From York to London town we come,
To talk of Popish ire,
To reconcile you all to Rome,
And prevent Smithfield fire.
To talk of Popish ire,
To reconcile you all to Rome,
And prevent Smithfield fire.
Dryden - Complete
_ Hold, Creon, or through me, through me you wound.
_Adr. _ Off, madam, or we perish both; behold
I'm not unarmed, my poniard's in my hand;
Therefore, away.
_Eur. _ I'll guard your life with mine.
_Cre. _ Die both, then; there is now no time for dallying.
[_Kills_ EURYDICE.
_Eur. _ Ah, prince, farewell! farewell, my dear Adrastus! [_Dies. _
_Adr. _ Unheard-of monster! eldest-born of hell!
Down, to thy primitive flame. [_Stabs_ CREON.
_Cre. _ Help, soldiers, help;
Revenge me.
_Adr. _ More; yet more; a thousand wounds!
I'll stamp thee still, thus, to the gaping furies.
[ADRASTUS _falls, killed by the soldiers. _
_Enter_ HÆMON, _Guards, with_ ALCANDER _and_ PYRACMON _bound; the
Assassins are driven off. _
O Hæmon, I am slain; nor need I name
The inhuman author of all villainies;
There he lies gasping.
_Cre. _ If I must plunge in flames,
Burn first my arm; base instrument, unfit
To act the dictates of my daring mind;
Burn, burn for ever, O weak substitute
Of that, the god, ambition. [_Dies. _
_Adr. _ She's gone;--O deadly marksman, in the heart!
Yet in the pangs of death she grasps my hand;
Her lips too tremble, as if she would speak
Her last farewell. --O, OEdipus, thy fall
Is great; and nobly now thou goest attended!
They talk of heroes, and celestial beauties,
And wondrous pleasures in the other world;
Let me but find her there, I ask no more. [_Dies. _
_Enter a Captain to_ HÆMON; _with_ TERESIAS _and_ MANTO.
_Cap. _ O, sir, the queen Jocasta, swift and wild,
As a robbed tygress bounding o'er the woods,
Has acted murders that amaze mankind;
In twisted gold I saw her daughters hang
On the bed-royal, and her little sons
Stabbed through the breasts upon the bloody pillows.
_Hæm. _ Relentless heavens! is then the fate of Laius
Never to be atoned? How sacred ought
Kings' lives be held, when but the death of one
Demands an empire's blood for expiation!
But see! the furious mad Jocasta's here.
_Scene draws, and discovers_ JOCASTA _held by her women and stabbed
in many places of her Bosom, her Hair dishevelled, her Children
slain upon the Bed. _
Was ever yet a sight of so much horror
And pity brought to view!
_Joc. _ Ah, cruel women!
Will you not let me take my last farewell
Of those dear babes? O let me run, and seal
My melting soul upon their bubbling wounds!
I'll print upon their coral mouths such kisses,
As shall recal their wandering spirits home.
Let me go, let me go, or I will tear you piece-meal.
Help, Hæmon, help;
Help, OEdipus; help, Gods; Jocasta dies.
_Enter_ OEDIPUS _above. _
_OEdip. _ I've found a window, and I thank the gods
'Tis quite unbarred; sure, by the distant noise,
The height will fit my fatal purpose well.
_Joc. _ What hoa, my OEdipus! see where he stands!
His groping ghost is lodged upon a tower,
Nor can it find the road. Mount, mount, my soul;
I'll wrap thy shivering spirit in lambent flames; and so we'll sail. --
But see! we're landed on the happy coast;
And all the golden strands are covered o'er
With glorious gods, that come to try our cause.
Jove, Jove, whose majesty now sinks me down,
He, who himself burns in unlawful fires,
Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done;
'Tis fixt by fate, upon record divine;
And OEdipus shall now be ever mine. [_Dies. _
_OEdip. _ Speak, Hæmon; what has fate been doing there?
What dreadful deed has mad Jocasta done?
_Hæm. _ The queen herself, and all your wretched offspring,
Are by her fury slain.
_OEdip. _ By all my woes,
She has outdone me in revenge and murder,
And I should envy her the sad applause:
But oh, my children! oh, what have they done?
This was not like the mercy of the heavens,
To set her madness on such cruelty:
This stirs me more than all my sufferings,
And with my last breath I must call you tyrants.
_Hæm. _ What mean you, sir?
_OEdip. _ Jocasta! lo, I come.
O Laius, Labdacus, and all you spirits
Of the Cadmean race, prepare to meet me,
All weeping ranged along the gloomy shore;
Extend your arms to embrace me, for I come.
May all the gods, too, from their battlements,
Behold and wonder at a mortal's daring;
And, when I knock the goal of dreadful death,
Shout and applaud me with a clap of thunder.
Once more, thus winged by horrid fate, I come,
Swift as a falling meteor; lo, I fly,
And thus go downwards to the darker sky.
[_Thunder. He flings himself from the Window:
The Thebans gather about his Body. _
_Hæm. _ O prophet, OEdipus is now no more!
O cursed effect of the most deep despair!
_Tir. _ Cease your complaints, and bear his body hence;
The dreadful sight will daunt the drooping Thebans,
Whom heaven decrees to raise with peace and glory.
Yet, by these terrible examples warned,
The sacred Fury thus alarms the world:--
Let none, though ne'er so virtuous, great, and high,
Be judged entirely blest before they die. [_Exeunt. _
Footnotes:
1. Imitated from the commencement of the plague in the first book of
the _Iliad_.
2. The story of the Sphinx is generally known: She was a monster, who
delighted in putting a riddle to the Thebans, and slaying each poor
dull Boeotian, who could not interpret it. OEdipus guessed the
enigma, on which the monster destroyed herself for shame. Thus he
attained the throne of Thebes, and the bed of Jocasta.
3. To _dare a lark_, is to fly a hawk, or present some other object of
fear, to engage the bird's attention, and prevent it from taking
wing, while the fowler draws his net:
Farewell, nobility; let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks.
_Henry VIII. _ Act III. Scene II.
4. The carelessness of OEdipus about the fate of his predecessor is
very unnatural; but to such expedients dramatists are often
reduced, to communicate to their audience what must have been known
to the persons of the drama.
5. _Start_ is here, and in p. 136, used for _started_, being borrowed
from _sterte_, the old perfect of the verb.
6. It is a common idea, that falling stars, as they are called, are
converted into a sort of jelly. "Among the rest, I had often the
opportunity to see the seeming shooting of the stars from place to
place, and sometimes they appeared as if falling to the ground,
where I once or twice found a white jelly-like matter among the
grass, which I imagined to be distilled from them; and hence
foolishly conjectured, that the stars themselves must certainly
consist of a like substance. "
7. Serpens, serpentem vorans, fit draco. Peccata, peccatis
superaddita, monstra fiunt. _Hieroglyphica animalium, per
Archibaldum Simsonum Dalkethensis Ecclesiæ pastorem, p. 95. _
8. The idea of this sacred grove seems to be taken from that of
Colonus near Athens, dedicated to the Eumenides, which gives name
to Sophocles's second tragedy. Seneca describes the scene of the
incantation in the following lines:
_Est procul ab urbe lucus illicibus niger
Dircæa circa vallis irriguæ loca.
Cupressus altis exerens silvis caput
Virente semper alligat trunco nemus;
Curvosque tendit quercus et putres situ
Annosa ramos: hujus abrupit latus
Edax vetustas: illa jam fessa cadens
Radice, fulta pendet aliena trabe.
Amara baccas laurus; et tiliæ leves
Et Paphia myrtus; et per immensum mare
Motura remos alnus; et Phoebo obvia
Enode Zephyris pinus opponens latus.
Medio stat ingens arbor, atque umbra gravi
Silvas minores urget; et magno ambitu
Diffusa ramos, una defendit nemus.
Tristis sub illa, lucis et Phoebi inscius
Restagnat humor, frigore æterno rigens.
Limosa pigrum circuit fontem palus.
Actus Tertius. Scena prima. _
This diffuse account of the different kinds of forest trees, which
composed the enchanted grove, is very inartificially put into the
mouth of Creon, who, notwithstanding the horrible message which he
has to deliver to OEdipus from the ghost, finds time to solace the
king with this long description of a place, which he doubtless knew
as well as Creon himself. Dryden, on the contrary, has, with great
address, rendered the description necessary, by the violence
committed within the sacred precinct, and turned it, not upon
minute and rhetorical detail, but upon the general awful properties
of this consecrated ground. Lucan's fine description of the
Massyllian forest, and that of the enchanted grove in Tasso, have
been both consulted by our author. ]
9. The quarrel betwixt OEdipus and the prophet, who announces his
guilt, is imitated from a similar scene in the OEdipus Tyrannus.
10. Borrowed from Shakespeare;
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
_Richard II. _
EPILOGUE.
What Sophocles could undertake alone,
Our poets found a work for more than one;
And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
A weight that bent even Seneca's strong muse,
And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse.
So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
So much two consuls yield to one just king.
Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
The mightiest machines that can mount a play.
How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
You can but damn for one poor spot of earth;
And when your children find your judgment such,
They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch;
Each haughty poet will infer with ease,
How much his wit must under-write to please.
As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance
The monumental sword that conquered France;
So you, by judging this, your judgment teach,
Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach.
Since then the vote of full two thousand years
Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs,
Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give,
And, in your own defence, let this play live.
Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown,
To praise his worth they humbly doubt their own.
Yet as weak states each other's power assure,
Weak poets by conjunction are secure.
Their treat is what your palates relish most,
Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost!
We know not what you can desire or hope,
To please you more, but burning of a Pope. [1]
Footnote:
1. The burning a Pope in effigy, was a ceremony performed upon the
anniversary of queen Elizabeth's coronation. When parties ran high
betwixt the courtiers and opposition, in the latter part of Charles
the II. reign, these anti-papal solemnities were conducted by the
latter, with great state and expence, and employed as engines to
excite the popular resentment against the duke of York, and his
religion. The following curious description of one of these
tumultuary processions, in 1679, was extracted by Ralph, from a
very scarce pamphlet; it is the ceremony referred to in the
epilogue; and it shall be given at length, as the subject is
frequently alluded to by Dryden.
[Illustration:
The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinals, Jesuits,
Friars, &c.
Through the CITY OF LONDON November 17. th 1679.
London Published January 1808 by William Miller, Albemarle Street.
Dryden Works to face Vol 6th page 223]
"On the said 17th of November, 1679, the bells, generally, about
the town, began to ring at three o'clock in the morning. At the
approach of the evening, (all things being in readiness) the solemn
procession began, setting forth from Moregate, and so passed, first
to Aldgate, and thence through Leadenhall-street, by the Royal
Exchange, through Cheapside, and so to Temple-bar in the ensuing
order, viz.
"1. Came six whifflers, to clear the way, in pioneer caps, and red
waistcoats.
"2. A bellman ringing, and with a loud (but doleful) voice, crying
out all the way, remember Justice Godfrey.
"3. A dead body, representing justice Godfrey, in a decent black
habit, carried before a jesuit, in black, on horse-back, in
like manner as he was carried by the assassins to Primrose
Hill.
"4. Next after Sir Edmonbury, so mounted, came a priest in a
surplice, with a cope embroidered with dead bones, skeletons,
skulls, and the like, giving pardons very plentifully to all
those who should murder protestants; and proclaiming it
meritorious.
"5. Then a priest in black alone, with a great silver cross.
"6. Four carmelites, in white and black habits.
"7. Four grey-friars, in the proper habits of their order.
"8. Six jesuits, with bloody daggers.
"9. A concert of wind music.
"10. Four bishops, in purple, and lawn sleeves, with a golden
crosier on their breast, and crosier-staves in their hands.
"11. Four other bishops, in _Pontificalibus_, with surplices, and
rich embroidered copes, and golden mitres on their heads.
"12. Six cardinals, in scarlet robes and caps.
"13. The Pope's doctor, _i. e. _ Wakeman,[a] with jesuits-powder in
one hand, and an urinal in the other.
"14. Two priests in surplices, with two golden crosses.
"Lastly, The Pope, in a lofty, glorious pageant, representing a
chair of state, covered with scarlet, richly embroidered and
fringed, and bedecked with golden balls and crosses: At his feet a
cushion of state, and two boys in surplices with white silk
banners, and bloody crucifixes and daggers with an incense pot
before them, censing his holiness, who was arrayed in a splendid
scarlet gown, lined through with ermin, and richly daubed with gold
and silver lace; on his head a triple crown of gold, and a glorious
collar of gold and precious stones, St Peter's keys, a number of
beads, agnus deis, and other catholic trumpery. At his back, his
holiness's privy counsellor, the degraded Seraphim, (_anglice_ the
devil,) frequently caressing, hugging, and whispering him, and oft
times instructing him aloud to destroy his majesty, to forge a
protestant plot, and to fire the city again, to which purpose he
held an infernal torch in his hand.
"The whole procession was attended with 150 flambeaux and lights,
by order; but so many more came in volunteers, as made up some
thousands.
"Never were the balconies, windows, and houses more numerously
lined, or the streets closer throng'd with multitudes of people,
all expressing their abhorrence of Popery, with continual shouts
and exclamations; so that 'tis modestly computed, that, in the
whole progress, there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand
spectators.
"Thus with a slow, and solemn state, they proceeded to Temple Bar;
where with innumerable swarms, the houses seemed to be converted
into heaps of men, and women, and children, for whose diversion
there were provided great variety of excellent fireworks.
"Temple Bar being, since its rebuilding, adorned with four stately
statues, viz. those of Queen Elizabeth and King James, on the
inward, or eastern side, fronting the city; and those of King
Charles the I. of blessed memory, and our present gracious
sovereign, (whom God, in mercy to these nations, long preserve! ) on
the outside, facing towards Westminster; and the statue of Queen
Elizabeth in regard to the day, having on a crown of gilded laurel,
and in her hand a golden shield, with this motto inscribed: _The
Protestant Religion, and Magna Charta_, and flambeaux placed before
it. The Pope being brought up near thereunto, the following song,
alluding to the posture of those statues, was sung in parts,
between one representing the English Cardinal (_Howard_)[b] and
others acting the people:
CARDINAL NORFOLK.
From York to London town we come,
To talk of Popish ire,
To reconcile you all to Rome,
And prevent Smithfield fire.
PLEBEIANS.
Cease, cease, thou Norfolk Cardinal,
See yonder stands Queen Bess;
Who sav'd our souls from Popish thrall:
O Queen Bess, Queen Bess, Queen Bess!
Your Popish plot, and Smithfield threat,
We do not fear at all;
For lo! beneath Queen Bess's feet,
You fall, you fall, you fall.
"'Tis true, our King's on t'other side,
A looking tow'rds Whitehall:
But could we bring him round about;
He'd counterplot you all.
"Then down with James, and set up Charles,
On good Queen Bess's side;
That all true Commons, Lords, and Earls,
May wish him a fruitfull bride. "
Now God preserve great Charles our King,
And eke all honest men;
And traitors all to justice bring:
Amen, Amen, Amen.
"Then having entertained the thronging spectators for some time,
with the ingenious fireworks, a vast bonfire being prepared, just
over against the inner temple gate, his holiness, after some
compliments and reluctancies, was decently toppled from all his
grandeur, into the impartial flames; the crafty devil leaving his
infallibilityship in the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his
deserved ignominious end, as subtle jesuits do at the ruin of
bigotted Lay Catholics, whom themselves have drawn in; or, as
credulous Coleman's abettors did, when, with pretences of a
reprieve at last gasp, they had made him vomit up his soul with a
lye, and sealed his dangerous chops with a halter. This justice was
attended with a prodigious shout, that might be heard far beyond
Somerset-house; and 'twas believed the echo, by continued
reverberations, before it ceased, reached _Scotland_, (the Duke was
then there;) France, and even Rome, itself, damping them all with a
dreadfull astonishment. "
From a very rare broadside, in the collection made by Narcissus
Luttrell.
Footnotes:
a. Sir George Wakeman was physician to the queen, and a catholic.
He was tried for the memorable Popish plot and acquitted, the
credit of the witnesses being now blasted, by the dying
declarations of those who suffered.
b. Philip, the 3d son of Henry Earl of Arundel, and brother to the
Duke of Norfolk, created a Cardinal in 1675. He was a second
cousin of Lady Elizabeth Howard, afterwards the wife of our
poet.
* * * * *
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:
OR,
TRUTH FOUND TOO LATE.
A
TRAGEDY.
_Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus. _
HOR.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
The story of Troilus and Cressida was one of the more modern fables,
engrafted, during the dark ages, on "the tale of Troy divine. "
Chaucer, who made it the subject of a long and somewhat dull poem,
professes to have derived his facts from an author of the middle ages,
called Lollius, to whom he often refers, and who he states to have
written in Latin. Tyrwhitt disputes the existence of this personage,
and supposes Chaucer's original to have been the _Philostrato dell'
amorose fatiche de Troilo,_ a work of Boccacio. But Chaucer was never
reluctant in acknowledging obligations to his contemporaries, when
such really existed; and Mr Tyrwhitt's opinion seems to be
successfully combated by Mr Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer. " The
subject, whencesoever derived, was deemed by Shakespeare worthy of the
stage; and his tragedy, of Troilus and Cressida, contains so many
scenes of distinguished excellence, that it could have been wished our
author had mentioned it with more veneration. In truth, even the
partiality of an editor must admit, that on this occasion, the modern
improvements of Dryden shew to very little advantage beside the
venerable structure to which they have been attached. The arrangement
of the plot is, indeed, more artificially modelled; but the preceding
age, during which the infidelity of Cressida was proverbially current,
could as little have endured a catastrophe turning upon the discovery
of her innocence, as one which should have exhibited Helen chaste, or
Hector a coward. In Dryden's time, the prejudice against this
unfortunate female was probably forgotten, as her history had become
less popular. There appears, however, something too nice and
fastidious in the critical rule, which exacts that the hero and
heroine of the drama shall be models of virtuous perfection. In the
most interesting of the ancient plays we find this limitation
neglected, with great success; and it would have been more natural to
have brought about the catastrophe on the plan of Shakespeare and
Chaucer, than by the forced mistake in which Dryden's lovers are
involved, and the stale expedient of Cressida's killing herself, to
evince her innocence. For the superior order, and regard to the unity
of place, with which Dryden has new-modelled the scenes and entries,
he must be allowed the full praise which he claims in the preface.
In the dialogue, considered as distinct from the plot, Dryden appears
not to have availed himself fully of the treasures of his predecessor.
He has pitilessly retrenched the whole scene, in the 3d act, between
Ulysses and Achilles, full of the purest and most admirable moral
precept, expressed in the most poetical and dignified language[1].
Probably this omission arose from Dryden's desire to simplify the
plot, by leaving out the intrigues of the Grecian chiefs, and limiting
the interest to the amours of Troilus and Cressida. But he could not
be insensible to the merit of this scene, though he has supplied it by
one far inferior, in which Ulysses is introduced, using gross flattery
to the buffoon Thersites. In the latter part of the play, Dryden has
successfully exerted his own inventive powers. The quarrelling scene
between Hector and Troilus is very impressive, and no bad imitation of
that betwixt Brutus and Cassius, with which Dryden seems to have been
so much charmed, and which he has repeatedly striven to emulate. The
parting of Hector and Andromache contains some affecting passages,
some of which may be traced back to Homer; although the pathos, upon
the whole, is far inferior to that of the noted scene in the Iliad,
and destitute of the noble simplicity of the Grecian bard.
Mr Godwin has justly remarked, that the delicacy of Chaucer's ancient
tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakespeare; but in those of
Dryden it has undergone a far deeper deterioration. Whatever is coarse
and naked in Shakespeare, has been dilated into ribaldry by the poet
laureat of Charles the second; and the character of Pandarus, in
particular, is so grossly heightened, as to disgrace even the obliging
class to whom that unfortunate procurer has bequeathed his name. So
far as this play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakespeare,
I fear it must be allowed, that our author has suppressed some of his
finest poetry, and exaggerated some of his worst faults.
Troilus and Cressida was published in 1679.
Footnote:
1. I need only recall to the reader's remembrance the following
beautiful passage, inculcating the unabating energy necessary to
maintain, in the race of life, the ground which has been already
gained.
_Ulys. _ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes:
These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perséverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost. --
Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ROBERT,
EARL OF SUNDERLAND[1],
PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S
MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &C.
MY LORD,
Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but
reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my
dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of
your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity
of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other
understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong
digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so
critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just
and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so
bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not
do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that
character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my
appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from
flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to
the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your
lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as
warily as Horace did Augustus:
_Cui malè si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus. _
An ill-timed, or an extravagant commendation, would not pass upon you;
but you would keep off such a dedicator at arms-end, and send him back
with his encomiums to this lord, or that lady, who stood in need of
such trifling merchandise. You see, my lord, what an awe you have upon
me, when I dare not offer you that incense which would be acceptable
to other patrons; but am forced to curb myself from ascribing to you
those honours, which even an enemy could not deny you. Yet I must
confess, I never practised that virtue of moderation (which is
properly your character) with so much reluctancy as now: for it
hinders me from being true to my own knowledge, in not witnessing your
worth, and deprives me of the only means which I had left, to shew the
world that true honour and uninterested respect which I have always
paid you. I would say somewhat, if it were possible which might
distinguish that veneration I have for you, from the flatteries of
those who adore your fortune. But the eminence of your condition, in
this particular, is my unhappiness; for it renders whatever I would
say suspected. Professions of service, submissions, and attendance,
are the practice of all men to the great; and commonly they, who have
the least sincerity, perform them best; as they, who are least engaged
in love, have their tongues the freest to counterfeit a passion. For
my own part, I never could shake off the rustic bashfulness which
hangs upon my nature; but, valuing myself at as little as I am worth,
have been afraid to render even the common duties of respect to those
who are in power. The ceremonious visits, which are generally paid on
such occasions, are not my talent. They may be real even in courtiers,
but they appear with such a face of interest, that a modest man would
think himself in danger of having his sincerity mistaken for his
design. My congratulations keep their distance, and pass no farther
than my heart. There it is that I have all the joy imaginable, when I
see true worth rewarded, and virtue uppermost in the world.
If, therefore, there were one to whom I had the honour to be known;
and to know him so perfectly, that I could say, without flattery, he
had all the depth of understanding that was requisite in an able
statesman, and all that honesty which commonly is wanting; that he was
brave without vanity, and knowing without positiveness; that he was
loyal to his prince, and a lover of his country; that his principles
were full of moderation, and all his counsels such as tended to heal,
and not to widen, the breaches of the nation: that in all his
conversation there appeared a native candour, and a desire of doing
good in all his actions: if such an one, whom I have described, were
at the helm; if he had risen by his merits, and were chosen out in the
necessity and pressures of affairs, to remedy our confusions by the
seasonableness of his advice, and to put a stop to our ruin, when we
were just rolling downward to the precipice; I should then
congratulate the age in which I live, for the common safety; I should
not despair of the republic, though Hannibal were at the gates; I
should send up my vows for the success of such an action, as Virgil
did, on the like occasion, for his patron, when he was raising up his
country from the desolations of a civil war:
_Hunc saltem everso juvenem succurrere seclo
Ne, superi, prohibete. _
I know not whither I am running, in this extacy which is now upon me:
I am almost ready to re-assume the ancient rights of poetry; to point
out, and prophecy the man, who was born for no less an undertaking,
and whom posterity shall bless for its accomplishment. Methinks, I am
already taking fire from such a character, and making room for him,
under a borrowed name, amongst the heroes of an epic poem. Neither
could mine, or some more happy genius, want encouragement under such a
patron:
_Pollio amat nostram, quamvis sit rustica, musam. _
But these are considerations afar off, my lord: the former part of the
prophecy must be first accomplished; the quiet of the nation must be
secured; and a mutual trust, betwixt prince and people, be renewed;
and then this great and good man will have leisure for the ornaments
of peace; and make our language as much indebted to his care, as the
French is to the memory of their famous Richelieu[2]. You know, my
lord, how low he laid the foundations of so great a work; that he
began it with a grammar and a dictionary; without which all those
remarks and observations, which have since been made, had been
performed to as little purpose, as it would be to consider the
furniture of the rooms, before the contrivance of the house. Propriety
must first be stated, ere any measures of elegance can be taken.
Neither is one Vaugelas sufficient for such a work[3]. It was the
employment of the whole academy for many years; for the perfect
knowledge of a tongue was never attained by any single person. The
court, the college, and the town, must be joined in it. And as our
English is a composition of the dead and living tongues, there is
required a perfect knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of
the old German, the French, and the Italian; and, to help all these, a
conversation with those authors of our own, who have written with the
fewest faults in prose and verse. But how barbarously we yet write and
speak, your lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own
English. For I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I
write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar, and nonsense
couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism; and have no other way
to clear my doubts, but by translating my English into Latin, and
thereby trying what sense the words will bear in a more stable
language. I am desirous, if it were possible, that we might all write
with the same certainty of words, and purity of phrase, to which the
Italians first arrived, and after them the French; at least that we
might advance so far, as our tongue is capable of such a standard. It
would mortify an Englishman to consider, that from the time of Boccace
and of Petrarch, the Italian has varied very little; and that the
English of Chaucer, their contemporary, is not to be understood
without the help of an old dictionary. But their Goth and Vandal had
the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage
to be founded on the Dutch[4]. We are full of monosyllables, and those
clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all
which are enemies to a sounding language. It is true, that to supply
our poverty, we have trafficked with our neighbour nations; by which
means we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in religions; but
to order them, and make them useful after their admission, is the
difficulty. A greater progress has been made in this, since his
majesty's return, than, perhaps, since the conquest to his time. But
the better part of the work remains unfinished; and that which has
been done already, since it has only been in the practice of some few
writers, must be digested into rules and method, before it can be
profitable to the general. Will your lordship give me leave to speak
out at last? and to acquaint the world, that from your encouragement
and patronage, we may one day expect to speak and write a language,
worthy of the English wit, and which foreigners may not disdain to
learn? Your birth, your education, your natural endowments, the former
employments which you have had abroad, and that which, to the joy of
good men you now exercise at home, seem all to conspire to this
design: the genius of the nation seems to call you out as it were by
name, to polish and adorn your native language, and to take from it
the reproach of its barbarity. It is upon this encouragement that I
have adventured on the following critique, which I humbly present you,
together with the play; in which, though I have not had the leisure,
nor indeed the encouragement, to proceed to the principal subject of
it, which is the words and thoughts that are suitable to tragedy; yet
the whole discourse has a tendency that way, and is preliminary to it.
In what I have already done, I doubt not but I have contradicted some
of my former opinions, in my loose essays of the like nature; but of
this, I dare affirm, that it is the fruit of my riper age and
experience, and that self-love, or envy have no part in it. The
application to English authors is my own, and therein, perhaps, I may
have erred unknowingly; but the foundation of the rules is reason, and
the authority of those living critics who have had the honour to be
known to you abroad, as well as of the ancients, who are not less of
your acquaintance. Whatsoever it be, I submit it to your lordship's
judgment, from which I never will appeal, unless it be to your good
nature, and your candour. If you can allow an hour of leisure to the
perusal of it, I shall be fortunate that I could so long entertain
you; if not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to know, that your
time was more usefully employed upon the public. I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most Obedient,
Humble Servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
Footnotes:
1. This was the famous Earl of Sunderland, who, being a Tory under the
reign of Charles, a Papist in that of his successor, and a Whig in
that of William, was a favourite minister of all these monarchs. He
was a man of eminent abilities; and our author shews a high opinion
of his taste, by abstaining from the gross flattery, which was then
the fashionable stile of dedication.
2. Alluding to the institution of an academy for fixing the language,
often proposed about this period.
3. Author of a treatise on the French language.
4. Dutch is here used generally for the High Dutch or German.
THE
PREFACE.
The poet Æschylus was held in the same veneration by the Athenians of
after-ages, as Shakespeare is by us; and Longinus has judged, in
favour of him, that he had a noble boldness of expression, and that
his imaginations were lofty and heroic; but, on the other side,
Quintilian affirms, that he was daring to extravagance. It is certain,
that he affected pompous words, and that his sense was obscured by
figures; notwithstanding these imperfections, the value of his
writings after his decease was such, that his countrymen ordained an
equal reward to those poets, who could alter his plays to be acted on
the theatre, with those whose productions were wholly new, and of
their own. The case is not the same in England; though the
difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for
Shakespeare much more just, than that of the Grecians for Æschylus. In
the age of that poet, the Greek tongue was arrived to its full
perfection; they had then amongst them an exact standard of writing
and of speaking: the English language is not capable of such a
certainty; and we are at present so far from it, that we are wanting
in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. Yet it must be
allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much
refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his words, and more of
his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we
understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style
is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as
it is obscure. It is true, that in his latter plays he had worn off
somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy, which I have undertaken to
correct, was in all probability one of his first endeavours on the
stage.
The original story was written by one Lollius a Lombard, in Latin
verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a
satire on the inconstancy of women: I find nothing of it among the
ancients; not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned.
Shakespeare, (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing,
modelled it into that play, which is now called by the name of
"Troilus and Cressida," but so lamely is it left to us, that it is not
divided into acts; which fault I ascribe to the actors who printed it
after Shakespeare's death; and that too so carelessly, that a more
uncorrected copy I never saw. For the play itself, the author seems to
have begun it with some fire; the characters of Pandarus and
Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his task,
after an entrance or two, he lets them fall: and the latter part of
the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and trumpets,
excursions and alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the
tragedy, are left alive; Cressida is false, and is not punished. Yet,
after all, because the play was Shakespeare's, and that there appeared
in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I undertook
to remove that heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay
wholly buried. Accordingly, I new modelled the plot, threw out many
unnecessary persons, improved those characters which were begun and
left unfinished, as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and Thersites, and
added that of Andromache. After this, I made, with no small trouble,
an order and connection of all the scenes; removing them from the
places where they were inartificially set; and, though it was
impossible to keep them all unbroken, because the scene must be
sometimes in the city and sometimes in the camp, yet I have so ordered
them, that there is a coherence of them with one another, and a
dependence on the main design; no leaping from Troy to the Grecian
tents, and thence back again, in the same act, but a due proportion of
time allowed for every motion. I need not say that I have refined his
language, which before was obsolete; but I am willing to acknowledge,
that as I have often drawn his English nearer to our times, so I have
sometimes conformed my own to his; and consequently, the language is
not altogether so pure as it is significant. The scenes of Pandarus
and Cressida, of Troilus and Pandarus, of Andromache with Hector and
the Trojans, in the second act, are wholly new; together with that of
Nestor and Ulysses with Thersites, and that of Thersites with Ajax and
Achilles. I will not weary my reader with the scenes which are added
of Pandarus and the lovers, in the third, and those of Thersites,
which are wholly altered; but I cannot omit the last scene in it,
which is almost half the act, betwixt Troilus and Hector. The occasion
of raising it was hinted to me by Mr Betterton; the contrivance and
working of it was my own. They who think to do me an injury, by
saying, that it is an imitation of the scene betwixt Brutus and
Cassius, do me an honour, by supposing I could imitate the
incomparable Shakespeare; but let me add, that if Shakespeare's scene,
or that faulty copy of it in "Amintor and Melantius," had never been,
yet Euripides had furnished me with an excellent example in his
"Iphigenia," between Agamemnon and Menelaus; and from thence, indeed,
the last turn of it is borrowed. The occasion which Shakespeare,
Euripides, and Fletcher, have all taken, is the same,--grounded upon
friendship; and the quarrel of two virtuous men, raised by natural
degrees to the extremity of passion, is conducted in all three, to the
declination of the same passion, and concludes with a warm renewing of
their friendship. But the particular ground-work which Shakespeare has
taken, is incomparably the best; because he has not only chosen two of
the greatest heroes of their age, but has likewise interested the
liberty of Rome, and their own honours, who were the redeemers of it,
in this debate. And if he has made Brutus, who was naturally a patient
man, to fly into excess at first, let it be remembered in his defence,
that, just before, he has received the news of Portia's death; whom
the poet, on purpose neglecting a little chronology, supposes to have
died before Brutus, only to give him an occasion of being more easily
exasperated. Add to this, that the injury he had received from
Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy
man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would
be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though
naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised
the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of
the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis,
and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, unless Agamemnon
delivered up his daughter to be sacrificed: he refuses; his brother
Menelaus urges the public safety; the father defends himself by
arguments of natural affection, and hereupon they quarrel. Agamemnon
is at last convinced, and promises to deliver up Iphigenia, but so
passionately laments his loss, that Menelaus is grieved to have been
the occasion of it, and, by a return of kindness, offers to intercede
for him with the Grecians, that his daughter might not be sacrificed.
But my friend Mr Rymer has so largely, and with so much judgment,
described this scene, in comparing it with that of Melantius and
Amintor, that it is superfluous to say more of it; I only named the
heads of it, that any reasonable man might judge it was from thence I
modelled my scene betwixt Troilus and Hector. I will conclude my
reflections on it, with a passage of Longinus, concerning Plato's
imitation of Homer: "We ought not to regard a good imitation as a
theft, but as a beautiful idea of him who undertakes to imitate, by
forming himself on the invention and the work of another man; for he
enters into the lists like a new wrestler, to dispute the prize with
the former champion. This sort of emulation, says Hesiod, is
honourable, [Greek: Agathê d' eris esti Brotoisin]--when we combat for
victory with a hero, and are not without glory even in our overthrow.
Those great men, whom we propose to ourselves as patterns of our
imitation, serve us as a torch, which is lifted up before us, to
enlighten our passage, and often elevate our thoughts as high as the
conception we have of our author's genius. "
I have been so tedious in three acts, that I shall contract myself in
the two last. The beginning scenes of the fourth act are either added
or changed wholly by me; the middle of it is Shakespeare altered, and
mingled with my own; three or four of the last scenes are altogether
new. And the whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my
own additions.
But having written so much for imitation of what is excellent, in that
part of the preface which related only to myself, methinks it would
neither be unprofitable nor unpleasant to inquire how far we ought to
imitate our own poets, Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their tragedies;
and this will occasion another inquiry, how those two writers differ
between themselves: but since neither of these questions can be
solved, unless some measures be first taken, by which we may be
enabled to judge truly of their writings, I shall endeavour, as
briefly as I can, to discover the grounds and reason of all criticism,
applying them in this place only to Tragedy. Aristotle with his
interpreters, and Horace, and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe
my lights; and what part soever of my own plays, or of this, which no
mending could make regular, shall fall under the condemnation of such
judges, it would be impudence in me to defend. I think it no shame to
retract my errors, and am well pleased to suffer in the cause, if the
art may be improved at my expence: I therefore proceed to
THE GROUNDS OF CRITICISM IN TRAGEDY.
Tragedy is thus defined by Aristotle (omitting what I thought
unnecessary in his definition). It is an imitation of one entire,
great, and probable action; not told, but represented; which, by
moving in us fear and pity, is conducive to the purging of those two
passions in our minds. More largely thus: Tragedy describes or paints
an action, which action must have all the properties above named.
First, it must be one or single; that is, it must not be a history of
one man's life, suppose of Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, but
one single action of theirs. This condemns all Shakespeare's
historical plays, which are rather chronicles represented, than
tragedies; and all double action of plays. As, to avoid a satire upon
others, I will make bold with my own "Marriage A-la-mode," where there
are manifestly two actions, not depending on one another; but in
"OEdipus" there cannot properly be said to be two actions, because the
love of Adrastus and Eurydice has a necessary dependence on the
principal design into which it is woven. The natural reason of this
rule is plain; for two different independent actions distract the
attention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy
the intention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity,
and one of his actions he comical, the other tragical, the former will
divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose.
Therefore, as in perspective, so in tragedy, there must be a point of
sight in which all the lines terminate; otherwise the eye wanders, and
the work is false. This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But
Terence made an innovation in the Roman: all his plays have double
actions; for it was his custom to translate two Greek comedies, and to
weave them into one of his, yet so, that both their actions were
comical, and one was principal, the other but secondary or
subservient. And this has obtained on the English stage, to give us
the pleasure of variety.
As the action ought to be one, it ought, as such, to have order in it;
that is, to have a natural beginning, a middle, and an end. A natural
beginning, says Aristotle, is that which could not necessarily have
been placed after another thing; and so of the rest. This
consideration will arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish
plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first
might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but
by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a
farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where
there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason
be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought
likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the
play should naturally have ended with the death of Zanger, and not
have given us the grace-cup after dinner, of Solyman's divorce from
Roxolana.
The following properties of the action are so easy, that they need not
my explaining. It ought to be great, and to consist of great persons,
to distinguish it from comedy, where the action is trivial, and the
persons of inferior rank. The last quality of the action is, that it
ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It is not
necessary that there should be historical truth in it; but always
necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, something that is
more than barely possible; _probable_ being that which succeeds, or
happens, oftener than it misses. To invent therefore a probability and
to make it wonderful, is the most difficult undertaking in the art of
poetry; for that, which is not wonderful, is not great; and that,
which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This
action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to
distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or
scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our passions, fear and
pity.
To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry. Philosophy
instructs, but it performs its work by precept; which is not
delightful, or not so delightful as example. To purge the passions by
example, is therefore the particular instruction which belongs to
tragedy. Rapin, a judicious critic, has observed from Aristotle, that
pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in
mankind; therefore, to cure us of these two, the inventors of tragedy
have chosen to work upon two other passions, which are, fear and pity.
We are wrought to fear, by their setting before our eyes some terrible
example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest
quality; for such an action demonstrates to us, that no condition is
privileged from the turns of fortune; this must of necessity cause
terror in us, and consequently abate our pride. But when we see that
the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such
misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works
us to be helpful to, and tender over, the distressed; which is the
noblest and most godlike of moral virtues, Here it is observable, that
it is absolutely necessary to make a man virtuous, if we desire he
should be pitied: we lament not, but detest, a wicked man; we are glad
when we behold his crimes are punished, and that poetical justice is
done upon him. Euripides was censured by the critics of his time, for
making his chief characters too wicked; for example, Phædra, though
she loved her son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a curse upon
her family for offending Venus, yet was thought too ill a pattern for
the stage. Shall we therefore banish all characters of villainy? I
confess I am not of that opinion; but it is necessary that the hero of
the play be not a villain; that is, the characters, which should move
our pity, ought to have virtuous inclinations, and degrees of moral
goodness in them. As for a perfect character of virtue, it never was
in nature, and therefore there can be no imitation of it; but there
are allays of frailty to be allowed for the chief persons, yet so that
the good which is in them shall outweigh the bad, and consequently
leave room for punishment on the one side, and pity on the other.
After all, if any one will ask me, whether a tragedy cannot be made
upon any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in
us;--Bossu, the best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That
all excellent arts, and particularly that of poetry, have been
invented and brought to perfection by men of a transcendent genius;
and that, therefore, they, who practise afterwards the same arts, are
obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in their writings
the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should
destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly
thus, that no passions in a story are so proper to move our
concernment, as fear and pity; and that it is from our concernment we
receive our pleasure, is undoubted. When the soul becomes agitated
with fear for one character, or hope for another; then it is that we
are pleased in tragedy, by the interest which we take in their
adventures.
Here, therefore, the general answer may be given to the first
question, how far we ought to imitate Shakespeare and Fletcher in
their plots; namely, that we ought to follow them so far only, as they
have copied the excellencies of those who invented and brought to
perfection dramatic poetry; those things only excepted, which
religion, custom of countries, idioms of languages, &c. have altered
in the superstructures, but not in the foundation of the design.
How defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have been in all their plots,
Mr Rymer has discovered in his criticisms. Neither can we, who follow
them, be excused from the same, or greater errors; which are the more
unpardonable in us, because we want their beauties to countervail our
faults. The best of their designs, the most approaching to antiquity,
and the most conducing to move pity, is the "King and no King;" which,
if the farce of Bessus were thrown away, is of that inferior sort of
tragedies, which end with a prosperous event. It is probably derived
from the story of OEdipus, with the character of Alexander the Great,
in his extravagances, given to Arbaces. The taking of this play,
amongst many others, I cannot wholly ascribe to the excellency of the
action; for I find it moving when it is read. It is true, the faults
of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be
denied. The beauties of it must therefore lie either in the lively
touches of the passion; or we must conclude, as I think we may, that
even in imperfect plots there are less degrees of nature, by which
some faint emotions of pity and terror are raised in us; as a less
engine will raise a less proportion of weight, though not so much as
one of Archimedes's making; for nothing can move our nature, but by
some natural reason, which works upon passions. And, since we
acknowledge the effect, there must be something in the cause.
The difference between Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their plottings,
seems to be this; that Shakespeare generally moves more terror, and
Fletcher more compassion: for the first had a more masculine, a
bolder, and more fiery genius; the second, a more soft and womanish.
In the mechanic beauties of the plot, which are the observation of the
three unities, time, place, and action, they are both deficient; but
Shakespeare most. Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his comedies,
yet one of Shakespeare's was regular before him; which is, "The Merry
Wives of Windsor. " For what remains concerning the design, you are to
be referred to our English critic. That method which he has prescribed
to raise it, from mistake, or ignorance of the crime, is certainly the
best, though it is not the only; for amongst all the tragedies of
Sophocles, there is but one, OEdipus, which is wholly built after that
model.
After the plot, which is the foundation of the play, the next thing to
which we ought to apply our judgment, is the manners; for now the poet
comes to work above ground. The ground-work, indeed, is that which is
most necessary, as that upon which depends the firmness of the whole
fabric; yet it strikes not the eye so much, as the beauties or
imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, and the expressions.
The first rule which Bossu prescribes to the writer of an heroic poem,
and which holds too by the same reason in all dramatic poetry, is to
make the moral of the work; that is, to lay down to yourself what that
precept of morality shall be, which you would insinuate into the
people; as, namely, Homer's (which I have copied in my "Conquest of
Granada,") was, that union preserves a commonwealth and discord
destroys it.
_Adr. _ Off, madam, or we perish both; behold
I'm not unarmed, my poniard's in my hand;
Therefore, away.
_Eur. _ I'll guard your life with mine.
_Cre. _ Die both, then; there is now no time for dallying.
[_Kills_ EURYDICE.
_Eur. _ Ah, prince, farewell! farewell, my dear Adrastus! [_Dies. _
_Adr. _ Unheard-of monster! eldest-born of hell!
Down, to thy primitive flame. [_Stabs_ CREON.
_Cre. _ Help, soldiers, help;
Revenge me.
_Adr. _ More; yet more; a thousand wounds!
I'll stamp thee still, thus, to the gaping furies.
[ADRASTUS _falls, killed by the soldiers. _
_Enter_ HÆMON, _Guards, with_ ALCANDER _and_ PYRACMON _bound; the
Assassins are driven off. _
O Hæmon, I am slain; nor need I name
The inhuman author of all villainies;
There he lies gasping.
_Cre. _ If I must plunge in flames,
Burn first my arm; base instrument, unfit
To act the dictates of my daring mind;
Burn, burn for ever, O weak substitute
Of that, the god, ambition. [_Dies. _
_Adr. _ She's gone;--O deadly marksman, in the heart!
Yet in the pangs of death she grasps my hand;
Her lips too tremble, as if she would speak
Her last farewell. --O, OEdipus, thy fall
Is great; and nobly now thou goest attended!
They talk of heroes, and celestial beauties,
And wondrous pleasures in the other world;
Let me but find her there, I ask no more. [_Dies. _
_Enter a Captain to_ HÆMON; _with_ TERESIAS _and_ MANTO.
_Cap. _ O, sir, the queen Jocasta, swift and wild,
As a robbed tygress bounding o'er the woods,
Has acted murders that amaze mankind;
In twisted gold I saw her daughters hang
On the bed-royal, and her little sons
Stabbed through the breasts upon the bloody pillows.
_Hæm. _ Relentless heavens! is then the fate of Laius
Never to be atoned? How sacred ought
Kings' lives be held, when but the death of one
Demands an empire's blood for expiation!
But see! the furious mad Jocasta's here.
_Scene draws, and discovers_ JOCASTA _held by her women and stabbed
in many places of her Bosom, her Hair dishevelled, her Children
slain upon the Bed. _
Was ever yet a sight of so much horror
And pity brought to view!
_Joc. _ Ah, cruel women!
Will you not let me take my last farewell
Of those dear babes? O let me run, and seal
My melting soul upon their bubbling wounds!
I'll print upon their coral mouths such kisses,
As shall recal their wandering spirits home.
Let me go, let me go, or I will tear you piece-meal.
Help, Hæmon, help;
Help, OEdipus; help, Gods; Jocasta dies.
_Enter_ OEDIPUS _above. _
_OEdip. _ I've found a window, and I thank the gods
'Tis quite unbarred; sure, by the distant noise,
The height will fit my fatal purpose well.
_Joc. _ What hoa, my OEdipus! see where he stands!
His groping ghost is lodged upon a tower,
Nor can it find the road. Mount, mount, my soul;
I'll wrap thy shivering spirit in lambent flames; and so we'll sail. --
But see! we're landed on the happy coast;
And all the golden strands are covered o'er
With glorious gods, that come to try our cause.
Jove, Jove, whose majesty now sinks me down,
He, who himself burns in unlawful fires,
Shall judge, and shall acquit us. O, 'tis done;
'Tis fixt by fate, upon record divine;
And OEdipus shall now be ever mine. [_Dies. _
_OEdip. _ Speak, Hæmon; what has fate been doing there?
What dreadful deed has mad Jocasta done?
_Hæm. _ The queen herself, and all your wretched offspring,
Are by her fury slain.
_OEdip. _ By all my woes,
She has outdone me in revenge and murder,
And I should envy her the sad applause:
But oh, my children! oh, what have they done?
This was not like the mercy of the heavens,
To set her madness on such cruelty:
This stirs me more than all my sufferings,
And with my last breath I must call you tyrants.
_Hæm. _ What mean you, sir?
_OEdip. _ Jocasta! lo, I come.
O Laius, Labdacus, and all you spirits
Of the Cadmean race, prepare to meet me,
All weeping ranged along the gloomy shore;
Extend your arms to embrace me, for I come.
May all the gods, too, from their battlements,
Behold and wonder at a mortal's daring;
And, when I knock the goal of dreadful death,
Shout and applaud me with a clap of thunder.
Once more, thus winged by horrid fate, I come,
Swift as a falling meteor; lo, I fly,
And thus go downwards to the darker sky.
[_Thunder. He flings himself from the Window:
The Thebans gather about his Body. _
_Hæm. _ O prophet, OEdipus is now no more!
O cursed effect of the most deep despair!
_Tir. _ Cease your complaints, and bear his body hence;
The dreadful sight will daunt the drooping Thebans,
Whom heaven decrees to raise with peace and glory.
Yet, by these terrible examples warned,
The sacred Fury thus alarms the world:--
Let none, though ne'er so virtuous, great, and high,
Be judged entirely blest before they die. [_Exeunt. _
Footnotes:
1. Imitated from the commencement of the plague in the first book of
the _Iliad_.
2. The story of the Sphinx is generally known: She was a monster, who
delighted in putting a riddle to the Thebans, and slaying each poor
dull Boeotian, who could not interpret it. OEdipus guessed the
enigma, on which the monster destroyed herself for shame. Thus he
attained the throne of Thebes, and the bed of Jocasta.
3. To _dare a lark_, is to fly a hawk, or present some other object of
fear, to engage the bird's attention, and prevent it from taking
wing, while the fowler draws his net:
Farewell, nobility; let his grace go forward,
And dare us with his cap, like larks.
_Henry VIII. _ Act III. Scene II.
4. The carelessness of OEdipus about the fate of his predecessor is
very unnatural; but to such expedients dramatists are often
reduced, to communicate to their audience what must have been known
to the persons of the drama.
5. _Start_ is here, and in p. 136, used for _started_, being borrowed
from _sterte_, the old perfect of the verb.
6. It is a common idea, that falling stars, as they are called, are
converted into a sort of jelly. "Among the rest, I had often the
opportunity to see the seeming shooting of the stars from place to
place, and sometimes they appeared as if falling to the ground,
where I once or twice found a white jelly-like matter among the
grass, which I imagined to be distilled from them; and hence
foolishly conjectured, that the stars themselves must certainly
consist of a like substance. "
7. Serpens, serpentem vorans, fit draco. Peccata, peccatis
superaddita, monstra fiunt. _Hieroglyphica animalium, per
Archibaldum Simsonum Dalkethensis Ecclesiæ pastorem, p. 95. _
8. The idea of this sacred grove seems to be taken from that of
Colonus near Athens, dedicated to the Eumenides, which gives name
to Sophocles's second tragedy. Seneca describes the scene of the
incantation in the following lines:
_Est procul ab urbe lucus illicibus niger
Dircæa circa vallis irriguæ loca.
Cupressus altis exerens silvis caput
Virente semper alligat trunco nemus;
Curvosque tendit quercus et putres situ
Annosa ramos: hujus abrupit latus
Edax vetustas: illa jam fessa cadens
Radice, fulta pendet aliena trabe.
Amara baccas laurus; et tiliæ leves
Et Paphia myrtus; et per immensum mare
Motura remos alnus; et Phoebo obvia
Enode Zephyris pinus opponens latus.
Medio stat ingens arbor, atque umbra gravi
Silvas minores urget; et magno ambitu
Diffusa ramos, una defendit nemus.
Tristis sub illa, lucis et Phoebi inscius
Restagnat humor, frigore æterno rigens.
Limosa pigrum circuit fontem palus.
Actus Tertius. Scena prima. _
This diffuse account of the different kinds of forest trees, which
composed the enchanted grove, is very inartificially put into the
mouth of Creon, who, notwithstanding the horrible message which he
has to deliver to OEdipus from the ghost, finds time to solace the
king with this long description of a place, which he doubtless knew
as well as Creon himself. Dryden, on the contrary, has, with great
address, rendered the description necessary, by the violence
committed within the sacred precinct, and turned it, not upon
minute and rhetorical detail, but upon the general awful properties
of this consecrated ground. Lucan's fine description of the
Massyllian forest, and that of the enchanted grove in Tasso, have
been both consulted by our author. ]
9. The quarrel betwixt OEdipus and the prophet, who announces his
guilt, is imitated from a similar scene in the OEdipus Tyrannus.
10. Borrowed from Shakespeare;
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
_Richard II. _
EPILOGUE.
What Sophocles could undertake alone,
Our poets found a work for more than one;
And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
A weight that bent even Seneca's strong muse,
And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse.
So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
So much two consuls yield to one just king.
Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
The mightiest machines that can mount a play.
How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
You can but damn for one poor spot of earth;
And when your children find your judgment such,
They'll scorn their sires, and wish themselves born Dutch;
Each haughty poet will infer with ease,
How much his wit must under-write to please.
As some strong churl would, brandishing, advance
The monumental sword that conquered France;
So you, by judging this, your judgment teach,
Thus far you like, that is, thus far you reach.
Since then the vote of full two thousand years
Has crowned this plot, and all the dead are theirs,
Think it a debt you pay, not alms you give,
And, in your own defence, let this play live.
Think them not vain, when Sophocles is shown,
To praise his worth they humbly doubt their own.
Yet as weak states each other's power assure,
Weak poets by conjunction are secure.
Their treat is what your palates relish most,
Charm! song! and show! a murder and a ghost!
We know not what you can desire or hope,
To please you more, but burning of a Pope. [1]
Footnote:
1. The burning a Pope in effigy, was a ceremony performed upon the
anniversary of queen Elizabeth's coronation. When parties ran high
betwixt the courtiers and opposition, in the latter part of Charles
the II. reign, these anti-papal solemnities were conducted by the
latter, with great state and expence, and employed as engines to
excite the popular resentment against the duke of York, and his
religion. The following curious description of one of these
tumultuary processions, in 1679, was extracted by Ralph, from a
very scarce pamphlet; it is the ceremony referred to in the
epilogue; and it shall be given at length, as the subject is
frequently alluded to by Dryden.
[Illustration:
The Solemn Mock Procession of the POPE, Cardinals, Jesuits,
Friars, &c.
Through the CITY OF LONDON November 17. th 1679.
London Published January 1808 by William Miller, Albemarle Street.
Dryden Works to face Vol 6th page 223]
"On the said 17th of November, 1679, the bells, generally, about
the town, began to ring at three o'clock in the morning. At the
approach of the evening, (all things being in readiness) the solemn
procession began, setting forth from Moregate, and so passed, first
to Aldgate, and thence through Leadenhall-street, by the Royal
Exchange, through Cheapside, and so to Temple-bar in the ensuing
order, viz.
"1. Came six whifflers, to clear the way, in pioneer caps, and red
waistcoats.
"2. A bellman ringing, and with a loud (but doleful) voice, crying
out all the way, remember Justice Godfrey.
"3. A dead body, representing justice Godfrey, in a decent black
habit, carried before a jesuit, in black, on horse-back, in
like manner as he was carried by the assassins to Primrose
Hill.
"4. Next after Sir Edmonbury, so mounted, came a priest in a
surplice, with a cope embroidered with dead bones, skeletons,
skulls, and the like, giving pardons very plentifully to all
those who should murder protestants; and proclaiming it
meritorious.
"5. Then a priest in black alone, with a great silver cross.
"6. Four carmelites, in white and black habits.
"7. Four grey-friars, in the proper habits of their order.
"8. Six jesuits, with bloody daggers.
"9. A concert of wind music.
"10. Four bishops, in purple, and lawn sleeves, with a golden
crosier on their breast, and crosier-staves in their hands.
"11. Four other bishops, in _Pontificalibus_, with surplices, and
rich embroidered copes, and golden mitres on their heads.
"12. Six cardinals, in scarlet robes and caps.
"13. The Pope's doctor, _i. e. _ Wakeman,[a] with jesuits-powder in
one hand, and an urinal in the other.
"14. Two priests in surplices, with two golden crosses.
"Lastly, The Pope, in a lofty, glorious pageant, representing a
chair of state, covered with scarlet, richly embroidered and
fringed, and bedecked with golden balls and crosses: At his feet a
cushion of state, and two boys in surplices with white silk
banners, and bloody crucifixes and daggers with an incense pot
before them, censing his holiness, who was arrayed in a splendid
scarlet gown, lined through with ermin, and richly daubed with gold
and silver lace; on his head a triple crown of gold, and a glorious
collar of gold and precious stones, St Peter's keys, a number of
beads, agnus deis, and other catholic trumpery. At his back, his
holiness's privy counsellor, the degraded Seraphim, (_anglice_ the
devil,) frequently caressing, hugging, and whispering him, and oft
times instructing him aloud to destroy his majesty, to forge a
protestant plot, and to fire the city again, to which purpose he
held an infernal torch in his hand.
"The whole procession was attended with 150 flambeaux and lights,
by order; but so many more came in volunteers, as made up some
thousands.
"Never were the balconies, windows, and houses more numerously
lined, or the streets closer throng'd with multitudes of people,
all expressing their abhorrence of Popery, with continual shouts
and exclamations; so that 'tis modestly computed, that, in the
whole progress, there could not be fewer than two hundred thousand
spectators.
"Thus with a slow, and solemn state, they proceeded to Temple Bar;
where with innumerable swarms, the houses seemed to be converted
into heaps of men, and women, and children, for whose diversion
there were provided great variety of excellent fireworks.
"Temple Bar being, since its rebuilding, adorned with four stately
statues, viz. those of Queen Elizabeth and King James, on the
inward, or eastern side, fronting the city; and those of King
Charles the I. of blessed memory, and our present gracious
sovereign, (whom God, in mercy to these nations, long preserve! ) on
the outside, facing towards Westminster; and the statue of Queen
Elizabeth in regard to the day, having on a crown of gilded laurel,
and in her hand a golden shield, with this motto inscribed: _The
Protestant Religion, and Magna Charta_, and flambeaux placed before
it. The Pope being brought up near thereunto, the following song,
alluding to the posture of those statues, was sung in parts,
between one representing the English Cardinal (_Howard_)[b] and
others acting the people:
CARDINAL NORFOLK.
From York to London town we come,
To talk of Popish ire,
To reconcile you all to Rome,
And prevent Smithfield fire.
PLEBEIANS.
Cease, cease, thou Norfolk Cardinal,
See yonder stands Queen Bess;
Who sav'd our souls from Popish thrall:
O Queen Bess, Queen Bess, Queen Bess!
Your Popish plot, and Smithfield threat,
We do not fear at all;
For lo! beneath Queen Bess's feet,
You fall, you fall, you fall.
"'Tis true, our King's on t'other side,
A looking tow'rds Whitehall:
But could we bring him round about;
He'd counterplot you all.
"Then down with James, and set up Charles,
On good Queen Bess's side;
That all true Commons, Lords, and Earls,
May wish him a fruitfull bride. "
Now God preserve great Charles our King,
And eke all honest men;
And traitors all to justice bring:
Amen, Amen, Amen.
"Then having entertained the thronging spectators for some time,
with the ingenious fireworks, a vast bonfire being prepared, just
over against the inner temple gate, his holiness, after some
compliments and reluctancies, was decently toppled from all his
grandeur, into the impartial flames; the crafty devil leaving his
infallibilityship in the lurch, and laughing as heartily at his
deserved ignominious end, as subtle jesuits do at the ruin of
bigotted Lay Catholics, whom themselves have drawn in; or, as
credulous Coleman's abettors did, when, with pretences of a
reprieve at last gasp, they had made him vomit up his soul with a
lye, and sealed his dangerous chops with a halter. This justice was
attended with a prodigious shout, that might be heard far beyond
Somerset-house; and 'twas believed the echo, by continued
reverberations, before it ceased, reached _Scotland_, (the Duke was
then there;) France, and even Rome, itself, damping them all with a
dreadfull astonishment. "
From a very rare broadside, in the collection made by Narcissus
Luttrell.
Footnotes:
a. Sir George Wakeman was physician to the queen, and a catholic.
He was tried for the memorable Popish plot and acquitted, the
credit of the witnesses being now blasted, by the dying
declarations of those who suffered.
b. Philip, the 3d son of Henry Earl of Arundel, and brother to the
Duke of Norfolk, created a Cardinal in 1675. He was a second
cousin of Lady Elizabeth Howard, afterwards the wife of our
poet.
* * * * *
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:
OR,
TRUTH FOUND TOO LATE.
A
TRAGEDY.
_Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus. _
HOR.
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
The story of Troilus and Cressida was one of the more modern fables,
engrafted, during the dark ages, on "the tale of Troy divine. "
Chaucer, who made it the subject of a long and somewhat dull poem,
professes to have derived his facts from an author of the middle ages,
called Lollius, to whom he often refers, and who he states to have
written in Latin. Tyrwhitt disputes the existence of this personage,
and supposes Chaucer's original to have been the _Philostrato dell'
amorose fatiche de Troilo,_ a work of Boccacio. But Chaucer was never
reluctant in acknowledging obligations to his contemporaries, when
such really existed; and Mr Tyrwhitt's opinion seems to be
successfully combated by Mr Godwin, in his "Life of Chaucer. " The
subject, whencesoever derived, was deemed by Shakespeare worthy of the
stage; and his tragedy, of Troilus and Cressida, contains so many
scenes of distinguished excellence, that it could have been wished our
author had mentioned it with more veneration. In truth, even the
partiality of an editor must admit, that on this occasion, the modern
improvements of Dryden shew to very little advantage beside the
venerable structure to which they have been attached. The arrangement
of the plot is, indeed, more artificially modelled; but the preceding
age, during which the infidelity of Cressida was proverbially current,
could as little have endured a catastrophe turning upon the discovery
of her innocence, as one which should have exhibited Helen chaste, or
Hector a coward. In Dryden's time, the prejudice against this
unfortunate female was probably forgotten, as her history had become
less popular. There appears, however, something too nice and
fastidious in the critical rule, which exacts that the hero and
heroine of the drama shall be models of virtuous perfection. In the
most interesting of the ancient plays we find this limitation
neglected, with great success; and it would have been more natural to
have brought about the catastrophe on the plan of Shakespeare and
Chaucer, than by the forced mistake in which Dryden's lovers are
involved, and the stale expedient of Cressida's killing herself, to
evince her innocence. For the superior order, and regard to the unity
of place, with which Dryden has new-modelled the scenes and entries,
he must be allowed the full praise which he claims in the preface.
In the dialogue, considered as distinct from the plot, Dryden appears
not to have availed himself fully of the treasures of his predecessor.
He has pitilessly retrenched the whole scene, in the 3d act, between
Ulysses and Achilles, full of the purest and most admirable moral
precept, expressed in the most poetical and dignified language[1].
Probably this omission arose from Dryden's desire to simplify the
plot, by leaving out the intrigues of the Grecian chiefs, and limiting
the interest to the amours of Troilus and Cressida. But he could not
be insensible to the merit of this scene, though he has supplied it by
one far inferior, in which Ulysses is introduced, using gross flattery
to the buffoon Thersites. In the latter part of the play, Dryden has
successfully exerted his own inventive powers. The quarrelling scene
between Hector and Troilus is very impressive, and no bad imitation of
that betwixt Brutus and Cassius, with which Dryden seems to have been
so much charmed, and which he has repeatedly striven to emulate. The
parting of Hector and Andromache contains some affecting passages,
some of which may be traced back to Homer; although the pathos, upon
the whole, is far inferior to that of the noted scene in the Iliad,
and destitute of the noble simplicity of the Grecian bard.
Mr Godwin has justly remarked, that the delicacy of Chaucer's ancient
tale has suffered even in the hands of Shakespeare; but in those of
Dryden it has undergone a far deeper deterioration. Whatever is coarse
and naked in Shakespeare, has been dilated into ribaldry by the poet
laureat of Charles the second; and the character of Pandarus, in
particular, is so grossly heightened, as to disgrace even the obliging
class to whom that unfortunate procurer has bequeathed his name. So
far as this play is to be considered as an alteration of Shakespeare,
I fear it must be allowed, that our author has suppressed some of his
finest poetry, and exaggerated some of his worst faults.
Troilus and Cressida was published in 1679.
Footnote:
1. I need only recall to the reader's remembrance the following
beautiful passage, inculcating the unabating energy necessary to
maintain, in the race of life, the ground which has been already
gained.
_Ulys. _ Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes:
These scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: Perséverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost. --
Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewel goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,--
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;
Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
ROBERT,
EARL OF SUNDERLAND[1],
PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY'S
MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY-COUNCIL, &C.
MY LORD,
Since I cannot promise you much of poetry in my play, it is but
reasonable that I should secure you from any part of it in my
dedication. And indeed I cannot better distinguish the exactness of
your taste from that of other men, than by the plainness and sincerity
of my address. I must keep my hyperboles in reserve for men of other
understandings. An hungry appetite after praise, and a strong
digestion of it, will bear the grossness of that diet; but one of so
critical a judgment as your lordship, who can set the bounds of just
and proper in every subject, would give me small encouragement for so
bold an undertaking. I more than suspect, my lord, that you would not
do common justice to yourself; and, therefore, were I to give that
character of you, which I think you truly merit, I would make my
appeal from your lordship to the reader, and would justify myself from
flattery by the public voice, whatever protestation you might enter to
the contrary. But I find I am to take other measures with your
lordship; I am to stand upon my guard with you, and to approach you as
warily as Horace did Augustus:
_Cui malè si palpere, recalcitrat undique tutus. _
An ill-timed, or an extravagant commendation, would not pass upon you;
but you would keep off such a dedicator at arms-end, and send him back
with his encomiums to this lord, or that lady, who stood in need of
such trifling merchandise. You see, my lord, what an awe you have upon
me, when I dare not offer you that incense which would be acceptable
to other patrons; but am forced to curb myself from ascribing to you
those honours, which even an enemy could not deny you. Yet I must
confess, I never practised that virtue of moderation (which is
properly your character) with so much reluctancy as now: for it
hinders me from being true to my own knowledge, in not witnessing your
worth, and deprives me of the only means which I had left, to shew the
world that true honour and uninterested respect which I have always
paid you. I would say somewhat, if it were possible which might
distinguish that veneration I have for you, from the flatteries of
those who adore your fortune. But the eminence of your condition, in
this particular, is my unhappiness; for it renders whatever I would
say suspected. Professions of service, submissions, and attendance,
are the practice of all men to the great; and commonly they, who have
the least sincerity, perform them best; as they, who are least engaged
in love, have their tongues the freest to counterfeit a passion. For
my own part, I never could shake off the rustic bashfulness which
hangs upon my nature; but, valuing myself at as little as I am worth,
have been afraid to render even the common duties of respect to those
who are in power. The ceremonious visits, which are generally paid on
such occasions, are not my talent. They may be real even in courtiers,
but they appear with such a face of interest, that a modest man would
think himself in danger of having his sincerity mistaken for his
design. My congratulations keep their distance, and pass no farther
than my heart. There it is that I have all the joy imaginable, when I
see true worth rewarded, and virtue uppermost in the world.
If, therefore, there were one to whom I had the honour to be known;
and to know him so perfectly, that I could say, without flattery, he
had all the depth of understanding that was requisite in an able
statesman, and all that honesty which commonly is wanting; that he was
brave without vanity, and knowing without positiveness; that he was
loyal to his prince, and a lover of his country; that his principles
were full of moderation, and all his counsels such as tended to heal,
and not to widen, the breaches of the nation: that in all his
conversation there appeared a native candour, and a desire of doing
good in all his actions: if such an one, whom I have described, were
at the helm; if he had risen by his merits, and were chosen out in the
necessity and pressures of affairs, to remedy our confusions by the
seasonableness of his advice, and to put a stop to our ruin, when we
were just rolling downward to the precipice; I should then
congratulate the age in which I live, for the common safety; I should
not despair of the republic, though Hannibal were at the gates; I
should send up my vows for the success of such an action, as Virgil
did, on the like occasion, for his patron, when he was raising up his
country from the desolations of a civil war:
_Hunc saltem everso juvenem succurrere seclo
Ne, superi, prohibete. _
I know not whither I am running, in this extacy which is now upon me:
I am almost ready to re-assume the ancient rights of poetry; to point
out, and prophecy the man, who was born for no less an undertaking,
and whom posterity shall bless for its accomplishment. Methinks, I am
already taking fire from such a character, and making room for him,
under a borrowed name, amongst the heroes of an epic poem. Neither
could mine, or some more happy genius, want encouragement under such a
patron:
_Pollio amat nostram, quamvis sit rustica, musam. _
But these are considerations afar off, my lord: the former part of the
prophecy must be first accomplished; the quiet of the nation must be
secured; and a mutual trust, betwixt prince and people, be renewed;
and then this great and good man will have leisure for the ornaments
of peace; and make our language as much indebted to his care, as the
French is to the memory of their famous Richelieu[2]. You know, my
lord, how low he laid the foundations of so great a work; that he
began it with a grammar and a dictionary; without which all those
remarks and observations, which have since been made, had been
performed to as little purpose, as it would be to consider the
furniture of the rooms, before the contrivance of the house. Propriety
must first be stated, ere any measures of elegance can be taken.
Neither is one Vaugelas sufficient for such a work[3]. It was the
employment of the whole academy for many years; for the perfect
knowledge of a tongue was never attained by any single person. The
court, the college, and the town, must be joined in it. And as our
English is a composition of the dead and living tongues, there is
required a perfect knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of
the old German, the French, and the Italian; and, to help all these, a
conversation with those authors of our own, who have written with the
fewest faults in prose and verse. But how barbarously we yet write and
speak, your lordship knows, and I am sufficiently sensible in my own
English. For I am often put to a stand, in considering whether what I
write be the idiom of the tongue, or false grammar, and nonsense
couched beneath that specious name of Anglicism; and have no other way
to clear my doubts, but by translating my English into Latin, and
thereby trying what sense the words will bear in a more stable
language. I am desirous, if it were possible, that we might all write
with the same certainty of words, and purity of phrase, to which the
Italians first arrived, and after them the French; at least that we
might advance so far, as our tongue is capable of such a standard. It
would mortify an Englishman to consider, that from the time of Boccace
and of Petrarch, the Italian has varied very little; and that the
English of Chaucer, their contemporary, is not to be understood
without the help of an old dictionary. But their Goth and Vandal had
the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage
to be founded on the Dutch[4]. We are full of monosyllables, and those
clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all
which are enemies to a sounding language. It is true, that to supply
our poverty, we have trafficked with our neighbour nations; by which
means we abound as much in words, as Amsterdam does in religions; but
to order them, and make them useful after their admission, is the
difficulty. A greater progress has been made in this, since his
majesty's return, than, perhaps, since the conquest to his time. But
the better part of the work remains unfinished; and that which has
been done already, since it has only been in the practice of some few
writers, must be digested into rules and method, before it can be
profitable to the general. Will your lordship give me leave to speak
out at last? and to acquaint the world, that from your encouragement
and patronage, we may one day expect to speak and write a language,
worthy of the English wit, and which foreigners may not disdain to
learn? Your birth, your education, your natural endowments, the former
employments which you have had abroad, and that which, to the joy of
good men you now exercise at home, seem all to conspire to this
design: the genius of the nation seems to call you out as it were by
name, to polish and adorn your native language, and to take from it
the reproach of its barbarity. It is upon this encouragement that I
have adventured on the following critique, which I humbly present you,
together with the play; in which, though I have not had the leisure,
nor indeed the encouragement, to proceed to the principal subject of
it, which is the words and thoughts that are suitable to tragedy; yet
the whole discourse has a tendency that way, and is preliminary to it.
In what I have already done, I doubt not but I have contradicted some
of my former opinions, in my loose essays of the like nature; but of
this, I dare affirm, that it is the fruit of my riper age and
experience, and that self-love, or envy have no part in it. The
application to English authors is my own, and therein, perhaps, I may
have erred unknowingly; but the foundation of the rules is reason, and
the authority of those living critics who have had the honour to be
known to you abroad, as well as of the ancients, who are not less of
your acquaintance. Whatsoever it be, I submit it to your lordship's
judgment, from which I never will appeal, unless it be to your good
nature, and your candour. If you can allow an hour of leisure to the
perusal of it, I shall be fortunate that I could so long entertain
you; if not, I shall at least have the satisfaction to know, that your
time was more usefully employed upon the public. I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most Obedient,
Humble Servant,
JOHN DRYDEN.
Footnotes:
1. This was the famous Earl of Sunderland, who, being a Tory under the
reign of Charles, a Papist in that of his successor, and a Whig in
that of William, was a favourite minister of all these monarchs. He
was a man of eminent abilities; and our author shews a high opinion
of his taste, by abstaining from the gross flattery, which was then
the fashionable stile of dedication.
2. Alluding to the institution of an academy for fixing the language,
often proposed about this period.
3. Author of a treatise on the French language.
4. Dutch is here used generally for the High Dutch or German.
THE
PREFACE.
The poet Æschylus was held in the same veneration by the Athenians of
after-ages, as Shakespeare is by us; and Longinus has judged, in
favour of him, that he had a noble boldness of expression, and that
his imaginations were lofty and heroic; but, on the other side,
Quintilian affirms, that he was daring to extravagance. It is certain,
that he affected pompous words, and that his sense was obscured by
figures; notwithstanding these imperfections, the value of his
writings after his decease was such, that his countrymen ordained an
equal reward to those poets, who could alter his plays to be acted on
the theatre, with those whose productions were wholly new, and of
their own. The case is not the same in England; though the
difficulties of altering are greater, and our reverence for
Shakespeare much more just, than that of the Grecians for Æschylus. In
the age of that poet, the Greek tongue was arrived to its full
perfection; they had then amongst them an exact standard of writing
and of speaking: the English language is not capable of such a
certainty; and we are at present so far from it, that we are wanting
in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. Yet it must be
allowed to the present age, that the tongue in general is so much
refined since Shakespeare's time, that many of his words, and more of
his phrases, are scarce intelligible. And of those which we
understand, some are ungrammatical, others coarse; and his whole style
is so pestered with figurative expressions, that it is as affected as
it is obscure. It is true, that in his latter plays he had worn off
somewhat of the rust; but the tragedy, which I have undertaken to
correct, was in all probability one of his first endeavours on the
stage.
The original story was written by one Lollius a Lombard, in Latin
verse, and translated by Chaucer into English; intended, I suppose, a
satire on the inconstancy of women: I find nothing of it among the
ancients; not so much as the name Cressida once mentioned.
Shakespeare, (as I hinted) in the apprenticeship of his writing,
modelled it into that play, which is now called by the name of
"Troilus and Cressida," but so lamely is it left to us, that it is not
divided into acts; which fault I ascribe to the actors who printed it
after Shakespeare's death; and that too so carelessly, that a more
uncorrected copy I never saw. For the play itself, the author seems to
have begun it with some fire; the characters of Pandarus and
Thersites, are promising enough; but as if he grew weary of his task,
after an entrance or two, he lets them fall: and the latter part of
the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of drums and trumpets,
excursions and alarms. The chief persons, who give name to the
tragedy, are left alive; Cressida is false, and is not punished. Yet,
after all, because the play was Shakespeare's, and that there appeared
in some places of it the admirable genius of the author, I undertook
to remove that heap of rubbish under which many excellent thoughts lay
wholly buried. Accordingly, I new modelled the plot, threw out many
unnecessary persons, improved those characters which were begun and
left unfinished, as Hector, Troilus, Pandarus, and Thersites, and
added that of Andromache. After this, I made, with no small trouble,
an order and connection of all the scenes; removing them from the
places where they were inartificially set; and, though it was
impossible to keep them all unbroken, because the scene must be
sometimes in the city and sometimes in the camp, yet I have so ordered
them, that there is a coherence of them with one another, and a
dependence on the main design; no leaping from Troy to the Grecian
tents, and thence back again, in the same act, but a due proportion of
time allowed for every motion. I need not say that I have refined his
language, which before was obsolete; but I am willing to acknowledge,
that as I have often drawn his English nearer to our times, so I have
sometimes conformed my own to his; and consequently, the language is
not altogether so pure as it is significant. The scenes of Pandarus
and Cressida, of Troilus and Pandarus, of Andromache with Hector and
the Trojans, in the second act, are wholly new; together with that of
Nestor and Ulysses with Thersites, and that of Thersites with Ajax and
Achilles. I will not weary my reader with the scenes which are added
of Pandarus and the lovers, in the third, and those of Thersites,
which are wholly altered; but I cannot omit the last scene in it,
which is almost half the act, betwixt Troilus and Hector. The occasion
of raising it was hinted to me by Mr Betterton; the contrivance and
working of it was my own. They who think to do me an injury, by
saying, that it is an imitation of the scene betwixt Brutus and
Cassius, do me an honour, by supposing I could imitate the
incomparable Shakespeare; but let me add, that if Shakespeare's scene,
or that faulty copy of it in "Amintor and Melantius," had never been,
yet Euripides had furnished me with an excellent example in his
"Iphigenia," between Agamemnon and Menelaus; and from thence, indeed,
the last turn of it is borrowed. The occasion which Shakespeare,
Euripides, and Fletcher, have all taken, is the same,--grounded upon
friendship; and the quarrel of two virtuous men, raised by natural
degrees to the extremity of passion, is conducted in all three, to the
declination of the same passion, and concludes with a warm renewing of
their friendship. But the particular ground-work which Shakespeare has
taken, is incomparably the best; because he has not only chosen two of
the greatest heroes of their age, but has likewise interested the
liberty of Rome, and their own honours, who were the redeemers of it,
in this debate. And if he has made Brutus, who was naturally a patient
man, to fly into excess at first, let it be remembered in his defence,
that, just before, he has received the news of Portia's death; whom
the poet, on purpose neglecting a little chronology, supposes to have
died before Brutus, only to give him an occasion of being more easily
exasperated. Add to this, that the injury he had received from
Cassius, had long been brooding in his mind; and that a melancholy
man, upon consideration of an affront, especially from a friend, would
be more eager in his passion, than he who had given it, though
naturally more choleric. Euripides, whom I have followed, has raised
the quarrel betwixt two brothers, who were friends. The foundation of
the scene was this: The Grecians were wind-bound at the port of Aulis,
and the oracle had said, that they could not sail, unless Agamemnon
delivered up his daughter to be sacrificed: he refuses; his brother
Menelaus urges the public safety; the father defends himself by
arguments of natural affection, and hereupon they quarrel. Agamemnon
is at last convinced, and promises to deliver up Iphigenia, but so
passionately laments his loss, that Menelaus is grieved to have been
the occasion of it, and, by a return of kindness, offers to intercede
for him with the Grecians, that his daughter might not be sacrificed.
But my friend Mr Rymer has so largely, and with so much judgment,
described this scene, in comparing it with that of Melantius and
Amintor, that it is superfluous to say more of it; I only named the
heads of it, that any reasonable man might judge it was from thence I
modelled my scene betwixt Troilus and Hector. I will conclude my
reflections on it, with a passage of Longinus, concerning Plato's
imitation of Homer: "We ought not to regard a good imitation as a
theft, but as a beautiful idea of him who undertakes to imitate, by
forming himself on the invention and the work of another man; for he
enters into the lists like a new wrestler, to dispute the prize with
the former champion. This sort of emulation, says Hesiod, is
honourable, [Greek: Agathê d' eris esti Brotoisin]--when we combat for
victory with a hero, and are not without glory even in our overthrow.
Those great men, whom we propose to ourselves as patterns of our
imitation, serve us as a torch, which is lifted up before us, to
enlighten our passage, and often elevate our thoughts as high as the
conception we have of our author's genius. "
I have been so tedious in three acts, that I shall contract myself in
the two last. The beginning scenes of the fourth act are either added
or changed wholly by me; the middle of it is Shakespeare altered, and
mingled with my own; three or four of the last scenes are altogether
new. And the whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my
own additions.
But having written so much for imitation of what is excellent, in that
part of the preface which related only to myself, methinks it would
neither be unprofitable nor unpleasant to inquire how far we ought to
imitate our own poets, Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their tragedies;
and this will occasion another inquiry, how those two writers differ
between themselves: but since neither of these questions can be
solved, unless some measures be first taken, by which we may be
enabled to judge truly of their writings, I shall endeavour, as
briefly as I can, to discover the grounds and reason of all criticism,
applying them in this place only to Tragedy. Aristotle with his
interpreters, and Horace, and Longinus, are the authors to whom I owe
my lights; and what part soever of my own plays, or of this, which no
mending could make regular, shall fall under the condemnation of such
judges, it would be impudence in me to defend. I think it no shame to
retract my errors, and am well pleased to suffer in the cause, if the
art may be improved at my expence: I therefore proceed to
THE GROUNDS OF CRITICISM IN TRAGEDY.
Tragedy is thus defined by Aristotle (omitting what I thought
unnecessary in his definition). It is an imitation of one entire,
great, and probable action; not told, but represented; which, by
moving in us fear and pity, is conducive to the purging of those two
passions in our minds. More largely thus: Tragedy describes or paints
an action, which action must have all the properties above named.
First, it must be one or single; that is, it must not be a history of
one man's life, suppose of Alexander the Great, or Julius Cæsar, but
one single action of theirs. This condemns all Shakespeare's
historical plays, which are rather chronicles represented, than
tragedies; and all double action of plays. As, to avoid a satire upon
others, I will make bold with my own "Marriage A-la-mode," where there
are manifestly two actions, not depending on one another; but in
"OEdipus" there cannot properly be said to be two actions, because the
love of Adrastus and Eurydice has a necessary dependence on the
principal design into which it is woven. The natural reason of this
rule is plain; for two different independent actions distract the
attention and concernment of the audience, and consequently destroy
the intention of the poet; if his business be to move terror and pity,
and one of his actions he comical, the other tragical, the former will
divert the people, and utterly make void his greater purpose.
Therefore, as in perspective, so in tragedy, there must be a point of
sight in which all the lines terminate; otherwise the eye wanders, and
the work is false. This was the practice of the Grecian stage. But
Terence made an innovation in the Roman: all his plays have double
actions; for it was his custom to translate two Greek comedies, and to
weave them into one of his, yet so, that both their actions were
comical, and one was principal, the other but secondary or
subservient. And this has obtained on the English stage, to give us
the pleasure of variety.
As the action ought to be one, it ought, as such, to have order in it;
that is, to have a natural beginning, a middle, and an end. A natural
beginning, says Aristotle, is that which could not necessarily have
been placed after another thing; and so of the rest. This
consideration will arraign all plays after the new model of Spanish
plots, where accident is heaped upon accident, and that which is first
might as reasonably be last; an inconvenience not to be remedied, but
by making one accident naturally produce another, otherwise it is a
farce and not a play. Of this nature is the "Slighted Maid;" where
there is no scene in the first act, which might not by as good reason
be in the fifth. And if the action ought to be one, the tragedy ought
likewise to conclude with the action of it. Thus in "Mustapha," the
play should naturally have ended with the death of Zanger, and not
have given us the grace-cup after dinner, of Solyman's divorce from
Roxolana.
The following properties of the action are so easy, that they need not
my explaining. It ought to be great, and to consist of great persons,
to distinguish it from comedy, where the action is trivial, and the
persons of inferior rank. The last quality of the action is, that it
ought to be probable, as well as admirable and great. It is not
necessary that there should be historical truth in it; but always
necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, something that is
more than barely possible; _probable_ being that which succeeds, or
happens, oftener than it misses. To invent therefore a probability and
to make it wonderful, is the most difficult undertaking in the art of
poetry; for that, which is not wonderful, is not great; and that,
which is not probable, will not delight a reasonable audience. This
action, thus described, must be represented and not told, to
distinguish dramatic poetry from epic: but I hasten to the end or
scope of tragedy, which is, to rectify or purge our passions, fear and
pity.
To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry. Philosophy
instructs, but it performs its work by precept; which is not
delightful, or not so delightful as example. To purge the passions by
example, is therefore the particular instruction which belongs to
tragedy. Rapin, a judicious critic, has observed from Aristotle, that
pride and want of commiseration are the most predominant vices in
mankind; therefore, to cure us of these two, the inventors of tragedy
have chosen to work upon two other passions, which are, fear and pity.
We are wrought to fear, by their setting before our eyes some terrible
example of misfortune, which happened to persons of the highest
quality; for such an action demonstrates to us, that no condition is
privileged from the turns of fortune; this must of necessity cause
terror in us, and consequently abate our pride. But when we see that
the most virtuous, as well as the greatest, are not exempt from such
misfortunes, that consideration moves pity in us, and insensibly works
us to be helpful to, and tender over, the distressed; which is the
noblest and most godlike of moral virtues, Here it is observable, that
it is absolutely necessary to make a man virtuous, if we desire he
should be pitied: we lament not, but detest, a wicked man; we are glad
when we behold his crimes are punished, and that poetical justice is
done upon him. Euripides was censured by the critics of his time, for
making his chief characters too wicked; for example, Phædra, though
she loved her son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a curse upon
her family for offending Venus, yet was thought too ill a pattern for
the stage. Shall we therefore banish all characters of villainy? I
confess I am not of that opinion; but it is necessary that the hero of
the play be not a villain; that is, the characters, which should move
our pity, ought to have virtuous inclinations, and degrees of moral
goodness in them. As for a perfect character of virtue, it never was
in nature, and therefore there can be no imitation of it; but there
are allays of frailty to be allowed for the chief persons, yet so that
the good which is in them shall outweigh the bad, and consequently
leave room for punishment on the one side, and pity on the other.
After all, if any one will ask me, whether a tragedy cannot be made
upon any other grounds than those of exciting pity and terror in
us;--Bossu, the best of modern critics, answers thus in general: That
all excellent arts, and particularly that of poetry, have been
invented and brought to perfection by men of a transcendent genius;
and that, therefore, they, who practise afterwards the same arts, are
obliged to tread in their footsteps, and to search in their writings
the foundation of them; for it is not just that new rules should
destroy the authority of the old. But Rapin writes more particularly
thus, that no passions in a story are so proper to move our
concernment, as fear and pity; and that it is from our concernment we
receive our pleasure, is undoubted. When the soul becomes agitated
with fear for one character, or hope for another; then it is that we
are pleased in tragedy, by the interest which we take in their
adventures.
Here, therefore, the general answer may be given to the first
question, how far we ought to imitate Shakespeare and Fletcher in
their plots; namely, that we ought to follow them so far only, as they
have copied the excellencies of those who invented and brought to
perfection dramatic poetry; those things only excepted, which
religion, custom of countries, idioms of languages, &c. have altered
in the superstructures, but not in the foundation of the design.
How defective Shakespeare and Fletcher have been in all their plots,
Mr Rymer has discovered in his criticisms. Neither can we, who follow
them, be excused from the same, or greater errors; which are the more
unpardonable in us, because we want their beauties to countervail our
faults. The best of their designs, the most approaching to antiquity,
and the most conducing to move pity, is the "King and no King;" which,
if the farce of Bessus were thrown away, is of that inferior sort of
tragedies, which end with a prosperous event. It is probably derived
from the story of OEdipus, with the character of Alexander the Great,
in his extravagances, given to Arbaces. The taking of this play,
amongst many others, I cannot wholly ascribe to the excellency of the
action; for I find it moving when it is read. It is true, the faults
of the plot are so evidently proved, that they can no longer be
denied. The beauties of it must therefore lie either in the lively
touches of the passion; or we must conclude, as I think we may, that
even in imperfect plots there are less degrees of nature, by which
some faint emotions of pity and terror are raised in us; as a less
engine will raise a less proportion of weight, though not so much as
one of Archimedes's making; for nothing can move our nature, but by
some natural reason, which works upon passions. And, since we
acknowledge the effect, there must be something in the cause.
The difference between Shakespeare and Fletcher, in their plottings,
seems to be this; that Shakespeare generally moves more terror, and
Fletcher more compassion: for the first had a more masculine, a
bolder, and more fiery genius; the second, a more soft and womanish.
In the mechanic beauties of the plot, which are the observation of the
three unities, time, place, and action, they are both deficient; but
Shakespeare most. Ben Jonson reformed those errors in his comedies,
yet one of Shakespeare's was regular before him; which is, "The Merry
Wives of Windsor. " For what remains concerning the design, you are to
be referred to our English critic. That method which he has prescribed
to raise it, from mistake, or ignorance of the crime, is certainly the
best, though it is not the only; for amongst all the tragedies of
Sophocles, there is but one, OEdipus, which is wholly built after that
model.
After the plot, which is the foundation of the play, the next thing to
which we ought to apply our judgment, is the manners; for now the poet
comes to work above ground. The ground-work, indeed, is that which is
most necessary, as that upon which depends the firmness of the whole
fabric; yet it strikes not the eye so much, as the beauties or
imperfections of the manners, the thoughts, and the expressions.
The first rule which Bossu prescribes to the writer of an heroic poem,
and which holds too by the same reason in all dramatic poetry, is to
make the moral of the work; that is, to lay down to yourself what that
precept of morality shall be, which you would insinuate into the
people; as, namely, Homer's (which I have copied in my "Conquest of
Granada,") was, that union preserves a commonwealth and discord
destroys it.
