Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or sith;

And blither too,

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
When shepherds laugh and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

NOTES.

4. Kings have cares, &c. Compare Shak., 2 Hen. IV., Act iii., sc. I, 31: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'

12. Require. Subjunctive mood: the action is indef., with a feeling of conditionality or uncertainty about

it. 'What the state require' is much the same as 'Whether the state require this or that.'

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33. Sound. Lat. sonum, Fr. son; the d, being added as a support to the voice. Cf. More, note to 'limbs' (p. 56), and note to 'whiles' (p. 60). Spenser rhymes 'sown' and 'down;' he has 'sownd' also.

35. More sounder. Such double comparatives are now avoided.

42. Tide or sith. Both 'tide' and 'sith' are old words meaning 'time.'

shepherd life is a favourite theme of

The general contrast of court life and the poets. See Melibee (Sir Francis Walsingham)'s opinion in Spenser's Faery Queen, Bk. VI., Canto ix. Compare the king's soliloquy in Shak., 3 Hen. VI., Act ii., sc. 5; especially the last lines :

"O God! methinks it were a happy life

To be no better than a homely swain.

Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade

To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couchèd in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.'

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE.-1564-1593.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, our greatest dramatist before Shakspeare, 'the Columbus of a new literary world,' was the son of a Canterbury shoemaker. He studied at Cambridge, where he took his M.A. degree

in 1587. Already he had established relations with the stage. His after-life in London was, like Robert Greene's, very dissolute; and at last, in a wretched brawl, he was stabbed through the eye and brain, and died in a few hours. He was only in his thirtieth year.

'Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And withered is Apollo's laurel bough.'

Marlowe's 'mighty line' was first seen in Tamburlaine the Great (two parts), which was acted before the author graduated M.A. in 1587. This terrific drama' is remarkable for many reasons; among others, it was the first play in which the use of blank verse was introduced upon the public stage' (Prof. Ward). Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II., and The Massacre of Paris, were produced in rapid succession. Marlowe left also Translations from the Latin of Lucan and Ovid. The posthumous fragment of Hero and Leander, which the poet's own age considered his supreme achievement, is also judged by the best modern critics to be 'incomparably the finest product of Marlowe's genius.'

TAMBURLAINE.

(From Tamburlaine the Great, Part I., Act ii., scene 1.) [Tamburlaine (1335-1405), 'from a Scythian shepherd, by his rare and wonderful conquests, became a most puissant and mighty monarch' (Title-page). His proper name was Timur; but from a wound in the thigh, which rendered him lame for life, he was called 'Timurlenc' (lame Timur), whence the corrupted forms, Tamerlane' and "Tamburlaine.' At seventeen, he managed the flocks and herds of his family; but he was of noble descent. His conquests extended over Persia, Georgia, Tartary, Russia, India, Syria, &c. The seat of his empire he established at Samarkand, where he displayed, in a short repose, his magnificence and power.' He died on the march to the conquest of China. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. lxv., and James Mill's History of British India, Book III., chap. iii.)]

Of stature tall, and straightly fashioned,
Like his desire, lift upwards and divine;
So large of limbs, his joints so strongly knit,
Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear
Old Atlas' burden; 'twixt, his manly pitch,
A pearl more worth than all the world, is placed,
Wherein by curious sovereignty of art

Are fixed his piercing instruments of sight,
Whose fiery circles bear encompassèd

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15

A heaven of heavenly bodies in their spheres,
That guides his steps and actions to the throne,
Where honour sits invested royally;

Pale of complexion, wrought in him with passion,
Thirsting with sovereignty and love of arms;
His lofty brows in folds do figure death,
And in their smoothness amity and life;
About them hangs a knot of amber hair,
Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was,
On which the breath of heaven delights to play,
Making it dance with wanton majesty ;
His arms and fingers long and sinewy,
Betokening valour and excess of strength;
In every part proportioned like the man

Should make the world subdued to Tamburlaine.

NOTES.

8. Lift, for lifted.' In Elizabethan poetry, the 'ed' of p.part. of weak verbs is often conveniently dropped. So in the Bible. Cf. Psalm

xxiv. 7. 10. Mainly, with main (as in 'might and main'), power, might; by sheer strength. Main' is the old 'mægan' softened, from magan (may). 11. Old Atlas' burden. Atlas, one of the Titans, who made unsuccessful war on Zeus (Jupiter), was condemned to bear heaven on his head and hands.

Comp. Milton's description of Beelzebub, Par. Lost, ii. 305-7:

'Sage he stood

With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.'

'Twixt. Understand 'them,'' his
shoulders.'- -Pitch, cast, or throw;
the highest part of some things;
so, Tamburlaine's head.
30. Should make.

The subject, 'that' (rel. pron.), is omitted, as is very common in poetry.

TAMBURLAINE AT ZENOCRATE'S DEATH-BED.

(From Tamburlaine the Great, Part II., Act ii., scene 4.)

TAMBURLAINE, king of Persia, and his three sons; THERIDAMAS, king of Argier, TECHELLES, king of Fez, and UsUMCASANE, king of Morocco-generals raised to be kings by Tamburlaine; and three Physicians. 'Divine' ZENOCRATE, wife of Tamburlaine, lying on a bed of state, and just dead.

Tamb. What, is she dead? Techelles, draw thy sword, And wound the earth, that it may cleave in twain,

And we descend into the infernal vaults,

To hale the Fatal Sisters by the hair,

And throw them in the triple moat of hell,

100

For taking hence my fair Zenocrătē.

Casāně and Theridamas, to arms!

Raise cavalieros higher than the clouds,

And with the cannon break the frame of heaven;

Batter the shining palace of the sun,

105

And shiver all the starry firmament,

For amorous Jove hath snatched my love from hence,

The rusty beams of Janus' temple-doors,
Letting out Death and tyrannising War,
To march with me under this bloody flag!
And, if thou pitiest Tamburlaine the Great,
Come down from heaven, and live with me again!
Ther. Ah, good my lord, be patient! she is dead,
And all this raging cannot make her live.

115

If words might serve, our voice hath rent the air;
If tears, our eyes have watered all the earth;

If grief, our murdered hearts have strained forth blood:
Nothing prevails, for she is dead, my lord.

120

Tamb. For she is dead!' thy words do pierce my soul:

Ah, sweet Theridamas, say so no more!

126

Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives,

And feed my mind that dies for want of her.

Where'er her soul be, thou [To the body] shalt stay with me, Embalmed with cassia, ambergris, and myrrh,

130

Not lapt in lead, but in a sheet of gold,
And, till I die, thou shalt not be interred.
Then in as rich a tomb as Mausolus'

We both will rest, and have one epitaph
Writ in as many several languages

135

As I have conquered kingdoms with my sword.
This cursed town will I consume with fire,
Because this place bereft me of my love;

The houses, burnt, will look as if they mourned;
And here will I set up her stature,

And march about it with my mourning camp,
Drooping and pining for Zenocrate.

NOTES.

99. The Fatal Sisters: Clotho, who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, who assigns to each his fate; and Atropos, the inflexible one, who cuts the thread. According to Hesiod, they were daughters of Zeus and Themis (Justice).

100. The triple moat of hell. Cf. Act iii., sc. 2:

'The island where the Furies mask,
Compassed with Lêthe, Styx, and
Phlegethon.'

103. Cavalieros, mounds, or elevations
of earth, to lodge cannon' (Dyce).
107. From hence. From' is superfluous,
being implied in 'hence:' but the
form is quite common. Cf. (below)
Marlowe's portrait of Hero, lines 18
and 24. Above we have 'taking
hence!

110. Nectar and ambrosia: the drink and
the food of the gods. Both words,
though from different roots, contain
the meaning of immortality.
114. Janus, an ancient Latin divinity,
usually represented with two heads,
for he was the god of gates or doors,
and these face two ways. -Temple-
doors. A temple, in the proper
sense, was built for Janus in the
time of the first Punic War, about

91

140

two and a half centuries before Christ. In earlier times the socalled 'temple of Janus' was merely a covered passage, which stood open in war, and was closed in peace. When it was open, Janus was in the field fighting for Rome; when it was closed, he was secured as a present defence of the city. Marlowe refers to this Roman belief in 'letting out Death,' &c.

Mar

130. Cassia, &c.: all of them fragrant
substances.
133. Mausŏlus. The o is here short,
Cf. Euphrates.
wrongly.
lowe's scholarship is frequently in-
accurate. Mausölus, king of Caria,
died 353 B.C. His wife Artemisia,
who succeeded him, set no bounds
to the expression of her grief. The
Mausoleum, the gorgeous monu-
ment that she erected over him, was
one of the seven wonders of the
world; and the name has ever since
been a general designation for mag-
nificent tombs.

137. This cursed town, Larissa by name.
140. Stature, statue: a word common
in our early authors. The length-
ens it to three syllables-as often in
Elizabethan and later poetry.

DEATH-SCENE OF EDWARD II.

(From Edward the Second, Act V., Scene v.)

BERKLEY CASTLE.-The KING and LIGHTBORN, a murderer.

Edward. Who's there? what light is that? wherefore com'st thou ?

Lightborn. To comfort you, and bring you joyful news. Edw. Small comfort finds poor Edward in thy looks! Villain, I know thou com'st to murder me.

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