Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 Portable Library of Liberty

Parted in twain, and with a double point
Rose, like the Theban brothers' funeral fire.
The earth went off her hinges; and the Alps
Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps.”
That passage can be read throughout with pleasure. Though not wholly free from
monotony, the lines are not stiff; the pause at the end of the line occurs somewhat too
frequently to thoroughly satisfy the ear, but as a whole, the passage is at once massive
and flexible. I suspect that the translation was intended chiefly as a metrical
experiment. As the rhymed heroics of the translation of the Amores were the prelude
to Hero and Leander, so the blank verse of the First Book of Lucan may have been a
preparatory exercise for a projected epic. The reader will note with some surprise the
unusual number of double-endings in the translation of Lucan. In less than 700 lines
the double-endings are no fewer than 109;a
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while in Edward II. and the Jew of Malta
(which are each about thrice the length of the translation), the double-endings are 107
and 70 respectively. We should naturally expect to find the proportion higher in
dramatic than epic blank verse. In the former we look for greater freedom and a less
accentuated rhythm; in the latter for a fuller and more sonorous volume of sound.
Milton uses double-endings very sparingly.
The delightful song “Come live with me, and be my love” was first printed, without
the fourth and sixth stanzas, in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599. It is well known that,
though Shakespeare's name is on the title-page, the pieces in this collection are by
various hands. The complete song first appeared, with the author's name, C. Marlowe,
subscribed, in that most charming of Elizabethan anthologies, England's Helicon,
1600. Of all pastoral ditties, “Come live with me “is the best and most popular. Sir
Hugh Evans trolled snatches from it in the Merry Wives of Windsor; and all lovers of
the Complete Angler remember how Maudlin sang to Piscator and his pupil the
“smooth song made by Kit Marlowe,” her mother following with the reply of Sir
Walter Raleigh (if his it be): “They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.”
Donne and Herrick tried—but all in vain—to recapture the fresh dainty notes. An
exquisite fragment of Marlowe's, beginning, “I walked along a stream for pureness
rare,” is preserved in England?! Parnassus, 1600. Dyce thought that the lines were
extracted from some printed composition now unknown; but I do not share Dyce's
confidence that the editor of the anthology, Robert Allot, never resorted to manuscript
sources.
It is now time to set down what is known of Marlowe's personal history. One thing it
is pleasant to record,— that he was under the patronage of Sir Thomas Walsing-ham.
To this worthy patron Hero and Leander was dedicated in 1598 by Edward Blunt, the
publisher, in language which showed a genuine regard for the deceased poet's
memory. I give the dedication in full, as it has not received due attention from
Marlowe's editors:— “Sir,—We think not ourselves discharged of the duty we owe to
our friend when we have brought the breathless body to the earth; for albeit the eye
there taketh his ever-farewell of that beloved object, yet the impression of the man
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that hath been dear unto us, living an afterlife in our memory, there putteth us in mind
of farther obsequies due unto the deceased; and namely of the performance of
whatsoever we may judge, shall make to his living credit and to the effecting of his
determinations prevented by the stroke of death. By these meditations (as by an
intellectual will) I suppose myself executor to the unhappily deceased author of this
poem; upon whom knowing that in his lifetime you bestowed many kind favours,
entertaining the parts of reckoning and worth which you found in him with good
countenance and liberal affection, I cannot but see so far into the will of him dead,
that whatsoever issue of his brain should chance to come abroad, that the first breath it
should take might be the gentle air of your liking; for since his self had been
accustomed thereunto, it would prove more agreeable and thriving to his right
children than any other foster-countenance whatsoever.” There is nothing
conventional in such language as this. It is plain that Edward Blount had a sincere
admiration and pity for Marlowe. “The impression of the man that hath been dear
unto us!” Surely these are tender and pathetic words! When vials of venom were
being poured on the dead man's head, it required some courage to speak out
generously and manfully; and, therefore, let us give honour to the magnanimous
publisher.
The name “atheist” has a very ugly sound. “Agnostic,” “materialist,” and the like, are
gentleman-like designations, but a person who styles himself “atheist” is regarded in
polite society as blunt and boorish. In Marlowe's time there were no fine distinctions.
Any who ventured to impugn the authenticity of the biblical narrative spoke and
wrote at their own deadly peril. In February 1589 Francis Kett, fellow of Benet
College, Cambridge,—the College of which Marlowe had been a member,—was
burnt at Norwich for holding unorthodox views about the Trinity and about Christ's
divinity. Such being the state of society, prudence would naturally have dictated that
each man should keep his private views to himself, or at least that he should have
explained them only to his most intimate friends. “In divinity I keep the road,” says
that champion of orthodoxy, Sir Thomas Browne, who exposed the vulnerable points
in the scriptural narrative with more acumen and gusto than the whole army of “free-
thinkers “from Antony Collins downwards. It would have been well if Marlowe had
“kept the road.” Unfortunately he seems to have lost no opportunity of expounding his
heretical opinions-The passage referring to Marlowe in Greene's Groat's Worth of
Wit, that crazy death-bed wail of a weak and malignant spirit, has been often quoted
before, but must be given here once again:—” Wonder not (for with thee will I first
beginne), thou famous gracer of tragedians, that Green, who hath said with thee, like
the foole in his heart, “There is no God,” should now give glorie unto his greatnesse;
for penetrating in his power, his hand lyes heavy upon me he hath spoken unto me
with a voyce of thunder, and I have felt [old ed. left] he is a God that can punish
enemies. Why should thy excellent wit, his gift, be so blinded that thou shouldest give
no glory to the giver? Is it pestilent Machivilian policie that thou hast studied? O
peevish [old ed. punish] folie! What are his rules but meere confused mockeries, able
to extirpate in small time the generation of mankinde? for if sic volo, sic iubeo, holde
in those that are able to commaund, and if it be lawfull fas et nefas, to doo any thing
that is beneficiall, onely tyrants should possesse the earthe, and they, striving to
exceed in tiranny, should ech to other be a slaughterman, till, the mightyest outliving
all, one stroke were left for Death, that in one age mans life should end. The brocher
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of this dyabolicall atheisme is dead, and in his life had never the felicitie he aymed at,
but, as he beganne in craft, lived in feare, and ended in dispaire. Quam inscrutabilia