GOLDEN LEAVES

FROM THE DRAMATIC POETS.

Thomas Sackville Earl Dorset, and Thomas Norton.

THE TRAGEDY OF FERREX AND PORREX.

(THE EARLIEST KNOWN SPECIMEN OF ENGLISH TRAGEDY.)

(1561.)

The

FERREX and PORREX, sons of GORBODUC, a King of the Ancient Britons, are rivals. FERREX, the eldest son, is slain by his brother. news is brought to his father, and whilst GORBODUC is lamenting the death of his eldest-born, MARCELLA, a court lady, enters and informs the King that PORREX has been stabbed by his mother in his bed.

GORBODUC, AROSTUS, EUBULUS, and others.

Gorb. What cruel destiny,

What froward fate hath sorted us this chance?

That even in those where we should comfort find,
Where our delight now in our aged days
Should rest and be, even there our only grief,
And deepest sorrows to abridge our life,

Most pining cares and deadly thoughts do grave.

Arost. Your grace should now, in these grave years of

yours,

Have found ere this the price of mortal joys,

How full of change, how brittle our estate,
How short they be, how fading here in earth,
Of nothing sure, save only of the death,

To whom both man and all the world doth owe
Their end at last; neither should Nature's power
In other sort against your heart prevail,

Than as the naked hand, whose stroke assays
The armed breast where force doth light in vain.
Gorb. Many can yield right grave and sage advice
Of patient sprite to others wrapt in woe,

And can in speech both rule and conquer kind,*
Who, if by proof they might feel Nature's force,
Would show themselves men as they are indeed,
Which now will needs be gods: but what doth mean
The sorry cheer of her that here doth come?

MARCELLA enters.

Marc. Oh, where is ruth? or where is pity now?
Whither is gentle heart and mercy filed?
Are they exiled out of our stony breasts,
Never to make return? is all the world
Drowned in blood, and sunk in cruelty?
If not in women mercy may be found,
If not (alas!) within the mother's breast
To her own child, to her own flesh and blood;
If ruth be banished thence, if pity there

May have no place, if there no gentle heart

* Nature; natural affection.

Do live and dwell, where should we seek it then?

Gorb. Madam (alas!) what means your woful tale?
Marc. O silly woman I! why to this hour
Have kind and fortune thus deferred my breath,
That I should live to see this doleful day?
Will ever wight believe that such hard heart
Could rest within the cruel mother's breast,
With her own hand to slay her only son?
But out (alas!) these eyes beheld the same,
They saw the dreary sight, and are become
Most ruthful records of the bloody fact.
Porrex, alas! is by his mother slain,
And with her hand, a woful thing to tell,
While slumb'ring on his careful bed he rests,
His heart stabbed in with knife is reft of life.

Gorb. O Eubulus, oh draw this sword of ours,
And pierce this heart with speed. O hateful light,
() loathsome life, O sweet and welcome death!
Dear Eubulus, work this, we thee beseech.

Eub. Patient your grace, perhaps he liveth yet, With wound received, but not of certain death.

Gorb. O let us then repair unto the place, And see if that Porrex live, or thus be slain. Marc. Alas! he liveth not, it is too true, That with these eyes, of him a peerless prince, Son to a king, and in the flower of youth, Even with a twink a senseless stock I saw. Arost. O damnèd deed!

Marc. But hear his ruthful end.

The noble prince, pierced with the sudden wounds,
Out of his wretched slumber hastily start,

Whose strength now failing, streight he overthrew,

[Exit.

When in the fall his eyes, ev'n now unclosed,
Beheld the queen, and cried to her for help;
We then, alas! the ladies which that time
Did there attend, seeing that heinous deed,
And hearing him oft call the wretched name
Of mother, and to cry to her for aid,

Whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound,
Pitying, alas! (for naught else could we do)
His rueful end, ran to the woful bed,

Despoiled streight his breast, and all we might
Wipèd in vain with napkins next at hand
The sudden streams of blood, that flushèd fast
Out of the gaping wound: O what a look,
O what a ruthful, steadfast eye methought
He fixed upon my face, which to my death
Will never part from me!—wherewith abraid,
A deep-fetched sigh he gave, and therewithal
Clasping his hands, to heaven he cast his sight;
And streight, pale death pressing within his face,
The flying ghost his mortal corpse forsook.

Arost. Never did age bring forth so vile a fact.

Thomas Kyd.

THE SPANISH TRAGEDY; OR, HIERONIMO IS MAD

AGAIN.

(1588.)

HORATIO, the son of HIERONIMO, is murdered while he is sitting with his mistress BELIMPERIA by night in an arbour in his father's garden. The murderers (Balthazar, his rival, and LORENZO, the brother of BELIMPERIA) hang his body on a trec. HIERONIMO is awakened by the cries of BELIMPERIA, and, coming out into his garden, discovers by the light of a torch, that the murdered man is his son. Upon this he goes distracted.

The more
he grows in stature and in years,
The more unsquared, unlevelled he appears;
Reckons his parents among the rank of fools,
Strikes cares upon their heads with his mad riots,
Makes them look old before they meet with age;

This is a son; and what a loss is this, considered truly!
Oh, but my Horatio grew out of reach of those
Insatiate humours: he loved his loving parents :

He was my comfort, and his mother's joy,
The very arm that did hold up our house-
Our hopes were stored up in him,

None but a damnèd murderer could hate him.

He had not seen the back of nineteen years,

When his strong arm unhorsed the proud Prince Balthazar;

And his great mind, too full of honour, took

To mercy that valiant but ignoble Portuguese.