Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama by Walter W. Greg

W >> Walter W. Greg >> Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42

Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and
refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no
plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to
have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a
pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but
because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the
characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his
characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for
themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a
certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the
characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic
business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their
origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that
Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological
conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and
abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later
plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other
fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to
illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of
the present play he had to fashion characters _in vacuo_ and then weave
them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other
words, he reversed the formai order of artistic creation, and attempted to
make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual
example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea.

So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as
to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained,
having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every
form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it
necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of
cloistral virginity and glozing 'honour,' and whatever else of unreal
sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition
of the middle age. Again comparing the _Faithful Shepherdess_ with
Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and
women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the
moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly
conscious that that at all events is not the business of art: but when he
comes to create _in vacuo_ he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory
regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be
with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and
undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument
of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for
this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take
exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the
author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to
honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy.
Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he
intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His
cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but
constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The
falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality
of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the
characters which serve them as foils--Cloe being utterly preposterous
except as a study in pathlogy, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure
who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being
carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion
and purification of these characters, and we may further face it in the
profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious,
with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his
altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most
sacred in woman.

In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set
before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one
other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as
an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly
surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false
notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we
have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to
pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must
nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with
regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of
the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's 'Or,
non sai tu com' e fatta la donna?' and of the words in which Corisca
describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the
close of the _Orfeo_. In English poetry we find Daniel writing:

Light are their waving vailes, light their attires,
Light are their heads, and lighter their desires;
(_Queen's Arcadia_, II. iii.)

while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot,
contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed

that such virtue can
Be resident in lesser than a man, (II. ii. 83,)

or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of
caprice

And that great god of women, appetite. (ib. 146.)

Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn:

Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity
Is amongst women? (III. i. 297.)

The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret:

Thou wert not meant,
Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent; (ib. 358.)

and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words:

Women love only opportunity
And not the man. (ib. 127.)

So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age
exclaimed:

ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake!

But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have
been considering to be justly chargeable against the _Faithful
Shepherdess_, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of
the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its
author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and
again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered
the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of
easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of
phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been
surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of
power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious
criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody.
The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty
which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and
flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and
glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for
an instant on the gaze of the rider[269].

Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar
to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages
as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his
critics. It is in truth no lame one[270].

In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity
at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in
worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the
entertainment of 'His paramour the Syrinx bright.' 'But behold a fairer
sight!' he exclaims on seeing Clorin:

By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods, for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold
And live. Therefore on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee
In worship of thy deity.[271] (I. i. 58.)

The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the
conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the
assembled people and purging them with holy water[272], after which they
disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging
her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her:

Oh you are fairer far
Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star
That guides the wandering seaman through the deep,
Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep
Head of an aged mountain, and more white
Than the new milk we strip before day-light
From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks,
Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks
Of young Apollo! (I. ii. 60.)

They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their
love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where

to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither envy nor old time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness.
By this fresh fountain many a blushing maid
Hath crown'd the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity. (I. ii. 99.)

Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol:

Come, shepherds, come!
Come away
Without delay,
Whilst the gentle time doth stay.
Green woods are dumb,
And will never tell to any
Those dear kisses, and those many
Sweet embraces, that are given;
Dainty pleasures, that would even
Raise in coldest age a fire
And give virgin blood desire

Then if ever,
Now or never,
Come and have it;
Think not I
Dare deny
If you crave it. (I. iii. 71.)

Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just
lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her
with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty:

lend me all thy red,
Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed
Thou risest ever maiden! (ib. 176.)

The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest:

Shepherds all and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground,
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps and vapours fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom. (II. i. 1.)

In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion,
founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can
plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain:

'Tis not the white or red
Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed
My mind to adoration, nor your eye,
Though it be full and fair, your forehead high
And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile
Lies watching in those dimples to beguile
The easy soul, your hands and fingers long
With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue,
Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp;
Your hair woven in many a curious warp,
Able in endless error to enfold
The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould
Of all your body, which as pure doth shew
In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow:
All these, were but your constancy away,
Would please me less than the black stormy day
The wretched seaman toiling through the deep.
But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep,
Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were
In the great womb of air were settled here,
In opposition, I would, like the tree,
Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free
Even in the arm of danger. (II. ii. 116.)

The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in
the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of
Chapman's outburst:

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water and her keel plows air.
(_Byron's Conspiracy_, III. i.)

Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to
enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting,
which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of
the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his
mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward,
mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly
reminiscent of the _Midsummer Night's Dream_. The wild-wood minister thus
describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a
characteristic of the play:

Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky,
And the stars, whose feeble light
Give a pale shadow to the night,
Are up, great Pan commanded me
To walk this grove about, whilst he,
In a corner of the wood
Where never mortal foot hath stood,
Keeps dancing, music and a feast
To entertain a lovely guest;
Where he gives her many a rose
Sweeter than the breath that blows
The leaves, grapes, berries of the best;
I never saw so great a feast.
But to my charge. Here must I stay
To see what mortals lose their way,
And by a false fire, seeming-bright,
Train them in and leave them right. (III. i. 167.)

Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the
transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her:

What art thou dare
Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care
Dwell on the face of darkness? (IV. iv. 15.)

while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had

lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or that
Which we esteem our honour, virgin state;
Dearer than swallows love the early morn,
Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn;
Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast
Another, and far dearer than the last;
Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all
The self-love were within thee that did fall
With that coy swain that now is made a flower,
For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!...
Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head,
And noise it to the world, my love is dead! (ib. 102.)

Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn:

See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold
Whilst the morning doth unfold.
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst was mute,
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay. (ib. 165.)

The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action
as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking
in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as
she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr.
However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in
itself unsurpassed:

If there be
Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree,
Receive my body, close me up from lust
That follows at my heels! Be ever just,
Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake
That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake
In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit;
Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute,
Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast
Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste!
(V. iii. 79.)

Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin:

Thou divinest, fairest, brightest,
Thou most powerful maid and whitest,
Thou most virtuous and most blessed,
Eyes of stars, and golden-tressed
Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest,
What new service now is meetest
For the satyr? Shall I stray
In the middle air, and stay
The sailing rack, or nimbly take
Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night
For a beam to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea
And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves that fall
In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall
I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies
Whose woven wings the summer dyes
Of many colours? get thee fruit,
Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute?
All these I'll venture for, and more,
To do her service all these woods adore.

* * * * *

So I take my leave and pray
All the comforts of the day,
Such as Phoebus' heat doth send
On the earth, may still befriend
Thee and this arbour!
_Clorin._ And to thee,
All thy master's love be free! (V. v. 238 and 268.)

Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own
individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it
follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain
traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has,
it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of
Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum
total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far
surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate
art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of
the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon
accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was
necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and
range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form
from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or
vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action
and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed,
and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been
stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from
the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a
successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was 'much thronged after for
the scene's sake[273].'

II

Randolph's play, entitled 'Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,' belongs no
doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the
academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he
was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London
about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635,
before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that
the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have
occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the
very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this
supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at
that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The
play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's
poems edited by his brother in 1638.

Like Fletcher's play, the _Amyntas_ is a conscious attempt at so altering
the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation
on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us,
before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and
intended by the author for performance on the public boards[274]. Yet the
two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing
the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and
conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless
introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest
commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the _Faithful
Shepherdess_ lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of
plot which we find in the _Pastor fido_. Randolph, on the other hand,
chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained
much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the
complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of
certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced
elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence
of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism
an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable
proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English
melodrama.

Like the _Pastor fido_[275], Randolph's _Amyntas_ is weighted with a
preliminary history. Philaebus, the son of the archiflamen Pilumnus, was
betrothed to the shepherdess Lalage, who, however, was captivated by the
greater wealth of the shepherd Claius, upon whom she bestowed her hand.
Moved by his son's grief, Pilumnus entreated Ceres' revenge on the
faithless nymph, and Lalage died in giving birth to the twins Amyntas and
Amarillis. This but added to Philaebus' despair, so that he died upon her
tomb, and the bereft father having once more sought the aid of the
goddess, the oracle pronounced the curse:

Sicilian swaines, ill luck shall long betide
To every bridegroome, and to every bride:
No sacrifice, no vow shall still mine Ire,
Till Claius blood both quench and kindle fire.
The wise shall misconceive me, and the wit
Scornd and neglected shall my meaning hit. (I. v.)

Upon this Claius fled, leaving his children in the care of his sister
Thestylis. Although Philaebus was dead, two younger children remained to
Pilumnus, Damon and Urania. In the course of years it fortuned that Urania
and Amyntas fell in love, and though misliking of the match, Pilumnus went
so far as to consult the oracle concerning his daughter's dowry. With the
uncalled-for perversity characteristic of oracles the 'ompha[276]'
replied:

That which thou hast not, mayst not, canst not have
Amyntas, is the Dowry that I crave:
Rest hopelesse in thy love, or else divine
To give Urania this, and she is thine.

Pondering whereon Amyntas lost his wits. In the meanwhile Amarillis had
conceived an unhappy passion for Damon, who in his turn sought the love
of the nymph Laurinda, having for rival Alexis.

This is the situation at the opening of the action. In the first act we
find Laurinda unable or unwilling to decide between her rival lovers, and
her endeavours to play them off one against the other afford some of the
most amusing scenes of the piece. Learning from Thestylis of Amarillis'
love for Damon, she determines on a trick whereby she hopes to make her
choice without appearing to slight either of her suitors. She bids them
abide by the award of the first nymph they meet at the temple in the
morning, and so arranges matters that that nymph shall be Amarillis, whose
love for Damon she supposes will move her to appoint Alexis for herself.
In the meanwhile the banished Claius has returned, in order, having heard
of Amyntas' madness, to apply such cures as he has learnt in the course of
his wanderings. He is successful in his attempt, and without revealing his
identity departs, having first privately obtained from Urania the promise
that she will vow virginity to Ceres, lest Amyntas by puzzling afresh over
the oracle should again lose his reason. The nymphs now appear at the
temple, and the foremost, who is veiled, is appealed to by Damon and
Alexis to give her decision. She reveals herself as Amarillis, and Damon,
fearing that she will decide against him, refuses to be bound by the award
of so partial an arbiter. Alexis thereupon goes off to fetch Laurinda, who
shall force him to abide by his oath, while Damon in a fit of rage seeks
to prevent Amarillis' verdict by slaying her. He wounds her with his spear
and leaves her for dead. She recovers consciousness, however, when he has
fled, and with her blood writes a letter to Laurinda bequeathing to her
all interest in Damon. At this point Claius returns upon the scene, and
finding her wounded applies remedies. Damon too is led back by an evil
conscience, and Pilumnus likewise appears. Claius, in his anxiety to make
Amarillis reveal her assassin, betrays his own identity, to the joy of his
old enemy Pilumnus. Alexis now returns with Laurinda, and upon hearing the
letter which Amarillis had written, Damon confesses his crime and declares
that henceforth his love is for none but her. His life, however, is
forfeit through his having shed blood in the holy vale, and he is led off
in company with Claius to die at the altar of Ceres. In the fifth act we
find all prepared for the double sacrifice, when Amyntas enters, and
bidding Pilumnus stay his hand, claims to expound the oracle. Claius'
blood, he argues, has been already shed in Amarillis, and has quenched the
fire of Damon's love for Laurinda, rekindling it again to Amarillis' self.
Moreover, had not the oracle warned them that the recognized guardians of
wisdom would fail to interpret truly, and that such a scorned wit as that
of the 'mad Amyntas' would discover the meaning? Furthermore, he argues
that since Amarillis was the victim the goddess aimed at, her blood might
without sin be shed even in the holy vale, while Damon is of the priestly
stock to which that office justly pertained. Thus Claius and Damon are
alike spoken free, and Sicily is relieved of the goddess' curse. While the
general rejoicing is at its height, Urania is brought in to take her
vestal vows at the altar. In spite of her lover's remonstrance she kneels
before the shrine and addresses her prayer to the goddess. At length the
appeased deity deigns to answer, and in a gracious echo reveals the
solution of the enigma of the dowry--a husband.