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

F Impossible—” the love or lust of unattainable things.” Never was a poet fired with a
more intense aspiration for ideal beauty and ideal power. As some adventurous Greek
of old might have sailed away, with warning voices in his ears, past the pillars of
Hercules in quest of fabled islands beyond the sun, so Marlowe started on his lonely
course, careless of tradition and restraint, resolved to seek and find “some world far
from ours “where the secret springs of Knowledge should be opened and he should
touch the lips of Beauty. What Marlowe might have achieved if his life had not been
so cruelly cut short it were vain to speculate. The enthusiasm which has led some of
his admirers to hint that he might have seriously contested Shakespeare's claim to
supremacy is uncritical and absurd. Chapman speaks of men
“That have strange gifts in nature but no soul
Diffused quite through to make them of a piece.”
All the Elizabethan dramatists, in greater or less degree, possessed these “strange gifts
in nature,” but in Shakespeare alone was the soul “diffused quite through.” Marlowe
showed stupendous power in exciting terror and pity; but it is in single situations
rather than in the clear-eyed development of the plot that his power is seen at its
highest Shakespeare's sympathy with humanity in all its phases was infinite; Marlowe
was a lofty egoist, little moved by the oys and sorrows of ordinary mortals. The gift of
radiant humour, which earned for Shakespeare the title of “gentle” among his
contemporaries, was denied to Marlowe. There are passages of Marlowe that for
majesty and splendour can never be forgotten; but before the magical cadences of
Antony and Cleopatra all the voices of the world fall dumb. Shakespeare began his
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career as a pupil of Marlowe; the lesser poet was self-taught. More than fifty years of
life was granted to Shakespeare; Marlowe went to his grave before he had reached his
thirtieth year.
1
It remains to discuss briefly certain plays in which critics have alleged that Marlowe
was concerned. These are the Tamingoj'a Shrew, 1594; Titus Andronicus; the old
King John; and the 3 Parts of Henry VI. The wretched Lamm for London
2
and still
more wretched Locrine may be at once dismissed as unworthy of the slightest notice.
The Taming of a Shrew contains a number of passages that closely resemble, or are
identical with, passages in Marlowe's undoubted plays—particularly Tamburlaine.
This fact alone would make us suspect that Marlowe was not the author; for poets of
Marlowe's class do not repeat themselves in this wholesale manner. But when we see
how maladroitly, without the slightest regard to the context, these passages are
introduced, then we may indeed wonder that any critic could have been so insensate
as to attribute the authorship to Marlowe. Here is a fair sample of the writing:—
”Father, I swear by Ibis' golden beak
More fair and radiant is my bonny Kate
Than silver Xanthus when he doth embrace
The ruddy Simois at Ida's feet.
And care not thou, sweet Kate, how I be clad;
Thou shall have garments wrought of Median silk
Enchased with precious jewels fetched from far
By Italian merchants that with Russian stems
Plough up huge furrows in the Terrene mam.”
This passage is patched up from the First Part of Tam-burlaine: cf. I. 2 11. 95-6,
191-2. The reference to “Ibis' golden beak” (in imitation of i Tamb. iv. 3,1. 37) is
delightfully ludicrous. In another passage we have a mention of
“The massy robe that late adorned
The stately legate of the Persian king,“
where (as Dyce remarked) the allusion would be quite unintelligible unless we
remembered the lines in 2 Tamb. iii. 2—
“And I sat down clothed with a massy robe
Which late adorned the Afric potentate.”
Occasionally lines are filched from Faustus;—
”And should my love, as erst did Hercules,
Attempt to pass the burning vaults of Hell,
I would with piteous looks and pleasing words,
As once did Orpheus with his harmony
And ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Entreat grim Pluto,” &c.
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The italicised words are from scene vL (L 29) of Faustus.
In my judgment the anonymous writer was sometimes engaged in imitating Marlowe
and sometimes in burlesquing him. But be this as it may, the absurdity of attributing
the piece to Marlowe is flagrant. The author of the Taming of a Shrew was a genuine
humourist; and Mr. Swinburne is speaking within bounds when he calls him “Of all
the pre-Shakespeareans incomparably the truest, the richest, the most powerful and
original humourist” Marlowe had little or no humour.
We may therefore safely dismiss the Taming of a Shrew; but with Titus Andronicus
the case is different. As I re-read this play after coming straight from the study of
Marlowe, I find again and again passages that, as it seems to me, no hand but his
could have written. It is not easy in a question of this kind to set down in detail
reasons for our belief. Marlowe's influence permeated so thoroughly the dramatic
literature of his day, that it is hard sometimes to distinguish between master and pupil.
When the master is writing at his best there is no difficulty, but when his work is
hasty and ill-digested, or has been left incomplete and has received additions from
other hands, then our perplexity is great. In our disgust at the brutal horrors that crowd
the pages of Titus Andronuus, we must beware of blinding ourselves to the
imaginative power that marks much of the writing. In Aaron's soliloquy at the
opening of act ii., it is hard to believe that we are not listening to the young Marlowe.
There is the ring of Tamburlaine in such lines as these:—
”As when the golden sun salutes the morn,
And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,
And overlooks the highest-peering hills.”
Both rhythm and diction in the following lines remind us of Marlowe's earliest
style:—
“Madam, though Venus govern your desires,
Saturn is dominator over mine:
What signifies my deadly-standing eye,
My silence and my cioudy melancholy,
My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls
Even as an adder when she doth unroll
To do some fatal execution?
No, madam, these are no venereal signs:
Vengeance is m my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.”
Aaron's confession of his villainies (in v. i) will recall to every reader the conversation
between Barabas and Ithamore in the third scene of the second act of the Jew of
Malta. The character of Aaron was either drawn by Marlowe or in close imitation of
him; and it seems to me more reasonable to suppose that Titus Andronicus is in the
main a crude early work of Marlowe's than that any imitator could have written with
such marked power. But the great difficulty lies in determining to whom we should
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assign the frantic ravings of old Andronicus. They appear to be by another hand than
Marlowe's; and they cannot, with any degree of plausibility, be assigned to
Shakespeare. Lamb suggested that they recall the writer who contributed the
marvellous “additions” to the Spanish Tragedy,—a suggestion that deserves more
attention than it has received. What share Shakespere had in the play I must confess
myself at a loss to divine. I have sometimes thought that there are traces of his hand in
the very first scene,—and not beyond it; that he began to revise the play, and gave up
the task in disgust. It is of Shakespeare rather than of Marlowe that we are reminded
in such lines as—
“Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.”
But however closely we may look for them, we shall find very few Shakespearean
passages. Of Marlowe's earliest style we are constantly and inevitably reminded.
That Marlowe had a share in all three parts of Henry VI. is, I think, certain. The
opening lines of the First Part at once recall the language and rhythm of Tambur-