A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX - Various
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[_Exeunt_.
THE END.
THE RETURN FROM PARNASSUS.
_EDITION.
The Retvrne from Pernassvs: Or, The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted
by the Students in Saint Iohns Colledge in Cambridge. At London Printed
by G. Eld, for Iohn Wright, and are to bee sold at his shop at
Christchurch Gate_. 1606. 4to.
[See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 470. Almost all the extant copies of this
drama--and no fewer than ten have been examined--appear to vary in
certain literal particulars. Of two copies in the Malone collection, one
presents additions which might bespeak it a later impression than the
other; and yet, on the other hand, has errors (some of a serious kind)
peculiar to itself. The text has now been considerably improved by the
collection of the quartos at Oxford.
It was the intention of my kind acquaintance, the Rev. J.W. Ebsworth,
Vicar of Moldash, by Ashford, Kent, to have reprinted the "Return from
Parnassus" separately; but on learning that I intended to include it in
my series, Mr Ebsworth not only gave way, but obligingly placed the
annotated copy which he had prepared, at my free disposal.
I have also to thank Dr Ingleby, of Valentines, near Ilford, Essex, for
lending me a copy of the play corresponding with one of those in the
Bodleian, as regards its occasionally various readings.
A long account, and very favourable estimate, of this drama will be
found in Hazlitt's "Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," 1820.]
[HAWKINS'S PREFACE.]
We can learn no more of the history of this play than what the
title-page gives us, viz., that it was "publickly acted by the students
in Saint John's College, Cambridge."[25] The merits and characters of
our old poets and actors are censured by the author with great freedom;
and the shameful prostitution of Church preferment, by the selling of
livings to the ignorant and unworthy, laid the foundation of Dr Wild's
"Benefice, a Comedy," 4to, 1689.
[Hawkins himself elsewhere (in his "General Introduction") remarks:--]
As the piece which follows, called "The Return from Parnassus," is,
perhaps, the most singular composition in our language, it may be proper
to give a succinct analysis of it. This satirical drama seems to have
been composed by the wits and scholars of Cambridge, where it was acted
at the opening of the last century. The design of it was to expose the
vices and follies of the rich in those days, and to show that little
attention was paid by that class of men to the learned and ingenious.
Several students of various capacities and dispositions leave the
university in hopes of advancing their fortunes in the metropolis. One
of them attempts to recommend himself by his publications; another, to
procure a benefice by paying his court to a young spark named Amoretto,
with whom he had been intimate at college; two others endeavour to gain
a subsistence by successively appearing as physicians, actors, and
musicians: but the Man of Genius is disregarded, and at last prosecuted
for his productions; the benefice is sold to an illiterate clown; and in
the end three of the scholars are compelled to submit to a voluntary
exile; another returns to Cambridge as poor as when he left it; and the
other two, finding that neither their medicines nor their music would
support them, resolve to turn shepherds, and to spend the rest of their
days on the Kentish downs. There is a great variety of characters in
this play, which are excellently distinguished and supported; and some
of the scenes have as much wit as can be desired in a perfect comedy.
The simplicity of its plan must naturally bring to our mind the old
species of comedy described by Horace, in which, before it was
restrained by a public edict, living characters were exposed by name
upon the stage, and the audience made merry at their expense without any
intricacy of plot or diversity of action: thus in the piece before us
Burbage and Kempe, two famous actors, appear in their proper persons;
and a number of acute observations are made on the poets of that age, of
whom the editor has given an account in the notes, and has added some
chosen specimens of their poetry.
[The late Mr Bolton Corney thought that this play was from the pen of
John Day. We learn from the Prologue that a drama, of which nothing is
now known, preceded it, under the title of "The Pilgrimage to
Parnassus." The loss is perhaps to be regretted.]
THE PROLOGUE.
BOY, STAGEKEEPER, MOMUS, DEFENSOR.
BOY.
Spectators, we will act a comedy: _non plus_.
STAGEKEEPER.
A pox on't, this book hath it not in it: you would be whipped, thou
rascal; thou must be sitting up all night at cards, when thou should be
conning thy part.
BOY.
It's all along on you; I could not get my part a night or two before,
that I might sleep on it.
[STAGEKEEPER _carrieth the_ BOY _away under his arm_.
MOMUS.
It's even well done; here is such a stir about a scurvy English show!
DEFENSOR.
Scurvy in thy face, thou scurvy Jack: if this company were not,--you
paltry critic gentleman, you that know what it is to play at primero or
passage--you that have been student at post and pair, saint and loadam
--you that have spent all your quarter's revenues in riding post one
night in Christmas, bear with the weak memory of a gamester.
MOMUS.
Gentlemen, you that can play at noddy, or rather play upon noddies--you
that can set up a jest at primero instead of a rest, laugh at the
prologue, that was taken away in a voider.
DEFENSOR.
What we present, I must needs confess, is but slubber'd invention: if
your wisdom obscure the circumstance, your kindness will pardon the
substance.
MOMUS.
What is presented here is an old musty show, that hath lain this
twelvemonth in the bottom of a coal-house amongst brooms and old shoes;
an invention that we are ashamed of, and therefore we have promised the
copies to the chandler to wrap his candles in.
DEFENSOR.
It's but a Christmas toy; and may it please your courtesies to let it pass.
MOMUS.
It's a Christmas toy, indeed! as good a conceit as sloughing[26]
hotcockles or blindman-buff.
DEFENSOR.
Some humours you shall see aimed at, if not well-resembled.
MOMUS.
Humours, indeed! Is it not a pretty humour to stand hammering upon two
_individuum vagum_, two scholars, some whole year? These same Philomusus
and Studioso have been followed with a whip and a verse, like a couple
of vagabonds, through England and Italy. The Pilgrimage to Parnassus and
the Return from Parnassus have stood the honest stagekeepers in many a
crown's expense for links and vizards; purchased a sophister a knock
with[27] a club; hindered the butler's box,[28] and emptied the college
barrels: and now, unless you know the subject well, you may return home
as wise as you came, for this last is the least part of the return from
Parnassus: that is both the first and last time that the author's wit
will turn upon the toe in this vein, and at this time the scene is not
at Parnassus, that is, looks not good invention in the face.
DEFENSOR.
If the catastrophe please you not, impute it to the unpleasing fortunes
of discontented scholars.
MOMUS.
For catastrophe, there's never a tale in Sir John Mandeville or Bevis
of Southampton, but hath a better turning.
STAGEKEEPER.
What, you jeering ass! begone, with a pox!
MOMUS.
You may do better to busy yourself in providing beer; for the show
will be pitiful dry, pitiful dry. [_Exit_.
STAGEKEEPER.
No more of this: I heard the spectators ask for a blank verse.
What we show is but a Christmas jest;
Conceive of this, and guess of all the rest:
Full like a scholar's hapless fortune's penn'd,
Whose former griefs seldom have happy end.
Frame as well we might with easy strain,
With far more praise and with as little pain,
Stories of love, where forne[29] the wond'ring bench
The lisping gallant might enjoy his wench;
Or make some sire acknowledge his lost son:
Found, when the weary act is almost done.[30]
Nor unto this, nor unto that our scene is bent;
We only show a scholar's discontent.
In scholars' fortunes, twice forlorn and dead,
Twice hath our weary pen erst laboured;
Making them pilgrims in Parnassus' Hill,
Then penning their return with ruder quill.
Now we present unto each pitying eye
The scholars' progress in their misery:
Refined wits, your patience is our bliss;
Too weak our scene, too great your judgment is:
To you we seek to show a scholar's state,
His scorned fortunes, his unpity'd fate;
To you: for if you did not scholars bless,
Their case, poor case, were too-too pitiless.
You shade the muses under fostering,
And made[31] them leave to sigh, and learn to sing.
THE NAMES OF THE ACTORS.
INGENIOSO.
JUDICIO.
DANTER.
PHILOMUSUS.
STUDIOSO.
FUROR POETICUS.
PHANTASMA.
_Patient_.
RICARDETTO.
THEODORE, _a Physician_.
BURGESS, _a Patient_.
JAQUES, _a Studioso_.
ACADEMICO.
AMORETTO.
_Page_.
SIGNIOR IMMERITO.
STERCUTIO, _his Father_.
SIR RADERIC.
_Recorder_.
_Page_.
PRODIGO.
BURBAGE.
KEMP.
_Fiddlers_.
_Patient's man_.
THE RETURN FROM PARNASSUS.
ACTUS I, SCAENA 1.
INGENIOSO, _with Juvenal in his hand_.
INGENIOSO.
_Difficile est satyram non scribere. Nam quis iniquae
Tam patiens Urbis, tam ferreus,[32] ut teneat se_?
Ay, Juvenal, thy jerking hand is good,
Not gently laying on, but fetching blood;
So, surgeon-like, thou dost with cutting heal,
Where nought but lancing[33] can the wound avail:
O, suffer me, among so many men,
To tread aright the traces of thy pen,
And light my link at thy eternal flame,
Till with it I brand everlasting shame
On the world's forehead, and with thine own spirit
Pay home the world according to his merit.
Thy purer soul could not endure to see
Ev'n smallest spots of base impurity,
Nor could small faults escape thy cleaner hands.
Then foul-fac'd vice was in his swaddling-bands,
Now, like Anteus, grown a monster is,
A match for none but mighty Hercules:
Now can the world practise in plainer guise
Both sins of old and new-born villanies:
Stale sins are stole; now doth the world begin
To take sole pleasure in a witty sin:
Unpleasant as[34] the lawless sin has been,
At midnight rest, when darkness covers sin;
It's clownish, unbeseeming a young knight,
Unless it dare outface the glaring light:
Nor can it nought our gallant's praises reap,
Unless it be done in staring Cheap,
In a sin-guilty coach, not closely pent,
Jogging along the harder pavement.
Did not fear check my repining sprite,
Soon should my angry ghost a story write;
In which I would new-foster'd sins combine,
Not known erst by truth-telling Aretine.
ACTUS I, SCAENA 2.
_Enter_ JUDICIO _and_ INGENIOSO.
JUDICIO.
What, Ingenioso, carrying a vinegar bottle about thee, like a great
schoolboy giving the world a bloody nose?[35]
INGENIOSO.
Faith, Judicio, if I carry the vinegar bottle, it's great reason I
should confer it upon the baldpated world: and again, if my kitchen
want the utensils[36] of viands, it's great reason other men should
have the sauce of vinegar; and for the bloody nose, Judicio, I may
chance, indeed, give the world a bloody nose, but it shall hardly give
me a crack'd crown, though it gives other poets French crowns.
JUDICIO.
I would wish thee, Ingenioso, to sheathe thy pen, for thou canst not
be successful in the fray, considering thy enemies have the advantage
of the ground.
INGENIOSO.
Or rather, Judicio, they have the grounds with advantage, and the
French crowns with a pox; and I would they had them with a plague too:
but hang them, swads, the basest corner in my thoughts is too gallant
a room to lodge them in. But say, Judicio, what news in your press?
did you keep any late corrections upon any tardy pamphlets?
JUDICIO.
_Veterem jubes renovare dolorem_, Ingenioso: whate'er befalls thee,
keep thee from the trade of the corrector of the press.
INGENIOSO.
Marry, so I will, I warrant thee; if poverty press not too much, I'll
correct no press but the press of the people.
JUDICIO.
Would it not grieve any good spirits to sit a whole month knitting out
a lousy, beggarly pamphlet, and, like a needy physician, to stand whole
years tossing and tumbling the filth that falleth from so many draughty
inventions as daily swarm in our printing-house.
INGENIOSO.
Come, I think we shall have you put finger in the eye, and cry, O
friends, no friends! Say, man, what new paper hobby-horses, what
rattle-babies, are come out in your late May morris-dance?
JUDICIO.
Fly[37] my rhymes as thick as flies in the sun; I think there be never
an alehouse in England, not any so base a maypole on a country green,
but sets forth some poet's petronels or demi-lances to the paper wars
in Paul's Churchyard.
INGENIOSO.
And well too may the issue of a strong hop learn to hop all over
England, when as better wits sit, like lame cobblers, in their studies.
Such barmy heads will always be working, when as sad vinegar wits sit
souring at the bottom of a barrel; plain meteors, bred of the
exhalation of tobacco and the vapours of a moist pot, that soar[38] up
into the open air, when as sounder wit keeps below.
JUDICIO.
Considering the furies of the times, I could better endure to see those
young can-quaffing hucksters shoot off their pellets, so they would
keep them from these English _Flores poetarum_; but now the world is
come to that pass, that there starts up every day an old goose that
sits hatching up those eggs which have been filched from the nest of
crows and kestrels. Here is a book, Ingenioso; why, to condemn it to
clear [fire,][39] the usual Tyburn of all misliving papers, were too
fair a death for so foul an offender.
INGENIOSO.
What's the name of it, I pray thee, Judicio?
JUDICIO.
Look, it's here; "Belvidere."[40]
INGENIOSO.
What, a bell-wether in Paul's Churchyard! so called because it keeps a
bleating, or because it hath the tinkling bell of so many poets about
the neck of it? What is the rest of the title?
JUDICIO. "The Garden of the Muses."
INGENIOSO.
What have we here, the poet garish, gaily bedecked, like fore-horses of
the parish? What follows?
JUDICIO.
_Quem, referent musae, vivet, dum robora tellus,
Dum coelum stellas, dum vehit amnis aquas_.
Who blurs fair paper with foul bastard rhymes,
Shall live full many an age in latter times:
Who makes a ballad for an alehouse door,
Shall live in future times for evermore:
Then ( )[41] thy muse shall live so long,
As drafty ballads to thy praise are sung.
But what's his device? Parnassus with the sun and the laurel?[42] I
wonder this owl dares look on the sun; and I marvel this goose flies
not the laurel: his device might have been better, a fool going into
the market-place to be seen, with this motto: _Scribimus indocti_; or,
a poor beggar gleaning of ears in the end of harvest, with this word:
_Sua cuique gloria_.
JUDICIO.
Turn over the leaf, Ingenioso, and thou shalt see the pains of this
worthy gentleman: _Sentences, gathered out of all kind of poets,
referred to certain methodical heads, profitable for the use of these
times, to rhyme upon any occasion at a little warning_. Read the names.
INGENIOSO.
So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them.
Edmund Spenser. Thomas Watson.
Henry Constable. Michael Drayton.
Thomas Lodge. John Davis.
Samuel Daniel. John Marston.
Kit Marlowe.
Good men and true; stand together; hear your censure. What's thy
judgment of Spenser?
JUDICIO.
A sweeter[43] swan than ever sung in Po,
A shriller nightingale than ever bless'd
The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome.
Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud,
While he did chant his rural minstrelsy:
Attentive was full many a dainty ear,
Nay, hearers hung upon his melting tongue,
While sweetly of his Fairy Queen he sung;
While to the waters' fall he tun'd for fame,
And in each bark engrav'd Eliza's name:
And yet for all this unregarding soil
Unlac'd the line of his desired life,
Denying maintenance for his dear relief;
Careless care to prevent his exequy,
Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye.
INGENIOSO.
Pity it is that gentler wits should breed,
Where thickskin chuffs laugh at a scholar's need.
But softly may our honour's ashes rest,
That lie by merry Chaucer's noble chest.
But, I pray thee, proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud
of myself; as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with
thine.--Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel,[44] Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson.
JUDICIO.
Sweet Constable[45] doth take the wond'ring ear,
And lays it up in willing prisonment:
Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage
War with the proudest big Italian,
That melts his heart in sugar'd sonneting;
Only let him more sparingly make use
Of others' wit, and use his own the more,
That well may scorn base imitation.
For Lodge[46] and Watson,[47] men of some desert,
Yet subject to a critic's marginal;
Lodge for his oar in ev'ry paper boat,
He, that turns over Galen ev'ry day,
To sit and simper Euphues' Legacy.[48]
INGENIOSO.
Michael Drayton?
JUDICIO.
Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye,
Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye.
INGENIOSO.
However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times, and that is
this: he cannot swagger it well in a tavern, nor domineer in a
hothouse. John Davis?[49]
JUDICIO.
Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes,
That jerk in hidden charms these looser times;
Thy plainer verse, thy unaffected vein,
Is graced with a fair and sweeping[50] train.
INGENIOSO.
Lock and Hudson?[51]
JUDICIO.
Lock and Hudson, sleep, you quiet shavers, among the shavings of the
press, and let your books lie in some old nooks amongst old boots and
shoes; so you may avoid my censure.
INGENIOSO. Why, then, clap a lock on their feet, and turn them to
commons. John Marston?[52]
JUDICIO.
What, Monsieur Kinsayder, lifting up your leg, and pissing against the
world? put up, man, put up, for shame!
Methinks he is a ruffian in his style,
Withouten bands or garters' ornament:
He quaffs a cup of Frenchman's Helicon;
Then roister doister in his oily terms,
Cuts, thrusts, and foins, at whomsoever he meets,
And strews about Ram-Alley meditations.
Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms,
Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?
Give him plain naked words, stripp'd from their shirts,
That might beseem plain-dealing Aretine.
Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed,
And manageth a penknife gallantly,
Strikes his poinardo at a button's breadth,
Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns;
And, at first volley of his cannon-shot,
Batters the walls of the old fusty world.
INGENIOSO.
Christopher Marlowe?
JUDICIO.
Marlowe was happy in his buskin'd muse;
Alas! unhappy in his life and end:
Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell
Wit lent from heav'n, but vices sent from hell.[53]
INGENIOSO.
Our theatre hath lost, Pluto hath got,
A tragic penman for a dreary plot.
Benjamin Jonson?
JUDICIO.
The wittiest fellow of a bricklayer in England.
INGENIOSO.
A mere empiric, one that gets what he hath by observation, and makes
only nature privy to what he indites; so slow an inventor, that he were
better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying; a bold whoreson,
as confident now in making of[54] a book, as he was in times past in
laying of a brick. William Shakespeare?
JUDICIO.
Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape,
His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life,
Could but a graver subject him content,
Without love's foolish, lazy[55] languishment.
INGENIOSO.
Churchyard?[56]
Hath not Shore's wife, although a light-skirts she,
Giv'n him a chaste, long-lasting memory?
JUDICIO.
No; all light pamphlets once I finden shall,
A Churchyard and a grave to bury all!
Thomas Nash.[57]
INGENIOSO.
Ay, here is a fellow, Judicio, that carried the deadly stock[58] in his
pen, whose muse was armed with a gag-tooth,[59] and his pen possessed
with Hercules' furies.
JUDICIO.
Let all his faults sleep with his mournful chest,
And then for ever with his ashes rest:
His style was witty, though he had some gall,
Something he might have mended; so may all:
Yet this I say that, for a mother-wit,
Few men have ever seen the like of it.
INGENIOSO _reads the rest of the names_.
JUDICIO.
As for these, they have some of them been the old hedge-stakes of the
press; and some of them are, at this instant, the bots and glanders of
the printing-house: fellows that stand only upon terms to serve the
term,[60] with their blotted papers, write, as men go to stool, for
needs; and when they write, they write as a bear pisses, now and then
drop a pamphlet.
INGENIOSO.
_Durum telum necessitas_. Good faith, they do, as I do--exchange words
for money. I have some traffic this day with Danter[61] about a little
book which I have made; the name of it is, A Catalogue of Cambridge
Cuckolds. But this Belvidere, this methodical ass, hath made me almost
forget my time; I'll now to Paul's Churchyard; meet me an hour hence at
the sign of the Pegasus in Cheapside, and I'll moist thy temples with a
cup of claret, as hard as the world goes.
[_Exit_ JUDICIO.
ACTUS I., SCAENA 3.
_Enter_ DANTER _the Printer_.
INGENIOSO.
Danter, thou art deceived, wit is dearer than thou takest it to be: I
tell thee, this libel of Cambridge has much fat and pepper in the nose;
it will sell sheerly underhand, when all these books of exhortations and
catechisms lie moulding on thy shopboard.
DANTER.
It's true: but, good faith, Master Ingenioso, I lost by your last book;
and, you know, there is many a one that pays me largely for the printing
of their inventions: but, for all this, you shall have forty shillings
and an odd bottle of wine.
INGENIOSO.
Forty shillings! a fit reward for one of your rheumatic poets, that
beslavers all the paper he comes by, and furnishes all the chandlers
with waste-papers to wrap candles in; but as for me, I'll be paid dear
even for the dregs of my wit: little knows the world what belongs to the
keeping of a good wit in waters, diets, drinks, tobacco, &c. It is a
dainty and a costly creature; and therefore I must be paid sweetly.
Furnish me with money, that I may put myself in a new suit of clothes,
and I'll suit thy shop with a new suit of terms. It's the gallantest
child my invention was ever delivered of: the title is, A Chronicle of
Cambridge Cuckolds. Here a man may see what day of the month such a
man's commons were enclosed, and when thrown open; and when any entailed
some odd crowns upon the heirs of their bodies unlawfully begotten.
Speak quickly: else I am gone.
DANTER.
O, this will sell gallantly; I'll have it, whatsoever it cost: will you
walk on, Master Ingenioso? We'll sit over a cup of wine, and agree on it.
INGENIOSO.
A cup of wine is as good a constable as can be to take up the quarrel
betwixt us.
[_Exeunt_.
ACTUS I., SCAENA 4.
PHILOMUSUS _in a physician's habit_: STUDIOSO,
_that is_, JAQUES _man, and_ PATIENT.
PHILOMUSUS.
Tit, tit, tit, non point;[62] non debet fieri phlebotomia in coitu Lunae.
Here is a recipe.
PATIENT.
A recipe?
PHILOMUSUS.
Nos Gallia non curamus quantitatem syllabarum: let me hear how many
stools you do make. Adieu, monsieur: adieu, good monsieur.--What,
Jaques, il n'y a personne apres ici?
STUDIOSO.
Non.
PHILOMUSUS.
Then let us steal time for this borrowed shape,
Recounting our unequal haps of late:
Late did the ocean grasp us in his arms;
Late did we live within a stranger air,
Late did we see the cinders of great Rome:
We thought that English fugitives there ate
Gold for restorative, if gold were meat.
Yet now we find by bought experience
That, wheresoe'er we wander up and down
On the round shoulders of this massy world,
Or our ill-fortunes or the world's ill-eye
Forespeak our good, procure[63] our misery.
STUDIOSO.
So oft the northern wind with frozen wings
Hath beat the flowers that in our garden grew,
Thrown down the stalks of our aspiring youth;
So oft hath winter nipp'd our trees' fair rind,
That now we seem nought but two bared boughs,
Scorn'd by the basest bird that chirps in grove.
Nor Rome, nor Rhemes, that wonted are to give
A cardinal cap to discontented clerks,
That have forsook the home-bred, thatched[64] roofs,
Yielded us any equal maintenance:
And it's as good to starve 'mongst English swine,
As in a foreign land to beg and pine.
PHILOMUSUS.
I'll scorn the world, that scorneth me again.
STUDIOSO.
I'll vex the world, that works me so much pain.
PHILOMUSUS.
Thy[65] lame revenging power the world well weens.
STUDIOSO.
Flies have their spleen, each silly ant his teens.
PHILOMUSUS.
We have the words, they the possession have.
STUDIOSO.
We all are equal in our latest grave.
PHILOMUSUS.
Soon then, O, soon may we both graved be.
STUDIOSO.
Who wishes death doth wrong wise destiny.
PHILOMUSUS.
It's wrong to force life-loathing men to breathe.
STUDIOSO.
It's sin 'fore doomed day to wish thy death.
PHILOMUSUS.
Too late our souls flit to their resting-place.
STUDIOSO.
Why, man's whole life is but a breathing space.