetic imagery. In his handling of blank verse he has not travelled beyond the limits of end-stopt lines, and too often he gives it the false balance of unrhymed couplets; nevertheless much that is vigorous and impressive forces the rhythm into a firm and brisk response. The art of conversation in verse has advanced to complete mastery. These features will be seen in the following extracts.

(1)

[MOSBIE _regretfully compares his past and present states._]

Disturbed thoughts drives me from company
And dries my marrow with their watchfulness;
Continual trouble of my moody brain
Feebles my body by excess of drink,
And nips me as the bitter North-east wind
Doth check the tender blossoms in the spring.
Well fares the man, howe'er his cates do taste,
That tables not with foul suspicion;
And he but pines amongst his delicates,
Whose troubled mind is stuffed with discontent.
My golden time was when I had no gold;
Though then I wanted, yet I slept secure;
My daily toil begat me night's repose,
My night's repose made daylight fresh to me.
But since I climbed the top bough of the tree
And sought to build my nest among the clouds,
Each gentle starry gale doth shake my bed,
And makes me dread my downfall to the earth.
But whither doth contemplation carry me?
The way I seek to find, where pleasure dwells,
Is hedged behind me that I cannot back,
But needs must on, although to danger's gate.
Then, Arden, perish thou by that decree.

(2)

[_The last arrangements have been made for the murder and only_
ARDEN _is awaited._]

_Will._ Give me the key: which is the counting house?

_Alice._ Here would I stay and still encourage you,
But that I know how resolute you are.

_Shakbag._ Tush, you are too faint-hearted; we must do it.

_Alice._ But Mosbie will be there, whose very looks
Will add unwonted courage to my thought,
And make me the first that shall adventure on him.

_Will._ Tush, get you gone; 'tis we must do the deed.
When this door opens next, look for his death.

[_Exeunt_ WILL _and_ SHAKBAG.]

_Alice._ Ah, would he now were here that it might open!
I shall no more be closed in Arden's arms,
That like the snakes of black Tisiphone
Sting me with their embracings: Mosbie's arms
Shall compass me; and, were I made a star,
I would have none other spheres but those.
There is no nectar but in Mosbie's lips!
Had chaste Diana kissed him, she, like me,
Would grow love sick, and from her watery bower
Fling down Endymion and snatch him up:
Then blame not me that slay a silly man
Not half so lovely as Endymion.

[_Here enters_ MICHAEL.]

_Michael._ Mistress, my master is coming hard by.

_Alice._ Who comes with him?

_Michael._ Nobody but Mosbie.

_Alice._ That's well, Michael. Fetch in the tables,
And when thou has done, stand before the counting-house
door.

_Michael._ Why so?

_Alice._ Black Will is locked within to do the deed.

_Michael._ What? shall he die to-night?

_Alice._ Ay, Michael.

_Michael._ But shall not Susan know it?

_Alice._ Yes, for she'll be as secret as ourselves.

_Michael._ That's brave. I'll go fetch the tables.

_Alice._ But, Michael, hark to me a word or two:
When my husband is come in, lock the street door;
He shall be murdered or[68] the guests come in.

_Arden of Feversham_ is a play which cannot be passed over unnoticed in any historical treatment of the drama. For it opened up a new and rich field to writers of tragedies by its selection of characters from the ordinary paths of life to reveal the passions of the human heart. Kyd and Marlowe had sought for subjects in the little known world of kings' courts or the still less familiar regions of immeasurable wealth and power. This other writer found what he wanted in his neighbour's house. His most direct disciples are the authors (uncertain) of _A Yorkshire Tragedy_ and _A Warning for Fair Women_, but his influence may be traced in the work of many well-known later dramatists. On the other hand the play marks a retreat from the standard set by previous tragedies. In its deliberate use of horror for horror's sake it fell away--dragging others after it--from the conception of drama as a noble instrument in the instruction and elevation of the people.

[Footnote 63: fetched.]

[Footnote 64: _History of English Poetry_, ii. p. 424.]

[Footnote 65: whipstock.]

[Footnote 66: rule.]

[Footnote 67: _English Dramatic Literature_, i, p. 188.]

[Footnote 68: before.]