Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama by Walter W. Greg

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It will be noticed that in the play we have just been considering the
nymphs are no longer treated with the same respect as was the case in
_Gallathea_; we have, in fact, advanced some way towards the satirical
conception and representation of womankind which gives the tone to the
_Woman in the Moon_. It would almost seem as though his experience of the
inconstancy of the royal sunshine had made Lyly a less enthusiastic
devotee of womanhood in general and of virginity in particular, and that
with an unadvised frankness which may well account for his disappointments
at court, he failed to conceal his feelings. The play is likewise
distinguished from the other dramatic works of its author by being
composed almost entirely in blank verse. Certain lines of the prologue--

Remember all is but a Poets dreame,
The first he had in Phoebus holy bowre,
But not the last, unlesse the first displease--

have not unnaturally been taken to mean that the piece was the first
venture of the author; but on investigation this will be seen to be
impossible, since the constant reminiscence of Marlowe in the construction
of the verse points to 1588 or at earliest to 1587 as the date. Mr.
Fleay's suggestion of 1589-90 may be accepted as the earliest likely
date[223]. To my mind it would need external proof of an unusually cogent
description to render plausible the theory that the year, say, of the
_Shepherd's Calender_ saw the appearance of such lines as:

What lack I now but an imperiall throne[224],
And Ariadnaes star-lyght Diadem? (II. i.)

or:

O Stesias, what a heavenly love hast thou!
A love as chaste as is Apolloes tree,
As modest as a vestall Virgins eye,
And yet as bright as Glow wormes in the night,
With which the morning decks her lovers hayre; (IV. i.)

or yet again:

When will the sun go downe? flye Phoebus flye!
O, that thy steeds were wingd with my swift thoughts:
Now shouldst thou fall in Thetis azure armes[225],
And now would I fall in Pandoraes lap. (IV. i.)

Nor are these isolated passages; from the opening lines of the prologue to
the final speech of Nature the verse has the appearance of being the work
of a graceful if not very strong hand writing in imitation of Marlowe's
early style. We must, therefore, it seems to me, take the words of the
prologue as signifying not that the play was the first work of the author,
but that it was his earliest adventure in verse.

The plan of the work is as follows. The shepherds of Utopia come to dame
Nature and beg her to make a woman for them. She consents and fashions
Pandora, whom she dowers with the virtues of the several Planets. These,
however, are offended at not being consulted in the matter, and determine
to use their influence to the bane of the newly created woman. Under the
reign of Saturn she turns sullen; when Jupiter is in the ascendant he
falls in love with her, but she has grown proud and scorns him; under Mars
she becomes a vixen; under Sol she in her turn falls in love, and turns
wanton under Venus; she learns deceit of Mercury when he is dominant, and
runs mad under the influence of Luna. At length, since the shepherds will
no longer have anything to do with the lady, Nature determines to place
her in the heavens. Her beauty makes each planet desire her as companion.
Nature gives her the choice:

Speake, my Pandora; where wilt thou be?
_Pandora._ Not with old Saturne for he lookes like death;
Nor yet with Jupiter, lest Juno storme;
Nor with thee Mars, for Venus is thy love;
Nor with thee Sol, thou hast two Parramours,
The sea borne Thetis and the rudy morne;
Nor with thee Venus, lest I be in love
With blindfold Cupid or young Joculus;
Nor with thee Hermes, thou art full of sleightes,
And when I need thee Jove will send thee foorth.
Say Cynthia, shall Pandora rule thy starre,
And wilt thou play Diana in the woods,
Or Hecate in Plutos regiment?
_Luna._ I, Pandora.
_Pand._ Fayre Nature let thy hand mayd dwell with her,
For know that change is my felicity,
And ficklenesse Pandoraes proper forme.
Thou madst me sullen first, and thou Jove, proud;
Thou bloody minded; he a Puritan:
Thou Venus madst me love all that I saw,
And Hermes to deceive all that I love;
But Cynthia made me idle, mutable,
Forgetfull, foolish, fickle, franticke, madde;
These be the humors that content me best,
And therefore will I stay with Cynthia....
_Nat._ Now rule, Pandora, in fayre Cynthias steede,
And make the moone inconstant like thy selfe;
Raigne thou at womens nuptials, and their birth;
Let them be mutable in all their loves,
Fantastical, childish, and foolish, in their desires,
Demaunding toyes:
And stark madde when they cannot have their will.
Now follow me ye wandring lightes of heaven,
And grieve not, that she is not plast with you;
Ail you shall glaunce at her in your aspects,
And in conjunction dwell with her a space. (V. i.)

And so Pandora becomes the 'Woman in the Moon.' The play, in its topical
and satiric purpose, and above all, in its utilization of mythological
material, bears a distinct relationship to the masque. The shepherds are
in their origin philosophical, standing for the race of mankind in
general, rather than pastoral; Utopian, in fact, rather than Arcadian.
These early mythological plays stand alone, in that the pastoral scenes
they contain are apparently uninfluenced by the Italian drama. The kind
attained some popularity as a subject of courtly presentation, but it did
not long preserve its original character. The later examples, with which
we shall be concerned hereafter, always exhibit some characteristics which
may be immediately or ultimately traced to the influence of Tasso and
Guarini. This influence we must now turn to consider in some detail, as
evidenced as well in translations and imitations as in the general tone
and machinery of an appreciable portion of the Elizabethan drama.[226]

II

In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature
it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of
translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature,
as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position
unjustified by its intrinsic importance. In most cases, probably, the
energy devoted to the task of rendering the foreign models directly into
the language they influenced is rather useful as supplying us with a rough
measure of their popularity than itself significant as a step in the
operation of that influence. We may safely assume that, in the case of the
English pastoral drama, the influence exercised directly by the Italian
masterpieces was beyond comparison greater than that which made itself
indirectly felt through the labours of translators.

Having thus anticipated a possible misapprehension it will be worth our
while to devote some little attention to the history of the attempts at
translation in this line. The first English writer to venture upon the
task of turning the choice music of Tasso into his native language was the
eccentric satellite of the Sidneyan circle, Abraham Fraunce, fellow of St.
John's College in Cambridge. It so happened that he was at the time
pursuing that elusive phantasm, the application of the laws of classical
versification to English poetry. The resuit was at least unique, in
English, at any rate, namely a drama in hexameter verse. It also occurred
to him that Watson's _Lamentations of Amyntas_, a translation of which he
had himself published in 1587, might be made to serve as an appendix to
Tasso's play. With this object in view he changed the name of the heroine
from Silvia to Phillis. This appears to have been the exact extent to
which he 'altered S. Tassoes Italian' in order to connect it with 'M.
Watsons Latine Amyntas' and 'to make them both one English.'[227] Certain
other changes were, however, introduced upon other considerations. Various
unessential points were omitted, notably in connexion with Tirsi, whose
topical character disappears; the name Nerina is altered to Fulvia;
frequent allusions are introduced to the nymph Pembrokiana, to whom among
other things is ascribed the rescue of the heroine from the bear which
takes the place of the wolf in Tasso. Lastly, we have the addition of a
whole scene immediately before the final chorus. Phillis and Amyntas
reappear and carry on a conversation, not unamiably, in a sort of
hexametrical stichomythia. The maiden modestly seeks to restrain the
amorous impatience of her lover, and the scene ends with a song between
the two composed in 'Asclepiades.'[228] Of this literary curiosity
Amyntas' opening stave may be quoted:

Sweete face, why be the hev'ns soe to the bountifull,
Making that radiant bewty of all the starrs
Bright-burning, to be fayre Phillis her ornament?
And yet seeme to be soe spytefuly partial,
As not for to aford Argus his eyes to mee,
Eyes too feawe to behould Phillis her ornament?

It is, perhaps, not a little strange that the pedant who made the
preposterous experiment of turning the _Aminta_ into English hexameters
should nevertheless have been capable of clearly perceiving, however
incapable he was of adequately rectifying, the hopelessly undramatic
character of the last act of Tasso's play. As an example of the style of
the translation we may take the following rendering of the delicate _Chi
crederia_, with which the original prologue opens:

Who would think that a God lay lurking under a gray cloake,
Silly Shepheards gray cloake, and arm'd with a paltery sheephooke?
And yet no pety God, no God that gads by the mountaines,
But the triumphantst God that beares any sway in Olympus:
Which many times hath made man-murdring Mars to be cursing
His blood-sucking blade; and prince of watery empire
Earth-shaking Neptune, his threeforckt mace to be leaving,
And Jove omnipotent, as a poore and humble obeissant,
His three-flak't lightnings and thunderbolts to abandon.

This is in some respects not wholly inadequate; indeed, if it happened to
be English it might pass for a respectable translation, for the exotic
pedantry of the style itself serves in a way to render the delicate
artificiality of the original, and such an expression as a 'God that gads
by the mountaines' is a pithy enough paraphrase of _dio selvaggio_, if
hardly an accurate translation. The unsatisfactory nature of the verse,
however, for dramatic purposes becomes evident in passages of rapid
dialogue; for example, where Daphne tells the careless nymph of Amyntas'
resolve to die.

_Phillis._ As to my house full glad for joy I repayred, I met thee
Daphne, there full sad by the way, and greately amased.

_Daphne._ Phillis alas is alive, but an other's gone to be dying[229].

_Ph._ And what mean's this, alas? am I now so lightly regarded,
That my life with, Alas, of Daphne must be remembred?

_Da._ Phillis, I love thy life, but I lyke not death of an other.

_Ph._ Whose death?

_Da._ Death of Amyntas.

_Ph._ Alas how dyed Amyntas?

_Da._ How? that I cannot tell; nor yet well whether it is soe:
But noe doubt, I beleeve; for it is most lyke that it is soe.

_Ph._ What strange news doe I heare? what causd that death of Amyntas?

_Da._ Thy death.

_Ph._ And I alive?

_Da._ Thy death was lately reported,
And he beleevs thy death, and therfore seeketh his owne death.

_Ph._ Feare of Phillis death prov'd vayne, and feare of Amyntas Death
will proove vayne too: life eache thing lyvely procureth. (IV. i.)

Even in such a passage as this, however, those strong racy phrases which
somehow find their way into the most uninspired of Tudor translations, are
not wholly wanting. Thus when the careless nymph at last goes off to seek
her desperate lover, Daphne in the original remarks:

Oh tardi saggia, e tardi
Pietosa, quando cio nulla rileva;

a passage in translating which Fraunce cannot resist the application of a
homely proverb, and writes:

When steedes are stollen, then Phillis looks to the stable.

It may, at first sight, appear strange that at a time when the Italian
pastoral was exercising its greatest influence over the English drama this
translation by Fraunce of Tasso's play should have satisfied the demand
for more than thirty years. The explanation, of course, is that the
widespread knowledge of Italian among the reading public in England
rendered translation more or less superfluous[230], while at the same time
it should be remembered that in this country Tasso was far surpassed in
popularity by Guarini. So far as we can tell no further translation of the
_Aminta_ was attempted till 1628, when there appeared an anonymous version
which bibliographers have followed one another in ascribing to one John
Reynolds, but which was more probably the work of a certain Henry
Reynolds[231]. However that may be, the translation is of no
inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from
the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of
appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the
higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian
into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse.
Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, although the
general impression produced is more pleasing and less often irritating
than is the case with translations which many times reveal far higher
qualities. The following is a characteristic specimen chosen from the
story of Aminta's early love for Silvia.

Being but a Lad, so young as yet scarce able
To reach the fruit from the low-hanging boughes
Of new-growne trees; Inward I grew to bee
With a young mayde, fullest of love and sweetnesse,
That ere display'd pure gold tresse to the winde;...
Neere our abodes, and neerer were our hearts;
Well did our yeares agree, better our thoughts;
Together wove we netts t' intrapp the fish
In flouds and sedgy fleetes[232]; together sett
Pitfalls for birds; together the pye'd Buck
And flying Doe over the plaines we chac'de;
And in the quarry', as in the pleasure shar'de:
But as I made the beasts my pray, I found
My heart was lost, and made a pray to other. (I. ii.)

Many a translator, moreover, has failed to instil into his verse the swing
and flow of the following stanzas from the golden age chorus, which,
nevertheless follow the metrical form of the original with reasonable
fidelity[233]:

O happy Age of Gould; happy' houres;
Not for with milke the rivers ranne,
And hunny dropt from ev'ry tree;
Nor that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres,
Without the toyle or care of Man,
And Serpents were from poyson free;...
But therefore only happy Dayes,
Because that vaine and ydle name,
That couz'ning Idoll of unrest,
Whom the madd vulgar first did raize,
And call'd it Honour, whence it came
To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest,
Was not then suffred to molest
Poore lovers hearts with new debate;
More happy they, by these his hard
And cruell lawes, were not debar'd
Their innate freedome; happy state;
The goulden lawes of Nature, they
Found in their brests; and them they did obey. (Ch. I.)

Before leaving the _Aminta_ it will be worth while straying beyond the
strict chronological limits of this inquiry to glance for a moment at the
version produced by John Dancer in 1660, for the sake of noting the change
which had come over literary hack-work of the kind in the course of some
thirty years. Comparing it with Reynolds' translation we are at first
struck by the change which long drilling of the language to a variety of
uses has accomplished in the work of uninspired poetasters; secondly, by
the fact that the conventional respectability of production, which has
replaced the halting crudities of an earlier date, is far more inimical
to any real touch of poetic inspiration. Equally evident is that spirit of
tyranny, happily at no time native to our literature, which seeks to
reduce the works of other ages into accordance with the taste of its own
day. Thus, having 'improved' Tasso's apostrophe to the _bella eta dell'
oro_ almost beyond recognition, Dancer complacently closes the chorus with
the following parody:

We'l hope, since there's no joy, when once one dies
We'l hope, that as we have seen with our eies
The Sun to set, so we may see it rise. (Ch. I.)

Again, while all the spontaneity and reverential labour of an age of more
avowed adolescence has disappeared, there is yet lacking the justness of
phrase and certainty of grammar and rime, which later supply, however
inadequately, the place of poetic enthusiasm. The defects of the style,
with its commonplace exaggeration of conceits, the thumbed token-currency
of the certified poetaster, are well seen in such a passage as the
following:

Weak love is held by shame, but love grows bold
As strong, what is it then can it with-hold:
She as though in her ey's she did contain
Fountains of tears, did with such plenty rain
Them on his cheeks, and they such vertue had,
That it reviv'd again the breathlesse lad;...
Aminta thought 'twas more then heav'nly charms,
That thus enclasp'd him in his Silvia's armes;
He that loves servant is, perhaps may guesse
Their blisse; but none there is can it expresse[234]. (V. i.)

As was to be expected, the attention of translators was early directed to
the _Pastor fido_. The original was printed in England, together with the
_Aminta_, the year after its first appearance in Italy, that is in 1591,
and bore the imprint of John Wolfe, 'a spese di Giacopo Castelvetri'; the
first translation saw the light in 1602. This version was published
anonymously, and in spite of the confident assertions and ingenious
conjectures of certain bibliographers, anonymous it must for the present
remain; all that can with certainty be affirmed is that it claims to be
the work of a kinsman of Sir Edward Dymocke[235]. Most modern writers who
have had occasion to mention it have shown a praiseworthy deference to the
authority of one of the most venerable figures of English criticism by
each in turn repeating that the translation, 'in spite of Daniel's
commendatory sonnet, is a very bad one.' And indeed, when we have stated
the very simple facts concerning the authorship as distinct from the very
elaborate conjectures, there remains little to add to Dyce's words. With
the exception of the omission of the prologue the version keeps pretty
faithfully to its original, but it does no more than emphasize the tedious
artificiality of the Italian, while whatever charm and perhaps
over-elaborated grace of language Guarini infused into his verse has
entirely evaporated in the process of translation. No less a poet and
critic than Daniel, regarding the work doubtless with the undiscriminating
eye of friendship, asserted that it might even to Guarini himself have
vindicated the poetic laurels of England, and yet from the whole long poem
it is hardly possible to extract any passage which would do credit to the
pen of an average schoolboy. We turn in vain to the contest of kisses
among the Megarean maidens, to the game of blind man's buff, to Amarillis'
secret confession of love, and to her trembling appeal when confronted by
a death of shame, for any evidence of poetie feeling. The girl's speech in
the last-mentioned scene, 'Se la miseria mia fosse mia colpa,' is thus
rendered:

If that my fault did cause my wretchednesse,
Or that my thoughts were wicked, as thou thinkst
My deed, lesse grievous would my death be then:
For it were just my blood should wash the spots
Of my defiled soule, heavens rage appease,
And humane justice justly satisfie,
Then could I quiet my afflicted sprights,
And with a just remorse of well-deserved death,
My senses mortifie, and come to death:
And with a quiet blow pass forth perhaps
Unto a life of more tranquilitie:
But too too much, Nicander, too much griev'd
I am, in so young years, Fortune so hie,
An Innocent, I should be doom'd to die. (IV. v.)

The next translation we meet with never got into print. It is preserved in
a manuscript at the British Museum[236], and bears the heading: 'Il Pastor
Fido, or The Faithfull Sheapheard. An Excellent Pastorall Written In
Italian by Battista Guarinj And translated into English By Jonathan Sidnam
Esq, Anno 1630.' The prologue is again omitted, and the translation is
distinguished from its contemporaries by an endeavour to reproduce to some
extent the freer metrical structure of the Italian. This was not a
particularly happy experiment, since it ignored the fact that the
character of a metre may differ considerably in different languages. The
Italian _endecasillabi sciolti_ are far less flexible than our own blank
verse, and it is only when freely interspersed with the shorter
_settinari_ that they can attempt to rival the range of effect possible to
the English metre in the hands of a skilful artist. Thus the imitation of
the irregular measures of Guarini was a confession of the translator's
inability adequately to handle the dramatic verse of his own tongue. As a
specimen we may take the rendering of Amarillis' speech already quoted
from the 'Dymocke' version:

If my mischance had come by mine own fault,
Nicander, or had beene as thou beleevst
The foule effect of base and wicked thoughts,
Or, as it now appeares, a deed of Sinn,
It had beene then lesse greevous to endure
Death as a punishment for such a fault,
And just it had beene with my blood to wash
My impure Soule, to mitigate the wrath
And angar of the Godds, and satisfie
The right of humane justice,
Then could I quiett my afflicted Soule
And with an inward feeling of my just
Deserved death, subdue my outward Sence,
And fawne uppon my end, and happelie
With a more settled countenance passe from hence
Into a better world:
But now, Nicander, ah! tis too much greefe
In soe yong yeares, in such a happie state,
To die so suddenlie, and which is more,
Die innocent. (IV. v.)

It was not until the civil war was at its height, namely in 1647, that
English literature was enriched with a translation in any way worthy of
Guarini's masterpiece. It is easy to strain the interpretation of such
facts, but there is certainly a strong temptation to see in the occasion
and circumstances of the composition of the piece an illustration of a
critical law already noticed, namely the constant tendency of literature
to negative as well as to reproduce the life of actuality, and furthermore
of the special liability of pastoral to take birth from a desire to escape
from the imminence and pressure of surrounding circumstance. Like
Reynolds' _Aminta_, Richard Fanshawe's _Pastor fido_ is better appreciated
as a whole than in quotation, though, thanks partly to its own greater
maturity of poetic attainment, partly to the less ethereal perfection of
the original, it suffers far less than the earlier work by comparison with
the Italian. For the same reasons it is by far the most satisfactory of
any of the early translations of the Italian pastoral drama. One
noticeable feature is the constant reminiscence of Shakespeare, whole
lines from his works being sometimes introduced with no small skill. For
instance, where Guarini, describing how love wins entrance to a maiden's
heart, writes:

E se vergogna il cela,
O temenza l' affrena,
La misera tacendo
Per soverchio desio tutta si strugge; (I. iv.)

Fanshawe renders the last two lines by:

Poor soul! Concealment like a worm i' th' bud,
Lies in her Damask cheek sucking the bloud.

A few illustrative passages will suffice to give an idea of Fanshawe's
style. He stands alone in having succeeded in recrystallizing in his own
tongue some at least of the charm of the kissing match, and is even fairly
successful in the following dangerous conceit:

With one voice
Of peerlesse Amarillis they made choice.
She sweetly bending her fair eyes.
Her cheeks in modest blushes dyes,
To shew through her transparent skin
That she is no lesse fair within
Then shee's without; or else her countenance
Envying the honour done her mouth perchance,
Puts on her scarlet robes as who
Should say: 'And am not I fair too?' (II. i.)

So again he alone among the translators has infused any semblance of
passion into Amarillis' confession of love:

Mirtillo, O Mirtillo! couldst thou see
That heart which thou condemn'st of cruelty,
Soul of my soul, thou unto it wouldst show
That pity which thou begg'st from it I know.
O ill starr'd Lovers! what avails it me
To have thy love? T' have mine, what boots it thee?
(III. iv.)