I+-
THE NATURE OF EVIL IN THE TRAGEDIES OF
JAMES SHIRLEY
Forrest Edward Black, Jr,
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate School of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
June 1975
BOWLING GREEN Sffift UNIVERSITY LIBRARY la
ABSTRACT
A close reading of James Shirley's five tragedies (The Maid's Revenge, Love's Cruelty, The Traitor, The Politician, and The Cardinal) reveals overriding concern with causes and effects of worldly evil. In all instances an. agent of evil infects both fellow conspirators and arch-enemies, causing great chaos before he and those he has infected are finally eliminated. The agent is always portrayed as Satanic, as Shirley demonstrates through imagery and diction. Yet his motives are always worldly, associating him with Machiavellianism. Evil is spread into the world through the villain and his accomplice, both of whom always meet death eventu ally, suggesting that evil has tragic effects on persons other than those whom it is intended to destroy.
The last three tragedies show evil's advance from the private into the public sector; whereas in the first two plays love occasioned difficulties, in these chaos is caused through political ambition. This suggests Shirley believes political ambition causes greater problems because it affects more people. In all cases a character close to the evil tries to combat it with evil means and dies in his efforts, suggesting that Machiavellianism even as a means in a good cause is unacceptable.
Finally, Shirley shows man is responsible for his own actions by never allowing a character legitimately to blame fate for his falling into evil. Shirley examines evil to establish its nature and thereby warn his audience against evil, its causes, methods, and consequences. ib
TABLE OP CONTENTS
PREFACE ...... i
INTRODUCTION...... I
CHAPTER ONE...... 16
CHAPTER TWO...... 53
CHAPTER THREE ...... 75
CHAPTER FOUR ...... 114
CHAPTER FIVE...... 148
CHAPTER SIX...... l6l
AFTERWORD...... 186
A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 187 1C
PREFACE
This is a study of the causes and effects of evil In the
tragedies of James Shirley. In all five tragedies—The
Maid’s Revenge (1626)., Love *S Cruelty (1631), The Traitor
(1631), The Politician (1639)» and The Cardinal (l64l)—an
agent of evil infects both fellow conspirators and
arch-enemies and causes great chaos before he and those he
has infected are finally eliminated. Because Shirley used
these elements in all five works, it logically follows that
he was vitally interested in the nature of evil in the
world. By examining the causes and effects of evil, by
looking at those figures who spread evil and those who
contract it, one may come to understand what Shirley thought
to be the nature of evil.
Perhaps the most obvious technique Shirley uses to
portray the evil agent is—by means of symbolic action*
character portrayal, and imagery—to give him a Satanic
quality. This Satanic figure’s evil purpose is supplemented
by his evil means of achievement, a method that was unmis
takably identified in the minds of Shirley’s audience with
Machiavellianism, especially since Shirley makes clear that this Satanic agent’s motives are never supranatural (i.e., not literally Mephistophelian) but always worldly. In this way, Shirley is able not only to account for the introduction 11
of evil into the world but also to combine two typical
villain-types of his day, the Satanic and the Machiavellian,
to offer an unusual view of the traditional evil agent. The
two conventional types of villain in Renaissance drama were
either, like Marlowe’s Mephistophllis, in quest of a human
soul and therefore clearly Satanic; or, like Hamlet’s uncle,
Claudius, clearly a political self-seeker characterized in
purely worldly terms. Apart from Shirley, no dramatist of
the time consistently combined the two types to create a
villain.
Having once established the form which evil takes in
Shirley’s tragedies, I shall show its effects on other
characters. Included in every tragedy is a character less
evil than the villain but weak enough to come totally under
that villain’s Influence. Their conspiracy against a third
character is the beginning of the spread of evil into the
world of the play. The accomplice never fails, along with
the villain himself, to meet his death, a circumstance which
suggests that evil has tragic effects on persons other than
those whom it is intended to destroy, Shirley’s Catholicism
is probably in large part responsible for his view that participating in evil yields one no more than he deserves and that there is,, therefore, a moral order to the universe.
Shirley’s last three tragedies show the advance of evil from the private into the public sector. Whereas in The
Maid’s Revenge and Love’s Cruelty the evil grows out of ill
difficulties in matters of love, the theme of .political
ambition becomes increasingly important in the last three.
And although love problems play a part in all five plays,
Shirley seems to indicate that political ambition and the
evil attendant upon it cause greater problems because they
affect more people.
In every case, there is a character close to the evil
who tries to combat it} and though his cause is good, he
adopts evil methods. In this way he becomes a Machiavellian
himself} and because he always meets his death through his
efforts, Machiavellianism, even in a good cause, is shown
to be an unacceptable means of countering evil in this world.
The characters who survive the effects of evil are either
those who abjure it entirely or those, as in The Politician, who use virtuous methods to combat it.
The aforementioned worldly motives of the Satanic villain invariably arise from problems of love or political ambition. The villain whose evil springs from difficulties in love develops from a normal human being into a villain.
But the ambitious politician undergoes no such development.
Apparently Shirley assumed an implicit evil in the Italianate /
Caroline political world, an evil that is present from the start, whereas in the matter of love he believed it necessary to account for an evil which was not implicit but might evolve under given circumstances. iv
Finally, I shall attempt to show that evil is a matter for which man is responsible and that man can control his fate. Shirley never allows a character legitimately to blame fate for his falling into evil ways.^ He makes clear that such a character must bear ultimate responsibility for his acts and that any attempt to do otherwise is a sign of that character’s personal weakness.
What should emerge from this study as a whole is that
Shirley was indeed consistently and actually concerned with evil. Instead of using it merely as a theatrical device, 2 as Muriel Bradbrook charges, Shirley examined the causes and effects of evil to establish its nature and thereby warn his audience against evil, its methods, and its consequences.
Shirley’s tragedies reflect the ascendance of free will in the religious controversy of the time. Shirley holds the position which Erasmus had maintained. Erasmus had "insisted on man’s free will and rational power of choice and capacity for good," the opposite of which was Insisted upon by Martin Luther and his adherents. See Douglas Bush, Prefaces to Renaissance Literature (New York» Norton, 1965)» p. 47.'. 2 Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy (1935t rpt. Cambridge Unlv. Press, 19^), p. 261^ I
INTRODUCTION
Generally regarded as the last of the Elizabethan
dramatists, James Shirley is a "link between Elizabethan and
Restoration comedy as well as one of the last eminent re
presentatives of poetic staige tragedy and tragicomedy in the
English drama.Coming at the end of the greatest dramatic
achievement in the history of the English language, Shirley must inevitably compete with a race of giants. Nevertheless,
in the seventy years of his life, Shirley managed, through
the thirty-one plays that have survived, to establish a reputation which, though it does not place him next to
Shakespeare or Marlowe, assures him a place among the lead
ing dramatists of the English Renaissance.
Shirley was born on 13 September 1596 in the parish of 2 St. Mary Woolchurch. Though A. W. Ward states that he was
1 Robert Forsythe, The Relation of Shirley’s Plays to Elizabethan Drama (191*H rpt. New York» Benjamin Blom, 19^5)» P. 31.- 2 The information on Shirley’s life is taken primarily from the books by Forsythe, mentioned above, and Adolphus William Ward, A History of English Dramatic Literature (London» Macmillan, 1875T7 They contain clear, concise sketches of the essential biographical information regarding Shirley. For an in-depth account of Shirley’s life, the best source is the first five chapters of Arthur Nason, James Shirley Dramatist (New York» Arthur H. Nason, 1915). 2 not of noble birth, he is designated on the title-pages of his plays as ”James Shirley, gent.” Frederick Gard Fleay conjectures that Shirley was the son of the dramatist Henry
Shirley, but this is pure -s.pecuilation. At any rate, Shirley was admitted to Merchant Taylor’s School on 4 October 1608, and in the same year he was enrolled at St. John’s College,
Oxford. For some reason Shirley left Oxford without taking a degree and entered Cambridge as a member of Catharine Hall.
The reason for his leaving Oxford is unknown, though Forsythe says it seems to have ’been because of intervention of his friend and patron, Dr. William Laud. Forsythe says Laud intervened because of something to do with a “mole or similar mark upon his /Shirley’s/ left cheek”^ but goes no farther than this. At Cambridge Shirley took the degree of
Bachelor of Arts before l6l8 and soon after 1619 seems to have earned a Master of Arts degree.
When Shirley left Cambridge, he became headmaster of St.
Albans Grammar School in Hertfordshire} but in 1624 he was required to give up this post because of his conversion to
Catholicism. Though the evidence is sketchy, Shirley apparently went to London at this time and took up residence as a playwright. His first play, Love Tricks, was licensed on 24 February 1624 for the Lady Elizabeth’s Men at the
Cockpit Theater. He wrote almost exclusively for this company until 1636, when he departed for Ireland. In 1636
3 Forsythe, p. 25. 3
the London theaters were closed because of the plague, and
Shirley went to Dublin to a playhouse established in 1635 by
John Ogilby, Master of the Revels in Ireland. Here he remained until 1640, with possibly one brief visit to England during that period... In Ireland at least four of Shirley’s plays were presented, including St, Patrick for Ireland. The theaters in London reopened in 1637. whereupon Shirley’s plays were presented by the King’s Men at Blackfriars. Up to the closing of the theaters in 1642, the King’s Men produced all his plays except The Politician and The Gentlemen of Venice.
At the outbreak of Civil War, Shirley entered the royal service under the Earl of Newcastle, to whom he had dedicated
The Traitor in 1635. But in 1644 Newcastle left for the
Continent, and Shirley was thrown upon his own resources. He published his Poems in 1646 and 1647 and aided in the assem bling of the plays of Beaumont and Pletcher for their publi cation in the folio edition. In a preface to that folio edition, Shirley gives a hint of his own dramatic preference for using the drama of Beaumont and Pletcher as making
"Blackfriars an academy, where the three hours' spectacle,, while Beaumont and Fletcher were presented, . • ..of more advantage to the hopeful young heir than a costly dangerous foreign travel."^ Between 1644 and 1649, he seems to have kept a school at Whitefriars and to have written some elementary school books. After the Restoration Shirley A For his full statement, see Alexander Dyce, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher (London» Edward Moxon, 1843), pp. iil-vi,. 4
continued? his occupation as a schoolmaster instead of
returning to the stage. However, during this time he did
publish many of his plays as well as masques and poems. In
1666, during the Great Fire of London, according to Anthony a Wood, Shirley and his wife were driven "from their habita
tion near to Fleet Street, into the parish of St. Giles’s
in The Fields of Middlesex, where being in a manner overcome with affrightments, disconsolations, and other miseries, occasion’d by that fire and their losses, they both died within the compass of a natural day» whereupon their bodies were buried in one grave in the yard belonging to the said
Church of St. Giles’s on the 29th of October.
Aside from his strictly dramatic writings, Shirley is best remembered for a poem from his comedy, The Contention of
Ajax and Ulysses, the poem being commonly referred to as "The
Glories of Our Blood and State." Nason speaks of it as "that noble dirge that seems destined for all time to represent the work of Shirley in our anthologies.On this point Nason seems to be quite correct, for this poem is indeed still being anthologized. Otherwise Shirley’s poetry goes largely unread. Judging from the fact that Shirley did not publish
$ AthSnae Oxonlenses (1817; rpt. New York» Burt Franklin, 1967), III, col. 7^0.-
Nason, p. 149. 7 Cf. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, ed. Arthur M.. Eastman (New York» Norton, 1970), p. 215. It has also been the subject of a note, E. Sydnor Qwenby, "Shirley’s ’The Glories of Our Blood and State,*" Expllcator, 10 (1951), item 30. 5 his poems until 1646, one might think that they were not of primary importance to him. He had, after all, gotten around to publishing them only after he had ceased to write plays.
This impression is reinforced by his ’’Postscript to the
Reader,” in which he states«
I had no intention upon the birth of these poems, to let them proceed to the public view, forbearing in my own modesty to interpose my fancies, when I see the world so plentifully furnished. But when I observed most of these copies corrupted in their transcripts, and the rest fleeting from me, which were by some indiscreet col lector, not acquainted with distributive Justice, mingled with other men’s (some eminent),conceptions in print, I thought myself concerned to use some vindication, and reduce them to my own, without any pride or design of deriving opinion from their worth, but to shew my charity,, that other Innocent men should not answer for my vanities.8
Shirley is also somewhat remembered for his masque, The
Triumph of Peace, which was given at court in 1634.
Alexander Dyce calls it ’’the most magnificent pageant ever Q perhaps exhibited in England,”7 Shirley teamed with Inigo
Jones for this production, the purpose of which was to honor
King Charles. Felix Schelling speaks with cautious favor of
Shirley’s contribution to the production by remarking that his ”verse and prose is abundantly adequate to the slender
8 James Shirley, The Dramatic Works and Poems of James Shirley, ed. Alexander Dyce, 6 vols“ (London»! John Murray, 1S33), VI, 461-62. 9 I, xxlii. 6 demands of such a performance.""1-0 Schelling also speaks of another of Shirley’s masques, CUpld and Death, as containing "a real poetic beauty."I1 However, these quasi-dramatic achievements get no more than occasional references from twentieth-century critics, and the ultimate reputation of
Shirley must rest on his purely dramatic efforts.
Scholarly and critical attention to Shirley as a drama tist has been slight. Periodical literature on his drama is spotty and irregular? there does not seem to be any sustained, regular interest in Shirley on the part of modem scholars.
An encouraging note is the Interest Shirley has received from graduate students who have chosen to do dissertations on him. This seems to have started in the late 1950*s and continued! through the 196o’s. As dissertation projects, critical editions have been done of The Humorous Courtier in 1958, Love Tricks in 1959. The Ball in 1965» The Young
Admiral in 196?, and The Politician in 1968. But there still remains a need for critical editions of most of Shirley’s plays, as well as critical analyses of them.
Much of the periodical study of Shirley may be termed scholarship rather than criticism. Such topics as dating and sources occupy a large portion of that literature, and of course the attempt to verify authorship of such question able works as the dramatic Arcadia is sometimes found.
10 Elizabethan Drama 1558-1642 (Boston? Houghton, 1908), p. 132.
English Drama (New York«: E. P. Dutton, 1914), p, 21$; 7
Thus, when one gets to an examination of the actual criti cism in periodicals, he finds very little. The two books devoted to full-length treatment of Shirley’s plays are nearly sixty years old: clearly, the playwright’s work stands in need of reassessment.
While Shirley was perhaps not a playwright of the highest rank,.neither was he a bad one. Anthony a Wood’s evaluation that he was "the most noted dramatic poet of his time” has not held up, but a modem critic can still write that ’’Shirley’s remarkable talents challenge comparison with 12 his predecessors.” In the twentieth century, critical reaction to Shirley’s drama is mixed. His comedy is generally accorded a favorable reception, but his tragedy is another matter. On the one hand, Shirley is lumped with other 13 dramatists who imitated the worst of Fletcher? on the other hand, he is lauded because his tragedies ’’remained to the last singularly Independent of the traditions which 14 Fletcher had established for serious drama.” Somewhere -I p Ashley H. Thorndike, Tragedy (Boston» Houghton, 1908), P. 230.
Fredson Bowers, Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy (1940» rpt. Princeton» Princeton Univ. Press, 19o6)"j p. ¿35. 14 , Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, p. 326. Schelling’s statement is particularly curious» he apparently refers to Fletcher’s baroque devices, such as the element of surprise and characters susceptible to alternating emotions, qualities which Shirley praised in his aforementioned preface to the 1647 folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher. Furthermore one can not deny that on occasion Shirley did use these devices in his tragedies. For example, in The Politician Shirley deceives everyone, including his audience, into thinking Turgeslus has been killed, only to bring Turgesius back shortly thereafter. 8
In the middle stands Nason, who says the tragedies are
"least representative of the work of Shirley, least adequate • . . and yet, in themselves, notable contributions to that drama."1-5 Whatever is said of him, today Shirley receives little study; a full-length book has not been published on him since 1915; and only three or four of his plays are anthologized in collections of English Renaissance drama. No one has edited his complete works since 1833.
It seems only fair to ask why Shirley has been largely ignored. Schelling calls the period between 1Ó25 and 1642
"the period of Shirley" and says the reason he has been so
Ignored by both his age and ours is that he
was eclectic in the practice of his art. He was neither frankly a disciple like Massinger nor daringly an innovator like Ford. The age listened to his plays and measurably liked them. It applauded him when he forced his art down in The Gamester« but it liked and applauded still more the obscenities of Brome and Killegrew’s daring brutality. It measurably enjoyed the original siutations of Shirley’s Opportunity or the ingenious plotting of his Coronation; but its delight was in adventures such as those of Killegrew’s Princess Clcilia, ’sister to Virgilius, son to Julius Caesar,* and in the insipid intrigues of Carlell’s pseudo-romantic tragicomedies with their Platonic and other twaddle. Shirley’s were the shortcomings of the moderate man, and his desert is a moderate repute. 0
15 Nàson, p. 395.
16 Elizabethan Drama . 428.. 9
Bowers calls Shirley "the best of the dramatists" from
1631 to 1642 but too offhandedly writes the whole period off 17 as "one almost exclusively of imitation." Perhaps another reason may be advanced to account for such differing opinions about the merits of Shirley and for his being so slighted. This is that Shirley, as already mentioned in passing, came at the end of the greatest period of English dramatic history? he came at a time when he was beheld in the reflected light of some of the greatest dramatists in the history of the English language.. And when the drama of an age is studied, attention is paid chiefly to the very best.
Only in an in-depth study of that period is Shirley likely to receive more than surface consideration. Added to this is the fact that certain very reputable critics, rightly or wrongly, see Shirley as a part of a literary decadence
(Bowers and Muriel Bradbrook, for example), and impression able students, following those critics’ cue, give their ■ attention to other areas.
Of the thirty-one surviving plays written by James "L8 Shirley, only five are tragedies. They are The Maid's
Revenge (1626), Love's Cruelty (1631), The Traitor (1631),
The Politician (1639)» and The Cardinal (1641). This
Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, pp. 282-83. 1 fl This assumes that The Tragedy of Chabot is essentially the work of George Chapman. There is almost universal agree ment that Shirley at most made certain revisions of Chabot. 10
statistical fact alone indicates that he probably did not
regard the genre of tragedy as his forte, and scholars today
generally remember Shirley first as a writer of comedy. When his tragedy is considered, primary attention is given, as a rule, to The Cardinal; and any further study usually ends with.what is regarded as his second-best work, The Traitor,
The remainder have survived unanthologized, for the most part unread, and certainly unstudied by any significant portion of the academic world. Yet it is extremely helpful, if not indeed necessary, to consider all five plays if one is to arrive at a reasonable idea of Shirley’s use of tragic form.
When a playwright of Shirley’s day set out to write a tragedy, three traditional alternatives immediately pre sented themselves to him. One was to rely on ironic twists of fate to bring about a series of events that eventually destroys the tragic figure. This is the method used by
Sophocles in Oedipus Rex. A second method was to create a figure so proud and headstrong that he brings about his own destruction singlehandedly, as occurs in Sophocles’ Antigone.
The third choice was to Introduce an evil figure who actively strives to bring about the tragedy and who is largely responsible for the catastrophe that results; this is exemplified in Euripides’ Medea.
The Renaissance generally was familiar with all these plays, and it produced plays of its own analogous to each type. Romeo and Juliet is an excellent example of the tragedy 11
of fate; the anonymous A Yorkshire Tragedy is representative
of a proud, headstrong figure who brings about his own
destruction; and Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is
perhaps the outstanding example of a tragedy in which an evil
figure actively strives to bring about the tragedy. There
may be other alternatives, but in Shirley’s time, at least,
these three were basic.
Before examining Shirley’s chosen method, one may find
it helpful to examine specimens of each method by other
Renaissance tragedians. Romeo and Juliet, the previously mentioned example of the tragedy of fate, is notably lacking in an agent provocateur or conscious instrument of evil. In fact the '’agent" in the play is Friar Laurence, a well-intentioned if unfortunate churchman. The fate of Romeo and Juliet, the tragic figures, is the result, ultimately* of the failure of a letter to reach Romeo. In fact,
Shakespeare seems to make clear from the outset that he intends the tragedy to result from fate rather than from the actions of some evil character in the play; for he says in the prologue,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with theirQdeath bury their parents* strife,.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare? The Complete Works, ed. G. B. Harrison (New York? Harcourt, 196877All future references to Shakespeare’s works will be to this text. 12
Shakespeare’s play turns on fate even more than does Oedipus
Rex, for Oedipus is guilty of excessive pride, which plays a
large role in his downfall,,whereas Romeo and Juliet seem to
meet their horrible fate because their passionate nature
cooperates with a fortune which is working against them.
In the anonymous A Yorkshire Tragedy, which exemplifies
the second method, the husband, half-crazed by gambling losses
and riotous living, kills all but one of his children and
attempts to kill his wife before repenting of these deeds.
No one pushes him into his acts, and fate has nothing to do
with them. He alone is responsible for what he does. Like « Creon, who is advised against his rash decisions in Antigone,
the husband is advised against his rash decisions» and like
Creon he realizes too late the consequences of his actions.
There are references in the play to the devil being within
him and causing him to commit his atrocities. But this is
distinctly different from an evil figure in the play plotting
another character’s downfall. The essential impact of A’
Yorkshire Tragedy is that of a young man bent on a course of
destruction of his own accord. Taken in this perfectly
legitimate way,«the play adequately demonstrates the second method of constructing a tragedy. ;
The third method may be illustrated by Doctor Faustus,
in which Faustus is a man torn between a desire for earthly power and knowledge and a desire for salvation. Mephistophills and Lucifer conspire against him,.tempting him with a promise 13
of twenty-four years of supremacy on earth in exchange for
his soul. Of course Faustus must be weak enough to fall into
evil, for the Old Man’s resisting evil is proof that one
need not fall. But even Faustus would not fall if Lucifer
did not provide the means. Therefore, the forces of evil
are ultimately responsible for the play’s catastrophe.
Faustus, though a victim of his own wrongdoings, is much
more the victim of an evil force which he cannot control.
The point in defining and illustrating methods of
constructing tragic drama is to consider the alternatives-
open to Shirley when he turned to tragedy. It is interest
ing that in all five tragedies, Shirley chose to include an
evil agent who brings about the tragedy. This was a well-established method by Shirley’s time. Many of the
tragedies that scholars consider among the best of the
Renaissance contain Satanic figures who precipitate the tragic action. Such plays as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.
Shakespeare’s Othello and Macbeth, and Middleton and
Rowley’s The Changeling come to mind almost Immediately.
And of course one should not overlook the long-standing practice of using the Machiavellian villain as a cause of tragedy. Occasionally the two were combined,, as in
Shakespeare’s Richard III, but no other playwright combined them with anything like the regularity of Shirley. This is despite the fact that in the popular mind Satan and Machia- velli were often equated. Thomas Adams, in The Dluels 14
Banket (l6l4), remarked, ”’Sinnes Text is from Hels Sorlptum
est t taken out of the Deuils Spell» either Lucian his olde 20 Testament, or Machiauell his new.”’ The Elizabethans
’’probably grasped the import of the Florentine better than we
do today, who have been carried four centuries out of sight
of the great corner turned. That for us he is no longer the
Devil’s party means chiefly that we have got rid of the
devil. For the sixteenth century, at least by inherited belief,,, the Devil was a vital and intelligible idea.”21
However, by Shirley’s time, which was the second quarter •
of the seventeenth century,, a scientific movement was afoot
which diminlshedhthe role of the devil in human affairs.
On the stage, John Ford is a good example of a playwright
whose work accounts for evil in a far more psychological way
by modem standards. In contrast to Ford, Shirley seems to
be a traditionalist» for he insists on combining the Satanic
and Machiavellian types in an age dominated by Sir Thomas
Browne and Francis Bacon and their scientific naturalism.
Through this combining Shirley is able to give his audience
a clear indication of the origin of evil as he saw it. He
is able to demonstrate how men fall prey to evil and the
effects such a fall has on them, those around them,- and even
society as a whole in his later'tragedies. In the Satanic
20 Bowers, p. 48.
21 Bernard Spivack, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (New Yorki Columbia Univ. Press, 195&J» P» 375» 15
aspect of the villain, Shirley is able to make his audience
aware of the totality of dedication to evil on the villain’s
part; and in the villain’s Machiavellian aspect, Shirley is
able to account for a quite practical motivation for the
villain’s actions. Shirley is not merely combining a pair of
evil types that had earlier gained popularity? he is using
the method to give a view of evil as he understood it.
And the use of the single villainous character enables Shirley
to demonstrate his view that evil is perpetrated by individual
human beings, not through unidentifiable forces hidden in
some complex philosophical explanation of the nature of the universe such as the astrological arguments of his own day or
the deterministic or "naturalistic” ones that have become
so popular in ours. CHAPTER ONE
James Shirley employs identical techniques to Indicate the natureicf. his villains in all five tragedies. In every case the tragedy is set into motion by an evil being who practices deception on basically good people in order to gain his own selfish ends. His evil quality is indicated by application to him of verbal references (diction,, imagery) and nonverbal references (theatrical props) associated with the devil,, hell, serpents, and poison, all of which are used in a conventional way. They make clear to the audience that the person to whom they refer is unmistakably identified as the opposite of what is acceptable to orthodox morality.
Yet, to keep the villain from seeming only Satanic, Shirley gives him enough of a worldly motive for his actions to suggest a Machiavellian side to him, too. In this way
Shirley is able to combine the traditional religious expla nation of evil with the material explanation of rationalism.
As will be discussed in later chapters, Shirley was a
Catholic and traditionalist? and through this fusion of explanations for evil, he was attempting to reconcile two conflicting contemporary explanations for worldly events.
That is,,by uniting the two motives in the same villain,
Shirley is allowing that both explanations may be valid* 17
Just as Francis Bacon had maintained that both religious and scientific explanations may account for worldly phenomena.1
Almost without fail Shirley follows a set pattern in revealing the true nature of his villain. He takes a great deal of care to emphasize that the villain practices decep tion on both his victims and his accomplices. Further, his diction is well-larded with explicit references ("fiend,”
"devil")' which firmly connect the villain with Satanism.
Closely linked with the Satanic diction are images of serpents and poison, both of which have their basis in
Biblical tradition and therefore help to identify the nature of the villain. But to prevent the audience from associating him too closely with forces of the supernatural world,.
Shirley always clearly indicates that the ultimate aims of this evil figure are purely of this world. Since Shirley’s drama was addressed to an emerging rationalist age, never does the villain hope to capture souls,
1 Writers as diverse as George Herbert and Bacon were concerned with scientific versus religious answers to questions. In The Advancement of Learning. Bacon draws his well-known distinction between religious and scientific truths, perhaps "relegating" religion to the category of "higher" truth in order to clear the air for science to proceed. (For a full explanation of this view, see Basil Willey, The Seventeenth Century Background ¿1934; rpt. Garden City, N. Y. i Doubleday, 1952/» PP* 32-4-8.) Herbert takes Bacon’s claim that God can be discovered in the works of nature at face value; and in the poem "Vanitie" he claims that God’s existence can be verified in "showers and frosts, with love and awe, / So that we need not say, Where’s this command?" 18
Before actually examining these techniques, though, one
must understand the development of Satanic and Machiavellian
villains, the way they were viewed in Shirley’s age, and
their transferral to stage characterizations during this time.
Satan, or the devil (for they are synonymous), emerged
on the English stage as a strong and significant figure only
in the latter part of the sixteenth century. In the morality
plays of the Middle Ages and early sixteenth century, he is
comparatively Ignored. “As Belial, Lucifer, or Satan he
exists in only nine of the almost sixty surviving plays that
adhere, altogether or in part, to the morality convention?
and even in these nine his roles, with one exception, are
Insignificant." It is not until Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus
that the devil begins to assume an important role in English
drama. And even then his appearances are not terribly
frequent, considering the number of plays written between
the appearance of Doctor Faustus in the early 1590’s and
the closing of the theaters in 1642. Most of those plays
which do use the devil as an actual character are largely
unfamiliar to modern readers, the list including Chapman’s
Caesar and Pompey (1605), Dekker and Massinger’s The Virgin Martyr (l620),-and Rowley’s The Birth of Merlin (1608).^
2 Splvack, p. 130. 3 As Helen Gardner puts it, "In the Elizabethan period he /the devil7 virtually disappears in his own person from the greater plays" ("Milton’s ’Satan’ and the Theme of Damnation in Elizabethan Tragedy," English Studies, N. S. 1 /19487, rpt. in Milton? Modem Essays in Criticism, ed. Arthur E. Baker /New York? Oxford Unlv. Press, 196$A p. 206. 19
A number of the plays of the time deal with witches and witchcraft, through which Satan often works. (Of course, a
few plays have "white witches" rather than evil ones, of which an example is John Lyly’s Mother Bombie.) The Witch of
Edmonton,, a collaboration of Thomas Dekker, William Rowley, and John Ford, was based upon the account of the trial of an 4 alleged witch, Mother Sawyer. Middleton’s The Witch in volves a witch who prevents the consummation of a marriage» it is a tragicomedy and does not seem based on an actual contemporary occurrence, as is The Witch of Edmonton» but
Heywood’s The Late Lancashire Witches is another play based upon a witch trial. These plays and various others feature witches that have supernatural powers and Satanic intentions.
A more frequent and more successful strategy was to characterize some human figure in the play in Satanic terms, and examples of this are found in some of the best remembered plays of the English Renaissance,Shakespeare’s contribution alone includes Iago, Macbeth, and Richard III. One can cite 4 ■■ ■ Mary Leland Hunt, Thomas Dekker» A Study (1911» rpt. New York» Russell and Russell, 1964), p.“"l79.
For a full discussion of witchcraft and its use in English Renaissance drama, see Katherine M. Briggs, Pale Hecate’s Team (London»! Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), pp. 59-112.
In Renaissance comedies the devil was often a figure to be satirized and hence was portrayed in wryly humorous terms. Examples of this may be found in such plays as Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass, and Anthony Munday’s John a Kent and John a Cumber. But this study is concerned with tragedy and therefore will not attempt to examine the comic portrayal of the devil on stage. 20
further, among others, Wendoll in Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness, Bosola in Webster’s The Duchess of Malf 1,
and Mosby in the anonymous Arden of Faversham. To this list
can be added all five of the tragedies of James Shirley.
The belief in Satan as a real force in the world was
something the Renaissance in general had no trouble accept
ing. To begin with,, it had inherited a whole body of
pneumataloglcal literature from the ancient Greeks and
Romans. "Plato’s doctrine of separable form and his hints in the Tlmaeus at a hierarchy of spiritual forces, were philosophic ground to most of those ideas of daemonic mediators between the Supreme and man which were rife in the
Mediterranean world and became dazzlingly attractive to the
Renaissance scholar." Any well-read man of the Renaissance knew of the classical spiritual world of Hades. For instance in The Faerie Queene 1,5» hell is described almost wholly in Greek and Roman terms when Sansfoy, the dead paynim, is taken down through the same scenes and'past the same 8 figures as those described in the Aeneld. Furthermore,
"Apulelus and Plutarch had written not only works on the daemon of Socrates, but also the Lives and The Golden Ass— narrative stored with tales of magic and of spirits,.
? Robert H. West, The Invisible World (Athens, Georgia» Univ. of Georgia Press, 1939), P, 6. 8 Gilbert Hlghet, The Classical Tradition (New York« Oxford Univ. Press, 195?), P. l48. 21
These stories pneumatologists of all persuasions retailed
constantly, twisting interpretation to meet their own needs.
Equally levied upon, of course, were Hesiod, Lucan, Pliny,
Suetonius, Virgil, and a dozen other literary men of Greece
and Rome.!’7 But the main source for Renaissance belief in
the Devil was the Bible. The story of the temptation of Eve
was, of course, common knowledge. Likewise, the trial of
Job and the temptations undergone by Jesus in the wilderness
involve the Devil. Thus, from both classical and Biblical
sources came strong support for belief in a supernatural
force of evil.
Just as easily as it understood the evil of Satan, the
Renaissance understood the evil of the Machiavellian
character type. In fact, it has been claimed that the
Renaissance was ’’aware of Machiavellianism before it was aware of Machiavelli.”10
The term ’’Machiavellianism’’ and the formal understanding of its Implications came to the Renaissance through Senecan tragedy, which ’’reached England first through the Italian
Imitations. The characteristic type of the Italian Senecan drama was created by G. B. Glraldl Cinthio, and reigned supreme from 1541 to 1590. ... We find that he developed
West, p. ?. 10 Spivack, p. 376. 22
the type of superhuman knave he found In Seneca with the
help of elements derived from Machiavelli Often the actual teachings of Machiavelli were ignored and he was held responsible for actions the very opposite of what he would really advise. For instance, in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.
Barabas, a Machiavellian in the popular sense, brags how he has swindled his associates out of their money in order to become rich. In fact, "nothing could be less true to the historical teachings of Machiavelli, who warned his Prince to avoid, of all things, robbing his subjects, since, as he says,,man forgets earlier the death of his father than the » 12 loss of his patrimony." The irony of it all is under scored when one recalls that Machiavelli appears in propria persona in the prologue of this play.. Neverthelessr
Machiavellianism quickly became a term the Renaissance found handy to apply to the man who would use any means to achieve his goal.
Ample evidence exists to indicate that the Machiavellian, when put on stage, underwent no particular development. He was portrayed alternately as an object of horror and of 13 derision. J The Jew of Malta and The Spanish Tragedy are
H Mario Praz, Machiavelli and the Elizabethans (London? H. Milford, 1928), p. l8. 12 Praz, p. 4.
13 For documentation, see Praz, pp. 25-27,. 23
the two plays "which gave birth to the type of the Machiavellian knave on the Elizabethan stage."121' Iago in
Othello is certainly an outstanding example of that type, and the aforementioned influence of Cinthlo on Renaissance notions of Machiavellianism makes it interesting to note that
Shakespeare’s source for the play is the seventh novella in the third decade of Cinthio’s Hecatommlthl. Other plays with
characters that fit this mold include Vittoria in Webster’s
The White Devil, Piero in.Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge, and the
Duke of Guise in Massacre at Paris by Marlowe, to name only a
few. Perhaps it is because Clnthio,, who was so influential regarding the Elizabethan understanding of Machiavellianism, was a dramatist and therefore was of particular appeal as a
source of Renaissance English dramatists; or perhaps it was because Machiavellianism was such a popular topic at English universities when Marlowe was a student; but whatever the reason or reasons, Machiavelli, once he came to England, was not long in finding a home on the English stage. And James
Shirley’s tragedies did much to encourage his stay; for he was a useful device in demonstrating the material cause of evil.
Machiavelli, fused with Satan and developed into a human villain, was helpful in- Shirley’s accounting for evil in both religious and rationalist terms to a changing world.
14 Praz, p. 27 24
In turning to the tragedies of Shirley, one can hardly
fail to notice that, without exception, his villains employ
deception on basically good people in order to work selfish
ends. The fact that they are so often successful allows
Shirley to demonstrate man’s vulnerability to evil. Of
course, deception may be practiced by ordinary human beings»
but the drama of Shirley’s age closely associates deception with the devil.. For example, in Hamlet, the whole point of
Hamlet’s arranging the play "wherein I’ll catch the conscience
of the King" is to verify that the ghost’s story of how old
King Hamlet was killed is not merely a piece of deception designed to ensnare the soul of Prince Hamlet. Similarly,,
in Othello the Satanic Iago, through deception, tricks
Othello into believing that Desdemona has been an unfaithful wife. The list could go on and on, but these examples adequately show how closely deception was associated with the devil.
Borrowing upon this tradition, Shirley endows the Satanic
Catalina of The Maid’s Revenge with a cunning ability to deceive. Catalina, upon discovering that Antonio,, with whom she has fallen in love at first sight, loves her sister
Berinthia, conspires with the latter’s suitor,. Velasco, to undermine Antonio and Berinthia. But in order to conspire with Velasco she deceives him by telling him that she is against Antonio for his wanting to steal Berinthia away.
In fact, she simply wants Antonio for herself» but she tells 25
Velasco,
For my own part, I hate him In whom lives A will to wrong a gentleman; for he was Acquainted with your love; *Twas my respect To tender so your injury, I could not Be silent in it. ,- (Il.iii; p. 126)^
As soon as Velasco exits, however, she reveals to the
audience her true alms, thus stressing the deceptive art she
is practicing?
Sister, I’ll break a serpent’s egg betimes, And tear Antonio from thy very bosom, Love is above all law of nature, blood; Not what men call, but what that bids, is good. (Il.iii; p. 127)
Catalina also practices deception on her sister and father.
When Berinthia tries to cover her true feelings about
Antonio, Catalina overlooks the entire matter, saying she
has confidence that Berinthia will respect her father’s
wish that Catalina marry first. Yet one sees that in reality
Catalina does not overlook this issue at all. She deceives
her father by hiding from him her true character. Vilarezo
is portrayed as rather naive and perhaps even foolish. Thus, when Berinthia is found missing, Vilarezo never suspects
Catalina’s guilt.
15 Works. All references to Shirley’s plays are to the Dyce edition, which is unlineated.. 26
Shirley continues to use deception as one of the dis tinguishing features of his villainness, Clariana, in Love * s
Cruelty (1631). In that play, Clariana deceives Bellamente, to whom she is is betrothed, when he finds her in the quarters of his friend, Hippolito. Though she explains her visit as arising out of curiosity, her asides before Bellamente*s arrival—"I do like him infinitely" and "All is not well within me" (II.ij p. 209)—indicate that she is deceiving
Bellamente. Though Bellamente marries her in an attempt to prevent further temptations, Clariana pursues Hippolito until, by the start of Act Four, they are shown lying in a bed in Clariana’s chamber.Bellamente catches them in this situation and, though he is no longer deceived, in a gesture reminiscent of Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness 17 he forgives his wife and allows both sinners to live.
When Hippolito thereafter makes an about face and decides to
The emotional instability observable in the character of Hippolito suggests the typical Baroque protagonist, "They ¿Baroque protagonists/ are strange, unpredictable creatures, who belong to a world of theatrical contrivance. They are monsters and saints, living abstractions and combinations of irreconcilable extremes," (Eugene M. Waith, The Pattern of Tragicomedy in Beaumont and Fletcher ¿Ñew Haven, Cort>» Yale Univ. Press, 1952/, p. 38.5 The suggestion has been made quite recently that Othello is exemplary of this,, too. (Rolf Soellner, Shakespeare’s Patterns of Self-Knowledge ¿Columbus 1 Ohio State Univ. Press, 1972/, pp. 259-S&) The propensity to do evil may indeed reside latently in various Shirley characters. Shirley seems to accept the idea of innate depravity, which holds essentially the same position regarding all men. But even such openly unstable characters as Hippolito are set into evil motion only by a Satanic-Machiavellian force, the sine qua non of Shirleian tragedy.
Forsythe, p. 165, 2?
marry the virtuous Eubella, Clariana, like Catalina, cannot
stand, to lose her love» when she hears of his plans, she
begins to deceive him. She sends Hippolito a letter in
dicating that there is a plot against his life» but when
they talk, Clariana only asks Hippolito not to marry Eubella.
Until now, Clariana, again like Catalina, has practiced the
evil art of deception for sinful purposes but only for her
carnal pleasure and only against Bellamente. Now she uses
this deceptively contrived interview to ask Hippolito to
cancel his marriage. When he refuses to do so, she stabs
him to death, Ironically verifying the contents of the letter
By doing so, Clariana confirms the depth of her evil, there by allowing Shirley to show that there are those who are
completely dedicated to evil and that nothing can prevent
evil from running its course.
The use of deception by the villain Lorenzo in The
Traitor is just as obvious as in the previous two plays.
Lorenzo desires to overthrow the Duke of Florence» and when the Duke receives a letter Indicating Lorenzo’s Intent to do so, Lorenzo flatly denies the whole matter. When the Duke confronts him with the letter, Lorenzo convinces the Duke that the letter contains lies. He recites a long list of deeds he has performed for the state and asks the Duke whether they are deeds of a traitor.,- By the time Lorenzo is through,.he has vindicated himself in the eyes of the Duke. 28
The deception continues when the Duke admits to Lorenzo
that he would like to enjoy Amidea, who is Pisano’s late
love and Sciarrha’s sister. The Duke counsels Lorenzo to
arrange the seduction with Sciarrha, whom he recognizes to
be "all touchwood.” Lorenzo confides to Sciarrha about how
he has tried to talk the Duke out of his desires for Amideat
Heaven knows how I have counsel*d this young man By virtue to prevent his fate, and govern With modesty, (II.I; p. 114)
Believing Lorenzo, Sciarrha plays into Lorenzo’s hands by
suggesting that they kill the lustful Duke. Lorenzo is not
completely successful in his deception, for Sciarrha tells
him, "We know you but disguise your heart, and wish / Florence
would change her title" (Il.i; p. 114). But Sciarrha is so
Interested in combatting the Duke that he ignores the matter
of Lorenzo’s ambitions. Later, however, Sciarrha decides not
to kill the Duke.. In an interview between the Duke and
Amidea, the Duke reveals his lustful intent, and Amidea
wounds herself with akknife In an effort to demonstrate her
opposition to his lust. The Duke then becomes pliant and
temporarily, at least, reforms. While there are those who attack this sort of incident as mere melodrama, Shirley may be attempting to emphasize the goodness of Amidea. The willingness of self-sacrifice in an effort to reform one’s fellow man has a certain Christian overtone. Sciarrha, at 29
any rate, has seen all this from behind a tapestry and begins
to side with the Duke. He tells the Duke of Lorenzo’s plot
against the Duke and arranges for an interview between him
self and Lorenzo with the Duke looking on in hiding. In this
interview, he tells Lorenzo that he has murdered the Duke.
But Lorenzo does not believe him and feigns ignorance of
their plot. When Sciarrha and Lorenzo are about to come to
blows over the matter, the Duke steps out of hiding and stops
the argument. By this time he has been convinced of, and of
course deceived about, Lorenzo’s innocence.
Turning to The Politician, one finds once again that
the villain practices deception as one of his main devices to achieve his selfish ends. The villain Gotharus begins by deceiving the King of Norway? for, as the play opens, it is revealed that Gotharus has convinced the King to send
Turgeslus, the King’s son, away to war with the King’s uncle,
Duke Olaus. Gotharus’ purpose in doing so has been to hope the two are killed in battle, thus opening the door for
Haraldus, Queen Marpisa’s son by a previous marriage, to take nominal control of the kingdom.. In this way Gotharus thinks he will become the virtual ruler. But Gotharus’ plan has not worked, for it is announced that Turgesius and Olaus are on their way home, having been victorious in war. In fact, the King has married Marpisa while the two warriors were gone, and Gotharus knows that they will be angered by this. But then Gotharus decides to practice deception and 30
counsels Marpisa to do the same?
I must confess I was troubled when I heard it first. Seem not You pale at their return; but put on smiles To grace their triumph. Now you have most need Of women’s art, dissemble cunningly. (I.i; p. 104)
There is deception, too, in the illicit relationship that
Gotharus has with Marpisa; she Is really more Gotharus’ wife
than she is the King’s. But the King is easily duped, and
Gotharus has no trouble keeping this from him; Also there is
deception in Gotharus’ convincing the King to send Turgesius
to war. At one point, the King is unable to understand why he is so melancholy until finally he states, ’’My son; / I was too rash to part with him’’ (Il.i; p. 106), But he is still so badly deceived that later, when Marpisa complains she is afraid Olaus and Turgesius will disapprove of her marriage to the King, the King vows to treasure Marpisa far above his son and unclei
Let my son or uncle Dare but affront thee in a look, I shall Forget the ties of nature, and discharge them Like the corruption in my blood. (Il.i; p. Ill)
When Marpisa says she can submit herself to the pair, the
King objects, claiming, "Thou art all goodness; twenty kingdoms are / Too little for thy dowry" (Il.i; p. 111),. 31
That Gotharus is largely responsible for the King’s ignorance
of Marpisa’s sinfulness should be evident from what has been
said thus far. But Gotharus reiterates his true purpose in
all this deception when he tells Marpisa,
What mischief Will not Gotharus fly to, to assure The fair Marpisa’s greatness, and his own. (I.i; p. 104)
Thus from the start Gotharus is portrayed as practicing
deception in order to gain his ends.
Satanic-Machiavellian deception may be seen to play an
important’; role in The Cardinal. As the play opens, the
Duchess is supposed to be on the verge of marrying the
Cardinal’s nephew, Columbo. But it is soon obvious that she
really loves Count d’Alvarez. When news comes of an uprising
of the Arragonians that will call Columbo away to war, she is
so happy that he must go away that she says, "This is above
all expectation happy" (I.li; p. 285), After Columbo has
gone to war, the Duchess sends him a letter asking for a
release from his affections,. As she hopes, Columbo thinks the
letter is but a test of his love and playfully replies that
she may have that release. Having received it, the Duchess makes plans to go through with her marriage to d'Alvarez.
When the Cardinal learns of this, he is furious and begins to make plans of his own to deal with the Duchess. He notifies
Columbo of the Duchess’ intention to marry d’Alvarez; and 32
when Columbo returns home, he and his followers arrange to
put on a masque for the entertainment of the Duchess and
d’Alvarez. At the masque, Columbo brutally murders d’Alvarez.
With d’Alvarez dead, Hernando, a colonel in Columbo*s army,
becomes the Duchess’ champion. Hernando has for some time
been angry with Columbo for Columbo’s dismissing him after
a disagreement in military tactics during the war with the
Arragonians. Hernando and the Duchess plot to kill Columbo
in revenge of d’Alvarez since the King will not take action
against Columbo. Hernando challenges Columbo and slays
him. This so infuriates the Cardinal that he vows vengeance upon the Duchess«
I’ll rifle first her darling chastity» ’T will be after time enough to poison her, And she to th’ world be thought her own destroyer. (V.ij p. 335)
But the Duchess is a worthy antagonist and decides to feign
insanity when the King puts the Cardinal in charge of keeping the Duchess. So far, then, the Cardinal has practiced decep tion by pretending to look out for the Duchess’ well-being when he really intends to rape and poison her.
In the rape scene, the Duchess* cry for help is answered when Hernando jumps from behind an arras and wounds the
Cardinal. The Cardinal raises a cry throughout the house that brings the King and a surgeon. Before anyone can control 33
Hernando, he commits suicide. But the Cardinal is still
alive though he thinks he has received a mortal wound. It
is here that the Cardinal begins to practice his greatest
deception. While he lies wounded, he alleges that he has
poisoned some meat the Duchess has just eaten. As a supposed
gesture of mercy and his own repentance, he gives the Duchess
a box of powder, which he claims,
mix’d with wine, by a most rare And quick access to the heart, will fortify it Against the rage of the most nimble poison. (V.iii; p. 349)
To demonstrate that the powder is not poison, he takes a dose first. This is a successful deception in one sense, at least. For the Duchess then takes a dose, after which the Cardinal declares,
Now my revenge has met With you, my nimble duchess! I have took A shape to give my act more freedom, too, And now I am sure she’s poison’d with that dose I gave her last. (V.iii; p. 350)
In this manner the Cardinal successfully deceives the Duchess and achieves the revenge he set out to get. The Cardinal,, the manifest villain of the play, uses deception just as surely as the villains of the other tragedies.
Deception by itself is not necessarily Satanic, but when it is combined with a strong verbal suggestion of the
Satanic, the significance of both the deception and the 34
diction becomes more meaningful because of the ambient moral context of the Satanic-Machiavellian framework that Shirley provides. And such diction occurs time after time in all five tragedies. One of the most frequent techniques
Shirley uses is to have essentially good characters identify the villain as a devil. In The Maid's Revenge, Antonio’s servant, Diego, overhears Catalina's vow to kill Berinthia and then remarks, "Go thy ways! an the devil wants a breeder thou art for him. One spirit and herself are able to fur nish hell an it were provided" (Ill.i; p. 137). Later,
Antonio, in an attempt to explain why he has stolen
Berinthia, warns Sebastiano of Catalina»
Thou dost not think what devil lies at home Within a sister’s bosom; Catalina (I know not with what worst of envy,) laid Force to this goodly building. (IV,i; p. 162)
By Act Five, all major characters seem to realize that
Catalina is of the devil. By this time, Catalina has caused enough confusion that Sebastiano, at his father’s command, kills his best friend, Antonio, for the latter's theft of
Berinthia. But Catalina is caught in her own web of evil, for she takes the poison that has been mistakenly administered to her by her servant, Ansilva, who thought she was giving
Catalina a love potion on behalf of the latter’s foolish suitor, Montenegro. As Catalina cries out in pain, Berinthia, 35
who has secretly exchanged the love potion and poison, calls
Catalina "queen of hell" and "my eldest devil-sister." In
her Jdying words, even Catalina confesses her own diabolism«
"Oh, I must walk the dark foggy way that spits fire and
brimstone . . . there’s a smith’s forge in my belly, and the
devil blows the bellows." She finally dies cursing and com
pletely unrepentant. To Ansilva she screams, "hell on thy
cursed weakness . . . Confusion, torment, death, hell"
(V.iiij pp. 183-84).
Satanic diction shows up also in Love’s Cruelty in
numerous instances. Even before Clariana and Hippolito
have had sexual relations, Bellamente, upon finding her in
Hippolito*s quarters, refers to her diabolical nature«
Lady, he has seen you now, And knows you too,— And how do you like him, lady? does he not Career it handsomely, in the devil’s saddle? (Il.iii; p. 218)
When Clariana pays Hippolito a second visit, Hippolito’s
first words upon seeing her are, "There’s the devil already«
I cannot leave / Her" (III. 11«; p. 228). Later a servant
reports to Bellamente that Clariana and Hippolito have
indeed had sexual relations within the last few minutes.
Bellamente, naturally hoping the servant is mistaken,
threatens him« "Can this be possible? Be sure they are devils, / Or I shall find a new hell for thee" (Ill.iv; p. 236). 36
Still later, when Clariana asks Hippolito to cancel his marriage plans with Eubella, Hippolito tells Clariana that she is opposing the church«:
There Is no love that is not virtuous, And. thy consenting thus far but in thought, Is a sacrilege, and thou dost rob the church Twice, first in violation of thy vows, Which there were registered, and then mine expected. (V.iii P. 262)
At this point, Bellamente, catching the two together for the third time, intends to kill them. But before he can get a weapon, Clariana stabs Hippolito as Hippolito exclaims, "Ha, devil! / What hast /thou7 done?" (V.iii p. 264).
Evidence of the Satanic motif is similarly conspicuous in The Traitor. When, for example, Lorenzo is trying to demonstrate his faithfulness to the Duke, he asks the latter,
Have I a soul To think the guilt of such a murder easy, Were there no other torments? (I.ii; p. 108)
One must assume that Lorenzo has considered this matter and decided to go ahead with his conspiracy anyway because he recognizes that he is devoid of a soul. Taken alone, this would be slim evidence upon which to maintain that Lorenzo is Satanic. But this is just the beginning. After Lorenzo has convinced the Duke of his, Lorenzo’s, innocence, the Duke tries to re-establish their friendship« "I’ll credit my soul 37
with thee" (I.li; p. 110). Though not aware of the full
significance of this remark, the Duke is in fact placing
his soul in the hands of a being who, in the course of the
play, is shown to be clearly Satanic. Taken in such con
text, the Duke’s remark is highly suggestive of the tragic
mistake of Dr. Faustus. In the Interview between Sciarrha
and Lorenzo with the Duke hidden, Sciarrha claims to have murdered the Duke; but Lorenzo does not believe him and
feigns ignorance of their plot. Lorenzo appears to become
indignant when he hears this news and exclaims, "Who in
Florence / Dares be so black a devil to attempt / His death?" (III.ill; p. 146). Therefore, Lorenzo says that anyone who would plot the death of the Duke is a "black devil." Sciarrha is quick to identify who that devil is when he replies, "Why that devil is Lorenzo, if he dares deny it" (III..iil; p. 146). Later Sciarrha even goes so far as to say that Lorenzo is worse than the devil when Lorenzo continues to proclaim his innocence»
The devil does Acknowledge thee on earth the greater mis chief, And has a fear when thou art dead he sha’not Be safe in hell. Thou wo’t conspire with some Of his bla'ck fiends, and get his kingdom from him, (IC.1; p. 150)
Until Act Four, the accusation of Lorenzo’s being
Satanic has come from Sciarrha; but when Lorenzo emerges 38
stabbing a picture of the Duke, he himself confirms in visual terms that the charge is true. In a soliloquy, he first testifies that he has divested himself of all human com passion»
I did suspect his /the Duke’s/ youth and beauty might Win some compassion when I came to kill him, Or the remembrance that he is my kinsman Might thrill my blood. (V.iii p. 179)
This indicates, in other words, that though at first he suspected he might relent because of humanitarian concern, he has overcome all scruples by now. Then Lorenzo likens himself unto a witch when he states,
Witches can persecute the lives of whom They hate when they torment their senseless figures, And stick the waxen models full of pins. Gan any stroke of mine carry less spell To wound his heart, sent with as great a malice? (V.ii; p. 179)
The association between witchcraft and Satan is so well-known that Shirley’s audience could not have failed to comprehend 18 what Lorenzo is supposed to represent,.
References to Gotharus in Satanic terms in The Politician are as numerous as those to other Shirley villains. The first time Gotharus comes upon the stage, he is observed reading a letter by Hormenus, an honest courtier, who comments
18 An excellent in-depth discussion of this association is Briggs, pp. 59-112. 39
What news From hell? He cannot want intelligence, he has So many friends there. (i.ij p. 94)
When Turgesius returns from the war unharmed, Gotharus, dis
pleased, starts immediately to attempt to convince the King
that Turgesius is a threat to the King’s well-being. As
Gotharus considers a plan to do so, he prays to the forces of
evil, "Malice inspire my brain" (II.ij p. 115). He Is, as
the speech indicates, actively seeking aid from evil powers.
As Gotharus begins to succeed in convincing the King that
Turgesius is a threat, the King seeks Gotharus’ advice on how to handle the son. As Gotharus counsels him, he tells the
King, "He that aspires hath no religion« / He knows no kin dred" (III.11« p. 128), As previously demonstrated, Gotharus himself "aspires," and his words here suggest the possibility of his own lack of religion or goodness. Turgeslus also recognizes Gotharus to be a creature of hell. After the
King closes the gates of the city to prevent the entrance of
Turgesius and Olaus, the two march up to the city walls, followed by their soldiers, whereupon Gotharus accuses
Turgesius of turning on the King. To this accusation
Turgesius replies, "I dare hell’s accusation, to blast / My humble thoughts" (IV.il« p. 143). Still later Gotharus again appeals to the powers of evil for help. As he is pursued by the rebels who have learned that he is responsible for the 40
turmoil raised by the King’s refusal to accept their hero,
Turgesius, Gotharus cries out, "Hell stop their throats!"
(IV.V} p. 158). This confirms Turgesius» accusation and
reinforces the notion of Gotharus’ Satanism (cf. IV, vj p.
159). Thus, Shirley is able through the portrayal of the
villain as Satanic to remind his audience of the nature and
source of evil.
Finally, Gotharus, desperate, mistakenly runs into
Olaus while fleeing from the rebels. He asks Olaus for help, and Olaus tells him to climb into a coffin. The rebels then
enter, are told that Turgesius is in the coffin, and take the
coffin on a march through town to honor the supposedly dead
Turgesius. But Turgesius appears, causing them to look into the coffin. When Gotharus is discovered dead, even Olaus is surprised 1 "Dead! / Then the devil’s not so wise as I took him" (V.iii P. l6?). Thus, from the time Gotharus appears on stage until he dies, he is consistently associated with the forces of hell.
As in The Maid's Revenge, Love's Cruelty, The Traitor, and The Politician, the Satanic motif is evident in The
Cardinal. Early in the play, Shirley makes clear that the
Cardinal is anti-religious,,a fact the Duchess realizes when she tells him,
Leave, leave, my lord, these usurpations, And be what you were meant, a man to cure Not to let in agues to religion. (Il.iiii p. 302) 41
Direct identification of the Cardinal with the Satanic is
made on several occasions. At the end of a conversation with
Hernando,,the Cardinal excuses himself by saying, "You see
the king expects me," to which Hernando replies, "So does the
devil" (III.ii p. 306). On another occasion Hernando refers
to the Cardinal as a "charitable devil" (Ill.iii p. 312).
Still another Reference comes in the scene in which the
Cardinal is attempting to rape the Duchess. As he makes his
advances, she asks him, "How came you by that cloven foot"
(V.iii| p. 347). Finally the Cardinal himself admits his
close connection with evil. While he is persuading the
Duchess to partake of the poison, he says, "I must confess
more than my black intents / Upon your honour" (V.iiij p. 348),
This is said to dupe her, but he does expect everyone to agree
that he has led a life of "black Intents."
Shirley frequently uses serpent and poison imagery to
express the depths of evil in his tragedies. The serpent
is suggestive of Satan, who appeared as such to Eve in the
Garden of Eden. Polson, being a property of serpents, is suggestive of Satan also. But it is suggestive, too, of
Machiavellianism. In Elizabethan drama,. Machiavellianism
"suggested chiefly ... a treacherous way of killing, generally by poison. . . . These Machiavellian poisons, punctual like clock-work, became no less a regular property 42
of the Elizabethan stage than the Senecan bloody blades."1^
Poison is used in Shakespeare’s Hamlet by Claudius, in King
Lear by Goneril, and in Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta by
Barabas, to name only a few. It is the thesis of this chap
ter that Shirley combined Satanic and Machiavellian charac teristics in creating his villains in order to demonstrate at once both the depths and motivations of those who perpetrate evil. And to show how great a role the Satanic-
Machiavellian device of poison plays in his tragedies helps to make this point clear. Of course, the poison often becomes an actual plot device by which someone murders another, but poison always enters Shirley’s tragedies as an image first and therefore maintains a metaphorical quality throughout the play. Only in The Traitor, in fact, is poison not used« and even there serpent imagery, which is at least somewhat suggestive of poison,•is*used:
In The Maid’s Revenge, Catalina calls upon hell to
"furnish me with such a poison" (111,1« p. 137), with which she can kill both Antonio and Berinthia. This is clearly metaphorical at first, though it later becomes an actual weapon In Catalina’s arsenal. Antonio, informing Sebastiano of Catalina’s plans against Berinthia, tells him that
19 Praz, pp. 32-33. 43
Catalina "through poison / Had robb’d the earth of more than
all the world, / Her /Berinthia*s/ virtue" (IV.i; p. 162),
By Act Five, Catalina has caused enough confusion that
Sebastian© has killed his best friend, Antonio. But she
eventually becomes the victim of the poisonous atmosphere
she has created. She takes the poison that has been mis
takenly administered to her by her servant, Ansllva, who
thought she was giving Catalina a love potion on behalf of
the latter’s foolish suitor, Montenegro, Berinthia has
secretly exchanged the love potion and poison, and Catalina
finally dies by her own treachery. Serpent imagery is also
apparent in The Maid’s Revenge. For instance, Catalina, in
a soliloquy, says, "Sister, I’ll break a serpent’s egg
betimes, / And tear Antonio from thy very bosom" (Il.iiij
p. 127). This is said at a time when she is still planning her eiril, and "breaking a serpent’s egg" indicates that she
is still "hatching" her plans. But much later, when Antonio steals Berinthia away and it appears that Catalina’s plans will not work, Velasco expresses the danger involved in such goings on by stating, "It had been safer / For Catalina to have play’d with serpents" (Ill.vis p. 152). This speech obviously identifies Catalina with serpents to express the depth of her evil.
Serpent imagery occurs in Love * s Cruelty when Bellamente calls Hippolito a "treacherous serpent" (IV.i; p. 242) after 44
having caught the latter in bed with Clariana. Poison
is used metaphorically to help Shirley dramatize the enor
mity of evil. When Bellamente first attempts to explain
to Clariana why Hippolito does not wish to see her, she
mockingly wonders if Hippolito is afraid she will poison
him»
Dares not see me! I Shoot no Infection, nor breathe any mist That shall corrupt him» what’s his reason, pray? (1.1; pp. 195-96)
The irony of this speech becomes apparent when she does
"poison” Hippolito by tempting him until he finally has
sexual relations with her, which is the cause of Hippolito’s
eventual fall. Sebastian, father of the chaste and virtuous
Eubella, is afraid that the Duke, who is trying to seduce
her, will succeed. Using poison as a metaphor to express
opposition to the Duke’s attempts to buy his approval of the affair, Sebastian says he would rather
Plough my own acres with my innocence, Than have my name advanc’d by poison’d honour. He must not whore my daughter. (I.li; p. 202)
Through the use of poison as a metaphor, Shirley is able to show how evil pollutes the atmosphere of the surroundings it invades. In still another use of poison, however, Shirley reminds his audience that poison is an effective weapon of the Machiavellian self-seeker. After Hippolito has read a 45
letter from Clariana warning him falsely against a plot
against his life, he assumes that Bellamente Is the plotter
and wonders what means Bellamente will use against him:
’’Perhaps I shall be poisoned at dinner. / A thousand ways
there are to let out life” (V.i; p. 255). But even here the
effectiveness of such a statement is prepared for by the
metaphorical uses of poison previously cited.
Serpent imagery appears in The Traitor when Depazzi, the
cowardly accomplice of Lorenzo, employs it to characterize
Lorenzo’s traitorousness. In a mock trial,, he pretends to
testify against Lorenzo, calling him a ’’viper" and then
describing Lorenzo’s actions as "this serpentive treason
broken in the shell" (Ill.i; p. 132).
More of the same technique is found in The Politician.
As In The Maid’s Revenge, Love * s Cruelty, and The Traitor,
here the villain is likewise characterized by serpent imagery
When Olaus informs Turgesius that Gotharus is responsible for
Marpisa’s marrying the King and the King’s suspicious actions
towardsthem, Turgesius raves, "I’ll have his /Gotharus// heart"? but Olaus replies,
But how will you come by It? He’s safe in the king’s bosom, who keeps warm A serpent, till he find a time to gnaw Out his preserver, (Ill.iv; p. 137) b6
On an earlier occasion a similar instance occurs when Helga
and Sueno, Gotharu’ lackeys, enter; and as they try to
flatter the King and Queen, honest Hormenus asks theift "Which
of you can resolve what serpent spawn’d you?" (II.i; p. 108),
Quite obviously, since they are there in behalf of Gotharus,
it is he who has "spawned" thern^. Shirley uses poison
metaphorically in The Politician when Gotharus prays to hell
for a way to deceive the King»
Malice inspire my brain, To poison his opinion of his son; I’ll form it cunningly. (II.i; p. 115)
Gotharus again uses poison imagery when he is explaining to
the King why Turgeslus must be killed;
I would be, sir, your honest surgeon; And when you have a gangrene in your limb, Not flatter you to death, but tell you plainly, If you would live, the part so poison’d must be Cut from your body. (IV.i; p. 140)
Gotharus himself is, of course, the poison polluting the
atmosphere in the kingdom of Norway, and the poison becomes an actual device by which he is eliminated. The actual poison is administered by Marpisa after she finds that he
is responsible for the death of her son, Haraldus. She gives him a box filled with poison that he believes is an antidote.
He subsequently takes it and is discovered dead when he is 47
found in the coffin the rebels have been carrying through the town.
Still again in The Cardinal Shirley uses serpent and poison imagery. The Duchess identifies the villainous
Cardinal with serpents. After deciding to send the letter to Columbo asking for her release from him, she indicates that this is a dangerous plan because it defies the
Cardinal’s wishes.
Do not I walk upon the teeth of serpents, And, as I had a charm against their poison, Play with their stings? The Cardinal is subtle,. Whom ’tis not wisdom to incense. (II.11» p. 295)
Poison is used both metaphorically and actually in order to demonstrate the evil. As previously noted, the Duchess sees the Cardinal’s serpent-like quality when she wonders at herself walking on the teeth of serpents "as I had a charm against their poison" (II.ii; p. 295). Likewise, the
Cardinal uses poison metaphorically just before he tries to rape the Duchess. As he contemplates how to bring the greatest possible harm to her, how to pollute her most thoroughly,:he says, "Now for some art, to poison all her innocence" (V.iii; p. 345). Thus, since he settles on rape as the fit method, one may assume that he sees his raping the Duchess as his poisoning her. Moving from the metaphori cal to the actual realm, the Cardinal poisons both himself 48
(unwittingly, of course) and the Duchess, as already mentioned
in the discussion of deception.
Through the use of poison Shirley is able to make his
villains seem both Satanic and Machiavellian. On the meta
phorical level the poison can be taken as a characteristic
of a Satanic figure, for poison had long been associated with
Satan because of his appearance in the Garden of Eden as a
serpent. But Shirley does not leave the matter at that level.
Instead he brings it into the realm of the actual world and
uses it as a way for a villain to in fact kill his adversary.
Polson, then, is a very successful image by which Shirley
endows his villains with both Satanic and Machiavellian
characteristics.
When we turn from imagery to character device, we see
that Shirley further Indicates the Machiavellian quality of
his villains by giving each of them clearly worldly motives
for committing their villainy. In no case does any of the
villains even hint that his purpose in committing and causing
evil is someone’s soul. In The Maid’s Revenge and Love's
Cruelty the motive is jealousy, and in The Traitor.. The
Politician, and The Cardinal the motive is political ambition.
The exact details of the villain’s motivation differ from play to play, but the motive is always worldly.
In The Maid’s Revenge, Catalina wants the man whom her
sister loves. Knowing, however, that he has no interest in 49
her, Catalina decides to get revenge on Berinthia. This
revenge is predicated entirely upon her jealousy, having no
soul-corrupting ramifications about it.
As in The Maid’s Revenge, in Love*s Cruelty the
villainness’ motive is purely worldly. Clariana finds her
self romantically attracted to Hippolito; and though she
knows she should remain faithful to her husband, she convinces
the somewhat reluctant Hippolito to make love to her anyway.
When Hippolito later announces his plans to marry Eubella,
Clariana is overcome by jealousy and murders Hippolito.
Once again, the villainness’ motive is clear. Her initial
sin is motivated purely by passion and her subsequent sin by jealousy. She does not quest after the soul of anyone; her conduct is easily understood in worldly terms. Such clearly defined worldly motives make Shirley’s tragedies* villains immune from such terms as Coleridge’s "motiveless malignancy."
The Traitor marks the beginning of a shift in the villain’s motivation; whereas in the first two plays thwarted love serves as the motivation, in this play and the two to follow, the villain is motivated by political ambition. But in either case, the motive is still of a clearly worldly sort. In The Traitor Lorenzo wants to overthrow the Duke and take control of Florence himself. All his plots stem from this desire, including his promising Amidea to the Duke 50
and inflaming Sciarrha against the Duke. Even up to the
point of his death, Lorenzo believes that his schemes will
eventually allow him to take control of Florence.
Political ambition is given only a slightly different
twist in The Politician from what one finds in The Traitor.
Gotharus does not actually hope to be King, but he does hope
to make Haraldus, his lover’s son, his pawn. It is because
of this hope that Gotharus sets out to destroy Turgesius,
the King’s son? for Gotharus knows that he can never hope to
control Turgesius if the latter becomes ruler. Gotharus
hopes to capture no souls. He never alludes even in passing
to such desire. His ambition is purely political.
The purely worldly ambitions of the villain are most
clearly emphasized in The Cardinal, for here the villain is an evil churchman; yet all his evil schemes are solely for worldly gain and not for the advancement of Satan’s cause against God.. The Cardinal is set on his nephew Columbo and the Duchess marrying, and when she tricks Columbo into releasing her from such an arrangement, the Cardinal goes into action by notifying Columbo of the Duchess’ intention to marry d*Alvarez. When Columbo returns from war, he and his followers arrange to put on a masque for the entertainment of the Duchess and d’Alvarez. At the masque, Columbo brutally murders d’Alvarez. One may wish to agree with
Fredson Bowers that the Cardinal is not guilty of the masque 51
murder. Bowers argues that the Duchess "persistently
believes that the cardinal instigated the murder of her
husband and, in fact, accuses him to his face. Yet Shirley 20 has given no indication of such a fact,’* However, this is
not true; when the Cardinal first learns of the Duchess’
plan to marry d’Alvarez, he says, ”’Tis action and revenge /
Must calm her fury” (Il.iii; p. 303). He then sends a letter
to Columbo informing the latter of the Duchess’ plan, and
surely he knows Columbo well enough to realize that Columbo will not let the matter go without attention,. Perhaps the
Cardinal is not aware of the specific plan when Columbo mur
ders d’Alvarez, but this does not excuse him from guilt in
the matter. He has clearly provoked the slaying of d’Alvarez on purpose whether he has had a specific part in the masque or not.- And, as in the case of the other Shirley villains, the Cardinal’s motivation is entirely worldly, a fact he admits when he says his purpose in arranging a marriage between the Duchess and Columbo is
to add More lustre to our family by the access Of the great duchess’ fortune. (III.I, p.. 304)
This “lustre" seems to be his hopes for Columbo’s political advancement, as d’Alvarez indicates when he mentions "the
Cardinal’s / Plot to advance his nephew" (I.ii; p, 287).
20 Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 223. 52
In all five tragedies, then, Shirley makes abundantly plain the fact that the motives of the villains are purely worldly, which gives a definite Machiavellian quality to the villains,.
In short, the villains in all five of Shirley’s trage dies are partly Satanic and partly Machiavellian, but none is wholly one or the other. With this technique Shirley is able to emphasize the villainy of these figures beyond what he could have achieved by making them wholly Satanic or wholly Machiavellian, thereby fusing traditional ideas of evil with those of a scientific and political age in which
Shirley found himself. CHAPTER TWO
All five of Shirley’s tragedies demonstrate that anyone who associates closely with evil,, either intentionally or by
complacency,, is unable to avoid its taint and attendant suffer
ing, In every tragedy, there is an accomplice to the villain, a person who, though he helps the villain perpetrate evil, is also fatefully subject to the villain’s evil. The accomplice may be naive, lustful, cunning, or rash; he may fall rather unwittingly into evil, or he may approach it with full know ledge of what he does. But whatever the case, he is portrayed in a manner that makes clear that not only Satanic but also ordinary individuals are vulnerable to evil. Unlike the villain, the accomplice-character is not portrayed in Satanic terms but rather in terms of his ordinary humanity. Except in the case of The Traitor, in which the Duke of Florence is motivated by plain lust for Amidea, the motivation is normal romantic love which goes awry through an excess of passion.
But even the Duke’s is a purely worldly motivation and is given no supernatural overtone by Shirley. By drawing this distinction between villain and accomplice, Shirley is able to emphasize his belief that all men are vulnerable to evil.
Shirley’s intent is to demonstrate the extremes to which 5^
normal humans^-will resort when their emotions are strained
by personal injuries.
The distinction I am attempting to make in this chapter
between the villain and his accomplice is perhaps best
clarified by adverting to Madeleine Doran, who distinguishes
between "ethos, a man’s natural bent, disposition, or moral character, and pathos, emotion in a given situation."2 In
Shirley’s tragedies, the villain’s evil is the result of his
ethos, and the accomplice’s perpetration of it is the result
of his pathos. As Doran explains it, "Elizabethan audiences
expected good men and women to fall before strong temptation;
they expected them to be carried headlong into crime, and
not because Aristotle had propounded a theory of ’tragic flaw,*
but because they knew that temptation to sin was the way Satan had for encompassing the ruin of mortal man."3 She goes on to
state that Elizabethan tragedy often stressed pathos at the
expense of ethos in order to emphasize the common humanity in
every man and his danger from a common enemy. The distinction
is quite useful in examining the villain-accomplice figures in
Shirley’s tragedies. These terms distinguish between the force
of evil, represented by the villain, and the agency of its
proliferation, represented by the accomplice, in order to prove
the vulnerability of normal individuals to evil.
1 "Normal" indicates that the accomplices are not Satanic and that there is nothing supernatural about them. 2 Endeavors of Art (Madison; Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1954), p. 236; ”
3 Endeavors of Art, pp. 238-39. 55
This emphasis on pathos in the development of the accom plice accounts for Shirley’s endowing him with some redeeming personal trait, be it bravery, as in the case of Velasco in
The Maid’s Revenge. Marpisa in The Politician, and Columbo in
The Cardinal; or the capacity of self-reform, as with Hippolito in Love * s Cruelty; or the willingness to confess one’s own wrongdoings and to warn others against similar actions, as in the case of the Duke in The Traitor, But in all cases the accomplice’s redeeming quality is never shared by the villain.
This approach is similar to that of other well-known drama tists of Shirley’s age. In Webster’s Duchess of Malf1, Bosola serves as the accomplice for the Satanic Cardinal.Bosola’s attempts at the end of the play to right the wrong he has done show he is not incapable of compassion for good; for as he says of himself, he "was an actor in the main of all /
Much ’gainst mine own good nature" (V.v.107-09). The same may be said for Anne Frankford in Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. While the villainous Wendoll causes her to be unfaithful to her husband, she ultimately repudiates his wickedness and repents;
The devil doth come to tempt me ere I die, My coach! This fiend that with an angel’s face
It is Bosola himself who recognizes the Cardinal’s.' Satanic quality when he says of the Cardinal, "Some fellows, they say, are possessed with the devil, but this great fellow were able to possess the greatest devil andmake him worse" (I.i.45-48]_, (John Webster, The Duchess of Malf 1, ed. John R. Brown ¿Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard Univ. Press, 1964/), All future references to this play are to this edition. For all quotations from A Woman Killed with Kindness, see Thomas Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kinrtnfiss p/i p ¡,r -tr. p (Cambridge,%n P°SSen 56
Courted mine honour till he sought my wrack In my repentant eyes seems ugly black. (V.iii.110-13)
Thus, she, like Bosola, distinguishes herself from the
Satanic villain, Indicating that her evil has resulted not
from her natural bent but from emotion in a given situation.
Perhaps the greatest example of this, though, is Othello.
In that play,.Iago is the Satanic villain and Roderlgo the accomplice. To borrow Coleridge’s distinction between the
two characters, Roderigo is "not without the moral notions and sympathies with honor” while Iago operates with "motive less malignity.
In the same vein, Shirley shows his audience that falling prey to evil is not an unavoidable fate but one that can be resisted. Though each of his accomplices succumbs to evil because of sexual desire, Shirley also provides an ample number of thwarted lovers who resist falling into evil,, and some of them even meet with eventual success. Through this latter type is Shirley able to present the moral side of humanity, giving his dramatic world a proper balance. Such figures assure us that the world consists of more than villains and characters temporarily gone awry because of embfrional stress. Evil is not the sole significant force in the world.
Accepting Professor Doran’s assumption that "serious
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Motiveless Villain," in A Casebook on Othello, ed. Leonard P. Dean (New York» Thomas Y. Crowell, 19^1), pp. 126-27.. 57
dramatic art is moral in the profounder /than mere sermoni
zing/ sense that it raises questions of meaning and behavior that men must as men be concerned with,-"^ we may now find
it appropriate to turn to Shirley’s tragedies to search for
ethical purposes in their accomplice-villain pattern. In
The Maid * s Revenge, the pathoso-ethos distinction is drawn
between the villainess Catalina and the accomplice Velasco,
who joins her in her conspiracy against Antonio and
Berinthia. Velasco is apparently naive, for he immediately
takes seriously Catalina’s pretending to scorn Velasco be
cause he has refused to oppose Antonio; When Catalina in
dicates to Velasco that Antonio loves Berinthia, Velasco
believes himself helpless to oppose Antonio’s advances.
But Catalina convinces him otherwise. Remarking that she
thought only to help Velasco, she causes him to reconsider,
and he almost begs Catalina to help himi "Oh, stay, sweet
lady! leave me not to struggle / Alone with this universal affliotion" (Il.iiii p. 126). Hearing this, Catalina tells
Velasco to steal Berinthia away if her father does not agree at once to their immediate marriage. Velasco departs, prom
ising Catalina, "I am devoted yours; command me ever" (Il.iii; p. 126). Hereafter, Velasco is totally under Catalina’s control except at one brief time, Ill.vi, which will be dis cussed later. Her control over him is quite reminiscent of the third scene of Act Three In Othello; in that play, after considerably more difficulty than Catalina has, Iago is able 58
to bring Othello under his influence. One cannot but notice
the similarity even of language between the two situations?
for even after Othello makes Iago a lieutenant, Iago tells
Othello, "I am yours forever” (III.iii.479)• Of course,
there is irony in Iago’;s words, for he certainly is not
Othello’s. In The Maid’s Revenge. there is no comparable
irony in Velasco’s words; but for all that the situations
are almost exactly parallel. Forsythe notes that ’’Catalina’s
arousing Velasco’s jealousy is strongly reminiscent of Iago
and Othello in Othello," fthile another critic states more
broadly that Shirley imitated Othello "far more often than p any other work by the master dramatist." Here one may find
that Shirley’s work shares with Othello many overtones of the
morality play. Bernard Spivack points out that ordinary
human beings in the morality play were not strong enough to
withstand villains’ attack; morality-play villains were
"grimly efficient seducers, employing moral and physical deceit o with deadly success against human frailty,!*7 The effect of the morality-play "device" in Othello is to place Othello’s evil against a backdrop of Christian metaphysics. For the play Is filled with references to the devil, burning in hell, and evil spirits. In this way Shakespeare provides the moral context of Othello’s falling Into evil. Just as Iago deceives 7 The Relation of Shirley’s Plays to the Elizabethan Drama, p. l42. ” 8 Henry W. Wells, Elizabethan and Jacobean Playwrights (New York«: Columbia Unlv. Press, 19397» p. 61, Q Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil, p. 58. 59
Othello Into carrying out evil plans, so Catalina similarly
deceives Velasco. In both cases, the villain employs moral
and physical deceit with deadly success against human
frailty.
Velasco’s desire for revenge on Antonio Is worked to
fever pitch when Catalina shows him the letter Antonio in
tended for Berinthia. The extent to which Velasco has been
influenced by Catalina is emphasized when Catalina’s initial
response to the letter (”0h! I drink poison from these fatal
accidents," Ill.i; p. 134X is echoed by Velasco; "I have
been a tame fool all this while, / Swallow’d my poison in a
fruitless home" (Ill.i; p. 135)« He goes on to vow revenge,
even declaring that Catalina is divinely inspired; "*Tis some divinity hangs on your tongue" (Ill.i; p. 136).10
Catalina, who has been called "purely malicious,"11 now has
Velasco under such thorough control that he even echoes her manner of speech. In this way Shirley emphasizes the fall of a heretofore moral character (a "tame fool") into evil.
At this point the distinction made earlier between ethos and pathos becomes useful. By himself Velasco would not
1® One may again note a similarity between Shirley’s drama and The Duchess of Malf1. In the latter play, "Via the Cardinal, the corruption motif finds a physical outlet in the poisoning of Julia. Ferdinand’s mental sickness des troys both him and the other major personae" (Balph Berry, ~The fA.rt of John Webster /London; Oxford Univ. Press, 1972/. 11 Bowers, p. 224, 60
turn to evil? but his love for Berinthia, threatened by-
Antonio, is too powerful for him to control once Catalina
has shown him a solution, evil though it is, Velasco’s
emotion has been aroused by a given situation, which has
been created in great part by Catalina, His one doubt about
Catalina occurs when his plan to kidnap Berinthia fails.
He first blames Catalina for tricking him; "Could you pick none out of the stock of man / To mock but me, so basely?"
(III.vii p. 153). But she quickly brings him back under
control by assuring him that she, too, has been tricked, and
she orders him to announce to the household that Berinthia
is missing. But even this wavering by Velasco is an ex pedient, not a moral, matter. Once again we note an echo of Othello. Roderigo, like Velasco, threatens to shake loose of the controls Iago has over him. Roderigo declares- to Iago his intention of asking Desdemona for return of jewels sup posedly presented her by Iago on Roderigo’s behalf, since they have not aided in Roderigo*s hope to seduce her. Of course, Iago has not given them to her and would be exposed if Roderigo were to carry out his threat. But Iago, claiming that now he sees real valor in Roderigo;, tells him of a new plan whereby Roderigo will enjoy Desdemona "the next night following." With that Roderigo is satisfied to continue under Iago’s rule.
But to return to the issue of pathos, Velasco is emotionally aroused, though only temporarily,.to the point that he will 6l
perform the evil urged by Catalina. It is because Shirley
regards Velasco as temporarily disturbed rather than naturally evil that he does not characterize him in Satanic
terms. Velasco’s motivation has no supernatural overtones, and he does not delight in doing evil. All this, of course,
is opposite to Catalina. Fredson Bowers perceives this dif
ference between Velasco and Catalina when he calls Velasco
"a villain only inasmuch as he has not been sufficiently in
jured to justify the lust for Antonio’s blood which un balances him. Catalina, the chief villain, is in the direct line of descent from such wholeheartedly unscrupulous women as Tamora, Timoclea, Brunhalt, and Livia and Bianca. Her serious revenge has no basis in real Injury but is purely malicious.” In other words, Velasco’s motives, however inadequate, proceed from other than love of doing evil,, whereas Catalina’:s motives,are identified with a delight in doing the devil’s work. Velasco, as a human being, is living proof that evil can affect normally decent human beings. To distinguish further between a basically evil being and a basically decent one, Shirley allows Velasco a redeeming feature, loyalty. Because of this, the audience may have some sympathy for him. Velasco does not hesitate to jump into battle to help Sebastiano, and thus he gives of himself in behalf of another, something Catalina never does. Hence,.
12 Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, pp. 223-24. 62
Shirley is able to say that the normal human being, though
intensely involved in evil, is still able to show concern for
his fellow man. This seems true to some extent In all his
tragedies. Hippolito, In Love * s Cruelty, apologizes for his
behavior to the very lady he previously tried to seduce in
the Duke’s behalf. The Duke in The Traitor at least says
after his unsuccessful attempt to seduce Amidea that “I’ll
begin to be thy ¿Sciarrha’s7 lord" (Ill.iii; p. 144). In
The Politician, accomplice Marpisa’s turn toward good is motivated by her son’s death; surely a mother’s love for her
child is admirable. And in The Cardinal accomplice Columbo
forgives Hernando when the latter kills him. These humani tarian actions are not characteristic of Shirley’s villains.
Castabella, sister of Antonio and lover of Sebastiano, provides proof that a thwarted lover need not turn to evil.
She "enters Sebastiano’s service disguised as a page, not to take revenge on him for the death of her brother but merely n . . . to be near her lover." J Even when Berinthia has murdered Sebastiano, Castabella shows only goodness, vowing to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery. Through Castabella, then, Shirley offers the first of several examples of thwarted lovers who do not turn to evil. Berinthia, in order to avenge the murder of a loved one, resorts to evil while Castabella,, in approximately the same situation,, resists it. As dis cussed in Chapter One, the distinguishing feature between
Bowers, p. 224,. 63 those who do and those who do not fall prey to evil in
Shirley’s tragedies involves whether or not they arewilling to embrace Machiavellian methods in achieving their goal.
Such figures as Castabella serve as Shirley’s ideal or exemplar. That Is, such figures show that man need not choose evil, that he has the power to remain moral even under the most trying circumstances. While man is Indeed vulnerable to evil, he is not necessarily or unavoidably driven to it,. Castabella, then, Is proof that love need hardly cause one to succumb to evil.
In Shirley’s second tragedy, love * s Cruelty, Clariana has as her junior partner in villainy Hippolito, the best friend of her betrothed, Bellamente. Hippolito at first refuses even to see her for fear that he will not be able to resist her and will thereby wrong his friend. This in itself is a strong Indication of Hippolito’s self-acknow ledged capacity to do wrong. Indeed, when she goes to him,, he does not hold out for long. This is not to say that he does not try, for he struggles in earnest against temptation.
For instance, before his second meeting with Clariana,.
Hippolito soliloquizes on his problem;:
. . . nay, must the tapers, Sacred to Hymen, light us to our sins? Lust was too early up in both. Oh man,. Oh woman! that our fires had kiss’d like lightning, Which doth no sooner blaze but is extinct! (III.ill p. 227)
But temptation is too great, and he falls prey to Clariana,. able only to give what appear to him to be extenuating cir cumstances In the matter»
Sure there’s no woman in the world but this Could have such power against my friend» each syllable Renews her force upon me. (Ill.ii, p. 229)
With Hippolito, as with Velasco, sexual passion is an over
whelming force. Hippolito, like Velasco, is obviously guided
by pathos, for he clearly does not have annatural bent toward
evil. This distinguishes him from Clariana, for he does make
some effort to resist and admits his wrongfulness. She does no such thing» instead she encourages Hippolito to sin by making their illicit conduct seem like a dangerous but romantic venture» “Was there ever any thing worth the en
joying that came easily, and without trouble to us? What makes a maidenhead the richer purchase,. think you? But I am married, and my husband is your friend" (IV.i, p. 238).
While Hippolito attempts to refrain from evil, Clariana revels in it. To Clariana, the joy seems not to be in the fulfilling of human passion but in the commission of evil, this IsJier ethos or natural bent. In this way she serves as a character foil to Eubella, the chaste beauty of the subplot, who finally brings Hippolito to realize his sin and to reform. Clearly,
Hippolito is the link between the two plots, and it is not unimportant that he is caught between the force of evil, as represented by Clariana,. and the force of good, as represented by Eubella. The fact that he is able eventually to overcome temptation and choose good by deciding to marry Eubella further illustrates that his temporary submission to evil was the result 65
of the pathos of his character. Like Velasco, Hippolito
is too involved in evil, too closely associated with the
Satanic figure who embodies that evil, to escape. Once
again, then, Shirley impresses upon us the notion of the
susceptibility of all men to evil. He reminds us that human
beings are responsible for evil’s success; for had not
Hippolito been temporarily overcome by passion, Clariana*s
evil would have been thwarted at the start.
Eubella, like Castabella, is proof that a thwarted
lover is not uncontrollably destined to resort to iniquity,
In the last scene of the play, as Hippolito lies dying from
the wound inflicted by Clariana, he asks that Eubella be
sent for. Upon her arrival, Eubella shows no hatred or
bitterness toward the now dead Clariana, but simply expresses
her love for Hippolito. As the play ends, Sebastian,
Eubella’s father, consents to the Duke’s request for Eubella’s
hand In marriage since the Duke has by now reformed from
his lustful ways. And though Eubella objects on the ground
that she does not want to "forget Hippolito so soon," it is
clear that the marriage will take place in the near future.
Sebastian promises the Duke, "After this shower is over, she will shine, / Doubt not, my lord, and bless her happy stars"
(V.ii; p. 267). The ethos or natural bent of Eubella is
toward good, and this bent is not interrupted by temporary
emotion. This is, of course, the opposite of Hippolito*s case and accounts for the fact that Eubella prevails 66 and Hippolito does not. Once more Shirley shows that it
is possible to resist evil even when one’s love has been prevented.
Lorenzo, in The Traitor,,has his associate in evil in the Duke of Florence. Their relationship is somewhat dif ferent from the two previously discussedebecause Lorenzo in tends from the start to destroy the Duke. But he is able nevertheless to aid the Duke in effecting their moral degeneration, the Duke’s lust for Amidea being the method by which Lorenzo is able to achieve his purpose. Also unlike the previous two situations is the Duke’s asking for Lorenzo’s help in Involving himself in evil; Lorenzo does not have to convince the Duke to fall. The Duke, however, does have a change of heart after his interview with Amidea, who, by stabbing herself, gets the Duke to repent of his lustful in tentions. It is after this that Lorenzo must go to work on the Duke for evil purposes.
At the point that the Duke repents, thus proving his ethical superiority to Lorenzo, the Duke shows that his turn toward evil has not been the result of his natural disposi tion; rather that ethos has been temporarily overcome by an overwhelming emotional force. Lorenzo, however, is never inclined to repent, which shows that he is guided by a natural disposition toward evil. Unlike Lorenzo, the Duke makes some attempt to struggle against wrongdoing, replying to Lorenzo’s assurance that he may seduce Amidea» "Enjoy 67 fair Amidea? Do not tempt, / Or rather mock my frailty with such a promise" (IV,.i» p. l6l).. But the Duke succumbs again as soon as Lorenzo proposes a plot to carry out his promise.
Hearing the plan, the Duke vows,
Do this And I’ll repent the folly of my penitence,. And take thee to my soul, a nearer pledge Than blood or nature gave me. I’m renewed. I feel my natural warmth return. (IV.i, p. l6l)
Through this speech one may see the reassertion of pathos over the Duke’s innate virtue. The temporary emotion is too strong, and he wavers from his natural bent toward good,.
This good in the Duke is seen at his death when he advises other rulers,
Let princes gather My dust into a glass, and learn to spend Their hour of state. That’s all they have for when That*'s out, time never turns the glass again. (V.iii, p. 184)
In other words, the Duke hopes other rulers will profit from his mistakes and use their time and power more wisely than he has. This does show a humanitarian concern on the Duke’s part. Like Velasco and Hippolito, the Duke is too involved with a villain to escape with his life. Like Hippolito, the
Duke is killed by the Satanic figure with whom he has con spired., The repentance of the Duke, through whom Shirley once more reminds us of the vulnerability of human beings to evil, is the playwright’s way of showing that not all humans who commit evil do so because of their natural bent.
That the Duke has temporarily gone awry is seen in his con 68
fused, thinking. Before he discovers Amidea is dead, he
approaches her bed with the hope of enjoying her, claiming
Satanically that this world is "heaven; / And thus I take
possession of my saint" (V.iii; p. 182). That he has
evaluated the corrupt world of the play Incorrectly becomes
apparent to him only after he finds Amidea dead and his
presumed friend Lorenzo stabs him fatally. His subsequent
repudiation of evil is proof that anyone whose natural bent
is not evil can redeem himself.
Amidea is the virtuous though thwarted lover in The
Traitor. Though she suffers her lover Pisano’s renunciation
and the Duke’s lustful advances, she is never moved to take
revenge against either. In fact she pleads with her brother
Florlo not to tell their brother Sciarrha of Pisano’s renuncia
tion for fear that Sciarrha will harm Pisano. And she at
tempts to reform the Duke when he demonstrates his lust for
her. Clearly, she has opportunities to be as vengeful as any
other of Shirley’s grief-stricken lovers, but she resists
being overcome by pathos, the emotional trauma that subverts
normal judgment. She does not survive, as do Eubella and
Castabella, for Sciarrha kills her to prevent the Duke from
seducing her. But this is largely a practical matter and
does not prevent Shirley from again making the point that a
thwarted lover does not have to resort to evil.
Perhaps the most wicked of the villainous associates in
Shirley’s tragedies is Marpisa in The Politician. Her long- 69
standing illicit love affair with Gotharus establishes her
as steeped in evil long before the play itself begins. From
her first appearance, Shirley endeavors to have Marpisa ap
pear as evil as Gotharus, though she does look to him for
guidance. This evil is dramatically objectified by sexual-
sensual imagery that shows Marpisa’s desire for Gotharus.
She wishes to "dwell / Upon thy /Gotharus/7 lips," to
"engender / At every sense" (1.1; p. 104). But when she finds
that her son Haraldus has contracted a fatal illness, she
turns against Gotharus.- Gotharus, she learns, has ordered
Helga and Sueno to get Haraldus drunk; and it is from his
drunkenness that he catches a fatal fever. From this point,
her diction becomes inflated with Images of sickness, disease and
death. She gives a poison to Gotharus, claiming it is a medi
cine to cure his sudden illness, that she has it handy be
cause she, too, is "often subject to these sudden passions"
(IV.lv; p. 154). She claims that, with Haraldus’ death, "The
comforts of my life expire" (IV.i; p. l4l); later she casti gates the King because he, with "flattery,,didst poison my sweet peace" (V.i; p. 163).- She tells the King of his "rotten flesh" (V.i; p. 163) and later, when she learns that Gotharus has indeed died from her poison, claims to have administered a "physic" for his"state megrim" a "wholesome poison" (V.ii; p. 173). Accused by Olaus of having "turn’d doctor" (V.ii; p. 173). she indicates that she has taken some, too;
I was not So improvident, to give Gotharus all 70
My cordial, you may trust the operation. (V.ii, P. 174)
Finally, she gives a brief lecture on poisons, "Your mercury
Is a rude / And troublesome destroyer to this medicine"
(V.ii? p. 174), and dies shortly thereafter. Through such
images as these, Shirley shows how Marpisa loses interest in
Gotharus, wealth, and power. Though her methods are ruthless,
her motive, a mother’s love for her son, is admirable. In
this way Shirley once more establishes a difference between
ethos and pathos.. Gotharus is thoroughly evil, whereas Mar
pisa ’s evil is an "emotion in a given situation." Though her
long association with evil and her methods are deplorable, it
is just these that Shirley uses to underscore his belief that
a human being can turn from evil despite the most profound
involvement with it.
Albina, the wife of Gotharus, is the thwarted but virtuous lover in The Politician. Though he spurns her even to her face, she remains faithful to him throughbut the play.
When she finally sees Gotharus dead, she laments his condition and swoons. But she, like Eubella, is rewarded for her patience and virtue with an admirable man for a husband.
Turgesius, claiming that "I will court her for my blessing"
(V.ii, p. 172), orders physicians to look after her. Since
Turgesius has shown no previous amorous Interest in Albina,, this sudden one seems somewhat contrived. But through it
Shirley straightforwardly asserts the possibility of a 71 thwarted lover to follow good rather than evil while once more rejecting the notion that outside forces absolutely govern one’s moral conduct.
The villain’s accomplice in The Cardinal is Columbo.
Columbo is an essentially rash man, a soldier who is des cribed by Valeria, a servant to the Duchess, as ”A rough- hewn man." In a description reminiscent of Hotspur in
Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, she says that
His talk will fright a lady; War and grim Faced Honour are his mistresses; he raves To hear a lute; Love meant him not his priest, (I.li; p. 282)
The Cardinal has no need to deceive Columbo, for it is Columbo’s own will to get revenge on the Duchess for the trick she plays on him In obtaining her freedom to marry someone else. All the Cardinal has to do to set Columbo into violent motion is to notify him of what the Duchess has done.
In the beginning the Cardinal simply wants to see Columbo married to the Duchess and arranges with the King for that to be performed. When the Duchess connives her way out of it, the Cardinal tells Columbo what has happened, and Columbo sneaks back into the palace to murder d’Alvarez. Even so,
Shirley maintains his distinction between the true villain, the Cardinal, whose ethos is evil, and Columbo, who is simply carried away by his emotions in a given situation. Columbo’s last appearance, in IV.ill, when he fights Hernando and is slain, helps prove this.. Not only does Jie fight valiantly 72
In this instance, but also he forgives Hernando after re
ceiving a death wound. Columbo’s evil is mitigated to some
extent also because of his straightforward approach toward
others. For instance, when he orders Hernando to return
from the wars, he may be mistaken but he is honest in ex
pressing his desires. And he readily takes sole responsi
bility for d’Alvarez’s murder. By contrast, the Cardinal
resorts to lies and deception in all his dealings with
enemies. Once more Shirley has distinguished between villain
and accomplice by giving the latter some features that make
him less than thoroughly villainous. From all this Shirley
shows how an essentially decent human can fall into the hands
of evil and what the results of that fall will be.
That Shirley believes evil has tragic effects on persons
other than simply those it sets out to destroy should by now
be obvious because the result of the villain-associate
relationship in all his tragedies is death for both parties.
For even when the villain seeks to protect his accomplice, as
does the Cardinal in The Cardinal, the result is death for
the latter. Evil, once it gets a foothold, must run its
course, though it does eventually destroy Itself. Similarly,
those who associate with evil, whether by design or character weakness, are destined to suffer from Just such an association
Exposure to evil at such close range is a serious matter, and
the fate which each accomplice suffers is strong proof. To reinforce this ethical notion, Shirley never permits the 73
accomplice to distinguish himself even incdeath. Only
Hippolito comes close to doing so. As he lies mortally
wounded, he calls for Eubella, who calls out his name as
she enters. To this he replies, "My wound hath had a happy
patience. / Farewell!" (V.ii, p. 266). This plus the fact
that Bovaldo, Hippolito’s father, resolves to turn from his
lecherous ways in light of the son’s death tend to make
Hippolito’s death somewhat meaningful. But Shirley makes
comparatively short shrift of even Hippolito. Much less
attention is given to the other accomplices. Velasco is
killed almost without comment, Marpisa is cursed as she
dies and admits she has no prospects for heaven, the Duke
asks to be killed and Is ironically accommodated, again with
out significant comment either during or after his murder,
and Columbo*s death only whets the Cardinal’s desire for
more hideous revenge. The failure of the accomplice to
succeed in the purpose which initially motivated him (desire
for the opposite sex in each case), enables Shirley to show
that nothing is to be gained by adopting evil practices.
Shirley’s purposes are at once didactic and clinical. That is, he manifests morality-play elements In the treat ment of his villains. For his use of ethos in accounting for their behavior allows him to operate within a tradition of orthodox ethics. Yet Shirley’s use of pathos in accounting for his accomplices’ behavior reflects a concern with abnormal psychology. For here Shirley goes beyond the 74
question of right and wrong. Thus the ethos-pathos dis tinction is particularly useful in enabling one to examine the causes of human actions. While "temptation to sin was the way Satan had for encompassing the ruin of mortal man," the psychology behind one’s succumbing to that temptation needs to be understood. And the ethos-pathos distinction helps one to see that Shirley’s portrayal of his accomplices "had its basis in the psychology of the passions and in traditional ethics, which emphasized the common humanity In every human and his danger from a common enemy.wl4
14 Doran, p. 239 CHAPTER THREE
In writing his tragedies, James Shirley examines the effects of evil on both the private and public realms.1 In
his first tragedy, he confines the examination largely to
the private world, but thereafter the public realm appears
increasingly in each play. This is not to say that Shirley’s
interest shifts entirely from one to the other, for the
private world and evil’s effect on it are present in every
tragedy. It is due in part to the fact that nobody exists
on a public level alone, for everyone is first a private
individual, and there is a limit, therefore, to the extent to
which an author may carry his world from private to public.
But, as pointed out in Chapter Two, Shirley also sees
attraction to the opposite sex as a motive in every tragedy
for committing evil. And such attraction is first a private matter, no matter what public effects it may have. Neverthe
less, Shirley seems to be concerned increasingly with evil
in the public realm. Even the titles of his tragedies help
to indicate this. The first play, The Maid’s Revenge, aids
in showing the private realm with which the play deals.
1 The term "private realm" should be understood to Indicate a personal world that does not consider political and state matters. The term "public realm" should be understood to mean the world of politics and state matters. 76
Likewise, the major preoccupation of Love’s Cruelty is
private,, though the title does not indicate the fact that the
play’s subplot contains a public matter. Thereafter, however,
the titles all concern essentially public matters and figures.
The Traitor.,The Politician, and The Cardinal all indicate
that the subject matter will be concerned with the public
realm.
In these last three plays, the public realm is disturbed by the villain’s ambitious desire for prestige or power. This eaaise of the perpetration of evil in the public realm cor responds with thwarted love as the cause of the perpetra tion of evil in the private realm. And while Shirley does not neglect either realm in these last three plays, the effect of evil on the public realm occupies an Increasingly signi ficant position. Shirley is concerned in the first two plays with personal effects of evil, but in the last three he is concerned with its effects on society as a whole as well.
What he ultimately indicates is that while evil is horrible in any case, evil in the public realm is more wide-reaching because it brings confusion to greater numbers. Evil in the private sector is not without its tragic effects, but they are limited by the nature of the sector.. Evil in the public sector,,on the other hand, threatens to disrupt society; and with the examination of the effects of evil on the public sector,. Shirley completes his study of the causes and effects 77
of evil on man.
Before turning to Shirley’s plays, however, we need to
examine the background of the public / private man conflict
in Renaissance drama. This conflict had long been important,
but historically it assumed increasing importance in Shirley’s
time. Such increasing importance corresponds with the shift
from the notion of a personal political ideal to the idea of
a social contract which occurred at this time, and more space
will be devoted to this matter shortly. However, a short
examination of a couple of examples of this conflict in
early Renaissance drama will serve to show that such a con
flict was not a new development in Shirley’s age.
Shakespeare’s Richard II, deals with the public / private man conflict. Richard loses his throne to Henry Bollngbroke
because of misconduct and neglect regarding public matters.
Early in the play, after Richard has banished Henry for six years, Richard reveals that he Intends Henry’s banishment to be permanent in reality,, for Henry was too attentive to the commoners*
He is our cousin, Cousin, but ’tis doubt, When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green Observed his courtship to the common people— How he did seem to dive into their hearts. . . , (I.iv.20-25) 78
Actually Richard is revealing here his own neglect of public duty, for Shakespeare makes clear during the course of the play that a ruler must fulfill that duty in order to maintain his position, Richard, instead, not only neglects the commoners but also mistreats them. When he decides to go to
Ireland to put down a rebellion, he announces plans to finance the expedition by taxing the English citizenry. Such con duct accounts for the citizens* dumping their garbage on
Richard when, after he has been captured by Henry, he is paraded down a street. A similar situation arises in
Marlowe’s Edward II. In this play Edward is so intent upon maintaining his homosexual relationship with Gaveston that he is willing to parcel out his kingdom and thereby neglect his public responsibility entirely;
My lord /Canterbury?, you shall be Chancellor of the realm; Thou, Lancaster, High Admiral of our fleet; Young Mortimer and his uncle shall be earls; And you,.Lord Warwick, President of the North; And thou of Wales. If this content you not, Make several kingdoms of this monarchy, And share it equally amongst you all,. So I may have some nook or corner left, To frolic with my dearest GaVeston. (I.iv.65-73)
Edward is unable to control an Irish rebellion and incurs the disfavor of his citizenry, who ’’run up and down, / Cursing the name of thee /Edward? and Gaveston" (II.ii.178-79).
2 Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, in The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe, ed. Irving Ribner (New York; Odyssey, 1963). All references to Edward II are to this edition. 79
Edward is subsequently forced to relinquish his crown and
finally is murdered. The public implications of the play are quite clear, for Edward’s fate "is not only that of a man but that of an English king,, and thus his tragedy is involved inextricably with the life of the state.These two plays,
Richard II and Edward II. by no means exhaust the supply of drama in the Renaissance that is concerned with the public / private man conflict. Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays are concerned with this subject, and Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy deals at least in part with the result of a king’s neglecting his public duty. But the subject is merely occasional until the early l600’s.
The increasing concern with public matters and the conflict between them and private matters which,, as pre viously mentioned, occurs in the seventeenth century because of a shift from the notion of a personal political ideal to a social contract;
By the early seventeenth century contractarian principles had taken a firm hold of nearly all political thought. The Aristotelian tradition that man was naturally political (or social), was commonly accepted, but this by itself was not regarded as a sufficient explanation of the state. Side by side with it there was the strong indi vidualist principle that all men are naturally free and equal,.and that they could only have formed a society by their own volition. Accord ingly it was commonly held that though men were
3 Irving Ribner, "Edward IIi An Historical Tragedy," in Christopher Marlowe * s Edward II, ed. Irving Ribner (New York; Odyssey, 1970), p. 94. 80
naturally inclined for life in society,, and in fact needed it, they must create society by a deliberate act. Having entered society by what is in effect a social contract, men felt the need of government, and here the principle of contract was resorted to. . . .
Although "before the middle of the sixteenth century, Marius
Salamonlus had already published a theory of state containing all the essential elements of the social contract,the notion of a personal political ideal dominated during this
time. This was due in large part to "the most important and
influential statement of Christian humanism of early Tudor England,"6 The Book Named the Governor (1531) by Sir Thomas
Eliot. In this work Eliot sets forth the personal charac teristics and training necessary for a good ruler. He discusses such matters as the curriculum and method of educating those who will govern, describes the virtues that characterize a benevolent leader, and encourages potential rulers to prepare themselves for their public duties accordingly. However, the seventeenth century began to place emphasis on the relationship of the ruler and the ruled, thereby decreasing the emphasis placed on the purely
4 John W. Gough, The Social Contractt A Critical Study of Its Development (London» Oxford Unlv. Press, 1936), pp. 76-79.
Gough, p. 65.
Hyder E.,Rollins and Herschel Baker, eds., The Renaissance in England (Lexington, Mass.» D. C. Heath, 1954), p. 106. 81
personal ideal of the ruler himself.. Thus, a concern with
public matters began to rival the concern with private
matters, and this new concern may be seen in the drama of
the time.
Such concern is reflected in the increase in the number
of dramatic works that deal with public matters in seventeenth
century England. The tragedies of George Chapman illustrate
this point well. Though Chapman was active In the sixteenth
century as a playwright, he entered into his tragic period
early in the seventeenth century. His tragedies are all
studies of political decay, and five of the six get their
material from France, which to Chapman’s age was the center 7 of civil strife and eccentric personalities. The tragedies
of Ben Jonson are likewise concerned with political life.
SeJanus (1603) deals with the political life under the
tyranny of Tiberius, and Catiline (l6ll) is concerned with
a man who takes arms against the whole state of Rome. As
good an example as one can hope to find of the private man / public man conflict is Antony and Cleopatra (1607) by
William Shakespeare. The fundamental decision Antony must make in this play is whether to choose the Roman world of politics and public duty or the Egyptian world of luxury and 7 C. F, Tucker Brooke,, ’’The Renaissance,’’ in A Literary History of England (New York; Appleton, 1948), p. 557» 82
private pleasure. At about the same time, Shakespeare pro
duced two other plays which deal significantly with public
figures and public problems, Coriolanus and Tlmon of Athens.
The former concerns a man who has a deep contempt for the
masses and who is "forced, against his own nature and
temperament, into a position of governmental leadership for Q which he is hopelessly unqualified." Tlmon of Athens shows
the consequences of a government’s failure to treat its
citizens fairly. Several plays by John Marston may also fit
into this category. Perhaps the best example is The
Malcontent (1604), in which Malvole is faced with the public
task of regaining his throne and the private task of regain
ing his wife. The drama of Beaumont and Fletcher, which
critics generally hold to be the greatest single influence
on Shirley, reflects the intrigue, political and amorous,
the excitement and sophistication of court life. Their works are far too numerous to discuss in full,, but Fletcher’s
Valentinian is perhaps as representative as any of the sort of drama that here is under discussion. In that work,
Valentinian rapes Lucina, the pure wife of Maximus, a loyal soldier. Luclna dies and Maximus employs two servants to poison Valentinian. But once this occurs, Maximus, instead g James E. Phillips, "Introduction,'* in Twentieth Century Interpretations of Coriolanus, ed. James E. Phillips (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.» Prentice-Hall,. 1970), p. 3. 83
of Joining his wife in death, decides to sleze the vacant
throne and marry the Emperor’s widow. When he reveals his
intrigue against Valentinian to the widow, she poisons him,
and the play ends with her justifying what she has done.
In this plot one may observe the public role of Maximus
and Valentinian and the conflicts between it and the private
desires they express. For instance, Maximus is for a time
restrained by his close ftiend, Aecius, from obtaining
revenge against Valentinian because Aecius is an outspoken
advocate of the Divine Right of Kings. Maximus then brings
about the death of Aecius by anonymously denouncing him in a
letter to Valentinian. Fletcher apparently intended his
audience to recognize the public / private conflict and
understand that the public responsibility outweighs private
desire In kings, military men, and the like. As Bowers says,
"no matter how secretly unimpressed the Elizabethan man in
the street may have been by the doctrine of Divine Right, he would respond promptly to any suggestion of treason to his
country, for he loved England itself more than he loved James.
Aeolus’s appeal to patriotism over private wrong would strike to the audience’s heart, and Maximus by his disregard of a loyalty higher than that accorded to a king would be con sidered extremely blameworthy in following his own private Q revenge at the expense of the ruin of his country." Just at o Ellzabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 151. 84
the time that Shirley was embarking on his career as a
tragedy playwright, there appeared one of the most popular
and controversial plays of the Jacobean period,. Thomas
Middleton’s A Game at Chess. The play was first performed
on August 6, 1624, and ran "for nine consecutive days. . . .
Apparently it might have run indefinitely; it was necessary
to go hours in advance to secure a place. This amazing
success was due not to its merit as a state-play, but to
the skill with which it Reflected in dramatic form an excited political upheaval."1^ The play concerns the attempt
by King James to ignore public desire and conclude arrange
ments for the marriage of Prince Charles to a Spanish
Infanta. The Spanish hoped such a match would convert Charles
to Catholicism and re-establish it in England as the state
religion, a possibility which the English feared greatly.
Charles, unable to complete the negotiations, returned to
England, much to the relief and joy of the English, in
October, 1623. Middleton characterizes members of the
English Court as the white pieces and Spanish courtiers as
the black pieces on a chess board, and the concerns of
Middleton are almost entirely public. The aforementioned plays are only samples of the many that are concerned with
10 Thomas M. Parrott and Robert H. Ball, A Short View of Elizabethan Drama (New York; Scribner’s, 1958), p. l6§. 85
the public / private concern which seen© to have occupied
increasingly the minds of playwrights after 1600. But they
are enough to establish the sort of concern prevalent when
James Shirley began to write his tragedies.
When we turn to his tragedies, we find Shirley to be
a man of his age. In The Maid’s Revenge. Shirley’s concern
is with the private aspects of evil. The essential problem
of the play, the rivalry of Catalina and Berinthia for the
love of Antonio, is entirely a personal matter. Shirley must
have chosen to keep the play confined to these narrow bounds,
for there are many opportunities for it to be expanded into
a wider realm. This may indeed bp due to the fact that
Shirley was concerned purely with the matter of private revenge and did not want to detract from the singular tone of the play by bringing in another concern. As Bowers comments, “The one really clear-cut element in the play is the emphasis on revenge for its own sake.’’11 Perhaps the most obvious opportunity for Shirley to bring the play into the public realm is through the character of Sforza, an aide to Antonio described by Shirley in the dramatis personae as "a blunt soldier.” Sforza*s first appearance comes when
Antonio returns from Avero with Berinthia gfter he has taken her away from Elvas to protect her. Sforza commands the 11 Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 225 86
soldiers of whom he is in charge to guard her and boasts that
he is ready to do battle with all challengers: "I have a
company of roaring bulls upon the walls shall spit fire In
the faces of any ragamuffian that dares say, we dare not fight
pell-mell, and still my name is Sforza” (IV.i, p. 159). After
Sebastiano arrives at Elvas in quest of his sister, and
Antonio allays the former’s anger, they are entertained by a
masque performed by Sforza’s soldiers. When the masque is
over, Sforza commands these soldiers to return to their
stations in a way that again could lend itself to Shirley’s
enlarging the scope of the play from the private to the
public realm: "To your stations, now, my brave brats of military discipline, enough, Sforza honours you, look to your
charge, bullies, and be ready upon all occasions, my in vincible dub-a-dub knights of the castle” (IV,ill, p. 170).
But the enlarging never occurs, for Antonio and Sebastiano settle their differences in a private clash while Sforza looks on in silence.
The soldiers under Sforza are also fit devices by which to carry the play into the public realm. But they are not even given speaking parts, they do no more than silently obey Sforza’s aforementioned commands and dance in the masque.
Then they simply disappear from the scene,, and Shirley never recalls them to the stage. 8?
Love1s Cruelty contains at least a slight advance toward removing the play from a purely private world. To begin with, a character of public office, the Duke of Ferrara, tries through the first four acts to seduce Eubella, the virtuous daughter of an old courtier. This places Eubella in the position of trying to maintain her personal honor and obey her ruler, an impossible task as long as the Duke attempts to seduce her. Through his attempt, the Duke does not merely show himself as personally dishonorable; he also creates an atmosphere wherein two of his subjects, Eubella and her father, find life within his dukedom highly unpleasant. The father,
Sebastian, is finally imprisoned by the Duke, an act which emphasizes the Duke’s misuse of public office. Also it is by virtue of the Duke’s public office that Shirley is able to pose a dilemma for Eubella« To choose between maintaining her chastity at all costs and giving into the Duke’s wishes in order to avoid trouble. This is not mere melodrama but an attempt by Shirley to subject Eubella to a painful moral choice. It is made clear from the outset that Hippolito, a purely private character, has tried Eubella*s chastity and found her impeccable. When asked by a courtier if he has ever loved Eubella, Hippolito replies, "No, faith,. I cannot properly say I did ever love her; she was too honest; if she have pray’d since, she has been sorry for loving me so well;-- she was too wise to be a whore, and I was not so much a fool 88
to marry, till my time were come” (I.ii; p. 198). But in
the conversation with the courtier, Hippolito clearly reveals
that he thinks the Duke will have better luck because of the
Duke’s administrative powers. The Duke has just made
Eubella’s father, Sebastian, a knight in an effort to prepare the way for Eubella to fall; and Hippolito considers this a great advantage for the Duke; "The Duke has the advantage, he is able to make great men; there is no band to a round pension per annum, or the severe brow of authority, promotion will turn the stomach, we under-sinners of the commonwealth have nothing but our good parts to procure for us" (I.ii; p.
197).
But when Sebastian remains firm against the bribes of the Duke and insists that his daughter remain chaste despite such gifts, the Duke tries more titles, thus ever increas ingly exercising his public powers to gain a private desire..
The Duke decides to make Sebastian a lord, but it soon becomes clear that such bribery cannot bring Sebastian down,, for he instructs his daughter,
Be resolute for thy honour, I weigh not The titles he would heap; remember, girl,, Thy mother’s virtue; since thy birth,, though noble, Cannot expect his courtship for thyself, Scorn to be call’d a lady for his pleasure. (I.ii; p. 204) 89
The Duke then resorts to asking Hippolito to woo Eubella for
him, the Duke, but Hippolito*s attempt falls, and the next
time the Duke sees Sebastian, Sebastian asks the Duke to let
Eubella leave court to preserve her chastity. When the
Duke refuses, Sebastian becomes quite blunt, lecturing the
Duke on the question of law.
Then I’ll unthank your goodness,, And dare thus boldly tell your highness, laws Are most unjust that punish petty thieves, And let the great ones ’scape. (III.ill, p. 233)
With that, the Duke has Sebastian carried away to prison.
This puts the Duke in the cruelest of lights, for he now tells
Eubella that her father will be released when she gives the
Duke her virginity,
This may incline her.—Do not weep, Eubella, They are not worth a tear, yet ’tis within Thy power to ransom their bold heads, were they Humbled to the block, this pity shews a child, But princes lose their awe that are too mild. (III.ill, p., 234)
There the situation remains until the Duke learns that
Hippolito has fallen in love with Eubella and has asked her to marry. When they ask his blessings in the affair, the
Duke makes a sudden reversal, and as they expect him to deal with them in the same way in which he has dealt with
Sebastian, the Duke gives the pair of lovers a pleasant 90
surprise«
I. have consider’d« do not interrupt me« — To-morrow, if I live, I’ll see you both~ Marrled.—Thou excellent maid,, forgive my passion! Accept him freely; thou hast overcome ,2 With chastity, and taught me to be a prince.. (IV.il; p- 250)
The significance of all this for the present discussion
is that Shirley actually constructs a subplot which concerns
itself to considerable extent with public matters. This is
not to say that the entire subplot is public as opposed to the
private world of the main plot,, but a large part of the
subplot is concerned with statements and events that reflect
on the public realm. The subplot concludes with the Duke
admitting that the experience has ’’fraught me to be a prince, /
character my lust had near deface,” and this is only the
last of many remarks that deal with the proper conduct of a
public official. Frequent recurrences of this subject are
found in Love * s Cruelty. Quite early in the play, when the
Duke is first trying to bribe Sebastian, Sebastian questions
12 The Duke’s conversion, because it is due to Eubella’s chastity, demonstrates the influence of Neoplatonism on the drama of Shirley’s time. Shirley, like others of his day, was influenced by Queen Henrietta Marla’s love cult, which stressed the ideal of rational, non-physical love. As one critic puts it, ”No hero could propose extramarital relations without automatically becoming a villain in the eyes of a virtuous lady.” (Mark Stavlg..John Ford and the Traditional Moral Order /Madison» Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968/, p. 4^) This statement is idealistic rather than practical, and the Duke’s sudden character reversal has the Baroque flavor of paradox and self-contradiction. But taken in the context of the play, it does help to show the Neoplatonic influences at work on Shirley. 91
how safe the court Is for his daughter. Finally he decides
the answer is quite simple;
It depends upon the prince’s Chastity, whose example builds up virtue,. Or makes iniquity a trade. (I.ii? p. 201)
At another point,.a courtier predicts that the Duke will
employ Sebastian as a general in foreign wars to remove him
from the court; "Sebastian has been a soldier; there are
quarrels now in the world, and Christian wars; he were a fit
man for a general; when he’s abroad, the siege at home will
not be so desperate" (I.li; p. 203). While Hippolito is
attempting to woo Eubella for the Duke, she gives Hippolito
a long lecture on religion and chastity; but before she is
through,-she also includes some words concerning the proper
conduct for a public official;
Princes are gods on earth, and as their virtues Do shine more exemplary to the world, So, they strike more Immediately at heaven, When they offend.. (II.il; p. 215)
Such statements as these, then, seem to place at least the
subplot in the public realm a goodly part of the time.
Still the play is essentially of a private world. State matters are never actually brought into prominence despite the previously cited remarks. The state is never actually threatened by the Duke’s reprehensible conduct. He is never 92
opposed or even potentially threatened by his constituents
because of his loose behavior, and the state does not
noticeably improve after his confession and reversal. As one
Post-Victorian critic states, ’’The moral effect of the play Is sound and impressive to a high degree.”^3 The Duke does
finally win the favor of Sebastian, who promises him Eubella
in marriage at the end of the play, an act which seems to say
that good eventually comes to those who are virtuous, but
this so clearly is fused to the main plot that the public
matter is entirely swept away. It is only the private con
cerns of the Duke, Sebastian, and Eubella, the only major
characters left at the end, that Shirley deals with. The
moralizing on the public consequences of the behavior of a
prince evaporates in Act IV, when the Duke changes for the
good.
Nevertheless, a significant step has been taken. Shirley has devoted increased consideration to public as well as private consequences of evil, and to some appreciable extent
Love * s Cruelty comments upon the public realm, at least in the
subplot. And from his next tragedy, The Traitor, through
The Politician and The Cardinal, such consideration is increasingly obvious.
The Traitor continues the matter of love, but this time it is closely allied with the attempt of Lorenzo, the traitor, to overthrow the Duke of Florence. In fact, the two are so
13 W. A. Neilson in The Cambridge History of English Literature, ed. A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller (New York, Putnam’s, 1907), p. 199. 93
closely interwoven from the beginning of the play that they are inseparable. Whereas in Love1s Cruelty the public or state concern was closely tied with the private one only when, late in the play, Hippolito wooed Eubella for himself,. in Traitor public matters are pertinent to the plot from the outset. The twelfth novel of Margaret of Navarre’s
Hefrt&meron and Segni’s Istorle Florentine are the most likely sources for the play, though "whether Shirley used an
Italian history, or one published in England and now lost sight of, must remain a matter of conjecture for the pre- .14 sent." At any rate, the historical Lorenzo’s motives are unclear from the source. "He may,.it seems from the his torians, have been actuated by ambition, patriotism, per sonal revenge, or innate depravity.jn any Oase, Shirley leaves no doubt that ambition,, the motive of his Lorenzo, will have public implications. In Act One, the Duke re ceives a letter warning him that Lorenzo is plotting against him, and Lorenzo spends the rest of the act convincing the Duke that the Information is false until, in the last few lines, the Duke mentions his desire for Amidea.
14 John Stewart Carter, ed.,,James Shirley, The Traitor (Lincoln«: Univ, of Nebraska Press, 1965), "Introduction," p. ix.
Forsythe, p. 165. 94
Even when the attention turns to Lorenzo’s informing
Sciarrha of the Duke’s lecherous desires, it is clear that
the love question is only a means whereby Lorenzo can plot
handily against the Duke. Shirley does not intend to explore
the matter of the Duke’s desire for Amidea. In both The
Maid’s Revenge and Love’s Cruelty,, the matter of love is
significant in itself, it is not merely a device. Thus one
can see Shirley has, with The Traitor, shifted his pre
dominant concern from private to public matters,.
The Traitor is the first Shirley tragedy to make men
tion of the masses as a viable political force. Lorenzo at
least mentions the masses in passing as a force to be
reckoned with. In his defense against the charge that he is plotting against the Duke, Lorenzo cites as one reason he would not so plot the fact that the people would not tolerate it, "Or can I / Expect the people will reward your murderer /
With anything but death?" (I.ii, p. 108). But the actual reckoning with the masses comes in the third and fourth acts.
Lorenzo is in hopes that Sciarrha will kill the Duke when the Duke comes to seduce Amidea. Therefore he sends Depagygj-i, his lackey, a letter instructing him to "cunningly disperse some rumors in the city that the duke is dead. The people must be distracted" (Ill.i, p. 134). Depazzi does as he has been instructed, but when the plot fails, Lorenzo finds much to his chagrin that the people are up in arms. He 95
instructs the Duke, “My lord, there is no safety for the state / Unless you personally appease ’em" (III.Hi; p. 147).
The Duke also realizes their importance and instantly recognizes that he must appease them if he is to survive«
Iifear their rage. Where is our guard? Alonzo,, haste afore. Proclaim our pardon And that we live to give the offenders mercy. (Ill.iiij p. 147)
The Duke’s appeal is successful, and the people are calmed.
But Lorenzo has learned that they are a force with which to be reckoned. He decides that for his purposes they are better left alone«
I’ll not trust the rabble. Confusion on the giddy multitude, That but two minutes ere the duke came at ’em Bellowed out ’liberty,’ shook the city with Their throats, no sooner saw him but they melted With the hot apprehension of a gallows. (IV.i; p. 148),
Even here, though,, the masses do not actually intrude upon the stage, as they later do in The Politician. But Shirley does make something of significance out of them. Hence, for the first time one finds evil spilling over into the public world.
More evidence of Shirley’s recognizing that evil may affect not merely the private realm is that for the first 96
time he is concerned, about the continuance of the state as
the play ends. In fact, from the outset of The Traitor
Shirley carefully constructs a character who will be the
logical ruler after the Duke is killed. At the end of The
Maid’s Revenge. the survivors could walk away hoping for a better day. But when public evil effects are dealt with,
such endings are too simplistic. The effects caused by evil are of more consequence than can be reconciled by such an ending. The audience is concerned about the state because
Shirley has made it so. Shirley has Indicated early in the play that Cosmo, friend to Pisano, is in line to rule the state if the Duke is killed. Before Pisano asks Cosmo to relinquish Oriana so that Pisano can take her for his own,
Pisano is attempting to account for a sudden change in his own personality. In the process of doing so, Pisano identi fies Cosmo as a man of whom great things are expected«
Thou canst not understand me, yet thou hast A name in Florence for a ripe young man Of nimble apprehension, of a wise And spreading observation, of whom Already our old men do prophesy Good and great things, worthy thy fair dimensions. (I.ii p. 100)
Cosmo’s agreement to relinquish Oriana to Pisano is a move which shows his diplomacy as well as his desire to retain 97
16 Pisano’s friendship. When Cosmo goes to Oriana to renounce
his interest in her, Oriana naturally is shaken and perplexed.
But Cosmo makes clear to the audience that he has good reason
for doing so, though she may not understand. In an aside he
informs the audience*.
Alas poor lady, I half repent me since she is so constant. But a friend’s life weighs down all other love, Beside, I thus secure my fate. Lorenzo Threatens my spring. He is my enemy, ' (II.ii, p. 127)
Cosmo Is politically astute enough to know that Lorenzo is
behind Pisano’s sudden desire for Oriana, and also he knows
that Lorenzo has more power than he, therefore his decision,
as he indicates, is at least partially motivated by politics.
The stumbling block that Lorenzo presents to Cosmo’s political
ambitions is verified by Oriana*s mother, Morosa. She is
a schemer who is interested only in seeing her daughter
marry a man of good position. When she learns of Pisano’s
interest in Oriana, she is pleased, for she realizes that
at present Cosmo’s possibilities for advancement are limited»
Nason, pp. 199-200. 17 ' The word "spring” in this line seems to be a metaphor used by Cosmo to express his youth,. But it also can be interpreted as "springe," meaning to "snare" or "trap." His statement "I half repent me" suggests he has a plan to "secure my fate." 98
Cosmo Is young and promising, but while Lorenzo Lives must expect no sunshine.. (Il.iii p. 123)
These remarks demonstrate conclusively that Cosmo is a politically inclined young man who is just waiting for the proper time to step in and take over. That time does not come until the very end of the play, but it is obvious from what has just been cited that Shirlby; has prepared the way long in advance. Cosmo gets his opportunity after the Duke,
Lorenzo,.and Sciarrha all are dead. Only Florio, Sciarrha’s brother, is left alive at the bloody scene when Cosmo, Alonzo,
Petruchio,. and Frederlco burst in. As the tragic events are unravelled, it becomes obvious that Florence is without a ruler. Alonzo suggests that "’tis meet we first / Settle the state” (V.iii} p. 187), and then he acknowledges that
Cosmo is the logical successor to the position« "Cosmo, you are the next / Of blood to challenge Florence" (V.iii; p. 187). At this point the play comes to a close but not before Cosmo has the last word, demonstrating that the state is in good hands. He promises to examine Florio for the exact details of the murder, to have Petruchio,. Lorenzo’s accomplice, taken to prison, and to "make satisfaction" to
Oriana. His closing words demonstrate perhaps the most important quality of a ruler, an understanding of life and its ultimate meanings, "’Tis a sad night, my lords. By 99
these you see / There is no stay in proud mortality” (V.
iiij p. 187). In this way does Shirley imply that the state
has been restored to order.
The attention Shirley pays to the state in this play
shows his increasing concern with public effects of evil.
More than in either of the two previous tragedies he is
seeing the widespread effects of evil, and the fact that the
effects are widespread certainly makes the evil more severe
than if it were limited to a narrow, private realm.
Despite what has thus far been said, The Traitor is
essentially a play in which the private world takes precedence.
The evil practiced by Lorenzo and the Duke does threaten to
spill over into the public realm, but it never quite does so.
Though Lorenzo’s aim is to gain a public position, he never
achieves it; and his plotting is restricted to attempting
repeatedly to match the Duke with Amidea for wanton pur
poses, hoping that Sciarrha will do his dirty work for him.
The masses are stopped at the brink of intrusion and then
disappear for the balance of the play. Cosmo assures those
left that he will assume complete control of the state, and no public disturbance is ever caused by the Duke’s death.
Shirley never exploits the potential inherent in Lorenzo concerning the true public nature of his scheme. Though not nearly so tightly as in the two previous tragedies, The
Traitor restricts most action to the private realm. Not 100
until The Politician does Shirley actually bring overt
public implications into the matter of evil and its effects.
In The Politician the public realm is enlarged in
numerous respects. To begin with, Gotharus, the plotter
against the ruler in this play, has an accomplice, Marpisa,
who is already a public figure of sorts since she is the wife
of the King. Their rivals, Turgesius and Duke Olaus, are
public figures also, for they are soldiers just returning
from war. The plot of Gotharus and Marpisa is against the foremost public figure in Norway, the King.18 Thus all of
the main characters have public roles, titles, and back
grounds. The evil that results from Gotharus’ scheming
cannot help but affect the public world at least as much as
in The Traitor, and in fact it will be shown that it does
so a great deal more.
As Turgesius and Olaus return home, Marpisa is worried
that they will object to her marriage to the King while they have been away and could not give their approval. The King assures her that he will choose her at all costs, even if it means punishing the two of them severely»
Let my son or.uncle Dare but affront thee in a look, I shall Forget the ties of nature, and discharge them Like the corruption in my blood. (Il.i, p. Ill) 18 The rather unusual setting itself may suggest that Shirley is moving away from earlier patterns. Schelling compares the Scandanavian setting and the intricate plotting to Hamlet (English Drama, p, 11). 101
But the King is naive, for he does not understand that that
will not end the problem. Marpisa does understand, and she
soon points out to him the real difficulty»; "Rather than
disgrace your son, / Divide me from your heart} the people
love him" (Ill.i} p. 124)..
When Turgesius and. Olaus do arrive, they are upset, and
the difficulty between father and son appears to be a private
matter. But Shirley makes it public by having them air their
differences at the city walls. As the King and Gotharus
stand atop the walls and Turgesius and Olaus stand outside
them, one realizes the plot has moved into the public realm.
In contrast to the settings of the previous tragedies, this
setting helps to show the evil overflowing private quarters
and starting instead to become a public matter. Instead of
the private quarters and restricted number and class of
observers of the effects of evil, here the observers are many, for Olaus and Turgesius* soldiers look on during the
confrontation. The soldiers are obviously commoners, and the arena is open ground.
For a time the arena becomes private again as the King persuades Turgeslus to dismiss the soldiers. As soon as they leave, Gotharus and Aquinas descend to meet Turgesius} and at this point Aquinas apparently kills Turgesius with a pistol. Aquinas then is seemingly killed by Olaus, and the scene closes at that point with Gotharus gloating, 102
•Tis done, And all the guilt dies with Aquinas, fall’n By Olaus* sword most happily, who but Prevented mine. This act concludes all fear. (IV.il, p. 147)
But Gotharus does not realize what Marpisa has feared all
along, that the masses will not tolerate Turgesius* being
murdered. This realization only comes upon him when a
servant announces that "the common people are / In arms,
and violently assault our house” (IV.lv, p, 155)» In The
Traitor, all that was necessary to deal with this sort of
uprising was a soothing speech by the Duke. But Shirley
makes clear immediately that this time such tactics will not
work, for the servant quickly adds, "There is no staying,
they have broke the wall / Of the first court" (IV.iv, p.
155)— As soon as these words are out of the servant’s mouth, the rebels come charging into Gotharus* house.
Marpisa and Gotharus temporarily escape, but it Is soon revealed that Helga has been hanged, and the rest of the « villains are certainly on the run. As already mentioned in Chapter One, Gotharus, desperate for help, is instructed by Olaus to climb into a coffin which the rebels carry through the town as Gotharus dies of poison while still inside. He is Indeed fortunate that he does, for Shirley makes clear what would happen if the rebels were to catch him alive. When they discover who is really in the coffin, 103
they immediately begin to debate among themselves as to who
will brutalize Gotharus the most. As one exclaims, "I’ll
have an arm," another replies, "I’ll have a leg; I am a
shoemaker, /His shin-bone may be useful." Still another
demands, "... give me his head," and finally one sums up
their overall desire by saying, "Oh, let us tear his limbs"
(V.ii; p. 167):. They are prevented from mangling Gotharus’
body only by the sudden entrance of the King on the one
hand and the revelation of a living Turgesius on the other.
This revelation that Turgesius is unharmed after all calms
them down, and Olaus is able to command them to return home
and celebrate. But this is definitely not before the masses make their presence felt.
Also as in The Traitor, in The Politician Shirley is
interested in restoring the order that has been disturbed by the evil’s spilling over into the state. The restoration of order in The Politician is not as simple a matter as it is in The Traitor. There is much more to be done. First
Turgesius and the King accomplish a reconciliation when the
King confesses his evil treatment of his son. Following this confession, Turgesius turns the army back to the King
Turgeslus’ sudden appearance after even the audience has been led to think he is dead has been pointed out as an example of a dominant feature of Jacobean drama. As F. P, Wilson puts it, "These dramatists /Beaumont and Fletcher?, and after them Massinger and Shirley, are adepts at spring ing surprises upon the audience." "Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama," in Elizabethan Dramat Modern Essays in Criticism, ed. Ralph J. Kaufmann (New Yorks'^Oxford Univ. Press, i$68), pp.. 12 13. 104
and assures him that his safety will be guarded. Olaus
then offers his own head to the King, which the King re
fuses, declaring, "We are friends” (V.ii; p. 169). Following
Marpisa*s confession and death, the King offers to surrender
his rulership to Turgesius; but the son refuses. And part
of the reason he does so is because of his consideration of
public opinion if he were to accept the position. This is
not to say that Turgesius does not refuse out of love and
respect for his father, but he does state,
I now enjoy good men’s opinions? This change will make them think I did conspire And force your resignation. . . , (V.ii; p. 175)
And all of this is done with soldiers looking on, a much dif ferent scene from the one in which Cosmo assumed control of the state in The Traitor.
That Shirley sees evil as Increasingly a public problem may be seen also from the fact that the matter of love becomes of less and less significance. In The Politician, no attempt at seduction occurs. Gotharus and Marpisa have carried on an illicit relationship, but this receives mention only when necessary to establish their evil and to taunt Haraldus, The
King shows a lust for Gotharus’ wife, Albina, early in the play, but this receives comparatively scant attention, and is never sexually consummated. One cannot help but contrast this with The Traitor, in which the Duke’s lust for Amidea was a recurring subject which helped to propel the play. 105
Little of Gotharus’ plotting hinges on love; of course, he
does get Marpisa to marry the King, but this takes place before the play starts. While it is the initial reason that
Turgesius and Olaus fall out with the King, scant attention
is paid to the marriage itself; most of the play is taken up with their quarreling, and the marriage never emerges as a subject for debate. It seems that Shirley needed a device by which to start the quarrel, fell back upon a standard vehicle, and, once underway, ignored the vehicle itself while concentrating on the emerging evil of Gotharus. Gotharus epitomizes “in grotesque caricature, the ruthless economic 20 and political opportunism” of Renaissance times.- And it is this, not matters of love, that Shirley is interested in.
Obviously a concern in The Traitor involves a ruler’s ability to see through an adviser’s evil counseling. The
Duke’s failure to discover Lorenzo’s evil intents is what destroys him in the end. But in The Politician Shirley pur sues7 this subject again, and this time he does so in a more forceful way. Gotharus, the King’s adviser, is given a character foil in Olaus, Turgesius’ uncle and adviser.
Throughout the play, Olaus counsels Turgesius for the better as Gotharus counsels the King for the worse. And while
Robert Ornstein, The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy (Madison; Univ. of Wisconsin Press, i960), p. 26. 106
Turgesius is a young man with a mind, of his own, one can
clearly see that Olaus* advice is sound and is given with
Turgesius’ best interests in mind. This serves as such a
contrast with the Gotharus-King relationship that the theme
of the necessity for good counsel and an ability to recog
nize it makes the whole matter seem to take on a signi
ficance beyond what it has in The Traitor. This is not to
suggest that such a theme is only faintly present in The
Traitor; Shirley undoubtedly intended to deal with it in that
play. But it does appear that Shirley’s increasing tendency
toward the public realm may well have inspired him to deal with such a theme more fully in The Politician, and the
character foil relationship naturally emerges as a technique
for his doing so.
It is hard to imagine a play being much more concerned with public matters and the effect of evil upon them than
The Politician. Therefore, when one turns to The Cardinal, he does not see still another step in the process of Shirley’s expanding toward the public realm. Instead he sees no more than a variation on what Shirley has already accomplished in The Politician.
Whereas The Politician deals with the state in commenting on the public realm, The Cardinal uses the Church as well.
The Cardinal, as his title indicates, is a churchman, but he is also an adviser to the King of Navarre. By bringing the Church into focus here, Shirley is adding a dimension to 107
the public realm, the Church, of course, being closely-
associated with politics at the time. Perhaps to emphasize
that the religious associations are to be seen in a poli
tical rather than a theological light, Shirley has church
matters serve as a means by which he is able to emphasize
through irony the horror of the Cardinal’s evil.
The Cardinal, like Gotharus, is a public figure by
virtue of his role as an adviser to the King. But his ac
complice, Columbo, is perhaps somewhat more a public figure
than Gotharus’; for Columbo is an army general while Marpisa,
though a Queen, is never actually put into a role where she
must perform publicly. Columbo is, for he leads troops to
war, and it is his argument over military matters with
Hernando that first causes Hernando to plot against him.
Once again Shirley uses love only as a vehicle to
broach a larger and public subject matter. This time it
concerns the King’s using his public authority to Interfere
in private matters. Of course, left to himself, the King would undoubtedly allow the Duchess to marry d’Alvarez. But the Cardinal influences him to intervene, thus rendering the
Duchess helpless unless she is willing to resort to deception.
From the first, Shirley makes clear that no one can win in such an arrangement. The Duchess can hardly expect to oppose the King and win; as one lord observes in a conver sation with another early in the play, the two lovers would be 108
. . . wiser to obey the stream, than by Insisting on his privilege to her love, Put both their fates upon a storm.. (I.i, p. 278)
But lovers do not always choose the “wiser” alternative, even when they must defy kings to have their way, and this is the case when the Duchess tricks Columbo with her letter asking for him to release her.
Columbo is a highly competent man in the public world.
Valeria’s description of him as “a soldier, / A rough-hewn man” who “may show well” (I.ii; pp. 781-82) is confirmed when he comes home from the war with a resounding victory.
The previously mentioned lord reports to Valeria that
Columbo hath given the enemy a great And glorious defeat, and is already Preparing to march home. (Ill.i; p. 304)
Even after Columbo kills d’Alvarez and the King promises to exact justice for this in behalf of the Duchess, the
Cardinal persuades the King to relent and forgive Columbo.
Apparently it is Columbo’s public deeds that the Cardinal uses to persuade the King to consider; for to the Duchess the Cardinal explains Columbo’s pardon thusly:
To bring the object nearer, the king says, He could not be severe to Don Columbo Without injustice to his other merits, Which call more loud for their reward and honour Than you for your revenge; the kingdom made Happy by those; you only, by the last, Unfortunate. ... .- (XV.ii; p. 326)
However, in a private capacity Columbo is absolutely in- 109
competent. Shirley goes to some pains to make this clear
early in the play. The Duchess outsmarts Columbo even be
fore he leaves for the war? for when he tells her he is
going away, she deceives him into thinking she loves him
by saying,
But do you mean to leave me, and expose Yourself to the devouring war? No enemy Should divide us; the king is not so cruel. (I.ii; p. 284)
Likewise, Columbo dismisses Hernando after their argument,
a military matter; but when he releases the Duchess as she
requests, he commits a great tactical error. Through
Columbo, then, one can see that skill in public matters and
private ones, according to Shirley, may be mutually exclusive.
The Cardinal’s role in urging Columbo to commit murder
and then in convincing the King to excuse Columbo is not 21 without its public consequences. Again does one see the
effect of evil on the public sector. And again the conver
sation of the two lords is important. They act throughout
the play as a chorus of citizens, and their reactions may be
read as a reflection of public opinion. As Act Four begins,
the first lord exclaims, "This is the age of wonders,” to
which the second lord replies, "Wondrous mischiefs" (IV.i;
p. 315)» Obviously they consider their age corrupt because
21 Fredson Bowers points out that the Cardinal backs Columbo because he is anxious for the marriage to raise the fortune of his own house (Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 228), However, one should not confuse cause with effects. Bowers is pointing out the cause of the Cardinal’s backing Columbo, which does seem to be private. The effects, however, are public. 110
of the affairs of state which they have witnessed. Even
more significant, perhaps, is Hernando’s reaction to the
situation. He not only shares the political views of the
two lords, but he has also lost his religious faith because
of the Cardinal;
... my faith has been so stagger’d, since The king restor’d Columbo, I’ll be now Of no religion,- (IV.i; p. 316)
Shirley uses the Cardinal, then, in a dual public role, as political adviser and churchman, to demonstrate that evil does have an effect on the most important sectors of the public realm.
When one considers the high regard Shirley had for religion, a new emphasis to the Cardinal’s evil is added.
To Shirley ’’Religion is considered as man’s most sacred pos- Q session, which takes precedence over anything else." The
Cardinal is corrupting what is most important to man; he is not just another corrupt figure. Prom this viewpoint, the
Cardinal is perhaps Shirley’s most dangerous character to the public weal.
The ultimate purpose in the play seems to be public in nature. Undoubtedly the King’s weakness and credulity have adversely affected the private lives of the Duchess, d’Alverez,
Hernando, and even Columbo. But that Shirley intends a public Q Johannes A. Bastiaenen, The Moral Tone of Jacobean and Caroline Drama (1930i rpt. New York; Haskell House, i960) 9 p. 179. Ill
implication, that he hopes to show a more far-reaching
importance of the whole affair than this, can he seen from
the closing of the play. The state has not been seriously
disturbed as it was in The Politician, for in The Cardinal
there is never any serious doubt that the King is at least
the nominal head of the government of Navarre. But the public
message rings clearly in the words of the King as he concludes
the play. As he stands presiding over the aftermath of the
tragedy, he moralizes,
How much are kings abus’d by those they take To royal grace, whom, when they cherish most By nice indulgence, they do often arm Against themselves! from when this maxim springs: None have more need of perspectives than kings. (v.iii} p. 351)
In an early tragedy Shirley would simply have had the bodies
dragged off stage as some remaining character lamented over
the personal disasters. But by this time in his career,
Shirley is clearly interested in going beyond the private realm in order to make a comment of a public nature. Hence
The Cardinal is not merely a play about thwarted love and the personal tragedies that result from it. It is ultimately a play about a weak king who lets an evil man make his decisions for him. The result of such weakness is not merely personal tragedy. It is a situation in which the citizenry comes to conceive of the world in which they live as extraordinarily corrupt, a belief that people of Shirley’s day did not find 112
hard to accept anyway. And perhaps more important, it is
also a situation in which a corrupt man in a high place can
cause his citizenry to lose faith in the Church, to lose
their religion.
In some ways The Cardinal does not seem to be as con
cerned with the public realm as The Politician. For instance,
the masses do not even threaten an appearance in The Cardinal.
Further, the use of love as a device to carry the plot is
more prominent in The Cardinal. Not only does the Duchess’
love for d’Alvarez occasion the conflict involving Columbo,
but also the Cardinal’s passion for the Duchess is a sig
nificant matter in Shirley’s working out his plot. These
love matters seem to focus attention on private affairs more
than in The Politician. In The Cardinal there is no large
group of soldiers supporting anyone. However, The Cardinal
has ways of its own to emphasize public concern. First, it
does contain a serious warrior, Columbo, and his men who aid
him in the murder of d’Alvarez. In fact, Columbo and Hernando
have a scene in their battle camp. Also there is the con
cern, as previously mentioned, of religion, which has not appeared before in a Shirley tragedy; and certainly religion
is not just a private concern. And the Cardinal himself, representing both state and church, encompasses a much broader scope than does Gotharus. Thus, while The Cardinal may not be able to expand the public realm of The Politician, it does extend to equal limits though it does so in different 113
ways.
Clearly, then, Shirley’s tragedies progressively expand
from a purely private realm into a public one. The expansion
is steady, observable, and significant. For one can plainly'
see that Shirley is Increasingly occupied with the influence
of evil on others than those immediately connected. It is
the matter of evil that causes Shirley to encroach upon the public community; were there no far-reaching consequences
of evil, Shirley would have no occasion to take the play out
of the purely private arena. Because of this is it necessary for one to be aware of the increasingly public concern of
Shirley in his tragedies. Without recognizing this, one is not able to arrive at a thorough understanding of the meaning of evil in these plays. IM
CHAPTER FOUR
Shirley sees evil as so powerful a force that the
leading characters in his tragedies who try to combat it are almost always destroyed in their attempts. They perceive
clearly the evil at work, and their efforts do eventually
succeed in eradicating it, but they themselves do not
survive. In the tragedies this is usually due to one of two reasons» the opponents of evil resort to evil means
in order to overcome evil, bringing about their ora “I destruction; or evil is so powerful that those close to it sometimes cannot escape even when they are unwilling to resort to wicked tactics. Berinthia, Hippolito, Sciarrha,
Marpisa, and the Duchess, the tragic figures in their respective plays, all attempt to combat evil with evil methods and meet their death in the process. Those in the second category, Amidea in The Traitor and d*Alvarez in
The Cardinal, are destroyed because of their association with opponents of evil who use unethical means. Only
Turgeslus and Olaus, both in The Politician, survive a direct encounter with evil, as embodied in Gotharus; and one may infer that the only reason they do so is that they
1 Fredson Bowers supports this position when he states that Sciarrha and the Duchess may have died because "the strain of the horrible situation in which they found them selves so warped their characters that further existence in a normal world became impossible and death was the only solution” (Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 40), 115
neither resort to evil means themselves nor are associated closely with anyone who does.
A useful comparison may be made of Shirley’s conception of evil with that contained in another Renaissance play,
Macbeth. Certainly evil is as pervasive in Macbeth as it is in Shirley’s tragedies. Yet in that play, Macduff, the chief opponent of evil, not only survives; he prevails. It is true that he loses his wife and children during the course of the action, and he suffers greatly because of it; but he himself prevails after the downfall of Macbeth. Other examples wherein the main proponent of good emerges vic torious and safe from his encounter with evil include the anonymous Arden of Feversham (Franklin) and Shakespeare’s
King Lear (Edgar and Albany). But Shirley is more often interested in showing how opponents of evil become engulfed in it. In this respect Shirley’s view of evil seems more severe than the views of those playwrights who allow opponents of evil to prevail.
In Shirley’s first tragedy, The Maid’s Revenge, the mainstay of virtue is Antonio. His motivation for oppos ing evil is at least partly his love for Berinthia, who is its chief victim. He at no time resorts to evil means in his opposition. His involvement begins with his own rather innocent attempt somehow to overcome Vilarezo*s order that
Catalina’s marriage must precede Berinthia’s. After his 116
lover Berinthia has been arrested, by Vilarezo, Antonio sends a letter to her through his servant, Diego, But
Berinthia accidentally drops the letter, which Catalina finds. Hidden behind a tapestry, Diego hears Catalina voice her desire to kill her sister. When Antonio next appears, it is to kidnap Berinthia to save her from her sister.
Antonio’s ability to combat evil is limited by the fact that he is clearly on the defensive. In stealing
Berinthia away, he appears to be defying her father and merely satisfying his own desire for her. Also, he finds that he must oppose his best friend, Sebastiano, who has been ordered by his father Vilarezo to recover Berinthia.
For a time it appears that Antonio will succeed. Sebastiano, learning from Antonio the latter’s true motive in taking
Berinthia away, sends a letter to Vilarezo explaining
Catalina’s intent to murder Berinthia. But Catalina con vinces Vilarezo that the letter is untrue, and Vilarezo sends word to Sebastiano to recover Berinthia at all costs.
Sebastiano feels obligated because of duty to parent to carry out his father’s orders, and Antonio is put into the awkward position of meeting his best friend In mortal combat in order to oppose evil. Sebastiano’s Slaying of
Antonio in their fight eliminates the most significant opponent of Catalina’s evil in the play. That Antonio’s solution would have been bloodless had he been able to 117
carry it out may been seen when, after he has slain Velasco in self-defense, he cautions Sebastiano» "Sebastiano, do you observe the advantage? / Yet think upon’t" (IV.iv; p.
173). But Sebastiano, replying "I value not the odds," insists upon violent encounter. Through this Shirley shows that evil is not so easily destroyed. Antonio is unable to overcome Sebastiano’s fear of a father’s curse even though
Sebastiano immediately repents his hideous action.
The role of opposing evil now passes to Berinthia, who is in a desperate position. In the interim she has been duly returned to her father, who is angry with her for her having loved Antonio and opposed his command. Vilarezo is still under Catalina’s influence, and Berinthia seems trapped. Now the antidote against evil seems even more inaccessible.
Sebastiano is now ineffective, spending his time brooding over his slaying of Antonio. As he admits in the last scene of the play,
The more I strive to throw off the remembrance Of dead Antonio, love still rubs the wounds To make them bleed afresh. (V.iii} p. 180)
Castabella, Antonio’s sister, has disguised herself as a boy in order to gain access to her lover, Sebastiano, offering to serve as a page in order to be with him. She never makes any attempt to take on the role of avenger. Therefore, only
Berinthia is left to assume the responsibility of opposing evil. Berinthia unhappily confuses justice and revenge as may be seen when she says she wishes "To court revenge 118
for justice” (V.i; p. 178). This Castabella will not do.
Such methods and such Involvement, though they serve to
extirpate the evil, lead to Berinthia’s death.
After arranging for the poisoning of Catalina, Berinthia
stabs Sebastiano in the name of justice, prefacing that act
with the words, "Justice is / Above all tie of blood" (V.iii;
p. I8l), One may discern in her speech the native Eliza bethan and the Senecan influences on revenge tragedy of the
time. The idea that "justice is above all tie of blood" had
become so strong by 1610 that James I "avowed his incessant
care ’to suppresse all factions and deadly feuds which are the motives of greate mischiefe in greate families,*"2 On
the other hand, Senecan tragedy, too, "strongly emphasizes blood-revenge for murder or flagrant injury, or else a serious revenge from motives of jealousy."3 Certainly these
strains are evident in numerous tragedies of the time in which revenge against family members in the name of justice
is obtained, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and A
Woman Killed with Kindness.
Once she is sure that her plot to poison Catalina has been successful, Berinthia stabs herself. One reason apparently is that she cannot survive the atrocities she has committed. No sooner has she murdered Sebastiano than she
2 Bowers, p. 23.
3 Bowers, p. 43. 119
admits that she must pay for such a deed with her death:
... more flames must Make up the fire that Berinthia And her revenge must bathe in. (V.iii; p. 181)
Ironically, in attempting to oppose evil, she has committed atrocities of her own, just as Antonio would have done had he defeated Sebastiano in their duel. Through this, Shirley shows how evil, once it gets a start, is compounded even by those who think they are acting in behalf of good. In fact,
Berinthia’s idea is simply to surmount malice with malice, guile with guile. Nevertheless, she is concerned about her own salvation as she comes to the end of her life: "My soul is reeling forth, I know nbtrwhither" (V.iii; p. 184). Perhaps by this time her idea of justice is so distorted that she punishes herself for what she has done to her family. Of course, another reason for her committing suicide is that with Antonio dead and her revenge completed, she has nothing else to exist for. Just before stabbing herself, Berinthia says,
Sleep, sleep, Antonio’s ashes! and now ope, Thou marble chest, to take Berinthia To mingle with his dust. (V.iii; p. 183)
With both sisters and Sebastiano dead, the evil has been eliminated. The only significant characters to survive are
Vilarezo and Castabella, neither of whom has actually opposed evil. Until after the damage has been done, Vilarezo remains unaware of evil, not believing that his children could be Involved in such horrors. Castabella has a great 120
capacity for love but apparently hone for revenge. Before
Antonio and Sebastiano duel, she states her position on the matter«
Alas, poor Castabella! what a conflict Feelest thou within thee! their sight woundeth thee And I must die, whoe’er hath victory. (IV.i; p. 164)
Such Integrity as she has does not save her brother or her lover, but it does enable her to survive.
The Maid's Revenge, then, supports the claim made at the opening of this chapter. Berinthia, in resorting to evil methods to combat evil, does destroy Catalina; but she too is destroyed. This demonstrates Shirley’s belief that resorting to unsavory means to combat evil so warps one’s character that further existence in a normal world is impossible
This clearly reflects on the moral ambivalence of the revenge ethic. Likewise, Sebastiano and Antonio, in being involved so closely with it, become confused or are rendered ineffec tive to the point that they lose their lives.
The chief adversary of evil in Love’s Cruelty is
Bellamente, and the pattern of this play is similar to that of The Maid’s Revenge. Bellamente, like Antonio, is unable to survive his struggle; and just as Antonio is assisted in his battle against evil by Berinthia, Bellamente is assisted in his by Hippolito. Furthermore, Hippolito, like Berinthia, though he does struggle against evil, resorts to murder in that struggle. 121
Like Antonio, Bellamente is drawn into a conflict
with his best friend, Hippolito, who is torn between his
desire for Clariana and his desire to do right by Bellamente
Hippolito’s predicament is much like that of Sebastiano,
who is tom between his desire to obey his father and his
desire to continue his friendship with Antonio, Bellamente*
sparing the lives of Clariana and Hippolito the second time
he discovers them together is proof of his desire to remain
a force of goodness. But Bellamente has obviously been seri
ously shaken by the indiscretion of his wife and his closest
friend. Like Sebastiano, Bellamente has become melancholy
and does not appear to be well. As he tells Bovaldo,
Hippolito’s father, ’’They will persuade me within I am not well. I must confess there is some cause of melancholy within me” (IV.ill; p. 251). During the course of this
conversation, Bellamente*s condition is aggravated by
Bovaldo’s flippant attitude toward love. Bellamente asks
Bovaldo,"Would you not chide your son, that should abuse his dear friend’s wife or mistress?" Bovaldo replies, "Yes, if he should abuse her; but if he did but lie with her, I should commend him. Make the cause your own; would you deny a friend that wanted clean linen the courtesy of your clean shirt? a woman is more necessary wearing, and yet never the worse for’t" (IV.lii; p. 253). Bellamente’s explanation,
"To what a monster is man grown!," manifests his increasing 122
disgust with the ethical laxity about him. But the final blow to Bellamente’s hope to restrain himself is the news that Hippolito now intends to marry Eubella. Prom one point of view, this is a turn from temptation to goodness for
Hippolito. Prom Bellamente’s viewpoint, however, Hippolito merely seems crass and bold. And It further damages Bella- mente’s already delicate condition, as he himself testifies»
He will marry now, and live honest; heaven give him joy! But it is not so fair to disturb my brain, That is not fully settled, with his triumphs« What is’t to me? He cannot satisfy My injury if he should court his wife, And prevail with her to embrace me too, (IV.iii; p. 254)
When Bellamente next appears, it is to surprise Clariana and
Hippolito at their third meeting. He does not know that this is not a love meeting but instead a trick by Clariana to kill
Hippolito out of revenge. Bellamente*s momentary departure to get a weapon is all that prevents him from killing the two then and there. When he returns, Clariana and Hippolito have already inflicted death wounds on each other, but there is no doubt that it is only chance that has prevented Bellamente from killing them himself. As he tells the Duke,
I did not kill them, sir, they were too willing To leave the world together; but their wrongs All, all the payment for my honest love, Awak’d me to revenge, and had they been The very strings that tie my life together, It should have fallen to pieces; but their hands Prevented mine. (V.ii; p. 266) 123
Bellamente is much like Antonio here in that each would have
murdered his best friend had circumstances permitted. Thus
the chief adversary of evil is compromised in his fight by
his expressed willingness to use unlawful methods in trying
to accomplish his purpose. Shirley makes clear that Bella
mente could not survive if he were a murderer. The Duke
for a moment suspects Bellamente of murder and warns himi.
... we must Be better satisfied /with proof of innocence?, or your blood must answer For this effusion. (V.ii; p, 267)
Bellamente more designedly adopts wrongful methods in
his struggle than does Antonio. Antonio does kidnap Berinthia,
but it is to save her life. And he only defends himself
against the attack of Sebastiano; he does not attack him.
Bellamente*s attack on evil seems more desperate because he does not merely hold his ground. He actively seeks revenge.
Through this Shirley makes clear that evil forces can cause
even the most upright of people to resort to evil counter measures.
Hippolito is the tragic hero of Love's Cruelty. He cannot overcome the complaisant view of illicit sex that his father has no doubt fostered even from the time of the son's childhood. As with Berinthia, Hippolito attempts during the course of the play to take up the cause against evil. But in doing so, he finds himself forced to use methods of evil in fighting it. This is in keeping with what was, by
Shirley's time, an established tradition in revenge tragedy, 124
though Shirley does contribute to it in a new way; This tra
dition goes back to the 1590’s at least and is characterized
by desire for blood revenge. It has been defined as "a dis
tinct species of the tragedy of blood ... a tragedy whose
leading motive is revenge and whose main action deals with the
progress of this revenge, leading to the deaths of the murderers and often the death of the avenger himself."^ Historically most significant in this tradition is Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish
Tragedy. In it Hieronlmo, denied a hearing with the King while attempting to secure justice, takes matters into his own hands in order to get revenge for the murder of his son,
Horatio. At a masque with the King in attendance, Hieronimo and Bel-Imperia murder the guilty parties, Lorenzo and
Balthazar. Another good example of this type of play is
Cyril Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy. In it, Vendice wants revenge on the Duke, who is responsible for the death of Vendice’s wife. He finally achieves that revenge by putting poison on the lips of his wife’s skull and inducing the Duke to kiss those lips. Other notable plays in this tradition include Hamlet and John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge. Fredson
Bowers sees Shirley’s contribution to this tradition as follows I
4 A. H. Thorndike, "The Relations of Hamlet to the Contemporary Revenge Play," PMLA, 17 (1902), l2$. 125
Yet the brilliance of Shirley’s achievement, particularly when viewed in the light of the sterile treatment of revenge in the dilettante plays ¿Pletcher’s Bloody Brother, Suckling’s Aglaura, Heminge’s Fatal Contract*/of his contemporaries, must not be minimized. If in bringing the old revenge tragedy up to date he has lost much of the emotion and the high tragedy of a soul on the rack, if his charac ters are slightly too facile in conceiving and acting revenge, he has at the same time sloughed off the bathos and hysteria, the rant and bombast, which at times had made the Kydian form a butt for laughter. His charac ters are ordinary persons in an ordinary world, who set about righting their wrongs as best they can.5
When Bellamente comes in and finds both Clariana and
Hippolito mortally wounded, he asks Clariana, “Is this wickedness all thine?" (V.ii; p. 265). Hippolito’s reply
("Except the wound my hasty sword / Gave") Indicates that
Hippolito realizes he has adopted improper ways though he has finally eliminated the evil Clariana from the world.
However, Hippolito seems a bit more hopeful of salvation than
Berinthia. Indicating that he comprehends his tragic flaw, he tells his father, Bovaldo, "I’m going on a long pilgrimage« you gave / Too great a license to my youth" (V.iij p. 266).
With Hippolito and Clariana dead, it remains for
Bellamente to explain to the outside world what has happened.
But once the Duke learns of the events, Bellamente dies, as though completely overwhelmed by his loss of faith in mankind.
5 Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy, p. 230. 126
Sebastian accounts for Bellamente*s death with the simple explanation, "His grief has overcharged him" (V.ii; p. 267).
Thus, Shirley demonstrates his point that such exposure to evil "so warps a character that further existence in a normal world becomes impossible and death is the only solution.
Both Sebastian and Eubella, who have fought so diligently to dissociate themselves from evil, since they denied the Duke’s attempts on Eubella*s chastity, survive. And so does the
Duke, who, before actually committing fornication, has turned to good by approving of the marriage plans of Eubella and
Hippolito. Since the evil has been exterminated from their society, these and others may survive, but the main opponents, those who had the task of actually ridding the society of its evil force, are themselves eliminated. The implications of all this in Shirley’s overall design would appear to be clear.
The characters who are most involved with evil and who resort to evil methods in combatting evil, sacrifice themselves in combat. This again shows Shirley’s reflecting on the moral ambivalence of the revenge ethic.
In The Traitor Shirley is once again interested in studying the effects of evil on a character who at first opposes evil methods but who finds himself resorting to them in the process. C-learly the main opponent of evil in The
Traitor is Sciarrha, although his sister, Amidea, becomes
6 Bowers, p. 40. 127 as much involved against evil as he when she attempts to bring the Duke of Florence to a moral realization. Sciarrha, the tragic hero of the play, is a fiery-tempered man. His violent nature is seen when he wishes, Immediately upon en countering evil, to shed blood. His first thought when he hears the Duke wants to ravish Amidea is to murder the Duke.
It is Amidea who comes up with a more rational alternative.
Unlike Sciarrha, she is willing to bear punishment rather than administer it. Yet she is so linked to Sciarrha and his fight against evil that she is dragged down with him. She is able to get the Duke to repent his lustful ways. For when A r he insists on her sexual submission, she wounds and then offers to kill herself. But the Duke’s repentance is only temporary; for later, when Lorenzo assures him that he might still enjoy Amidea, the Duke’s lust is aroused again.
Sciarrha is so preoccupied with the private evil of the
Duke’s personal lust for Amidea that he fails to perceive the greater evil,, the social wrong planned by Lorenzo. Lorenzo, of course, is merely using the Duke’s lust as a means of getting Sciarrha to kill the Duke and prepare for his taking control of the state. Because Sciarrha is so preoccupied with combatting the Duke, he actually helps the social evil to grow. Had he perceived the evil in Lorenzo and turned his efforts toward combatting him, the Duke would have been no real problem. For it is Lorenzo who arouses the Duke’s 120
lust after Amidea has caused the Duke to repent. As it is,
Sciarrha is so warped by the knowledge of the Duke’s evil that
Lorenzo is able to be surprisingly honest with Sciarrha. He
tells Sciarrha that the Duke’s desire for Amidea is but a
"petty trespass," and compared with Lorenzo’s intents, perhaps
it is. But Sciarrha fails to see this, asking instead, "Has
mischief any name / Beyond this?" (Il.i; p. 112), Again, when
Sciarrha makes clear his knowledge of Lorenzo’s political
ambitions and desire to see the Duke dead, Lorenzo admits
readily. This is rather ironic in view of Lorenzo’s recent
vehement denial of this to the Duke himself and his success
in convincing the Duke of his fidelity. Sciarrha is more
intellectually aware than the Duke, as evidenced by his telling
Lorenzo, "We know you but disguise your heart, and wish /
Florence would change her title" (Il.i; p. 114). Lorenzo
frankly admits his deception when he replies,
Let this secret bp An argument how much I dare repose Upon Sciarrha*s honor. Virtue witness I choose no other destiny. (Il.i; p. 115)
Resolved to kill the Duke, Sciarrha then agrees to arrange a meeting between Amidea and the Duke. Sciarrha embraces the Duke and tells him of Lorenzo’s plan to kill the Duke.
This, following the Duke’s repentance occasioned by Amidea*s stabbing herself, proves Sciarrha desires to see virtue prevail.
But he does not take the steps against Lorenzo necessary to see that it will. 129
Sciarrha’s involvement in yet another matter goes far to
show how warped a person may become as a result of an encounter with evil. I am referring to Sciarrha’s desire to kill Pisano after the latter announces the breaking of his engagement to
Amidea and his plans to marry Oriana.. Again Amidea adopts a
completely moral attitude toward the matter; for when she
encounters Pisano,, she tells him to beware of Sciarrha..
Amidea, certainly, is the one who would understandably desire revenge for Pisano’s breaking off their engagement; yet she adheres to what is right, not to what her passion might other- 7 wise dictate. Moreover, she wishes Oriana well,, asking blessings on the proposed marriage of Oriana and Pisano;
May heaven divert All harms that threaten you. Full blessings crown Your marriage. I hope there is no sin in this. Indeed I cannot choose but pray for you. (IV.ii; p. 164)
But happiness is not to be, for Sciarrha exercises his revenge by stabbing Pisano to death. Sciarrha, in his deluded belief in his moral superiority to the dirty political world of
Lorenzo, tells Lorenzo,
I am above Your politic reach, and glory in the wound That punish’d our dishonor.. Is he dead? I would not be so miserable not to ha* sped him For the empire.. (IV.ii; p. l66)
But all Sciarrha has done is to play into the hands of a man he now knows to be his enemy, Lorenzo,. For he has known
Lorenzo’s scheme at least since the Duke repented of his lust
■7 Amidea*s very name (love-god) is an evident index of her piety.. 130
for Amidea (Ill.ii). It was then that Sciarrha tried and
failed to prove to the Duke that Lorenzo had attempted to
provoke Sciarrha into killing the Duke. But now Lorenzo
orders everyone away and claims Sciarrha for his prisoner.
Thus, through his rashness, Sciarrha, who has intended to uphold righteousness despite his clearly evil methods, finds himself a prisoner of the chief evil force in the play,.
Under such circumstances Sciarrha becomes ever more distorted both in thought and action, Lorenzo offers a plan whereby Sciarrha may vindicate himself to the Duke. Once again Lorenzo suggests that Sciarrha act as a pandar and arrange a meeting between the Duke and Amidea. He reasons that if Sciarrha will do this,, the Duke will forgive his murder of Pisano.. Sciarrha pretends to agree to this and goes to Amidea, asking her to cooperate in order to save his life. Though she at first refuses absolutely, he threatens to kill her if she holds out. In an effort to protect
Sciarrha from ’’the guilt / Of being my murderer" (V.i; p,. 175), she feigns consent, whereupon Sciarrha callously stabs her to death,. As it turns out,, he has intended to kill her either way, though he maintains he has planned to do so for religious reasons.. As Amidea lies dying, Sciarrha explains to her,
And I confess in tears As full of sorrow as thy soul of innocence, In my religious care to have thee spotless, I did resolve, when I had found thee ripe And nearest heaven, with all thy best desires To send thee to thy peace,. Thy feign’d consent 131
Hath brought thy happiness more early to thee, Änd. sav’d some guilt. (V.ij p. 176)
Sciarrha adopts evil methods in an attempt to uphold good,,
but he only succeeds in slaying the most virtuous person in
the play. He is still nowhere near turning his righteousness
on Lorenzo, the real source of evil,. It would seem that
Shirley is suggesting that true virtue is not to be upheld' by
evil methods. It is Indeed difficult to maintain virtue in
taking up the fight against evil, as one may see in the
characters of Berinthia, Hippolito,. and Sciarrha.
Sciarrha*s next step is to arrange for the Duke to have
his meeting with Amidea—as she lies dead in her coffin..
This bizarre, horrifying encounter so shocks the Duke that he p Is rendered helpless when he discovers what has happened.0
Sciarrha comes into this situation just after Lorenzo has
killed the Duke,, and for a time it seems Sciarrha is confused
enough to fall for another of Lorenzo’s bits of trickery.
Lorenzo informs Sciarrha that the Duke is indeed dead and
promises Sciarrha a share of the governance of Florence.
Lorenzo promises to pardon Sciarrha, who is only too pleased
("I like this well," V.iiij p.185). Lorenzo then says he will blame Amidea’s death on the Duke,, thereby inspiring
Sciarrha to contribute a lie of his own» "What if I say Q The Duke’s shock here is reminiscent of that of the Duke in Cyril Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.. There the disguised Vendice presents the Duke with the skull of the former’s betrothed while purporting to act as a pandar for the Duke. 13.2
I kill’d him in revenge / Of Amidea?” (V.iii; p..l85).
At this point, Lorenzo seems on the brink of prevailing in his evil schemes.. As he observes of Sciarrha in an aside,
"How hastily he climbs the precipice / From whence one
fillip topples him to ruin" (V.iii; p.185),. At this point,, however, Sciarrha finally escapes Lorenzo’s spell, saying,
"Now I consider better, I have no mind / To live at all,, and you sha’not" (V.iii; pp. 185-86). Becoming aware of the
evil into which he has fallen,. Sciarrha tells Florio. who has not so fallen, to refrain from assisting him in killing
Lorenzo because Florio is innocent of the atrocities Sciarrha has committed. Sciarrha then finally eradicates the evil by killing Lorenzo, though not before Lorenzo Inflicts a death wound on him. In this respect the ending of The Traitor is much like the endings of the two preceding plays. In all three the opponent of evil, the person who finally destroys that evil,, dies in the process. In all three cases that person employs evil means,, which so corrupt him that further existence in this world becomes impossible.
Sciarrha’s problem in fighting evil seems much more perplexing, though, than is either Berinthia’s or Hippolito*s.
Of course, all three use immoral methods in combatting evil, but Berinthia and Hippolito clearly recognize what must be done from the start. Once having begun their tasks, neither ever wavers or comes near to falling under the spell of the 1#
evil character. But Sciarrha finds the evil of Lorenzo momentarily enticing, and one is led to believe that despite his sincere though distorted commitment to virtue, he is momentarily tempted by Lorenzo’s false offer. And while others have murdered in the name of goodness, they have murdered those they loathe, not those they love. Berinthia murders a woman who has plotted against her, and Hippolito exchanges mortal wounds with Clariana. But Sciarrha, though he kills a man who is really plotting against him, also mur ders a lady whom he is trying to protect and explains to her that he has saved her by-doing so.9 in view of these elrcum stances, then, it seems fair to say that the evil becomes a more perplexing problem to deal with in The Traitor than in the two previous plays. Sciarrha has become so confused by the evil surrounding him that his own death "is actually a relief from an over-complicated and ruthless life."10
The Politician is in one respect an exception to the general pattern that has been established among Shirley’s tragedies. For the first time, a vigorous opponent of evil survives the confrontation. In fact, in this play two opponents of evil do so. These, Turgesius and Olaus, are vigorous and uncompromising in their opposition to wrong,
9 A similarity is apparent here between The Traitor and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, in which Bosola mis takenly kills Antonio while meaning to protect him.
10 Bowers, p. 227. 1M
whose embodiment is the villainous Gotharus. But one may
infer that they survive because they avoid resorting to evil
methods or associating with anyone who does so resort. Where
as Amidea is as personally virtuous as they, she is too
closely bound to Sciarrha to survive? but Turgesius and Olaus
have no such ties. They are unique among characters of this
type in all of Shirley’s tragedies.
Marpisa is clearly the tragic heroine of this play. In a
sense she is an extension of the character of Sciarrha. Yet,
whereas Sciarrha momentarily considers following the evil
Lorenzo, Marpisa has been a follower of Gotharus long before
the play opens. In fact, her total subservience is demon
strated at the very outset by the revelation that she has
just married the King on Gotharus* orders. Perhaps in order
that the audience will not fall to understand that Marpisa’s moral sense has been greatly compromised, Shirley has Marpisa
remain under Gotharus’ influence for the first three acts.
Whereas Sciarrha does things during the course of The Traitor that allow us to see him inclining toward evil, Marpisa has fallen long before the start of the play. Indeed, it is her marriage to the King that starts all the trouble at the be- ginning. Perhaps one could excuse her if she were really in love with the King, but she is not. It is purely a move that she and Gotharus make for the sake of political expediency.
Where Marpisa is concerned, Shirley concentrates on 135
acquainting his audience with ways in which she is an in
strument of evil. She remains Gotharus* mistress despite her
marriage to the King; but more than this, she delights in
irritating Gotharus* true and faithful wife, Albina. On
their first meeting, Marpisa so torments Albina that the
latter finally concedes, "I am weary of my life, and fear
not what / Your power and rage can execute" (Ill.i? p. 126).
Not until Act IV does Marpisa even consider self-refor
mation. But when she does so, she takes a much greater step
than any of Shirley’s other characters. And her decision
to do so is motivated by a mother’s love for her son, a
basic and admirable human trait. However, like the heroes
of the other tragedies, Marpisa adopts illicit means of
fighting evil. Finding out that Gotharus is responsible for
her son’s death, she decides to poison Gotharus. Again, then, revenge serves as the motive for the tragic hero to take action against evil, and both the means and the ends of revenge
stand quite outside the scope of the law. Shirley makes clear through Olaus that revenge is not proper. When Marpisa announces that she is responsible for Gotharus’ death, Olaus tells her she should be "prepared to be damned" (V.ii? p, 174), though Gotharus has been Olaus* bitter enemy throughout the play. As she continues to pour forth her confession, Olaus calls her a "hell-cat" and a "devil." Coming from a character who has been absolutely on the side of virtue the entire play, 136
these comments demonstrate Shirley’s opposition to revenge as
a proper motive for committing murder. Nevertheless, Marpisa
is successful in her effort and eliminates the evil before the
rebels can.. For when they discover Gotharus in his coffin,
he is already dead from the dose of poison he has received
from her. Once her purpose is accomplished, Marpisa no longer
fears death,. When it appears the King will be apprehended,-
he asks her if she hopes to escape,, to which she replies,
I am mistress of my fate, and do not fear Their inundation, their army coming; It does prepare my triumph; they shall give Me liberty,, and punish thee to live,. (V.i; p. 164)
All this might seem to be just a result of Marpisa’s
desire for revenge and therefore to obscure her virtuous side.
But In Marpisa’s last appearance in the play, Shirley makes it
clear that her struggle against Gotharus has had its moral
implications,. Felix Schelllng’s comment, that in The Politician
"the tilting of intrigue and counter-intrigue has been sub stituted for a moral struggle,w11 seems rather short-sighted,.
Marpisa’s last appearance is first motivated by her desire to
know whether or not Gotharus is dead. Once certain of this
fact, she announces that she has been the cause of his death
and that she has also poisoned herself. In response to these
two facts, the King inquires whether or not she has hope of heaven. Her reply contains more than an answer to this inquiry;
II English Drama, p. 210 137
it also contains her admission that- she has been destroyed by
the evil to which she has been so long exposed. Marpisa tells
the King,
I find my conscience too late; ‘tis bloody, And full of stains. Oh, I have been so wicked, ’Twere almost impudence to ask a pardon; Yet, for your own sakes, pity me.. (V.ii; p. 175)
This obvious confession of sins does much to redeem Marpisa
in the eyes of the audience; in fact, it raises her in the
King’s estimation, for he gives her some hope for salvation
in his reply, ’’These accents yet may be repentance" (V.ii;
p. 175). Marpisa finally does take the side of good by op
posing the evil Gotharus,. Her confession, too,, solidifies her
good intention,, though like that of Bosola in The Duchess of
Malfl, it is existentially worthless because it comes too late.
And her lament that "lust and ambition ruin’d me" Inspires the
audience to afford her a measure of sympathy. But like the
tragic heroes of other Shirleian plays, she has been too
greatly damaged by evil and is not permitted to survive. Again, one infers that such are the irremediable effects of evil on humanity,.
Marpisa is the only character in The Politician to oppose evil and not survive. Turgesius and Olaus are more virtuous by far than Marpisa, and they not only survive but also triumph over wrong. Surviving Gotharus’ intrigues,, they are finally able to secure order in the kingdom. Their equivalents in the other plays, Antonio,, Bellamente, and Amidea, are not 138 so fortunate. But the difference is that, not only do they not use evil methods themselves, but also they do not col laborate in any way with those who would use them. Though
Marpisa becomes an active opponent of evil during the course of the play, they regard her as an enemy and never collaborate with her against Gotharus. Through Turgesius and Olaus,
Shirley shows his belief that through virtuous means one may conquer evil and survive. Evil is not an absolutely over whelming force when one uses moral means and separates himself from anyone who does not. But since this happens only in one
Instance out of the five Shirley tragedies, Shirley appears to imply that it is not easy to do so? yet it is a possibility.
Olaus and Turgesius are the best fortified of any of the characters who oppose evil, for they are supported by an army of what the King calls "the most violent men under the planets," a group that Gotharus says will "cling to him ¿Turgesius/ like ivy? / Embrace him even to death" (Ill.ii? p. 127). However, they do not turn to evil methods in their fight. Though they show their strength at the city walls by displaying their army,
Turgesius is at all times considerate of his father and never considers killing him. And this is despite the fact that his father does plot with Gotharus to kill Turgesius. Before the city walls, the hbt-headed Olaus wants to Attack, advising Tur gesius, "Let our engines / Tear them, and batter down the walls"
(IV.ii? p. 142). But Turgesius* reply demonstrates his refusal 139
to use such methods.
Good uncle, Your counsel I obey’d In the wars abroad. We did there fight for honour, and might use All the most horrid forms of death, to fright Our enemies,, and cut our way to victory. But give me leave to tell you, sir, at home Our conquest will be loss, and every wound We give our country is a crimson tear From our own heart. They are a viperous brood Gnaw through the bowels of their parent, I Will rather die without a monument, Than have it bear my^name, to have defaced One heap of stones. z (IV.ii, p. 142)
Turgesius then obeys his father’s command to dismiss his
soldiers and approaches to meet his father. It is at this
point that Turgesius risks death. As part of a plot among the
King, Gotharus, and Aquinas, the latter discharges a pistol and
Turgesius falls as if shot to death, but Aquinas purposely misaims, sparing Turgesius and thus deceiving the King and
Gotharu^ validating the faith Turgesius has had in him in the first place.
Shirley allows the audience to think the assassination scene is authentic, however. Although it occurs in IV.ii, the audience does not learn that it has actually been an illusion until IV.vi.. Thus, for three scenes It appears that Turgesius has not survived; and had it not been for Aquinas’ faithful ness, Turgesius would not have survived. But Marpisa’s poisoning of Gotharus helps clear the way for the reconciliation
12 The image of the "viperous brood" gnawing their parent’s bowels seems to be taken from Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene, I.i.25,. wherein the brood of the monster con sume their dead parent. In The Politician, however, the parent is not dead. 140)
between father and son. Thinking his son is dead, the King
gives a long speech of repentance which indicates that he now
realizes how evil Gotharus was;
I have let fall my penitence, though I was Counsell*d by him, whose truth I now suspect, In the amaze and puzzle of my state— (V.iij p. 168)
Through his faith, then, in moral methods to achieve his ends,
Turgesius both saves himself and causes his father to repent.
Even Olaus and the King are reconciled,, and Turgesius wins for
himself the best woman in the kingdom. When Albina enters
and learns that Gotharus is dead, she is saddened despite her
admission that their marriage has not been a happy one..
Albina’s very name signifies whiteness or purity, and she has
not admired Gotharus* evil deeds. But this does not prevent
her from expressing a love and sympathy for the man himself»
0, my lord, Now may I kiss thy wither’d lip, discharge Upon thy bosom a poor widow’s tears; There’s something tempts my heart to shew more duty, And wait on thee to death, in whose pale dress Thou dost invite me to be reconciled.. (V.,ii; pp. 171-72)
Albina thereupon swoons and is carried away by physicians.
Turgesius is moved to vow, ’’If she survives this passion,
she is worth / A prince,, and I will court her as my blessing’’
(V.ii; p. 172). Through pursuit of honesty both in method and in end, Turgesius restores a father to goodness, reconciles two brothers (Olaus and the King), and wins the most virtuous woman in the kingdom for his wife. Through this Shirley shows 141
that evil is not absolutely overwhelming, that one can oppose
it effectively without being destroyed..
The Cardinal reverts to the standard pattern of Shirley’s
tragedies. The chief opponents of evil are the Duchess and
Hernando, and both meet death in attempting to counteract
evil. Hernando becomes the Duchess* assistant in the fight
for good largely because he is motivated by revenge. His
true enemy is Columbo, who has dismissed him just before a
battle because of a dispute over military strategy. But he
gets his chance to oppose Columbo when the latter kills
d’Alvarez, for after this the Duchess is ready to consider
violent action, too. When Hernando comes to propose his play
to the Duchess, he finds her primed for revenge. The Duchess
tells Hernando,
I so much Desire to sacrifice to that hovering ghost ¿of d’Alvarez/ Columbo’s life, that I am not ambitious To keep my own two minutes after it. (iv.iii p. 323)
But when she also mentions murdering the Cardinal, Hernando
seems less interested in him, saying the Cardinal "Is for
the second course. Columbo must / Be first cut up? his
ghost must lead the dance" (IV.ii; p. 324).13 Hernando
sincerely believes that he is engaged in a holy cause, because
13 Here one notices Shirley’s debt to the Senecan tradition. The reference to ghosts and bodies being cut up can be traced back to such works as Seneca’s Thyestes. In Elizabethan drama, ghosts appear in Hamlet, The Spanish Tragedy, and John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge, among others. Butchered bodies are used in The Changeling, Macbeth (which contains ghosts as well), and Antonio’s Revenge, to name only a few. I4g J
after they agree to murder Columbo, he tells the Duchess,
"Your cause is so religious, you need not / Strengthen it
with your prayers" (IV.ilj p. 325). When Hernando confronts
Columbo, he is not swayed in the least by Columbo*s pro-
féssion of repentance. Though Columbo tells him, "Hernando,
now I love thee" (IV.ill; p. 329) and laments the fact that
Hernando demands a fight and nothing less, Hernando replies,
That duchess (Whom but to mention with thy breath is sacrilege,) An orphan of thy making, and condemn’d By thee to eternal solitude, I come To vindicate; and while I am killing thee, By virtue of her prayers sent up for justice At the same time, in heaven I am pardon’d for’t, (IV.lii; p. 330)
Because the Duchess has promised Hernando her love if she ever does love again, he stays around her and is in hiding when the Cardinal arrives for the purpose of raping her.
Again engaged in what he thinks is a righteous cause, Her nando leaps forward to defend the Duchess and wounds the
Cardinal. But the Cardinal’s plea for help is answered; and when servants come in, Hernando knows he is trapped.
Rather than let his enemies have the pleasure of killing him,
Hernando commits suicide. Hernando, like Berinthia,
Hippolito, Sciarrha, and Marpisa before him, is unable to uphold good and survive. He is too entangled in evil to escape unscathed. All these characters are able to eliminate an evil figúre, but none is able to survive after doing so.
Thus a pattern is established that indicates Shirley’s belief that resorting to illicit means to combat evil insures the 143
destruction of one who so resorts.
Hernando does not even accomplish his purposes en tirely, for the Cardinal is not mortally wounded. Thus, as
Hernando dies, he leaves the Duchess still in dangerous circumstances, for he has not entirely eliminated evil.
The Duchess is the tragic heroine of The Cardinal. Her first mistake is tricking Columbo into saying he no longer expects her to marry him so that she can marry d’Alvarez.
This is only the first of a number of morally questionable acts that she commits in order to get her way. Certainly she is upholding the side of virtue when she exerts herself in the cause of true love. Any audience, Elizabethan or modem,, would have sympathy for her plight. Yet as Bowers points out, she must lose some of that sympathy When she promises to love Hernando and marry him if he is successful in her revenge.^4 The effect of her exposure to evil is magnified in her going insane, too. Although she, like
Hamlet, announces her Intention to feign madness, she soon becomes indeed mad, returning only intermittently to her right mind. This is similar to Bellamente*s death from grief after his exposure to evil and intent to employ evil means in order to secure just ends. In short, the illicit methods the Duchess has employed throughout the play finally overwhelm her, no matter what the intended end of those
14 Bowers, p. 232, 144
was. "The feeble exercise of her wiles in the writing of
the letter, the fatal misinterpretation which, owing to
her past deceit, Columbo gives it, and finally the reckless
and injudicious haste with which she accepts his playful
release and rushes into marriage, form a pyramid of feminine
error which, when dealing with a man of Columbo’s nature, can
lead only to tragic consequences.
The Cardinal, through his own evil, is at least as
responsible for his death as is Hernando, who wounds him, but not
fatally. And the role of the Duchess in eliminating evil
is indirect at best. The Cardinal’s responsibility may be
seen when he, thinking he has been mortally wounded, adminis
ters poison to himself and thereby tricks the Duchess into
taking a dose because she thinks it will cure her of a sup
posed previous dose given by the Cardinal. In this he simply
outsmarts himself. It is more his hate for the Duchess than
her opposition to evil that eventually spells the Cardinal’s
end. However, one must remember that without the wound given by Hernando, the Cardinal would hot have taken the poison? and the Duchess did sanction Hernando’s attack, an attack he would not have made without her approval. Therefore, one may see that the Duchess does help to eliminate evil from her world? but she herself is abolished in the process. The similarity between the Cardinal and the Duchess in methods and personal fate, despite their different motivations,
15 Bowers, p. 232. 145
underscores the same point which Shirley had made in his four previous tragedies; the employment of evil methods even in a good cause is personally destructive to the user.
The nature of evil is such that those who become caught in
it, though their intentions be good, will not survive.
Shirley demonstrates his own opposition to use of evil methods when he has the Duchess ask for forgiveness at the end of The Cardinal. As she dies, she asks that "Heaven forgive, / And all the world!" (V.iii; p. 351)«
The repeated use of good characters meeting their ends through employing evil methods in their struggles to uphold virtue is by now obvious. And it is given added emphasis by the survival of Turgesius, who is able to save himself and Olaus by employing virtuous methods. Through what has been pointed out, Shirley is rejecting the Machiavellian notion that the end justifies the means. He shows, instead, that this course will lead to the death of the well-intentioned but misguided opponent of Satanic-Machiavellian villainy.
Shirley looked with horror upon the notion that the end justifies the means. And his having those characters die who oppose evil with evil of their own, even if they do oppose evil in the name of virtue, is proof enough that he is warning his audience that one must use good means.
Bowers’ statement that Sciarrha "is no guiltless hero- revenger" (p;. 226) is equally applicable to the misguided 146
opponents of evil in Shirley’s other tragedies. Whereas
Turgesius is the proof that one who fights evil with good means can survive, Shirley offers no proof that one can survive by using evil means in fighting for good. Taking the plays in this way, one can logically account for the death of all those who oppose evil through illicit means.
For, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter,
Renaissance drama is full of examples who do not die but survive and prevail in their struggles with evil. And they do not all adopt the patient, kindly methods of Turgesius.
In any event, the matter of opposing evil is for
Shirley a serious one; and one is well warned not to take on the task unless he is prepared to hazard great risks, both physically and spiritually. Even Turgesius, who does survive, is brought close to death; and the rest of the characters who play similar roles (except Olaus) are casualties of their battles. The struggle against evil is not an easy one; and if one is to believe Shirley’s message, the rewards are small. IM7
CHAPTER FIVE
Among the Satanic villains in Shirley’s tragedies, only
two undergo transformation from decent human being into figures
of degradation. And in both cases, it is a thwarted lover who becomes Satanic during the course of the play (Catalina in The
Maid’s Revenge and Clariana in Love * s Cruelty), In the other
three cases (Lorenzo in The Traitor, Gotharus in The Politician, and the Cardinal in The Cardinal), the Satanic nature of the villain is long known by others to have been a part of his make-up. And in each of the latter three instances, the villain
is not a thwarted lover but an ambitious politician. Once again, then, Shirley seems to make a distinction between the
character’s permanent nature (ethos) and its temporary derange ment (pathos). The evil of an ambitious politician is a result of ethos and therefore not in need of explanation; but the wicked behavior of a troubled lover is not so clearly defined.
Instead, Shirley suggests the possibility of pathos as the cause
As shown in Chapter Two, ethos seems to account for the evil of all five Satanic villains. But with Catalina and Clariana,
Shirley personally is not nearly as certain as with the other three. Instead, he allows his audience to see both psycholo gical and traditional moral attitudes evinced toward evil. In this way he distinguishes between the ’’worldly ambitious” and
"thwarted lover" villains.
Both Catalina of The Maid’s Revenge and Clariana of Love * s
Cruelty start out as decent, well-respected ladies and evolve 148:
during the course of the play into the villains that they are by the end. However, in The Traitor, The Politician, and The
Cardinal, Lorenzo, Gotharus, and the Cardinal, the villains of their respective plays, are shown to be such from the start, with no account given of the cause of their villainy. The point of this is that Shirley accepts the fact that in the realm of love, evil is a potential whose actualization needs motivational explanation. In the realm of politics it is an actualization that may be implicitly assumed. For example, the desire of
Lorenzo to become ruler regardless of the methods he uses to do so is present when the play opens. His opening lines inquire how one of his evil schemes is presently working, thus confirm ing the implicit nature of his evil. On the other hand, in
Love * s Cruelty the Satanic figure repents at the end, thus signifying the temporary state (pathos) of her evil. No such repentance occurs in any of the three plays in which the Satanic figure is politically ambitious. In these plays, Shirley shows he thinks politically inspired evil is monolithic, constant, and unyielding? that is, it is a reflection of a depraved ethos.
In The Maid’s Revenge, the evil of Catalina, who eventually attempts to poison her sister, is not apparent to begin with.
The cause of it needs explaining in order for us to accept the likelihood of the plot. In an attempt to repay Antonio for the hospitality that Antonio has afforded him in Lisbon, Sebastiano offers to introduce Antonio to Catalina and Berinthia, the 149
former’s sisters. Antonio seems to be familiar with both by-
reputation, and there is nothing to hint that either has an
evil nature? for Antonio says of them, "Report speaks loud
their beauties, and no less / Virtue in either" (I.i; p.
104). When Sebastiano introduces the girls to Antonio, both fall
in love with him though their father has declared that
Berinthia is forbidden to marry until Catalina has done so.
Hereafter Shirley begins to manifest the process by which
Catalina grows evil. Catalina verifies with her servant
Ansilva that Berinthia is her rival for Antonio’s love, and
her jealousy begins to grow. Acting because of this jealousy,
Catalina starts to plot against her sister when she takes
Velasco, Berinthia’s lover, aside and tells him to break the
news to her father of Antonio’s love for Berinthia. As yet,
however, there is no hint that Catalina is capable of
poisoning Berinthia. Catalina is merely an angry sister who
is strong-willed enough to take steps to secure Antonio for her own. Only after Vilarezo, acting upon the information given him by Velasco, makes Berinthia Catalina’s prisoner does Catalina begin to be truly evil. In a soliloquy,
Catalina apostrophizes her sister;
Berinthia, you’re my prisoner; at my leisure I’ll study on your fate; I cannot be Friend to myself, when I am kind to thee. (II.v; p. 131)
This speech indicates that Catalina has evolved into a potentially harmful figure, that she is no longer the 156
virtuous young lady Antonio and Sebastiano knew at the start
of the play. Whereas Catalina has been properly concerned
for her honor to begin with (’you no sooner had rescued my
honour ... for honour’s sake” ¿11.ij pp.107-027), she be
comes obsessed with revenge. This is indicated by the sudden
emergence of the poison motif in her speech. She speaks of
being ’’poison’d with opinion” (II.ill; p. 124), of breaking
"a serpent’s egg betimes” (II.ill; p. 127), and of drinking
"poison from these fatal accents’! -5 (III, i; p. 134). Such
images had been unknown in her speeches before the develop
ment of her jealousy. Finally, however, jealousy overcomes
her previously innocent self and transforms her into a
"green-eyed monster" when she decides to take her sister’s
life. Thereafter, Catalina proceeds with her evil and never
once looks back in repentance. Thus Shirley is able to show
the development of a jealous lover into a Satanic figure / and demonstrate his belief that such a figure is not implicit
in love matters but may' be developed by events like those
in Catalina’s life.
Shirley pursues the same idea again in his next tragedy,
for initially, evil is no more apparent in Love * s Cruelty than it is in The Maid’s Revenge. The play opens rather ironically in view of later events, with Clariana pleading with Bellamente to stay with her rather than go away on business. In the course of her plea, the name of Hippolito is mentioned, and her curiosity is aroused when she finds out 151
that Hippolito refuses to see her because, as Bellamente
says,
... he will not trust his eyes with any Beauty I love, least they should stray with too much License, and by degrees corrupt his faith. (I.ij p. 196)
The purpose of this first scene is to allow Clariana*s
curiosity to be aroused. Her desire to see such a forbidden
sight is spontaneously aroused, and at first the desire is
to do no more than that—to see Hippolito.
The initial innocence of Hippolito and Clariana is underscored when, after she has presented herself to him, he fails to recognize her and still later, while an atten dant of the Duke, sends Bellamente to release her from his quarters, where she is a prisoner. During this first inter view between Clariana and Hippolito, she does begin to fall in love with him. Her asides do like him infinitely,"
"All is not well within me") indicate this. However, this uncontrollable passion, this manifestation of pathos, is not in itself evil. Even by the end of Act II, when Bellamente has found her locked In Hippolito*s quarters, she can logically plead that she has come there only for curiosity’s sake. Furthermore, she does not object when he suggests that they hasten the date for their marriage so he can prove he is not jealous.
Not until the beginning of Act III can one clearly see the direction in which Clariana is headed. It is then that 152
she comes back to Hippolito, and. even at that point she has
qualms about what she is doing. Both lovers voice their
reservations about wronging Bellamente. Hippolito confesses
his desire for Clariana, ”yet when I think / On Bellamente,
there’s wrestlings in my blood" (Ill.ii; p. 229). Clariana
then admits her conscience bothers her when her mind con
siders an affair with Hippolito:
Does it not stir you To think of former vows? Nay I do dream Sometimes of being surprised in thy dear arms, And then methinks I weep, and sigh, and wake With my own groans. (Ill.ii; p, 229)
Here it seems Shirley is emphasizing the psychological disturbance of the two lovers, which suggests the Baroque technique of Beaumont and Fletcher. In their works, there is a deemphasis on right and wrong, a purposeful avoidance of conventional moral judgments. As Muriel Bradbrook puts it, with Beaumont and Fletcher there is "a blurring of . . . the moral distinction between right and wrong.Both Hippolito and Clariana characterize their passions in ways that indi cate psychological imbalance. Hippolito claims he has had
"desires ... I could not justify," that he has been temporarily able toqpench "all loose fires; but love, that sway’d you then, / And kept your thoughts, met with my long ing heart" (Ill.ii; pp, 228-29). Clariana tells Hippolito that "a storm hath thrown me on your shore" (Ill.ii; p. 229).
But it is not so much what Clariana does that makes her evil as the way in which she regards her deeds. And it is here
1 Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy, p. 243. 153
that Shirley does seem concerned with moral implications of
human actions. Hippolito genuinely regrets their affair when
Bellamente finds them in bed together, resolves to change his
ways, and makes plans to marry the virtuous Eubella. Clariana,
on the other hand, finds delight in the unlawfulness of
illicit love, vows to block Hippolito’s marriage plans, and
finally kills Hippolito. These acts define the kernel of
Clariana’s evil, and they are supported by verbal references
to it. As Clariana relentlessly continues her pursuit of
Hippolito, he identifies her as the devil (111,11? p, 228),
as does Bellamente two scenes later. Clariana speaks of her
affair with Hippolito not in terms of romantic love but in
coarse, physical terms. She compares it to a man hunting his
neighbor’s deer and soldiers capturing a town, finally con
fessing that she would not care if her husband caught her
in the sexual act except that he might bring her physical
harm. Thus, through characterizing Clariana’s passions in a way that Indicates psychological imbalance yet showing her attitude as clearly immoral, Shirley seems to straddle the
psychological and traditional moralistic attitudes toward
evil. In effect,- Neilson perceives the pathos at work when he writes, "The initial motive which launches the heroine on her downward career is■. . . natural."2 But her attitude is another matter,
2 The Cambridge History of English Literature, VI. Ft. 2, 224, ' 154
In the first two Shirley tragedies, then, the villain
is not evil from the start, but becomes so because of a
psychological disturbance resulting from strained emotions.
This Is made clear particularly in Love * s Cruelty when
Clariana repents at the end of the play. Having inflicted
a death wound upon Hippolito, she admits the wrongness of
her deed«
Oh! forgive me, Good heaven! I have wronged thee, Bellamente,— Oh wives, hereafter, mean /i.e., devote/ your hearts to them You give your holy vows. (V.ii; p. 265)
Here Shirley shows that pathos is the basis of evil doing,
though as already stated he does not attribute the evil of
either Catalina or Clariana solely to this,"
Turning to the politically ambitious villains, one
does not find Shirley straddling the psychological and moralistic attitudes toward evil. Instead the evil of
these villains Is clearly a depiction of ethos.
In The Traitor, one finds that an evil force has been
set into motion long before the play begins. In fact, the effects of evil are what the audience sees first. In this play, the evil does not spring from a psychological dis turbance but from deep-seated ambition. Such ambition does not come and go but is so much a permanent part of the character who manifests it that it needs no explanation.
Hence the plan opens with evil plotting in motion. Pisano requests that Cosmo break his engagement with Oriana, a 155
request which Petruchio identifies as "my lord Lorenzo’s
plot” (I.ij p. 103). Immediately thereafter, Lorenzo admits his villainy without hesitation. The Duke then receives a
letter warning him that Lorenzo is behind a plot to over
throw the Duke so that he might become head of the state.
Dramatic language immediately plays a part in the establish ment of Lorenzo’s evil also. From the outset of the play,
Depazzi serves, as a chorus to tell the audience of Lorenzo’s nature. In a series of asides, he makes such informative comments as "A pox upon him for a traitor, he / Has hedg’d me in, but I’ll confess" (I.ii; p. 10?), "Admirable traitor"
(I.ii; p. 109), and "Well, go thy ways for one of the most excellent / Impudent traitors" (I.ii; p. 110). An this is much in contrast with the first two tragedies, in which the villain’s evil is not apparent until approximately midway through the play. But here, by the end of the first act we are well aware that Lorenzo is a thoroughly ambitious, cunning, and evil man who will do anything to gain his end.
Shirley does not, as he does in his first two plays, seek to provide any sort of reason or justification for the villain’s evil. There is no slipping into evil for Lorenzo; his evil is a given from the start. The motive of ambition, which becomes obvious with the letter, is taken for granted. It is not temporary; it is not a result of strained emotions; and it will not soften. From Act I until the end of the play,
Lorenzo, like the villains of the next two tragedies, is 156
shown only as cruel, cunning, and dedicated to achieving his own selfish goals by any means possible. Even when he dies, he shows no change, which enables Shirley to show the un changing character of politically inspired villainy. And this,, again, is true of the two villains to follow.
Obviously evil springing from political ambition is not made of the same cloth as evil arising from strained emotions.
As Shirley uses the first act of The Traitor to estab lish the evil and plottings of Lorenzo, he does this also with Gotharus in The Politician. Once again, both the actions of the villain and the language used to characterize him contribute to his evil nature. He regrets that Turgesius, the King’s virtuous son, is coming home safely from war? encourages the seduction of his wife, Albina, by the King; and wishes aloud that Haraldus, son of Queen Marpisa by a previous marriage, were more inclined to evil. When
Gotharus is reading a letter, the honest courtier Hormenus wonders,
What news From hell? He cannot want intelligence, he has .So many friends there.3 (I.ij p. 94)
Gotharus tells Marpisa that he "laugh/"s7 at / The tales of
3 This comment is strongly reminiscent of that of Malvole to Ferneze in Marston’s The Malcontent. Malvole, upon finding Ferneze lying wounded and crying for a surgeon, asks, "What news from Limbo? How doth the grand cuckold, Lucifer?" (Ii; v,l4l-42; ed. M. L. Wine /Lincoln« Univ. of Nebraska Press, 157
hell” (I.i; p. 104), hopes Turgesius and Duke Olaus "let
their gall spout in their stomach" (I.i; p? 103), and admits
that were anything to happen to his wife, he "might be
suspected for your poisoner" (I.i; p. 99)« All this takes
place in the one scene that constitutes Act I. As one may
plainly see, the act is almost entirely devoted to proof of
Gotharus* evil ways. Once again, there has been no attempt
to develop Gotharus* evil and little attempt to account for
his motivation. Like Lorenzo, Gotharus is motivated by
sheer ambition, and he has been evil long before the play
begins;- Once more Shirley uses this situation to demonstrate
ethos as the basis of evil in the ambitious politician.
Again like Lorenzo, Gotharus never.makes any move toward
repentance. Gotharus occupies himself with how to apply his
evil to new problems brought about by Turgesius’ safe return
and Haraldus* discovery of Marpisa*s sexual relations with
Gotharus. Gotharus* callousness toward humanity is exempli
fied in both word and deed even as he nears his end. He
condemns Helga and Sueno, servants he thinks have betrayed him, saying,. "their souls reel in hell for it" (IV.iv; p.
153). Later, though Sueno vows to "first be hanged before he would betray Gotharus, the latter stabs him to death, exclaiming of the rebels outside, "Hell stop their throats"
(IV.i; p. 158). Thus, as with every exemplar of evil in the world of politics,, he is an inalterable villain from start to finish. Here we find once again ethos as the basis 158
of evil In the ambitious individual, not a temporary,
psychological distortion as it is in thwarted lovers.
An examination of Shirley’s last tragedy, The Cardinal,
can only reinforce this interpretation. There is never any
doubt that the Cardinal is an evil creature. His plan to
arrange a marriage between the Duchess and his nephew,
Columbo, is both against the Duchess’ will and unpopular
in the eyes of his countrymen. The Cardinal is portrayed
as holding "Intelligence with every bird i* th’ air" (I.i;
p. 278), which suggests his scheming nature. One nobleman
remarks of the Cardinal, "Death on his purple pride! He
governs all" (I.i; p. 278) and a bit later shows his dis pleasure at the Cardinal’s tyrannical methods; "More danger
if the Cardinal be displeased ¿than if the King be so/, /
Who sits at helm of state" (I.i; p. 278), The Cardinal’s very soul seems to be in question, quite an Irony for a churchman, for an army captain remarks of it, "His soul has long been look’d for" (Il.i; p. 292). As with the two preceding plays, then, Shirley establishes quickly the forceful, dangerous villain, the reason for whose evil is his ethos. Like Lorenzo and Gotharus, the Cardinal is evil from the start, never displaying any virtue, present or past.2*'
4 Bowers* insistence that the Cardinal has had no part in the murder of the Duchess’ husband, previously refuted (see p. 51, above), must once more be brought into question. Upon learning of the Duchess* plan to marry d’Alvarez, he calls for "action and revenge" to "calm her fury" (Il.iii; P. 303). 159
And like them, he does not at any time even slightly indi
cate a desire to repent. In fact, the Cardinal goes one
step further. He uses a feigned repentance to work his last bit of evil. Demonstrating his callousness toward humanity, he hands the Duchess a supposed antidote to the allegedly
poisoned food he has had her eat, stating,
In proof of my repentance, If the last breath of a now dying man May gain your charity and belief, receive This ivory box; in it an antidote •Bove that they boast the great magistral medicine« That powder, mix’d with wine, by a most rare And quick access to the heart, will fortify it Against the rage of the most nimble poison; (V.iii; p. 349)
In fact, of course, the supposed antidote is itself a poison which finally kills the Duchess. Thus the Cardinal actually mocks the very idea of repentance, which allows Shirley to mock the idea that a villain whose very character is deter mined by an ethos of evil would ever change.
Shirley, then, equivocates regarding the cause of evil in the thwarted lover; but with the ambitious politician, ethos is undoubtedly the explanation. Neither is without dire consequences, but the second type is much more enduring and strong-willed. The first type, though not excusable, may at least arouse some pity, for it possibly stems from a psychological disturbance of a temporary nature. )(¿0
CHAPTER SIX
Shirley does not subscribe to the belief that man’s
life is controlled by fate. Again and again in his
tragedies, the playwright demonstrates his belief that man
is, after all, responsible for his decisions and actions.
The Satanic figures consistently exhibit a disbelief in the
control of fate, and are not reluctant to assert that they
seek to control weaker persons, thereby indicating their
conviction that man, not fate, brings events to pass.
Berinthia in The Maid’s Revenge is an example of a character
who has allowed things to happen to her by her inaction but who later will resolve to steer her own course by strong
positive action. Velasco in The Maid’s Revenge, in another
instance, demonstrates for Shirley that a given character
is weak by Shirley’s having him express a belief in fate rather than choose to do what might bring him a better life«
"Oh, my fates! / He takes the freehold of my soul away"
(Ill.i; p. 135). Finally, Shirley allows Marpisa and
Haraldus in The Politician to show newly acquired strength or worthiness by expressing a denial of belief in fate or performing some action that demonstrates that denial.
Because of these instances, Shirley has justifiably estab lished with modern critics the reputation of being a believer in man’s responsibility for his own actions. Bastiaenen, for example, states that Shirley’s works "do not nearly show so l6l
irresistible an inclination to fatalism as Shakespeare. til
John W. Cunliffe is even more definite, with his flat assertion that ”He /Shirle^/ was not a fatalist."2 Shirley’s
profession of belief in man’s responsibility for his actions
carries with it the necessary implication that evil in mankind can be successfully combated. His rejection of fate as master of man is a rejection of the deterministic outlook popular in his age. This deterministic outlook "is a theme which interests Chapman," as for instance in Bussy D*Ambols.3
It may be traced through the writings of Machiavelli, whose Influence on Shirley’s age was strong.2*' Shirley’s rejection of determinism is also an assertion that man indeed is "the master of his fate and the captain of his soul." In the last analysis, Shirley may be said to be reminding his audience that it is their responsibility as capable human beings to display fortitude in their daily lives by taking responsibi lity for their moral decisions rather than hiding behind the excuse that a belief in fate can provide for their moral shortcomings.
1 The Moral Tone of Jacobean and Caroline Drama, p. 181, 2 The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy (1893? rpt. Hamden, Conn.; Archon, 19657, P» 123»
3 Hiram Haydn, The Counter-Renaissance (New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), p. 440. 4 Chapter Seven of Haydn’s book covers this aspect of Machiavelli in detail. 162
In doing so, Shirley goes against a large segment of the
drama of his age, which shows that men are controlled by
fate. The "star-crossed lovers" of Romeo and Juliet, for
example, are controlled through an odd series of uncontrollable
events. Likewise, Bosola*s killing Antonio by mistake indi
cates the inability of man to control his life. Dramatists
such as Kyd, Shakespeare, Middleton, and Webster had gener ally inherited from the Middle Ages a Stoical pessimism which
had originated in the late Roman world with the Senecan de casibus tradition.5 Though Stoicism came to England from many sources, it came primarily from the^philosophy and
tragedies of Lucius Seneca. Today Seneca’s influence upon
the English Renaissance is well established; "It was Seneca
in particular wh8j stimulated and instructed the Renaissance dramatists of Italy and England."^ A modern editor of
Seneca reminds us that "The late Elizabethan age and early
seventeenth century were the high-water mark of Seneca’s influence, as a writer well known and imitated among . . • dramatists."7 One of Seneca’s chief features was the
5 Doran, p. 120.
6 Highet, p. 132.
7 Robin Campbell, ed., Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Seneca (Baltimore; Penguin, 1969)» "Introduction," pp. 25-26. 16-3
attitude that man must resign "himself completely and un complainingly to whatever fate may send him."8 And certainly
this attitude may be seen in the drama of Shirley’s age. But
there was another influence that was perhaps just as impor
tant,, if not more so, that caused men to believe that one
must so resign himself. This influence has to do with the
belief in astrology common at the time. According to this
belief, a man’s fate might be determined by the phases of
the moon, by the position of the stars and planfets at his
birth, or by other movements and positions of heavenly bodies. Acceptance of the belief that one’s fate was determined by the positions of heavenly bodies was so wide
spread that, as E. M. W. Tillyard puts it, "Whether he were
scrupulously orthodox or inclined to instinctive superstition, the Elizabethan believed in the pervasive operation of an external’ fate in the world. "9 Thus the combination of the
Senecan influence and the widespread acceptance of astrology that Tillyard finds created a strong base for the expression
8 Ibid., p. 15. Various full-length works exist on the connection between Seneca and English Renaissance drama, and the subject is far too great to be discussed fully here. The interested student, for a full discussion, mgy consult H. B. Charlton, The Senecan Tradition in Renaissance Tragedy (Manchester: Unlv. of Manchester Press, 1946) and F. L. Lucas, Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1922),
9 The Elizabethan World Picture (1944; rpt. New York: Vintage Books, 1969), p.- 54. 164-
of fatalistic views in the drama of Shirley’s age. Yet the
subject is more complex than this. Religion was involved
because fate "was assimilated into the Christian-humanistic
structure . . . the middle-path reconcilers of Christianity
and classicism, and especially those systematic harmonizers
of Christianity and Stoicism, Lipsius and Du Vair, even
welcomed Fate into the fold. For they found the Stoic idea
of man enduring and thus overcoming the buffetings of Fate irresistible."10
Dramatld specimens of fatalistic belief are so profuse
in number that one can only give representative examples in anything less than a book-length discussion of the subject.
But a brief look at several examples will serve to document
the fact that a belief in fate is a significant feature of
Renaissance drama. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, already mentioned in this context in Chapter One, is an obvious » example. Romeo clearly sees himself as a victim of fate on several occasions during that play. Even when Romeo is just on his way to the Capulet party, he utters a fear that fortune is against him;
For my mind misgives Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night’s revels, and expire the term Of a despised life closed in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death. (I.iv.106-11)
1° Hadyn, p. 436. 165
When Benvolio brings Romeo news of Mercutio’s death, Romeo
Immediately comments that fate, not man, is in control of the eventual outcome. As he complains to Benvolio, "This day’s black fate on more days doth depend, / This but begins the woe others must end" (III,i.124-25)• After Romeo has
slain Tybalt, Benvolio tells him, "The Prince will doom thee death / If thou art taken," to which Romeo complains, "Oh, I am fortune’s fool" (Ill.i.138-40). Romeo does not see these
events as ultimately being controlled by humans but by fate.
By the end of the play, Romeo is so battered by Fortune that he can defy it only by committing suicide. As he pre pares to drink poison, he exclaims,
Oh, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. (V.iii.109-12)
A similar expression of the influence of fate may be seen in Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. As
Wendoll contemplates the seduction of Anne, wife of his close friend John Frankford, he seems to try to talk himself out of committing the evil deed. But even as he does so, he yields to what he thinks is a force greater than he;
If I say I will not do it, what thing can enforce me? Who can compel me? What sad destiny Hath such command .upon my yielding thoughts? I will not, Ha! some fury pricks me on, The swift fates drag me at their chariot wheel And hurry me to’mischief, (Il.iii.96-102) Even after he has seduced Anne and been exposed, Wendoll never admits a personal responsibility for the seduction. 1675
Instead, he blames his acts on fate. At his last appearance
in the play, he complains,
Oh my stars, What have my parents in their lives deserv’d That you should lay this penance on their son? (V.iii.36-38)
Wendoll, then, sees what has happened as a part in an overall
plan of fate to punish his parents rather than as a turn of
events for which he must bear much of the responsibility.
An even more gloomy and fatalistic view of life may be
seen in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. Particularly at the end of that play, some of the major characters, as
they come to the end of their lives, evaluate the world in
extremely fatalistic terms. For example, Bosola, who has
first betrayed the Duchess and then repented, mistakes
Antonio, the Duchess’ husband, for the Cardinal. Because of an unfortunate blunder, he stabs Antonio to death. As Antonio lies dying, Bosola tells him, "We are merely the stars’ tennis balls, struck and banded / Which way please them"
(V.Iv.54-55)• Antonio agrees with Bosola; for as he tells
Delio,
Though in our miseries Fortune have a part, Yet in our noble suff*rings she hath none— Contempt of pain, that we may call our own. (V.iii.56-58)
One cannot attribute all these sentiments to Webster, but they are testimony to the emerging philosophical influence of a fatalistic-materialistic world view as postulated in the 16?/
writings of Thomas Hobbes.H
Shirley’s tragedies, however, do not fit into this mold.
Shirley clearly holds that man is largely in control of what
happens to him and that the belief in an uncontrollable
destiny is often a convenient excuse by which one seeks to
avoid responsibility for his own actions. While never
subscribing to a belief in the control of fate, the Satanic
figures on occasion attempt to control weaker persons.
This shows that they understand that man, not fate, brings
events to pass. On some occasions, a character who has
allowed events to happen to him by his own Inaction will
resolve to steer his own course by strong positive action.
And no one dies giving an evaluation like that of Bosola.
Shirley’s world view stands opposed to fatalistic deter
minism. In The Maid’s Revenge he establishes Catalina as the
figure in control of much of the action, especially in the
first half of the play. After She learns that Antonio loves
Berinthia and decides to plot against them, Catalina gains
control of Velasco so that he may aid her. After promising
to assist her, Velasco tells Catalina, "I look on you / As
H In fact, Hobbes is only one of many thinkers who may be cited here, though "he illustrates perhaps better than any other seventeenth century writer the Immediate results of the wholehearted adoption of the new philosophy, and its applica tion in every field of enquiry" (Willey, p. 103). Willey’s Seventeenth Century Background. Chapter Six, contains an extended discussion of Hobbes’s fatalistic-materialistic views. 168
my safe guiding star" (Il.iii; p. 126). With that he leaves,
and Catalina announces to the audience, "But I shall prove a
wandering star; I have / A course which I must finish for
myself" (Il.iii; p. 126), apparently indicating a credo of
pure selfishness. Thus, Shirley establishes through a star
image the idea that Catalina understands herself to be in
complete control of her destiny as well as that of others.
What she will cause to happen will not be the result of any
extra-terrestrial force; she herself is the "star" that Is
responsible for whatever may happen. Velasco, a weak charac
ter throughout the play, has placed himself under the control
of Catalina; and in this way his fate is perhaps determined
by other than himself. But his fate will be determined solely
by human agencies. Later, when Vilarezo turns Berinthia over
to Catalina, Catalina again sees herself as the determiner of
the fate of others. In a soliloquy, Catalina declares her
responsibility for what may occur when she says of her sister,
Berinthia, you’re my prisoner; at my leisure I’ll study on .your fate; I cannot be Friend to myself, when I am kind to thee. (II.v; p. 131)
Once more Velasco reveals the weakness of his character when, after reading a letter from Antonio to Berinthia confessing love, Velasco exclaims, "Oh, my fates! / He takes the freehold of my soul away" (Ill.i; p. 135)» This attempt to blame his
"fates" for his decision to take revenge ignores the fact 159
Velasco has already acknowledged Catalina as his "guiding
star." His weakness and Catalina’s craftiness are respon
sible for what Velasco will do; his "fates" are clearly not
involved.
Shirley uses a comical moment in the midst of the duel
between Antonio and Sebastiano in order to parody the idea
of a belief in fate. The cowardly Count Montenegro, a second
to Sebastiano, is hotly engaged with Antonio’s second,
Villandras,, when he stops all fighting by announcing that he
must retire immediately because "this is my ague day" (IV.iv;
p. 172). He bases his claim on the alleged information given
him by a quack, Sharkino, whom he had earlier visited. In
this fashion Montenegro claims exemption from the fight
because fate commands that he lose any fight on his "ague
days." In fact, as Shirley Intends to demonstrate,- Montenegro
is just using the excuse of fate to mask his cowardliness.
Through most of the play, Berinthia has remained passive,
letting "fortune," or more precisely Catalina, manipulate all.
Even Berinthia’s escape to Antonio’s castle was Antonio’s doing, not Berinthia’s. But once Antonio is slain, Berinthia demonstrates her strength by avenging Antonio’s murder.
Regarding the question of fate, Shirley underscores the intensity of his belief in man’s control of his own destiny through the way in which Berinthia manifests her change.
Without previous warning of a change, Berinthia suddenly 170,
appears at the beginning of the second scene of Act V and
announces she will now defy fate;
So! I will dare mount my fortune to be cruel, And like a mountainous piece of earth that sucks The balls of hot artillery, I will stand And weary all the gunshot. (p. 178)
She thus becomes a worthy adversary of Catalina by taking
command of events around her, as Catalina has. Accordingly,
Berinthia almost immediately thereafter stabs Sebastiano and
poisons Catalina.
As the play closes, no attempt is made by anyone to blame the tragic turn of events.on fate. Instead, Vilarezo blames himself as he surveys the gory sight. Acknowledging his responsibility in the tragedy, Vilarezo claims that
... he lies, that says Berinthia Was author of their deaths; *twas Vilarezo, A father’s wretched curiosity. (V.iii; p. I85)
With these words, Vilarezo shows the understanding to which he, one of the few survivors, has been brought» this under standing is that men are responsible for their actions.
Love * s Cruelty once again exhibits Shirley’s belief that man is responsible for his own actions. The Hippolito-
Clariana relationship, a central feature of the play, is
Shirley’s medium here. Hippolito, distrustful of his ability to control his passions, has purposely avoided Clariana until she comes to visit him. It is then that Bellamente finds her
In Hippolito’s quarters and she finally explains to
Bellamente’s satisfaction why she is there. But the second 171
time she visits, she enters just after Hippolito has been
contemplating his feelings for her. Hippolito’s recognition
of himself as a weakling is emphasized from the outset
through his purposely avoiding the temptation of seeing his best friend’s lady. Now that he has seen her, his desire has been actively aroused; and his weakness is catered to * when he tries to blame his sinful desires on fate:
• • . or am I hurried By violence of my fate to love her best, That should be most a stranger? (Ill.ii; p. 227)
Convincing himself that he is not the master of his actions,
Hippolito is weak enough to succumb to the advances of
Clariana upon her second visit.
Clariana hardly appears to Hippolito when she begins to practice her seductive arts on him. Her first ploy is to accuse him of bewitching her to the point that she cannot resist him;
Oh, Hippolito! If you have us’d no charms but simple courtship, Perhaps you may condemn me in your thoughts That I so soon (not studying the ways Of cunning to disguise my love, which other Women have practised, and would well become The modesty of a wife) declare myself At your dispose; but I suspect you have Some command more than natural; I have heard There has been too much witchcraft exercised To make poor women doat /“sic 712 (Ill.ii; p. 228)
12 Such seduction is similar to that used by Julia on Bosola in Webster’s Duchess of Malfi. There Julia holds Bosola at gunpoint and demands that he confess how he has caused her servants to put “love powder" into her drink. Of course she, like Clariana, says this only to try to avoid being charged with wantonness while still gaining her man. 172
Clariana, of course, is not serious; the purpose of this
speech is to put Hippolito at a disadvantage by making him
think that she is unable to resist him, that she is unable to control her actions. Hippolito has already demonstrated his desire to remain loyal to Bellamente by refusing to see
Clariana. But since he has already given in to the notion that fate controls him, he does not object to the seductive overtures of Clariana. Instead of identifying her for the
seducer she is, Hippolito defends himself against the charges of witchcraft;
You are not serious In what you say? I hope you do not take me For such a juggler? (Ill.ii; p. 228)
Not wishing to appear argumentative, Clariana then blames her "mysterious" attraction to Hippolito on the stars;
. . . then at my nativity Some powerful star reign’d. I have heard astrologers Talk much of Venus, (Ill.ii; p, 228)
Hippolito’s weakness is demonstrated in his reply to this; he cannot effectively refute Clariana because he accepts the basic premise of fate’s being in control of human actions.
In fact, though he does not seem to realize it, Hippolito simply falls back on fate as his excuse for wrongfully sub mitting to natural appetite and losing ethical control. The irony here is that Hippolito is indeed controlling his fate by asserting that he is not in control of it, for his affair with Clariana eventually brings about his death. 173
When Hippolito and Clariana are discovered by
Bellamente, Clariana does not talk of fate as the reason
she has violated her marriage vows. While Hippolito
seriously expects to be killed for what he has done, Clariana
assures Bellamente that the letter can exercise his free
will and spare their lives;
*Tis yet within your power to silence all; What is already done, should we turn fountains, We heartily may grieve for, not repair; The world can have no knowledge of our trespass Nor your dishonour, if you call it so, Unless you tell it; you have nobly, sir, Secur’d all shame at home, which has won more Repentance from me than my tears; go on, Increase that piety, and be not you The trumpet of their infamy abroad, Whose lives hereafter may be spent with such Religious sorrow, for offending you, That you may not repent to have forgiven., (IV.i; P. 244)
Clariana knows better than to appeal to a strong character
such as Bellamente with fatalistic arguments? they may work on Hippolito, but they will not work on Bellamente.
Bellamente does exercise his free will and spare the two; and from this point on, no one gives fate as an excuse for his actions. Hereafter, Hippolito amends his ways and con fesses true love for the virtuous Eubella. First he admits the wrong of his past and then promises to reform;
. . . that I have been wild I must with shame remember; but my study Of after life to her, and all the world, ■ I hope shall purchase me a better name. (V.i; p. 256)
Having put aside fatalistic notions and decided to control 174
his actions rather than give in to passion, Hippolito becomes a strong character for the balance of the play,
. Clariana remains firm in her evil design, by asserting that one accomplishes nothing in railing against fate and ♦ by exerting forceful action. When she learns that Hippolito intends now to marry Eubella and then plots to murder him, she exclaims,
I could Accuse my unkind destiny, declaim Against the power of love, rail at the charms Of language and proportion, that betray us To hasty sorrow, and too late repentance; But breath is this way lost; wounds that are made, Require a balsam, and not empty curses, To salve our body, (V.ii; p. 258)
In her next interview with Hippolito, the latter refuses to call off his marriage with Eubella, for which Clariana kills him. Though she has previously seduced a weak Hippolito, she is now unable to persuade a strong Hippolito. When Hippolito, having been stabbed by Clariana, stabs her, he exhibits his strength, for finally he is as strong as she is. Neither dies cursing fate; instead both repent, appealing to heaven for forgiveness. In the act of repentance, both ultimately show that they have taken responsibility for their actions.
The Traitor is likewise full of instances which make it clear that a seriously entertained belief in fatalism is not a tenable ethical position. But in this play Shirley becomes more Ironic in making the point, as though the irony is meant to underscore his rejection of belief in fatalism. The first 17$
time fate is invoked is when Cosmo goes to Oriana to inform
her that he is breaking off their engagement. After Oriana
says his actions demonstrate an inconstancy in his behavior,
Cosmo attempts to justify inconstancy as admirable by an
appeal to fate«
The stars do wander And have their divers influence, the elements Shuffle into innumerable changes, . Our constitutions vary, herbs and trees Admit their frosts and summer» and why then Should our desires, that are so nimble and More subtle than the spirits in our blood, Be such staid things within us, and not share Their natural liberty? (II.ii« p, 125)
In fact, this is merely an excuse to account for an expedient
move on Cosmo’s part. The irony here is that he has used an
argument based on fatalism, in which he does not believe, in
order to control his fate. As he assures the audience in an
aside, ’’I thus secure my fate. Lorenzo / Threatens my spring.
He is my enemy" (II,ii; p. 127). Cosmo’s talk of inconstancy
and fate has nothing to do with his real reason for breaking
off with Oriana. He has purposely chosen to break off with her In order to prevent himself from being ruled by Lorenzo.
And he exhibits strength by doing so.
The weakness of the Duke may be attributed In part to his belief in fate as the controller of men’s lives. Lorenzo controls the Duke by promising to arrange for an affair between
Amidea and the Duke. In his first interview with Amidea, the Duke tells her that he believes his fate demands their relationship bring him happiness« 176-
Thou dost with ease Captivate kings with every beam, and mayst Lead them like prisoners round about the world, Proud of such golden chains. This were enough Had not my fate provided more, to make me Believe myself immortal in thy touches. (Ill.iii; p. 141)
Ironically, failure to control his lust in reality leads the
Duke to his death rather than to the immortality he claims his fate has promised him. Thus Shirley underscores the foolishness of a belief in fate.
The Duke is temporarily reformed by Amidea when she threatens to commit suicide if his lust does not cool. But soon he yearns anew to enjoy her body, and he places himself in the control of Lorenzo. Lorenzo assures him that he, the
Duke, can yet have Amidea, largely through showing mercy to
Sciarrha, whom Lorenzo believes himself to control. Lorenzo tells the Duke that
Sciarrha*s life And fortunes are already growing forfeit. These brains have plotted so. (IV.i; p. l6l)
Lorenzo actually seems to revel in the belief that he is in control of another's fate, for he again assures the Duke,
"Sciarrha's fate is cast / Firmer than destiny” (IV.i; p. l6l).
Once again, then, here is a Shirley villain who realizes that man can control his fate and that the man who does not do so is weak. As in the cases of Catalina and Clariana, Lorenzo does not demonstrate ethical superiority through this realization. Shirley is not saying that mere profession of free will makes one moral. But as his portrayal of the Duke 171
shows, one may use fatalistic belief as a convenient excuse for suspension of ethical control.
While Sciarrha has certain weaknesses, he too realizes that man can control what will happen. In his rage at Pisano for breaking his engagement to Amidea, Sciarrha plans to murder Pisano. Immediately before murdering him, Sciarrha tells Pisano that the latter’s death is imminent, though no means of prophecy have been consulted;
I profess no augury. I have not quarter’d out the heavens to take The flights of birds, nor by inspection Of entrails made a divination. But I must tell you ’tis not safe to marry /with 0riana7. (IV.ii; p. 165)
When Pisano questions why this is so, Sciarrha sarcastically replies in astrological terms.;.
’Twill be fatal. Hymen is gone abroad, And Venus, lady of your nativity, Is found by wise astrologers this day I* th’ house of death. (IV.ii; p. 165)
The irony of such a comment is obvious, for Sciarrha’s references to fate and divination are insincere; destiny is of his own making. After Sciarrha has been placed by the Duke under the control of Lorenzo for the murder of Pisano, Amidea tells Sciarrha that his destiny now lies in the hands of men;
Oh, my lost brother, Thou hast a cruel destiny. My eyes In pity of thy fate desire to drown thee. The law will only seek thee upon land. (V.i; p. 171) 178
Amidea has throughout the play been an intelligent, strong figure, not the "stock character" that one critic calls her.13
She is wise enough to know that the law, a creation of man, is the likely instrument by which Sciarrha’s destiny will be decided. As it turns out, Sciarrha takes matters into his own hands by refusing Lorenzo’s offer that they share the rulership of Florence, since Lorenzo has murdered the Duke.
As in Love * s Cruelty, when Clariana and Hippolito, two dominating characters, murder each other, in The Traitor two dominating characters, Sciarrha and Lorenzo, inflict death wounds on each other. As the play ends, no one attempts to blame fate; instead those alive assign responsibility for the tragedy to the men who carried it out. Petruchio acknowledges that "Lorenzo and myself / Are only guilty of the prince’s death" (V.iii; p. 187), and Florio blames "The duke’s lust" (V.iii; p. 187) for Amidea’s death; only later does he explain that Sciarrha actually dealt her death wound.
As with Berinthia in The Maid’s Revenge and Hippolito in
Love * s Cruelty, Sciarrha dies because of a character weakness; but all three show extraordinary strength before their deaths, and none pleads fate for his demise or curses the stars or gods as responsible for his demise. Shirley’s purpose for so
13 Carter, p. xiv. 179
portraying them is to show that belief in fate as the
controlling force of men’s lives is a character weakness.
To assert the opposite Is not necessarily an ethical strength
though it can combine with other admirable traits, as in
Amidea*s case;
A different slant is given to the fate versus free will
question in The Politician.. Here an apparently weak charac
ter, Haraldus, shows true determination when he refuses to
accept Gotharus’ insincere claim that Haraldus should not
wrong those stars, Which, early as you did salute the world, Design’d this glorious fate. I did consult, And in the happy minute of thy birth, Collect what was decreed in heaven about thee. (I.i; p. 101)
The "glorious fate" about which Gotharus speaks concerns his
desire to make Haraldus King, for he believes he can control
Haraldus and in essence become ruler himself. Gotharus does
not believe in fatalistic arguments any more than Lorenzo
did. But, like Lorenzo, he uses them in an effort to control
those around him. Haraldus, however, does not accept such
arguments,, and his refusal to do so contributes to Gotharus*
eventual downfall, Gotharus mistakenly thinks he is
Haraldus* father, though at the start of the play Haraldus
only knows he "heard my mother say, you are on earth, / To whom I am most bound for what I am" (I.i; p. 101), Later, though, Haraldus overhears two honest courtiers, Cortes and
Hormenus, discussing Gotharus and Marpisa’s plan to elevate . 180
Haraldus to power.. In their discussion Hormenus speaks of
Haraldus as ’’That bastard composition of their blood” (Il.i; p. 113)» which severely shakes Haraldus. In his initial contemplation of this newly acquired information, Haraldus thinks aloud;
Yet, now I call To memory, Gotharus, at our loving Late conference, did much insult upon The name of a father, and his care of me By some strange force of nature. (Il.i; p. 114)
Haraldus now sees through the "fate argument" of Gotharus and resolves to "know the truth, / Although it kill me" (Il.i;
P..114).
At least partly because Haraldus sees through Gotharus* insincere" claiih regarding fate, Gotharus is unable to govern
Haraldus and thereby carry out his plan to control the government of Norway, He is Strong enough to seek and face the truth though the cost of doing so may be high.
Marpisa, like Haraldus, helps defeat evil at least partly by refusing to accept fate. Here again Shirley shows that while a belief in free will does not necessarily demonstrate ethical behavior, it can, when combined with other factors, help to do so. On the other hand, acceptance of fate never achieves positive results. Once Marpisa learns that Gotharus is in part responsible for Haraldus’ death, she declares that "his /Gotharus/7 fate is next; while I / Move resolute, I’ll command his destiny" (IV.iii; p. 152), Like other strong 1ST
characters of Shirley’s tragedies, Marpisa begins to show
strength by resolving to control fate. One may be reminded particularly of the speech in which Berinthia first resolves to "dare my fortune to be cruel" or the speech in which
Clariana refuses to "accuse my unkind destiny," both previously
cited in this chapter. Marpisa does ultimately gain responsi bility for Gotharus’ "fate" when she poisons him. And when
Marpisa cannot escape the clutches of the law, she makes no attempt to blame fate for her plight. While she does blame the King for tempting her with hopes of greatness, she admits that "I / Gave myself up thy queen!" (V.i; p. 163). Even when the citizens invade the palace and the King himself starts to panic, Marpisa, with confidence and strength, calmly declares to the King,
I am mistress of my fate, and do not fear Their Inundation, their army coming; It does prepare my triumph; they shall give Me liberty, and punish thee to love. (V.ii; p. 164)
Like Berinthia and Hippolito before her (and, though to a lesser extent, Sciarrha), Marpisa gains stature as a tragic figure at least partially by renouncing the idea of fate as the controlling force of man’s actions.
In The Cardinal both the two main characters, the
Cardinal and the Duchess, use arguments based on fatalism to secure control of others though neither personally believes in fatalism. The irony herein is similar to that connected with Cosmo and Lorenzo in The Traitor. But it is even more important in The Cardinal because the Cardinal and the 182
Duchess,, bitter enemies, both work their schemes by
successfully assorting this argument. That is to say,
more than in any previous Shirley tragedy, the plot is
advanced by adversaries successfully convincing others that
fate controls human action;
From the start the Duchess privately manifests her
belief in free will. When being pressured into a marriage
with Columbo, she declares that she will not permit fate to
control her life. She announces that she will defy fortune when she tells d’Alvarez, ". . .my youth dares boldly / Meet all the tyranny o’ th’ stars" (I.ii; p. 288). Shortly
thereafter, she sends Columbo the letter which causes him to
release her from her engagement, a move which shows the
Duchess’ strength and determination as well as a belief that a man can control his own destiny. However, the Duchess
secures control, at least for the moment, over the King when she assures him that Columbo has willingly released her from their marriage contract because of some higher force.
Claiming the plans were terminated by "divine infusion," she convinces the King to "second this justice" (11.111} p.
298) and allow her to plan a marriage with d’Alvarez. She, of course, knows Columbo’s decision was based upon her deceptive letter, not upon any higher force.
The Cardinal, too, attempts to gain control of his adversaries by asserting the belief in fate and trying to get his adversaries to do the same. In actuality, the 183
Cardinal sees himself as being in control of others, a characteristic that seems to mark all Shirley’s villains.
For he declares regarding Hernando,, the Duchess* partner in revenge,
• . • for the colonel, Her agent in my nephew’s death, (whom I Disturb’d at counsel with her,) I may reach him Hereafter, and be master of his fate. (V.i; p. 335)
At the end of the play, when the Cardinal is apprehended attempting to rape the Duchess, he thinks himself fatally wounded and believes that if he cannot kill the Duchess immediately, he will forever lose any chance of securing his revenge against her. It is then that he convinces her that he has poisoned her at her last meal and that he now wishes to repent and save her life. Producing a box containing a poison that will indeed kill her, he claims this solution will act as an antidote to the supposed poison already within her. The Duchess, already believing his story, is about to take the poison when a lord inquires of the
Cardinal why he just happens to "have a good thing in such readiness" (V.iii; p. 3^9)» Pressed into hasty explanation, the Cardinal claims that at his birth predictions were made that he was fated to die by poison. Hence he has ever after carried an antidote. It is not necessary to believe that the
Duchess takes the poison because she accepts this argument, for she already believes herself poisoned and in need of any cure, however questionable it may seem. The importance here 184
is that the Cardinal uses an argument based on fatalism in an attempt to work his evil, an evil which he knows to be of his own plotting and which he knows has nothing to do with fate.
Thereafter, the Cardinal takes a dose of the poison before the Duchess does, thereby unintentionally killing himself. Still thinking himself fatally wounded and that the dose of poison will make no difference in his case, the
Cardinal mocks the credulity of those gathered once the
Duchess has taken her dose. Gloating in his final revenge, he tells everyone present what the Duchess and he have really taken,, ending his explanation with, "You have the fatal story” (V.iii; p. 350)» This comment, coming just after his previous explanation, in which he used fate as the reason for his carrying such a substance on his person, is the
Cardinal’s way of chiding fools for accepting stories based on fate. In fact the Cardinal admits as much once he has been told that his wounds are not mortal. As the second lord chides him with "It was/your fate, you said, to die by poison" (V.iii; p. 351)» the Cardinal replies, "That was my own prediction, to abuse / Your faith; no human art can now resist it" (V.iii; p. 351)« Thus Shirley makes clear that humans, not fate, cause whatever happens to them.
In all five tragedies, Shirley clearly has shown that man is responsible for the evil he commits, that it does not come into the world against his will or despite his 185
efforts. Acceptance of fate as beyond man’s control always
is associated with a weak character and results in that
character’s Misfortune. Of course, acceptance of free will
does not by itself result in a character’s being ethically
superior. But such acceptance may combine with other factors, as In the case of Amidea, to result in a character’s ethical
superiority. Acceptance of fate as beyond man’s control never does. In all five plays, the villain asserts a belief
in free will; and certainly none is ethically superior. All five villains introduce evil into their respective societies, thus showing that evil enters into the world because of what man does. Any character’s effort to deny this is futile and may be, as in the case of the Duke in The Traitor, simply a convenient excuse to suspend one’s ethical control. In more general terms, Shirley’s overall treatment of the question of free will seems to manifest his rejection of the deter ministic theories of his day. Certainly it is valid to say with Cunliffe that Shirley ’’was not a fatalist.’’ A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 187
A Selected Bibliography
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Berry, Ralph. The Art of John Webster. London:: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972.
Bowers, Fredson. Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy» 1587-1642.. 1940; rpt. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1966.
Bradbrook, Muriel C. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy. 1935? rpt. Cambridge: Univ, Press, 1966.
Briggs, Katherine M. Pale Hecate * s Team: An Examination of the Beliefs on Witchcraft and Magic Among Shakespeare *s Contemporaries and His Immediate Successors. London:- Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.
Brooke, C, F. Tucker. "The Renaissance." A Literary History of England. Ed. Albert C. Baugh. New"”York: Appleton, 19457^ 9
Bush, Douglas. Prefaces to Renaissance Literature. New York: Norton, 1965.
Campbell, Robin, ed. "Introduction." Letters from-a Stoic by Lucius Seneca. Baltimore; Penguin, 1969.
Carter, John Stewart. "Introduction." The Traitor by James Shirley. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1965.
Charlton, H. B. The Senecan Tradition in Renaissance Tragedy. Manchester: Univ. of Manchester Press” 1946.
Coleridge, Samuel T. "The Motiveless Villain." A Casebook on Othello. Ed. Leonard F. Dean. New York: Thos. Y. Crowell, 1961..
Cunliffe, John W. The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy. 1893; rpt. Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1965.
Doran, Madeleine. Endeavors of Art; A Study of Form in Elizabethan Drama. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Tress. 195b.
Dyce, Alexander, ed. The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. London: Edward Moxon, 1843. 188
Eastman, Arthur M., ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. New York; Norton, 1970.
Forsythe, Robert. The Relation of Shirley's Plays to Elizabethan Drama. 1914; rpt. New York« Benjamin Blom, 1965.
Gardner, Helen. "Milton’s ’Satan’ and the Theme of Damnation in Elizabethan Tragedy." English Studies, n. s. 1 (1948), rpt. in Milton« Modern Essays in Criticism. Ed. Arthur E. Baker. New York« Oxford Univ. Press, 1965. •
Gough, John W. The Social Contract« A Critical Study of Its Development. London«: Oxfrod Univ. Press, 193^7
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Heywood, Thos. A Woman Killed with Kindness. Ed. R. W. Van Fossen. Cambridge, Mass.« Harvard Univ. Press, 1961.
Highet, Gilbert. The Classical Tradition« Greek and Roman Influences on Western Thought. New York, Oxford Univ. Press, 1957.
Hunt, Mary Leland. Thomas Dekkert A Study. 1911; rpt. New York«- Russell and Russell,. 1904.?
Lucas, F. L. Seneca and Elizabethan Tragedy.. Cambridge, Univ,. Press, 1922.
Marlowe, Christopher. Edward II. The Complete Plays of Christopher Marlowe. Ed. Irving Ribner. New York«: Odyssey, 1963.
Marston, John. The Malcontent. Ed. M. L. Wine. Lincoln« Univ,. of Nebraska Press, 1964.
Nason, Arthur. James Shirley Dramatist. New York, Arthur H. Nason, 1915.
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Ornstein,, Robert. The Moral Vision of Jacobean Tragedy. Madison« Univ. of Wisconsin Press, i960.
Owenby, E. Sydnor. "Shirley's ’The Glories of Our Blood and State.”’ Expllcator, 10 (1951), item 30. 189
Parrotl; Thomas M., and Robert H. Ball. A Short View of Elizabethan Drama. New York; Scribner’s, 1958»
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Praz, Mario. Machiavelli and the Elizabethans. London« H. Milford, 192Ö.
Radtke, S. J, Shirley« His Catholic Philosophy. Washington, D. C. « Catholic University of America Press, 1929.
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Wells, Henry W. Elizabethan and Jacobean Playwrights. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1939«
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Wood, Anthony V. Athenae Oxonienses. 1817; rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1967. AFTERWORD
The tendency of Shirley to moralize in his plays (see, for example, p. 73, above) is attributed by S. J, Radtke to the playwright’s Catholicism, He states that Shirley’s plays ’’not only served to amuse the audiences, but were intended for their edification, and the ultimate correction of their morals."I
However, his attempt to read specific Catholic beliefs into
Shirley’s plays is not detailed enough to be convincing. Be lists seven points that he terms Shirley’s Catholic philosophy» indissolubility of the marriage vow and the faithfulness of the spouses towards each other; necessity of confession to a priest for the remission of sins and the alleviation of the sin-burdened conscience; persistency and constancy of prayer; appreciation and sympathy with Catholic monachism; loyalty and obedience to civil authority; chastity and purity of womanhood; and hope of reward after death. But the short space of eighteen pages he devotes to examining these elements in
Shirley’s plays is obviously insufficient to establish his case conclusively. Nevertheless, one may find Radtke’s fundamental position useful in accounting for Shirley’s tendency to moralize in his plays.
1 Shirley» His Catholic Philosophy (Wash,, D. C.» Catholic Unlv. of America Press, 1929), pp. 78-79.