ILLUSTRATIONS

Charles Lamb, aged 29 (from the painting by William Hazlitt) .

Frontispiece

Title-page of the First Edition of Lamb's Specimens

To face page 596

The British Museum in Lamb's day

614

SPECIMENS

OF

ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS

GORBODUC. A TRAGEDY (BETTER KNOWN AS “FER

REX AND PORREX,” FIRST PERFORMED 1561-1562).
BY THOMAS SACKVILLE, LORD BUCKHURST,
AFTERWARDS EARL OF DORSET [1536-1608]; AND

THOMAS NORTON [1532-1584]
Whilst king Gorboduc in the presence of his councillors laments

the death of his eldest son, Ferrex, whom Porrex, the younger
son, has slain; Marcella, a court lady, enters and relates
the miserable end of Porrex, stabbed by his mother in his
bed.

GORBODUC, AROSTUS, EUBULUS, and others.
Gorb. What cruel destiny
What froward fate hath sorted us this chance?
That even in those where we should comfort find,
Where our delight now in our aged days
Should rest and be, even there our only grief
And deepest sorrows to abridge our life,
Most pining cares and deadly thoughts do grave.

Arost. Your grace should now, in these grave years of yours,
Have found ere this the price of mortal joys,
How full of change, how brittle our estate,
How short they be, how fading here in earth,
Of nothing sure, save only of the death,
To whom both man and all the world doth owe
Their end at last ; neither should nature's power
In other sort against your heart prevail,
Than as the naked hand whose stroke assays
The armed breast where force doth light in vain.
Gorb. Many can yield right grave and sage advice

VOL. IV.-1

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

MARCELLA enters.
Marc. Oh where is ruth? or where is pity now?
Whither is gentle heart and mercy fled ?
Are they exiled out of our stony breasts,
Never to make return? is all the world
Drowned in blood, and sunk in cruelty ?
If not in women mercy may be found,
If not (alas) within the mother's breast
To her own child, to her own flesh and blood;
If ruth be banisht thence, if pity there
May have no place, if there no gentle heart
Do live and dwell, where should we seek it then?

Gorb. Madam (alas) what means your woful tale?

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

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

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

Gorb. O let us then repair unto the place, And see if that Porrex live, or thus be slain.

Marc. Alas! he liveth not, it is too true, That with these eyes, of him a peerless prince,

[Exit.

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Son to a king, and in the flower of youth,
Even with a twink? a senseless stock I saw.

Arost. O damned deed!

Marc. But hear his ruthful end. The noble prince, pierced with the sudden wounds, Out of his wretched slumber hastily start, Whose strength now failing, straight he overthrew, When in the fall his eyes ev'n now unclosed, Beheld the queen, and cried to her for help; We then, alas, the ladies which that time Did there attend, seeing that heinous deed, And hearing him oft call the wretched name Of mother, and to cry to her for aid, Whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound, Pitying, alas (for nought else could we do) His rueful end, ran to the woful bed, Despoiled streight his breast, and all we might Wiped in vain with napkins next at hand The sudden streams of blood, that flushed fast Out of the gaping wound : O what a look, O what a ruthful stedfast eye methought He fixt upon my face, which to my death Will never part from me,—wherewith abraid 3 A deep fetch'd sigh he gave, and therewithal Clasping his hands, to heaven he cast his sight; And streight, pale death pressing within his face, The flying ghost his mortal corpse forsook.

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

Marc. O hard and cruel hap that thus assign'd Unto so worthy wight so wretched end : But most hard cruel heart that could consent, To lend the hateful destinies that hand, By which, alas, so heinous crime was wrought ;O queen of adamant, О marble breast, If not the favour of his comely face, If not his princely chear and countenance, His valiant active arms, his manly breast, If not his fair and seemly personage; His noble limbs, in such proportion cast, As would have rapt a silly woman's thought; If this might not have mov'd the bloody heart, And that most cruel hand the wretched

weapon Even to let fall, and kist him in the face,

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