Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 Portable Library of Liberty
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Uprear'd a wonderment of Eiyhty Eight;
The Earth, addreading to be overhurld, What now auailes, quoth She, my ballance weight: The Circle smyl'd to see the Center feare: The wonder was no wonder fell that yeare. Wonders enhaunse their powre in numbers odd: The fatal! yeare ofyeares is Ninety Three: Parma hatk kist, Demaine entreats the rodd; Warre wondrcth Peace and Spaine in Fraunce to see, Brave Eckenberg the dowty Bassa shames, The Christian Neptune Turkish Vulcane tames. Navarre wooes Roome, Charlmaine glues Guise the Phy: Weepe Powles, thy Tambcrlaine voutsafes to dye. L'ENUOY. The hugest miracle remains behinde, The second Shakerley Rash-Swash to binde. The Writers Postcript, or a friendly Caueat to the second Shakerley of Powles. SONET. Sltimbring I lay in melancholy bed Before the dawning of the sanguin light; When Eccho shrill or some Familiar Spright Busted an Epitaph into my hed. Magnifique Mindes bred of Gargantnas race In grisly weedes His Obsequies waiment [sic] Whose Corps on Powles, whose mind triuph'd on Kent, Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 32 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687 Scorning to bate Sir Rodomont an ace. I mus'd awhilt, and, having mus'd a while, Jesu (quoth I) is that Gargantua minde Conquered and left no Scanderbeg behinde? Vowed hi not to Powles a Second bile? What bile or kibe? (quoth that same early spright) Have you forgot the Scanderbegging wight. GLOSSE. Is it a Dreams? or is the Highest minde That ever haunted Powles or hunted winde Bereaft of that same sky-surmounting breath, That breath that taught the Tempany to swell! He and the Plague contended for the game: The hawty man txtolles his hideous thoughtes, And g!oriously insultes upon poore soulcs That plague themselves: for faint harts plague themselves. The tyrant Sickness of base minded slaites Oh how it domino's in Coward Lane! So Surquidy rang out his larum knell When he had girn'd at many a dolefull bell. The ground Disease disdain'd his Toade Conceit And smiling at his Tantberlainc contempt Sternly struck home the peremptory stroke, He that nor feared God nor dreaded Diu'll, Nor ought admired but his wondrous self: Likejunos gawdy Bird that proudly stares On glittringfan of his triumphant taile, Or like the ugly Bugg that scorrid to dy, And mmtntes of Glery rear'd in towering witt— Alas I but Babell Pride must kiss the put. L'ENUOY. Powles steeple, and a hugyer thing if dmane; Bcware the next Bull-beggar of the owne. Fata immature vagantur.” Harvey's Newe Letter is dated September 1593, and Marlowe died in the June preceding. The drift of the “goggle-eyed sonet of Gorgon “(as Nashe terms it) and “L'enuoy “plainly is,—” Marlowe is dead; it remains to muzzle Nashe.” The epitaph in the “Postcript” certainly refers to Marlowe, and the meaning of the extraordinary lines “I mus'd awhile,” &c., is the same as in the previous sonnet But what are we to make of the Glosse? The only sense to be got out of the lines is that Marlowe had fallen a victim to the plague. We know that the plague was raging at that time in the metropolis. Probably Gabriel Harvey was staying in the country, to be out of the reach of infection, 1 when he wrote his Newe Letter. Hearing the report of Marlowe's death he had taken it for granted, when he raised his whoop of exultation, that the poet had died of the plague. We may be sure that, if he had been acquainted at the time with the true account of Marlowe's tragic end, he would have gloated over every detail with ghoul-like ferocity. Though Marlowe took no active part, so far as we know, in Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 33 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687 supporting Nashe, he seems not to have attempted to conceal his contempt for the Harveys. In Have with you to Saffron Walden, Nashe reports a saying of Marlowe's about Gabriel's younger brother, the Rev. Richard Harvey:—” Kit Marloe was wont to say that he was an asse, good for nothing but to preach of the Iron Age.” If Marlowe was accustomed to deliver his opinion about the Harveys after that fashion, the doctor's animosity is explicable. In Pierces Supererogation (p. 62) the vindictive writer exclaims:—” His [i.e. Nashe's] gayest flourishes are but Gascoigne's weedes or Tarleton's trickes, or Greene's crankes or Marlowe's bravadoes.” In the same tract he uses the term “Marloweism “in the sense of “irreverence.” It must be frankly conceded that Marlowe not only abandoned Christianity, but had the reputation of leading a vicious life. In the Returne from Pernassus, an anonymous academical play, printed in 1606, but acted before the death of Queen Elizabeth, while high praise is paid to his genius, regret is expressed for the disorderli-ness of his life:— “Marlowe was happy in his baskin['d] Muse,— Alas, unhappy in his life and end! Pitty it is that wit so ill should dwell, Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell. Our theater hath lost, Pluto hath got A tragick penman for a driery plot.” Among the Harleian MSS. (6853, foL 520) is a Note 1 ”contayninge the opinion of one Christofer Marlye, concernynge his damnable opinions and judgment of Relygion and scorne of Gods worde.” It is a comfort to know that the ruffian who drew up the charges, a certain “Rychard Bame,” was hanged 1 Tyburn on 6th December 1594. Doubtless Bame was backed by some person or persons of power and position. It was a deliberate attempt on the part of some fanatics to induce the public authorities to institute a prosecution for blasphemy against the poet. How the charges would have been met it is not easy to say; probably his friends—particularly his patron Sir Thomas Wal-singham—would have been powerful enough to avert any serious danger. To a modern reader many of the charges put forward by Bame seem too silly to deserve any serious attention. If Marlowe had been a man of such abandoned principles as his enemies represented, I strongly doubt whether Chapman, who was distinguished for strictness of life, would have cherished his memory with such affection and respect. To my mind the apostrophe to Marlowe in the Third Sestiad of Download 1.29 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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