Present before our eyes for our behoof. O happy wight that suffers not the snare [Act iv., Sc. 2.1] The style of this old play is stiff and cumbersome, like the dresses of its times. There may be flesh and blood underneath, but we cannot get at it. Sir Philip Sidney has praised it for its morality. One of its authors might easily furnish that. Norton was an associate to Hopkins, Sternhold, and Robert Wisdom, in the Singing Psalms. I am willing to believe that Lord Buckhurst supplied the more vital parts. The chief beauty in the extract is of a secret nature. Marcella obscurely intimates that the murdered prince Porrex and she had been lovers. THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: OR HIERONIMO IS MAD AGAIN. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1592, COMPOSED ABOUT 1584-9]. BY THOMAS KYD [1557 ?-1595 ?] Horatio the son of Hieronimo is murdered while he is sitting with his mistress Belimperia by night in an arbour in his father's garden. The murderers (Balthazar his rival, and Lorenzo, the brother of Belimperia) hang his body on a tree. Hieronimo is awakened by the cries of Belimperia, and coming out into his garden, discovers by the light of a torch, that the murdered man is his son. Upon this he goes distracted. HIERONIMO mad. Hier. My son! and what's a son? A thing begot within a pair of minutes, there about: A lump bred up in darkness, and doth serve To balance those light creatures we call women ; And at the nine months' end creeps forth to light. What is there yet in a son, To make a father doat, rave or run mad? Being born, it pouts, cries, and breeds teeth. What is there yet in a son? He must be fed, be taught to go, and speak. Ay, or yet? why might not a man love a calf as well? 1 [Edited Miss Toulmin Smith, Heilbronn, 1883.] Or a fine little smooth horse colt, Should move a man as much as doth a son; None but a damned murderer could hate him. He had not seen the back of nineteen years, When his strong arm unhors'd the proud prince Balthazar; And his great mind, too full of honour, took To mercy that valiant but ingnoble Portuguese. Well, heaven is heaven still! And there is Nemesis, and furies, And things call'd whips, And they sometimes do meet with murderers: They do not always 'scape, that's some comfort. Ay, ay, ay, and then time steals on, and steals, and steals, Wrapp'd in a ball of fire, And so doth bring confusion to them all. [Exit. [Act iii., Sc. 11.'] JAQUES and PEDRO, servants. Jaq. I wonder, Pedro, why our master thus And, now his aged years should sleep in rest, [Kyd, Works, ed. Boas, 1901.] Then starting in a rage, falls on the earth, HIERONIMO enters. Hier. I pry thro' every crevice of each wall, Ped. We are your servants that attend you, sir. Ped. Then we burn day light. Hier. Let it be burnt; night is a murd'rous slut, Ped. Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words, I know thee to be Pedro and he Jaques. I'll prove it to thee; and were I mad, how could I? Where was she the same night, when my Horatio was murder'd? She should have shone: search thou the book: Had the moon shone in my boy's face, there was a kind of grace, That I know, nay I do know had the murd'rer seen him, His weapon would have fallen, and cut the earth, Had he been fram'd of nought but blood and death; 1 Tags of points. Alack, when mischief doth it knows not what, What shall we say to mischief? ISABELLA his wife enters. Isa. Dear Hieronimo, come in a doors; And when our hot Spain could not let it grow, Till at length it grew a gallows, and did bear our son. It bore thy fruit and mine. O wicked, wicked plant! See who knocks there. (One knocks within at the door.) may chance. Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort, The Painter enters. Pain. God bless you, sir. Hier. Wherefore? why, thou scornful villain? How, where, or by what means should I be blest? Isa. What wouldst thou have, good fellow? Pain. Justice, madam. Hier. O ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that That lives not in the world? Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy An ounce of justice, 'tis a jewel so inestimable. I tell thee, God hath engross'd all justice in his hands, And there is none but what comes from him. Pain. O then I see that God must right me for my murder'd son. Hier. How, was thy son murder'd? Pain. Ay, sir, no man did hold a son so dear. A thousand of thy sons, and he was murder'd. Hier. Nor I, nor I; but this same one of mine Pedro, Jaques, go in a-doors, Isabella, go, Will range this hideous orchard up and down, Go in a-doors I say. Come let's talk wisely now. Was thy son murder'd? Pain. Ay, sir. Hier. So was mine. [Exeunt. (The Painter and he sit down.) How dost thou take it? art thou not sometime mad? Hier. Art a painter? canst paint me a tear, a wound? Hier. Bazardo! 'fore God an excellent fellow. Look you, sir. Do you see? I'd have you paint me in my gallery, in your oil colours matted, and draw me five years younger than I am: do you see, sir? let five years go, let them go,-my wife Isabella standing by me, with a speaking look to my son Horatio, which should intend to this, or some such like purpose; God bless thee, my sweet son; and my hand leaning upon his head thus, sir, do you see? may it be done? Pain. Very well, sir. Hier. Nay, I pray mark me, sir: Then, sir, would I have you paint me this tree, this very tree: Pain. Seemingly, sir. Hier. Nay, it should cry; but all is one. Well, sir, paint me a youth run thro' and thro' with villains' swords hanging upon this tree. Canst thou draw a murd'rer? Pain. I'll warrant you, sir; I have the pattern of the most notorious villains that ever lived in all Spain. |