self he poisons his daughter and the whole convent. Two friars wish to denounce him, then to convert him; he strangles the first, and jokes with his slave Ithamore, a cut-throat by profession, who loves his trade, rubs his hands with joy, and says: "Pull amain, 'Tis neatly done, sir; here's no print at all. So, let him lean upon his staff; excellent! he stands as if he were begging of bacon." 1 "O mistress, I have the bravest, gravest, secret, subtle, bottlenosed knave to my master, that ever gentleman had." 2 The second friar comes up, and they accuse him of the murder: "Barabas. Heaven bless me! what, a friar a murderer! Ithamore. Why, a Turk could ha' done no more. Bar. To-morrow is the sessions; you shall to it— Friar. Villains, I am a sacred person; touch me not. We have also two other poisonings, an infernal machine to blow up the Turkish garrison, a plot to cast the Turkish commander into a well. Barabas falls into it himself, and dies in the hot cauldron,1 howling, hardened, remorseless, having but one regret, that he had not done evil enough. These are the ferocities of the middle age; we might find them to this day among the companions of Ali Pacha, among the pirates of the Archipelago; we retain pictures of them in the paintings of the fifteenth century, which represent a king with his court, seated calmly round a living man who is being flayed; in the midst the flayer on his knees is work ing conscientiously, very careful not to spoil the skin.5 All this is pretty strong, you will say; these people kill too readily, and too quickly. It is on this very account that the painting is a true one. For the specialty of the men of the time, as of Marlowe's characters, is the abrupt commission of a deed; they are children, robust children. As a horse kicks out instead of speaking, so they pull out their knives instead of asking an explanation. Nowadays we hardly know what nature is; instead 2 Ibid. iii. p. 291. 8 Ibid. iv. p. 313. 1 Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, iv. p. 311. 4 Up to this time, in England, poisoners were cast into a boiling cauldron. of observing it we still retain the benevolent prejudices of the eighteenth century; we only see it humanized by two centuries of culture, and we take its acquired calm for an innate moderation. The foundations of the natural man are irresistible impulses, passions, desires, greeds; all blind. He sees a woman,1 thinks her beautiful; suddenly he rushes towards her; people try to restrain him, he kills these people, gluts his passion, then thinks no more of it, save when at times a vague picture of a moving lake of blood crosses his brain and makes him gloomy. Sudden and extreme resolves are confused in his mind with desire; barely planned, the thing is done; the wide interval which a Frenchman places between the idea of an action and the action itself is not to be found here.2 Barabas conceived murders, and straightway murders were accomplished; there is no deliberation, no pricks of conscience; that is how he commits a score of them; his daughter leaves him, he becomes unnatural, and poisons her; his confidential servant betrays him, he disguises himself, and poisons him. Rage seizes these men like a fit, and then they are forced to kill. Benvenuto Cellini relates how, being offended, he tried to restrain himself, but was nearly suffocated; and that in order to cure himself, he rushed with his dagger upon his opponent. So, in Edward II., the nobles immediately appeal to arms; all is excessive and unforeseen: between two replies the heart is turned upside down, transported to the extremes of hate or tenderness. Edward, seeing his favorite Gaveston again, pours out before him his treasure, casts his dignities at his feet, gives him his seal, himself, and, on a threat from the Bishop of Coventry, suddenly cries: "Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole, Then, when the queen supplicates : "Fawn not on me, French strumpet! get thee gone. Furies and hatreds clash together like horsemen in battle. The 1 See in the few of Malta the seduction of Ithamore, by Bellamira, a rough, but truly admirable picture. 2 Nothing could be falser than the hesitation and arguments of Schiller's William Tell; for a contrast, see Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen. In 1377, Wiclif pleaded in St. Paul's before the Bishop of London, and that raised a quarrel. The Duke of Lancaster, Wiclif's protector, "threatened to drag the bishop out of the church by the hair;" and next day the furious crowd sacked the duke's palace. Marlowe, Edward the Second, i. p. 173. • Ibid. p. 186. Earl of Lancaster draws his sword on Gaveston to slay him, before the king; Mortimer wounds Gaveston. These powerful loud voices growl; the noblemen will not even let a dog approach the prince, and rob them of their rank. Lancaster says of Gaveston: 66 He comes not back, • • • • Unless the sea cast up his shipwrack'd body. Warwick. And to behold so sweet a sight as that, They have seized Gaveston, and intend to hang him "at a bough;" they refuse to let him speak a single minute with the king. In vain they are entreated; when they do at last consent, they are sorry for it; it is a prey they want immediately, and Warwick, seizing him by force, "strake off his head in a trench." Those are the men of the middle age. They have the fierceness, the tenacity, the pride of big, well-fed, thorough-bred bull-dogs. It is this sternness and impetuosity of primitive passions which produced the Wars of the Roses, and for thirty years drove the nobles on each other's swords and to the block. What is there beyond all these frenzies and gluttings of blood? The idea of crushing necessity and inevitable ruin in which everything sinks and comes to an end. Mortimer, brought to the block, says with a smile: "Base Fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel They tumble headlong down: that point I touch'd, Weigh well these grand words; they are a cry from the heart, the profound confession of Marlowe, as also of Byron, and of the old sea-kings. The northern paganism is fully expressed in this heroic and mournful sigh: it is thus they imagine the world so long as they remain on the outside of Christianity, or as soon as they quit it. Thus, when men see in life, as they did, nothing but a battle of unchecked passions, and in death but a gloomy sleep, perhaps filled with mournful dreams, there is no other su 1 Marlowe, Edward the Second, p. 188. 2 Ibid. last scene, p. 288. preme good but a day of enjoyment and victory. They glut themselves, shutting their eyes to the issue, except that they may be swallowed up on the morrow. That is the master-thought of Doctor Faustus, the greatest of Marlowe's dramas: to satisfy his soul, no matter at what price, or with what results: "A sound magician is a mighty god. How am I glutted with conceit of this! Than have the white breasts of the queen of love." 1 "Had I as many souls as there be stars, By him I'll be great emperor of the world, What brilliant dreams, what desires, what vast or voluptuous wishes, worthy of a Roman Cæsar or an eastern poet, eddy in this teeming brain! To satiate them, to obtain four-and-twenty years of power, Faustus gave his soul, without fear, without need of temptation, at the first outset, voluntarily, so sharp is the prick within: And make a bridge thorough the moving air. Why shouldst thou not? Is not thy soul thine own?" 2 1 Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, i. p. 9, et passim. And with that he gives himself full swing: he wants to know everything, to have everything; a book in which he can behold all herbs and trees which grow upon the earth; another in which shall be drawn all the constellations and planets; another which shall bring him gold when he wills it, and "the fairest courte zans:" another which summons "men in armour" ready to execute his commands, and which holds "whirlwinds, tempests, thunder and lightning" chained at his disposal. He is like a child, he stretches out his hands for everything shining; then grieves to think of hell, then lets himself be diverted by shows: 2 Ibid. pp. 22, 29. "Faustus. O this feeds my soul! Lucifer. Tut, Faustus, in hell is all manner of delight. He is conducted, being invisible, over the whole world: lastly to Rome, amongst the ceremonies of the Pope's court. Like a schoolboy during a holiday, he has insatiable eyes, he forgets everything before a pageant, he amuses himself in playing tricks, in giving the Pope a box on the ear, in beating the monks, in performing magic tricks before princes, finally in drinking, feasting, filling his belly, deadening his thoughts. In his transport he becomes an atheist, and says there is no hell, that those are "old wives' tales." Then suddenly the sad idea knocks at the gates of his brain. "I will renounce this magic, and repent And long ere this I should have done the deed, Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon? As is the substance of this centric earth? To glut the longing of my heart's desire. Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss ! ... Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!- 1 Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, i. p. 43. 2 Ibid. p. 37. |