Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 26

III

In Jonson's _Sad Shepherd_ we find ourselves once again considering a work which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, but which at the same time raises important questions of literary criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to consider--Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_, Fletcher's _Faithful Shepherdess_, Randolph's _Amyntas_--have been attempts either to transplant the Italian pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama.

Except for such comparatively unimportant works as _Gallathea_ and the _Converted Robber_,[283] the spectators found themselves, for the first time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the 'Lovers Scriptures,'

the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which had been variously present since Ta.s.so styled his play _favola boschereccia_, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to fas.h.i.+on out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something fresh and original and new.

Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of 1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what date the composition should be a.s.signed are too intricate to be entered upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost _May Lord_ has little to recommend it.[284] Seeing that the play is far from being as generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give a more or less detailed a.n.a.lysis of it in this place.[285]

After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is supposed to have been drowned in the Trent.

Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here!

Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow: The world may find the Spring by following her; For other print her aerie steps neere left. (I. i.)

He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin Hood, who enters at the head of the a.s.sembled shepherds and country maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the 'sourer sort of shepherds,' in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical pretensions of the puritan reformers--a pa.s.sage which yields, in biting satire, neither to his own presentation in the _Alchemist_ nor to Quarles'

scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks to himself like a madman.

It will be rare, rare, rare!

An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words!

Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock: If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing!

Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe, On every greene sworth, and in every path, Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent; There will I knock the story in the ground, In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round, Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd; And with the plenty of salt teares there shed, Quite alter the complexion of the Spring.

Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither, Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water, Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout, As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs, Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine; Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice; And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice.

Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest, And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles, And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle; To fling a fellow with a Fever in, To set it all on fire, till it burne, Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy, When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him. (I. v.)

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 a.s.say is taken-- [_Kisses her again._

_Rob._ On, my Marian.

I did but take the a.s.say. (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 Hoa.r.s.e!

crying for its bone with such persistence that the superst.i.tious 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 a.s.signed to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one might, under the circ.u.mstances, 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 _navete_ 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 refres.h.i.+ng 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.)