ROBERT -GREENE ITY LOS ANGELES * -»* THE PLAYS & POEMS OF ROBERT GREENE EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES By J. CHURTON COLLINS, Litt.D. (PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM) \ VOL. II FRIER BACON AND FRIER BONGAY. JAMES THE FOURTH THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD. A MAIDENS DREAME POEMS FROM THE NOVELS. NOTES TO PLAYS AND POEMS APPENDIX : ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS. GLOSSARI AL INDEX GENERAL INDEX OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS MDCCCCV 28609 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH NEW YORK AND TORONTO * ' CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE Facsimile of a portion of the Alleyn MS. of Orlando Furioso Frontispiece PREFACE vii GENERAL INTRODUCTION I INTRODUCTION TO ALPHONSVS 70 ALPHONSVS KING OF ARRAGON 77 INTRODUCTION TO LOOKING GLASSE . .137 A LOOKING GLASSE 143 INTRODUCTION TO ORLANDO FVRIOSO . .215 ORLANDO FVRIOSO 221 THE ALLEYN MS 266 NOTES :— ALPHONSVS 279 LOOKING GLASSE 290 ORLANDO FVRIOSO 304 VOLUME II INTRODUCTION TO FRIER BACON 1 FRIER BACON AND FRIER BONGAY .... 15 INTRODUCTION TO IAMES IV 79 IAMES THE FOVRTH 87 INTRODUCTION TO THE PINNER 159 THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD 181 INTRODUCTION TO A MAIDENS DREAME . .219 A MAIDENS DREAME 221 POEMS FROM THE NOVELS 235 NOTES :— FRIER BACON 325 IAMES THE FOVRTH 349 THE PINNER OF WAKEFIELD 367 A MAIDENS DREAME 378 POEMS FROM THE NOVELS 381 APPENDIX : ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS . .398 GLOSSARIAL INDEX 407 INDEX 411 INTRODUCTION TO FRIER BACON AND FRIER BONGAY This play was first published in quarto by Edward White in 1594, and in the May of that year it was entered on the Stationers' Registers, thus :— xiiii t0 die Maij ' ADAM ISLIP Entred for his Copie under th(e h)andes of bothe the EDWARD WHITE wardens a booke entituled the Historye of ffryer BACON andffryer BOUNGA YE . vj* C/' It was reprinted also in quarto in 1630 and in 1655 \ The text printed here is that of the first Quarto collated with that of the second and third. Of the time of its composition and of its first appearance there is no record. It would seem from an entry in Henslowe's Diary that it had been performed in February, 159J. ' d 8 d R at . .' fryer bacone, the 19 of febrary, Satterdaye xvij iij Collier's Transcript, p. 20. Henslowe does not note that it was a new play, and it probably was ' not. In the Diary it heads the list of plays performed by my lord Stranges mene.' With regard to its composition and first appearance we have nothing to guide us but conjecture and inference. In point of merit it stands with James I Vat the head of Greene's dramas. The versification and style, as well as its merit from a dramatic and idyllic point of view, seem to warrant us in concluding that its composition must have been subsequent to that of Alphonsus, the Looking Glasse, and Orlatido Furioso. It is as plainly the work of a comparatively practised hand as they are the work of a tiro in his apprenticeship. If we assign it to the end of 1591 or the beginning of 1592 we shall probably not be far from the mark. Mr. F. G. Fleay (see Ward's Introduction, Appendix B) very ingeniously deduces from 1. 137, 'Lacie, thou knowst next friday is S. lames,' that the play was produced before August 1589. He observes that dramatic authors always used the almanac of the current year, and that St. James's day fell on a Friday in 1578, 1589, and 1595. Of these dates the first would be too early, the third too late, and thus we are limited to 1589. But this is as obviously unsatisfactory as the conclusion he draws from the curtail- 1 Owing presumably to an error of Malone, Dyce, Lowndes, Grosart, Dr. and Ward, others, have recorded an edition of 1599. But no such edition is, so far as I can ascertain, in existence. Malone had two copies, now in the Bodleian Library, both of them the 1630 reprint, one of them has lost its title- page, and this copy Malone supposed to be an edition dated 1599, and has in his own hand entered it as such. If he had collated it with the reprint of 1630 he would have seen that it was merely a copy of that. I cannot find that before Malone there was any trace or tradition of an edition dated 1599. Baker, in his Biog/aphia Dramatica (ed. 1782), makes no mention of such an edition. Its alleged existence seems to be due to Malone's mistaken note. COLLINS. II £ 2 FRIER BACON AND FRIER BONGAY ment of Greene's motto (Id.). Dr. Ward sees 'no reason against the assumption that it was written before February 1589, very possibly in 1588 or even in 1587.' But surely there are strong reasons against such an assumption. As I have already shown, there is no evidence at all that Greene was engaged in dramatic composition before 1590. Of one thing it seems to me that there can be little doubt, that it stands in the same relation to Marlowe's Faustus as Alphonsus stood to his Tamburlaine, not indeed in the sense of borrowing from 1 it, but in the fact that it was intended to rival it . The date of the first appearance of Marlowe's play is not known, but such evidence as we have seems to point to some period between 1588 'and that it Greene's in the absence of certain 1589* ; preceded play must, proof, be a matter of inference, but it is inference equivalent to moral certainty. Nothing of course can be deduced from the obvious parallel between Faust's words (Scene i. 86, Ward's ed.) : — ' I'll haue them wall all Germany with brass,' — and Burden's words in Frier Bacon (11. 200-1) : ' Thou meanst ere many yeares or daies be past, To with a wall of compasse England — brasse,' repeated afterwards by the Friar (11. 343-4) : ' And Hell and Heccate shall faile the Frier, But I will circle England round with brasse.' because Greene found them in the romance on which his drama was based (see Appendix to Introduction, p. 6), and the presumption in favour of Faustus having preceded Greene's play is so overwhelmingly strong that we cannot suppose that Marlowe borrowed from Greene. In all probability the line was one of the interpolations introduced into the play after Marlowe's death, and in that case was derived from Greene or from the romance on which Greene drew. But this need not be pressed, for, as Dr. Ward observes, it was a 'traditional boast which was probably quite familiar from the story-book of Friar Bacon.' In the Looking Glasse, Greene, for the passage was plainly written by had from Faustus : Greene, already borrowed compare— the scene where the Usurer is presented in his despair (11. 1948-53) : ' Hell gapes for me, heauen will not hold my soule. You mountaines, shroude me from the God of truth : Mee-thinkes I see him sit to the earth iudge ; See how he blots me out of the booke of life! Oh burthen more than /Etna that 1 beare ! Couer me hilles, and shroude me from the Lord,' 1 I entirely agree with Dr. Wagner in his remarks on this subject in his Introduction to his edition of Marlowe's Faustus. 2 For the whole question of the probable date of the production and first appearance of Marlowe's Faustus see Dr. Ward's Introduction to his edition of Faustus and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 4th edition, pp. xxx-xxxv. INTRODUCTION 3 — with Faust's (Scene xiv. 83-7, Ward's ed.) : ' Mountains and hills come, come and fall on me And hide me from the heauy wrath of God. No, no ! will I run into the earth Then headlong ; Earth gape. O no it will not harbour me.' — Compare again the words of the Usurer (11. 1955-8) : 'In life no peace: each murmuring that I heare, Mee-thinkes the sentence of damnation soundes, "Die reprobate, and hie thee hence to hell." The euill Angell tempteth him, offering the knife and rope. ' What fiend is this that temptes me to the death ? with those of Faust at whose— side also is standing the Evil Angel (Scene vi. 20-3, Ward's ed.) : ' Fearful echoes thunder in my ears. Faustus thou art damn'd, these swords and kniues, Poison, guns, halters and enuenom'd Steele Are laid before me to despatch myself.' — Again (Id. 11. 14-17): ' Faustus. Who buzzeth in my ears I am a spirit. Be I a deuil, yet God may pity me, God will me, if I Aye pity repent.' — compared with the words of the Usurer (11. 1960-3) : 'What second charge is this? Mee-thinks I heare a voice amidst mine eares, That bids me staie, and tels me that the Lord Is merciful 1 to those that do repent.' But the whole position and scene where the Usurer is presented in his despair is so analogous to the scene in Faustus that it can hardly be 1 doubted that it was a reminiscence of the scene in Marlowe's tragedy . There are, it must be admitted, no parallels in details and particulars between Frier Bacon and Faustus beyond what can be accounted for from similarities in the romances from which each derived its plot, the Faustbuch and The Famous Historie of Friar Bacon. It is probable that Marlowe's play directed Greene's attention to magicians and magic as subjects for dramatic treatment, and inspired him with the idea of competing with Marlowe by treating in his own way a kindred theme.