6. The School of Night

Proof thatthe world was round supplied by Magellan and Drake, was only part of the new information available to Marlowe's contemporaries in the r58os. The comfortable ideq derived from fuistotle, that the rrniverse was a complex unity in which everything, human and environ- mental, formed a poetic whole was shaken by scientific discovery. Medieval belief had been that matter was composed of four interacting elements and the heavens of a fifth immutable one; that the human body comprised four humours, which interacted for good or bad health; that there had been four ages of the world and the fifth, like the heavens, would be perfect and millennial; that the truth of these sets of four was underwritten by the four seasons, the four points of the compass, the four letters in the Hebrew name for God, and so on, Seven was also an operative number - there were seven deadly sins, seven cardinal virtues, seven sacraments of the Churchr seven days of creation, seven ages of the life of man. The universe was seven concentric spheres of pure crystal which carried the planets in their orbits round the earth; and the state was pant of this inter-related pattern - as the sun ruled the planets, so the king (or queen) ruled the state. Kit Marlowe described part of such belief in Act u, Scene ii, of Doctor Faustus, adding Faustus's own doubts.

Faustus: Spe*, are there many spheres above the moont Are all celestial bodies but one globe, As is the substance of this centric earth?

55 WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT

Mephistophilis: As are the elements, such are the heavens, Hariot, who with Johannes Kepler demonstrated that the primum Even from the moon unto the empyrial orb, mobile (first mover), as it was then envisaged could not exist. Mutually folded in each other's spheres, Hariot was one of Raleigh's circle for a long period. It had been And ioindy move upon one axel-tree, believed that as the sun ruled the planets and the king the state, $flhose terminus is termed the world's wide so God in the guise of the primum tnobile, ruled the empyrean pole. realm of fire. His 'wheel' gave motion to the first sphere, which Nor are the names of Saturr5 Mars or Jupiter passed this to the second, and so the movement continued through Feigned but are erring stars . . . the integrated universe. Hariot, roughly calculating the speed of Faustus: How many heavens or spheres are there? the sun and moon, found that this prime mover would have to Mephistophilis: Nine, the seven planets, the firmament and turn at incredible speed; Kepler estimated that it would travel the empyrial heaven. at 7r5oo,ooo miles in a twin pulse-beat, and simply could not Faustus: But is there not coelum igneum et cristal. exist. IJltimately Raleigh in his History denied that the prime mnu*) mover, the crystalline heaven and the element of fire, existed at Mephistophitis: No, Faustus, they be but fables. all. In 1593 Kit Marlowe was reported as saying that Moses was a mere juggler'and that one Harior, being Sir W. Raleigh's man, Mephistophilis may not have been accurate in his information, can do more than he'. but his ideas were not part of Aristotle's comfortable whole. Marlowe described the heavens in Act rrr, Scene i, of. Doctor Queen Elizabeth did not frown on scientific experiment, and F austus, with classical overtones. STalter Raleigh, one of the leaders of this movement, was among Chorus: LearnedFaustus, her favourites. A light-hearted example of his approach to experi- To find the secrets of astronomS ment and the Queen's cooperation was when he wagered her that Graven in the book of high firmament, he could weigh smoke. He weighed tobacco before he smoked it Jove's Didmounthimup to scale Olympus rop... in his pipe, and then weighed the ashes. The difference, he said He views the clouds, the planets and the stars, was the weight of smoke. The Queen paid up, remarking that The tropic, zones, and quarters of the sky, she had known alchemists who could turn gold into smoke and From the bright circle of the horned moon, Raleigh was the first to reverse the process. Even to the height of Primum Mobile. . . Improved methods of measuring natural phenomena, followed by testing of observations, were uncovering new facts which ap- Thomas Hariot did useful work on symbols in algebra, and peared to shake the foundations of knowledge. Kit Marlowe, one his most controversial contribution was calculating the chronology of Raleigh's circle at the end of the r58os, was reported as of the Old Testament. Having studied the time necessary for shocking rigid-minded people by frank logic. (This habit prob- civilizations to rise and decay, he concluded that the Old Testa- ably began in arguments with his outspoken family in Canter- ment did not allow enough. Consequently he was accused of bury.) denying the word of God. The most subversive work in undermining the status quo of It was Raleigh and Hariot who endeavoured - with insufficient belief was done by the mathematician and astronomer Thomas time to see the fruits of their labours - to found a civilization in 56 57 WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? Virginia. Kit Marlowe has not commented on this experiment, Hide now JH:"':.'.T ::T:, nieht, though his enthusiasm for exploration and geographic expansion And shut the windows of the lightsome heavens . . . was demonstrated in T ambwlaine. Then let the stony dart of senseless cold John Donne, yet to emerge as a leading literary figure, was Pierce through the cenffe of my wither'd heart . . . soon to say that'the new philosophy calls all in doubt' and to (T amburlaine, Part One) write different verse from Edmund Spenser, who was influenced by medieval concepts of idealized behaviour. Yet it was Spenser, Like to an almond tree y-mounted high both by chronology and friendship, who belonged to Raleigh's Upon the lofty and celestial mount and Marlowe's circle at the end of the r58os. This partially ex- Of ever-green Selinus, quaintly deck'd plains how Raleigh, with Marlowe, Hariot, poet George Chapman !7ith blossoms more white than Herycina's brows. (renowned for translating Homer), and Walter Warner, could (T amb url aine, Part Two) be interested in mysticism as well as scientific experiment. These Renaissance thinkers were prepared to accept the experience of It is not clear who influenced whom between Marlowe and mysticism while they discounted crystal spheres and empyrean Spenser. Spenser brought The Fairie Queene to London in r589, fire. They were not atheists, though it was of this that they and though the Tambwlaines werc published in r59o they had were accused. Donne, who was not a mystic, evenfually under- been acted since 1587. As Marlowe supervised the printing of went a conversion and died as Dean of St Paul's; both rationalism the Tamburlaines, he must have read The Fairie Queene, or and less mystically idealized religion had developed quicHy. Dr alternatively Spenser must have shown his poem to Marlowe or Dee, living a generation earlier, was feared by the superstitious as seen the Tamburlaines before the plays were printed. Presumably a sorcerer, though he made some scienfific experiments; while the Walter Raleigh introduced the two poets to each other, or they middle-men, Raleigh's School of Night (as later described by a met as mutual friends of Raleigh's. phrase frorn Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost), who were Spenser's background compares interestingly with Kit Mar- approaching gently to rationalist ideas, had the worst of both lowe's. Edmund Spenser had entered Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, worlds, being accused of atheism while not attaining to un- as a sizar - a poo! student required to perform menial duties - in tramelled thinking. 1569. This was a decade ahead of Kit Marlowe who, due to his scholarship means (money duties, Spenser was esteemed more highly by fellow poets, despite his and unspecified from spy patronage from Thomas Walsingham, help from his uncle?), had medievalism, than Donne was to be. Kit Marlowe included some been more affiuent, if not as wealthy as some. Kit Marlowe was lines of Spenser's The Fairie Queene in tns Tambwlaine plays, also of 'humble birth', i.e. not from a noble familp and neither and it was Raleigh who brought Spenser back from Ireland to was Gabriel Harvey who became Spenser's friend but not publish The Fairie Queene in London. Marlowe's. Nashe, another of humble birth and educated as a Several groups of lines appear both in Spenser's Foirie Queene sizar, was to satirize Harvey in his pamphlets. Harvey, proud, and in Kit Marlowe's Tambrnlaine plays. These include: quarrelsome, pedantic and of considerable intellect, was a critic Oh highest lamp of ever-living Jove, of Raleigh's circle though he sometimes attended its discussions, Accursed day, infected with my griefs, and he approved of Spenser, whose friends apparendy did not

58 59 WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT hold this against him. Spenser's father had been a journeyman Boyle, whom he was to marry. He was to return to London in in the cloth trade, by contrast with Marlowe's shoemaker father, 1595 with three more books of The Fairie Queene and this time who was his own master. Spenser received a good education at went to the Earl of Essex, another nephew of the now deceased Merchant Taylor's School, which had been recendy established Earl of Leicester, rather than to Raleigh, who was out of favour. under headmaster Richard Mulcaster. Here he learned literature He was back in Ireland for O'Neill's revolt in 1598, returning as a living art, and received a solid grounding in Latirg Greek, to London with dispatches in December 1598 and dying there a Hebrew and French. 'Mery London, my most kindly Nurse', he month later. Spenser was buried near Chaucer in Westminster later wrote in 'Prothalamion'. At Cambridge Spenser and Harvey Abbey, and other poets showed their respecr by throwing their came into contact with Puritanism, which was to influence them pens into his tomb. To the end this gende poet of idealistic all their lives; Kit Marlowe and Nashe were not puritanically aspiration advocated ruthless action in Ireland. In 1596 he had inclined. After working on the staff of the Earl of Leicester and written View of the Present State ol lreland, which was too blunt there being influenced by the Earl's radiant nephew Sir Philip to be published until 1633. Some people placed him second to Sidney, Spenser moved to Ireland as secretary to the new Lord Chaucer as a great poet, though his work appears contrived next Depury, Lord Grey of $7ilton. He was still there, occupying the to that of Marlowe and Raleigh - and Nashe, who called him post of Clerk of the Council of Munster, when Raleigh found 'the Virgil of England'. him 1589. Raleigh was entranced Spenser's poetry and in by Compare the opening of. The Fairie Queene with verses of brought him and the first three books of. The Fairie Queene back Kit Marlowe's 'Come Live With Me and Be My Love', and to London. Though Spenser was an idealist with puritanical Raleigh's 'reply'. leanings he did not oppose the policy of ruthless oppression in Ireland. He was to spend much of his life among the Irish Lo ! I, the man whose Muse whylome did maske, but was not sympathetic to them. He believed that Talus, in As time her taught in lowly Shephards weeds, Am now enforst, a farre unfitter taske, Book v of. The Fairie Queene, was the right ruler for such a lawless, desolate, if beautiful country. The cruelty of Kit For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine oaten reeds, Marlowe's Tambwlaine was not out of place in such times. And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds. .. In his first months in London Spenser met fellow poets among (Spenser's The Fairie Queene) Raleigh's circle, and the Queen accepted his dedication of. The Come live with me and be my love, Fairie Queene. But his reward when it eventually came, was only And we will all the pleasures prove a pension of {5o. In his poem'Mother Hubberd's Tale', he said That valleys, groves, hills and fields, pitifull a thing is a Suters state'. would seem that while 'how It $7oods or steepy mountain yields . . . the Queen smiled on him, Lord Burleigh did not, perhaps a legacy from his period with the Farl of Leicester. Back in lreland And I will make thee beds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies, in r59r he continued wift The Fairie Queene and also wrote an elegy for the Earl's dead nephew (and son-in-law of Sir A cap of flowers, and a kirde Francis Tilalsingham) Philip Sidnen admiration for whose chivalry Embroidered all with leaves of myrde . . . had become a cult. In Ireland in r59z Spenser met Elizabeth (Marlowe) 6o 6r WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? THE SCHOOL OF NIGHI If all the world and love were young, the Queen's knights at Ascension Day tilts, but also spread to the And truth in every shepherd's tongue, Protestant German states. The Palatinate gave active support to These pretty pleasures might me move, Henry rv of France (whose initial victories were described in Kit To live with thee and be thy love . . . Marlowe'sThe Massacre atParis), thus putting Protestant activism Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, into action. Another f,nglisfoman had become involved in Europe, Thy cap, thy kirtle and thy posies, moving from the Imperial court to Prague; this was the scientist Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten; and magus ]o,hn Dee, who had been in court circles in England In folly ripe, in reason rotten . . . and become feared as a sorcerer (be was partially the model for (Raleigh) Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's Prosperc in The Tempest). Both Protestant activism and Dee's mysticism were Renaissance and the new science seem a long way Both the involved in Rosicruciattism. and Ladies gentle deeds', and Spenser's archaic from 'Knights A Rosicrucian book calledNaometria"by Simon Studion, which does appear contemporary Marlowe's and writing not with used chronology as a basis for prophecy, described a meeting of Raleigh's easy cadences. Spenser nevertheless included But Protestant rulers against the Catholic League in 1586, two years as one the realms over which the ruled in Virginia of Queen before the Armada attacked England; the leaders allegedly attend- his dedication of 1596. By joining the discussions of Raleigh's ing were Henry of Navarre, Queen Elizabeth and the King of group he showed up the new thinkers' moderniry by contrast. Denmark. The year 1586 was the one in which Queen Elizabeth's admiration for Sidney's chivalry influenced The cult of Philip armies intervened in the Netherland under Philip Sidney's uncle another group of scholars with whom Raleigh's group was loosely the Earl of Leicester. John Dee and his associate Edward Kelley related. This group became known as Rosicrucians, and their were in Bohemia - the home of the Hussite 'heresy' which inter- particular branch of chivalry still survives in the Rosicrucian ested Kit Marlowe and his friends - at various times between Society and the Freemasons. r583 and r589; where also went Hariot's correspondent Johannes 1577 young Philip Sidney had been sent on a mission to trn Kepler and Giordano Bruno, whose works had influenced Thomas give new emperor Rudolph the the Imperial court, to the u Sfatson and Sir Francis Walsingham. condolences of Elizabeth on the death of his father. Sidney Queen Though Raleigh's 'School' were interested in science and a visited the German Protestant princes on the way, to investigate species of rationalism, they were also, by association with Spenser possibility League Europe. Like his uncle the of a Protestant in and through their Protestant and esoteric connections, involved prospective father-in-law Francis the Earl of Leicester and his Sir with Rosicrucian arts, including the magico.scientific ones of Walsingham, he believed in Protestant activism - that is, opposing alchemy and spirit-summoning. Hence Kit Marlowe's Doctor Catholic countries like Spain before they attacked, rather than Faustus, which was written in two parts - some in 1588-9 when defend. Because the would not sanction this waiting to Queen the German version of the Fcrul book first became available, and course, $(ralsingham driven employing spies like Kit was to the rest in r5gz-3 when an English translation of the Faust book gathering forces. Marlowe to keep abreast of the news of Spain's appeared. a ideal' of Protestant When Sidney died and became cult, the 'beau It is easier to understand how these differing discussion sub- chivalry associated with his memory was not only celebrated by jects of Raleigh's group - scientific, mystic, Protestant - came 6z 63 WHO WAS KIT MARLOWE? THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT together, when the participants are seen in historical context. The vii, apart from clowning-about references to Faustus's trick Armada had been feared, had arrived, and another attack was wooden leg, there are two characteristic features. The first is the half-expected. presence of the Duke of Vanholt (Anholt) one of the Protesrant Protestantism became patriotism for the politically involved German princes approached by Philip Sidney, and later a leader Raleigh and members of $(/alsingham's circle. In a time when of Protestant activism; and the other is the geography lesson given Spenser was honoured above Donne, and the traditional was more when the Duke's pregnant wife asks for a bunch of grapes. appreciated than the innovatory new scientific experiment could Duke: This makes me wonder more than all the rest, that seem like old alchemy and be similarly feared and studied. trIence at this time of year, when every tree is barren of Raleigh's group, discussing both, were criticized for both. The his fruit, from whence you had these ripe grapes. crowds who burned John Dee's library did it as much against Faustus: Please it your grace, the year is divided into two his scientific experiments as his magical books. An enlighteningly circles over the whole world so that when it is cynical picture of Raleigh's 'School' is given in John Aubrey's winter with us, in the contrary circle it is likewise Brief Lile of Thomas Hariot, written in the seventeenth century. surlmer with them, as in India, Saba, and such Mr Hariot went with Sir lTalter Ralegh into Virginia, and haz writt countries that lie East, where they have fruit twice the Description of Virginia, which is printed. Dr. Pell tells me that he a year. From whence, by means of a swift spirit finds amongst his papers, an Alphabet that he had contrived for the that I have, I have these grapes brought as you see. American Language, like Devills. . . A picture of the period can be gained from Doctor Faustusl Sir Francis Stuart had heard Mr Hariot say that he had seen nine and that Kit Marlowe was a participant in wide-ranging dis- Cometes, and had prediaed Seaven of them, but did not tell them cussions is clear from the number of topical references in the play, how. very strange: excogitent Astronomi. 'Tis and the way the subjects are treated. He did not like (or valued not) the old storie of the Creation of For example, from Act r, Scene i: the l7orld. He could not beleeve the old position; he would say erc nihilo nihil ft [nothing comes to nothing]. But a nihifum killed him . . . Be a physician, Faustus: heap up gold at last: for in the top of his Nose came a little red speck (exceeding And be eternized for some wondrous cure . . . grew small) which bigger and bigger, and at last killed him. . . . Are not thy bills hung up as monuments, I suppose it was that which the Chirurgians call a noli me tutgere. Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague. . . He made a Philosophical Theologie, wherin he cast-ofi the Old These necromantic books are heavenly, Testament, and then the New-one would (consequently) have no Lines, circles, scenes, letters and characters . Foundation. He was a Deist. His Doctrine he taught to Sir lTalter .. Raleigh, Henry Earle of Northumberland and some others. The . . . All things that move between the quiet poles Divines of those times look't on his manner of death as a Judgement Shall be at my command. . . upon him for nullifying the Scripture. In the play, Doctor Faustus plumps wholeheartedly for magic. The'some others' covers an interesting group including, in the . . . Philosophy is odious and obscure r58os and r59os, Kit Marlowe. Both law and physic are for petty wits. In an excerpt from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, in Act Iv, Scene 65 64 WHO WAS KITMARLOWE? Divinity is basest of the three, Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile. 'Tis magig maglc that hath ravished me.

After Faustus has agreed to tade his soul with Mephistophilis, Mephistophilis makes corlments which mirror the 'heresy' of the period:

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place. But where we are is hell' And where hell is there we must ever be.

There is also a surprisingly modern comment on marriage.

Tut, Faustus, marriage is but a ceremonial toy.

In Act r, Scene i, Mephistophilis and Faustus dabble in humanism:

But thinkst thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, Faushrs, it is not half so fair As thou or any man that breathes on earth . . .

And there is a reference to the poet Homer who was uanslated by George Chapman" another of Raleigh's circle at that time, who was to complete Marlowe's Hero ond, Leandet

. . . Have I not made blind Homer sing to me Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death? And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes With ravishing sound of his melodious harp Made music with my MephistoPhilis?

The first part of Doctor Faustus is important for establishing Kit Marlowe's presence among the 'tdkers' in 1588-9.

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