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

Contention, It is plain that Shakespeare's copy of these plays was more complete than
the early printed copy. The difficulty lies in determining how much of the additional
matter found in the later copies belongs to Shakespeare and how much to Marlowe.
This is a question which I cannot here discuss. It may be true, as Mr. Swinburne says,
that there is not in the later plays “a single passage of tragic or poetic interest,”
beyond Marlowe's power; but there can be no doubt that Shakespeare corrected,
curtailed, and amplified Marlowe's work to a very large extent. Marlowe appears to
have worked early and late at the Contention; in one scene we find passages that
Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
40
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687

---

recall the diction and rhythm of Tamburlaine, in another we are reminded of
EdwardII.
1
Here are some lines that belong to the early period:—
“Dark Night, dread Night, the silence of the Night,
Wherein the Furies mask in hellish troops,
Send up I charge you from Cocytus' lake
The spirit Askalon to come to me,
And pierce the bowels of the centric earth,
And hither come in twinkling of an eye.”
The verb “mask “occurs several times in Tamburlaine, not in the later plays. In i
Tamburlaine, iv. 4, we find:—
“Ye Furies, that can mask invisible,
Dive to the bottom of Avernus' pool,” &c.
Another passage of the Contention in Marlowe's earliest style is to be found in the
scene where the king is presented by Iden with Cade's head:—
“O let me see that head that in this life
Did work me and my land such cruel spite!
A visage stem, coal-black his curled locks;
Deep-trenched furrows in his frowning brow
Presageth war-like humours in his life.”
Compare II. Tamburlaine, i. 3:—
”And in the furrows ofhis frowmng brows
Harbours revenge, war, death, and cruelty.”
In the Contention we find Marlowe's earliest and latest work; but in the Second and
Third Parts of Henry VI, we find for the most part merely his latest work. For
example, the two passages I have just quoted are not in the revised plays. But I cannot
now pursue this subject.
The Troublesome Reign of King John, 1591, is an intolerably wooden piece of work.
From the first line to the last we find scarcely a single touch of poetry or power.
Earless and unabashed must be the critic who would charge Marlowe with any
complicity in the authorship of a play that would rank low among the worst
productions of Greene or Peele. The only piece of evidence to connect the play with
Marlowe is a passage in the Prologue:—
“You that with friendly grace of smoothed brow
Have entertained the Scythian Tamburlaine
And given applause unto an infidel,
Vouchsafe to welcome with like courtesy
A warlike Christian and your countryman.”
Online Library of Liberty: The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
41
http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1687

---

But so far from indicating that the author of Tamburlaine had written the piece that
was about to be presented, these lines rather show that the “warlike Christian “was
intended to oust the “infidel” from popular favour,— that the new play was the
production of some obscure rival of Marlowe's. The fact that expressions found in
Tamburlaine occur in the Troublesome Reign, is, in the absence of other evidence, of
no importance; for Marlowe's play was in all men's mouths at the time, and every
hack-writer could filch a phrase or two from the man whom they were so anxious to
supplant. It is impossible to select from this poor spiritless chronicle-play a dozen
consecutive lines that to a good ear would pass as Marlowe's.
So much, then, for Marlowe's relation to plays of doubtful authorship. Among the
MS. plays destroyed by Warburton's cook was a comedy entitled the Maiden's