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

Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that
he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his
distracted fancy breaks out afresh:

A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes?
Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks?
Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe?
These may grow still; but what can spring betide?
Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died?
As if there since did fall one drop of dew,
But what was wept for her! or any stalke
Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome,
After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith,
You doe not faire, to put these things upon me,
Which can in no sort be: Earine,
Who had her very being, and her name,
With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring,
Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet,
Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd,
And Venus led the Graces out to dance,
And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap,
Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration,
To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know,
How the Vale wither'd the same Day?... that since,
No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre
Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke,
As it were hung so for her Exequies!
And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell,
But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle,
And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule
Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings!
Peace, you shall heare her scritch. (ib.)

To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad
north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits 'as a
new philosophy,' he also thinks to pay the singer.

Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this,
This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse;
[_Forces Amie to kiss Karolin._
Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty,
For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem
From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her:
Now I am poore as you. (ib.)

There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the
quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's
interruptions, to tell how 'at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.'

_Robin._ I! what was that, sweet Marian? [_Kisses her._

_Marian._ You'll not heare?

_Rob._ I love these interruptions in a Story; [_Kisses her
again._
They make it sweeter.

_Mar._ You doe know, as soone
As the Assay is taken-- [_Kisses her again._

_Rob._ On, my Marian.
I did but take the Assay. (I. vi.)

To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there

sate a Raven
On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse!

crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen
swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by
Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner,
broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now
proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie
complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly
explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the
stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the
strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults
Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to
Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act
Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of
Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought
discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it
now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow
tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now
enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases
from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success,
which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell,
and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways,
reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in
which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This
latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned
to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one
might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would
appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of
natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been
awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to
dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of
his nymphs and swains.[286] After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce
the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and
by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next
scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill
at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain
possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the
_naivete_ of _Daphnis and Chloe_.

How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth,
Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth,
Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by
A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie,
Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree,
Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee?
Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost,
The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost,
My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence,
Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence.
But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove,
Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove;
It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe
All sense of Winters, and of Summers so. (II. iv.)

To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late
conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of
the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains
unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to
thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and
begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin
declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At
this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to
the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting
poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her
disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its
delicate comedy and pathos.

_Amie_ [_asleep_]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe ...
O', o.

_Marian._ How is't Amie?

_Melifleur._ Wherefore start you?

_Amie._ O' Karol, he is faire, and sweet.

_Maud._ What then?
Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men?
The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet!

_Amie._ I', so!
Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe:
Karol is only faire to mee!

_Mar._ And why?

_Amie._ Alas, for Karol, Marian, I could die.
Karol he singeth sweetly too!

_Maud._ What then?
Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men?

_Amie._ I grant the Linet, Larke, and Bul-finch sing,
But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring,
The Nightingale.

_Maud._ Then why? then why, alone,
Should his notes please you? ...

_Amie._ This verie morning, but--I did bestow--
It was a little 'gainst my will, I know--
A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine,
And now I wish that verie kisse againe.
His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose,
His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes;
The relish of it was a pleasing thing.

_Maud._ Yet like the Bees it had a little sting.

_Amie._ And sunke, and sticks yet in my marrow deepe
And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe. (II. vi.)

After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer
doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of
Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise
shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel 'blast of
venerie,' and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts: /p Within a
gloomie dimble shee doth dwell, Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes
and briars, Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey Torne, with an
Earth-quake, down unto the ground; 'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an
old Charnell house, Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme, As
fearfull, and melancholique, as that Shee is about; with Caterpillers
kells, And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells. Thence shee steales
forth to releif, in the foggs, And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and
boggs, Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire. .....[There] the sad
Mandrake growes, Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade!
The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue! And Martagan! the shreikes of
lucklesse Owles, Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire!
Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie! And giddie
Flitter-mice, with lether wings! The scalie Beetles, with their
habergeons, That make a humming Murmur as they flie! There, in the stocks
of trees, white Faies doe dwell, And span-long Elves, that dance about a
poole, With each a little Changeling, in their armes! The airie spirits
play with falling starres, And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the
Moone! While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light, Or rotten wood,
o're which the worme hath crept, The banefull scedule of her nocent
charmes. (II. viii.)

In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as
the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk
it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the
dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The
latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a
'superstitious commendation' of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein
no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas.

But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine,
Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers,
Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste
To get up to the Moone, and Mercury;
And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring
Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars,
Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe
Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all
The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World
Againe, his first and tunefull planetting!
O' what an age will here be of new concords!
Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages,
Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation,
And throw a silence upon all the creatures!...
The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes
Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse;
Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme
Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht,
To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere! (III. ii.)

After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for
the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again
appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and
their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears,
and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle
and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with
it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the
shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and
sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again
addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting
his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch:

Gang thy gait, and try
Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel';

the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we
know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of
Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden
mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her
girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped
by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers.

Strangely different estimates have been formed of the merits of Jonson's
pastoral, alike in itself and in contrast with Fletcher's play. Gifford,
who, in spite of his vast erudition, seldom soared in his critical
judgements above the more obvious and conventional considerations of
propriety and style, praised the work as 'natural and elegant' in thought,
and in language 'inexpressibly beautiful,' while at the same time with the
petty insolence which habitually marked his utterances concerning any who
stood in rivalry with his hero, he referred to the _Faithful Shepherdess_
as being 'insufferably tedious' as a poem, and held that as a drama 'its
heaviness can only be equalled by its want of art.' Gifford's spleen,
however, had evidently been aroused by Weber, who had declared the _Sad
Shepherd_ to be written 'in emulation of Fletcher's poem, but far short of
it,' and his remarks must not be taken too seriously. Two quotations will
serve to illustrate the diversity of opinion among modern critics. They
display alike more condescension to particulars and greater weight of
judgement. Thus we find Mr. Swinburne, in his very able study of Ben
Jonson, not a little disgusted at the introduction of the broader humour
and burlesque of the dialect-speaking characters, Maudlin, Lorel,
Scathlock, in conjunction with the greater refinement of Robin, Marian,
and the shepherds. 'A masque including an antimasque, in which the serious
part is relieved and set off by the introduction of parody or burlesque,
was a form of art or artificial fashion in which incongruity was a merit;
the grosser the burlesque, the broader the parody, the greater was the
success and the more effective was the result: but in a dramatic attempt
of higher pretention than such as might be looked for in the literary
groundwork or raw material for a pageant, this intrusion of incongruous
contrast is a pure barbarism--a positive solecism in composition.... On
the other hand, even Gifford's editorial enthusiasm could not overestimate
the ingenious excellence of construction, the masterly harmony of
composition, which every reader of the argument must have observed with
such admiration as can but intensify his regret that scarcely half of the
projected poem has come down to us. No work of Ben Jonson's is more
amusing and agreeable to read, as none is more graceful in expression or
more excellent in simplicity of style.' This last is high meed of praise,
but it is the question raised in the earlier portion of the criticism that
now particularly concerns us. His love of strong contrasts has no doubt
influenced Mr. Swinburne to express at any rate not less than he felt, but
he has raised a perfectly clear and evident issue, and one which it is
impossible for the critic to neglect. Although had the play undergone
final revision, it is possible that Jonson, whose literary judgement was
of no mean order, would have softened some of the harsher contrasts in his
work, it is evident that they were in the main intentional and
deliberately calculated. This appears alike from the prologue, in which he
denounces the heresy

That mirth by no meanes fits a Pastorall,

as also from what we gather concerning an earlier work, in which he
introduced 'clownes making mirth and foolish sports,' as recorded by
Drummond. As against Mr. Swinburne's view may be set that of Dr. Ward. 'In
_The Sad Shepherd_ [Jonson] has with singular freshness caught the spirit
of the greenwood. If this pastoral is more realistic in texture than
either Spenser's or Milton's efforts in the same direction, the result is
due, partly to the character of the writer, partly to the circumstance
that Jonson's "shepherds" are beings of a definite age and country. It
must, however, be observed that the personages in this pastoral are in
part not shepherds at all, but Robin Hood and his merry men. We may admit
that the lucky combination thus hit upon could probably not easily be
repeated; but this is merely to acknowledge the felicity of the author's
invention.' Allowing for the difference of temper in the two writers, it
will be seen that the view taken of certain essentials of the piece is as
favourable in the one case as it is unfavourable in the other. Both alike
are critics of recognized standing, so that whichever position one may
feel disposed to adopt, ample authority may be quoted in support. There
are unfortunate occasions on which one's favourite oracle perversely
refuses to accommodate himself to one's own view. Mr. Swinburne is a
writer from whom on points of aesthetic judgement I for one differ, but
with the greatest reluctance. Nevertheless in the present case I feel
bound to record my dissent.

Jonson's play was, as I have already said, an attempt to create a new and
genuinely English form of pastoral drama. How far did he succeed? Mr.
Homer Smith charitably hints that it was owing to the 'exquisite poetry'
in which Jonson's design was clothed 'that many critics do not perceive
that he failed in the task he set himself.' This is, however, but to
repeat in cruder form Mr. Swinburne's contention.[287] That Jonson did not
fail in the task he set himself it would be difficult to maintain--only,
however, I believe, because he faiied to carry it to completion. Had he
lived to finish the remaining portion of the play in a manner consonant
with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question
as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult
and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment,
especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the
unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic
construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers
with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher not excepted.

Before, however, proceeding to discuss the issue raised by Mr. Swinburne,
it will be well to clear up certain minor misapprehensions. In the first
place Mr. Homer Smith states that Jonson 'wove together the two threads,
pastoral and forest, apparently regarding them of equal importance and
seeing no incongruity in the combination.' In so far as this may be taken
to imply a necessary incompatibility of the traditions of field and
forest, it is of course utterly opposed to the whole history of pastoral
tradition. Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in
name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and
boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's
_Hymen's Triumph_, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest,
are described as foresters. The contrast appears sharply in the _Maid's
Metamorphosis_ in the characters of Silvio and Gemulo; more faintly
indicated by Randolph in Laurinda's lovers, of whom one frequents the
woods and one the plains. The pastoral and forest traditions are in their
essence and history indistinguishable.[288] Probably, however, what the
writer had in view was some supposed incongruity between the characters of
popular romance, such as Robin and his crew, and the shepherds whom he
regards as pure Arcadians. This is the same objection as that raised by
Mr. Swinburne, to which I shall return.

Another point which has been somewhat obscured by previous writers is the
comparative importance of the two threads. Thus, again to quote Mr. Homer
Smith, it has been held that 'In general the pastoral incidents serve as
an underplot, utterly foreign in spirit to the main plot.' Against this
view that the pastoral is, intentionally at least, the subsidiary element,
the title itself is a strong argument--'The Sad Shepherd: A Tale of Robin
Hood.' Clearly the first title would naturally indicate the main subject
of the plot, and the vague addition suggest, the surroundings amid which
the action is laid. This is a consideration which no amount of
stichometrical argument can seriously discount, especially in the case of
a fragment. The same view is borne out by the plot itself so far as it is
known to us. In Aeglamour's despair at the supposed loss of his love we
have a situation already familiar from at least two English pastorals,
_Hymen's Triumph_ and Rutter's _Shepherds' Holiday_; while in the
detention of Earine in the power of the witch we have the material for an
exciting and touching development. Where else can we look for the elements
of a plot? The only possible alternative lies in the dissensions sown by
Maudlin between Robin and his love Maid Marian. Here indeed we find the
materials for some excellent comedy, and the instinctive sympathy excited
by the characters in the breast of every Englishman, as well as the
exquisite charm and grace imparted to the forest scenes by Jonson's verse,
have undoubtedly combined to obscure the real action in the earlier part
of the fragment. But since Lord Fitzwater's daughter is doomed by an
unkind tradition to remain Maid Marian still, no fortunate solution of the
_imbroglio_ can do more than restore the harmony which had been before,
and the plot would therefore be open to the precise objection from the
dramatic point of view which we found in the case of the _Faithful
Shepherdess_. Moreover, the complication is completely solved by the end
of the second act, and it was obviously introduced for no other purpose
than to bring about a general crusade against the wise woman and her
confederate powers, which should be the means of restoring Earine to her
Sad Shepherd. Thus the story of these lovers alone can supply the
materials for the main, or indeed for any real plot at all; and the fact
that, as Mr. Homer Smith informs us, out of some thousand lines less than
half are devoted to strictly pastoral interests, is but evidence of the
felicity of construction, by which Jonson, while keeping the pastoral plot
as the mainspring of the piece, nevertheless avoided the tediousness
almost inseparable from pastoral action and atmosphere, and threw the
burden of stage business upon the more congenial personages of Maid
Marian, Robin Hood and his merry men, the Witch of Paplewich, and Robin
Goodfellow. It remains for us to consider the fundamental question which
arises in connexion with Mr. Swinburne's criticism. Are the various
threads of which Jonson wove his plot in themselves incompatible and
incongruous? Is it correct to describe the parts played by the more rustic
characters as a grotesque antimasque to the action of the polished
shepherds? Or is Dr. Ward right in considering the combination a happy
one, and the characters harmonious? Now any one who wishes to defend Mr.
Swinburne's view must do so on one of two ground: either he must maintain
the general proposition that various degrees of idealization are
essentially incompatible within the limits of a single artistic
composition, or else he must hold that the contrast between the two sets
of characters in the actual play is itself of a grossness to offend the
sense of literary propriety in an audience. If any one is prepared without
qualification to maintain the former of these two propositions, he is
welcome to do so, and he will be perfectly entitled to condemn Jonson's
pastoral on the strength of it; but I doubt whether this was the intention
of the critic himself. Although as a general rule the English drama found
its romance rather in what it imagined to be realism than in conscious
idealization, yet the contrast between the imaginative and refined
creations of the fancy and the often coarse and gross transcripts from
common life are too frequent even to require specific mention, and many
shades even of imaginative painting, many degrees of idealism, may
frequently be met with in the course of a single play. What of Rosalind,
Phoebe, and Audrey in _As You Like It_? But that is a question to which we
shall have to return. It will, however, be contended that in the _Sad
Shepherd_ we are introduced to a wholly idealized and artificially refined
atmosphere surrounding the shepherds and their hosts, which is yet
constantly liable to be broken in upon by beings of the outer world, rude
unchastened mortals compounded of our common clay, whose entrance dispels
at a stroke the delicate, refined atmosphere of pastoral convention. This
brings us to the second alternative mentioned above, to meet which we
shall have to condescend to particulars, and consider the real natures of
the various groups of personages with which Jonson crowds his stage.